It's food, you moron. Just food.

The summer before moving to the US, I was trying to find a classmate I could share an apartment with. I had set up time to chat with an American girl who was also looking for a flatmate at the time, and when we spoke, one of her first comments to me was "OMG I have to tell you, I love Indian food. And I make amazing chicken tikka masala!"

At the time, I laughed politely, but I remember thinking in my head - what on earth is chicken tikka masala?

When I moved to the US, I had several people tell me how amazing chicken tikka masala was. And it turned out to be served in the cafeteria whenever they had Indian food, in every Indian restaurant I went to, and by friends who said they cooked great Indian food. It looked like butter chicken, but tasted... blah. And for the life of me I couldn't figure out what this oh-so-popular dish was that I'd never managed to ever even hear of in Delhi.

Then of course, I read up on it, learned it was invented in the UK, and proceeded to roll my eyes and avoid having it as much as possible.

I have nothing against chicken tikka masala, I am just against people who have never lived in India telling me that Indian food is amazing when that is the only "Indian food" they've ever had.

This tweet popped up on my timeline yesterday:

Today was great. I had Chettinad for lunch and Gujju for dinner with Pesarattu for snack. Indian food so good you can write poetry about it.

— krtgrphr (@krtgrphr) July 31, 2017

This tweet made me hungry, but also made me think of another pet peeve that's been bubbling up recently.

I'm offsite tomorrow, at a location that is five minutes away from my favourite Indian restaurant in the city - their gulab jamun is to DIE for. And then I'm in NYC later this week, and have as usual already checked how far my hotel is to the closest location for The Kati Roll Co. The same coworker is going to be with me at both the offsite and in NY, and her reaction when I told her was "you want to have Indian food twice in a week?"

This isn't the first time I've got this question. When I came back from India last year, someone suggested an Indian place for lunch, and then paused and asked me if I was okay with that since I'd just come back.

First of all, can we be clear about something. For you, it's Indian food. For me, it's food. I grew up eating it. I live to eat it. Sure, pasta is great, as is Chipotle. And yes, I will admit, when I go home to India, I actually never eat Indian Indian food there, because I want my Indian versions of pasta and fried rice. But Indian food is just... food.

Second of all*, do you have any idea how many types of cuisine exist in India? I grew up there, and I don't know. Just because YOU have never bothered to eat anything other than chicken tikka masala, does not mean that's all there is to the subcontinent. In fact, show me one restaurant in Delhi that actually serves the blessed dish, and I... well, I'll promise to never visit that restaurant, that's what I'll do.

I mean, I could literally have "Indian food" every day for the next fortnight, and not have the same thing two days in a row. Less than a 5 minutes drive from my apartment is a chaat place, a dosa place, a chettinad place, a desi Chinese place, a Punjabi khana place, 3-4 biryani places, and half a dozen of those places that do buffets and serve a bit of everything. (Yes, I do live in the Little India area of this city). Literally the only thing missing from my life is Bengali food, although if I'm really craving it, I force my self to go to the Bangladeshi restaurant that makes mughlai parathas. And on occasion, I even manage to cook stuff that is somewhat edible.

So if I say I want to go have chaat even though I came back from India last week, or if I want to have a Maharaja thali on Tuesday and an Achari Paneer kathi roll on Thursday**, save the disbelief and pity a little. Because one of those is not like the others, and you're a moron to think otherwise.

End rant.


* I will confess, I was going to say secondly, but then I remembered this:

No, he wouldn't. ("First of all, I think you made the second bacteria up, and second of all, how do I avoid it?") Don't step to me. —HH https://t.co/qqtiDp1KoU

— The West Wing Weekly (@WestWingWeekly) July 29, 2017

** Yes, you're right. There is a very good chance I have kathi rolls on Wednesday too if my flight gets in on time, but I'll probably do the Chana Masala roll that day. Although I just checked, and they have a Kosha Mangsho roll too that I've never tried, so it's 50-50 at this point.

On what counts as humour, being disappointed in strangers, and remembering my own advice

After a disastrous morning at work, I logged onto Facebook this afternoon to read this post by @daddy_san, which was the first I heard of the Daniel Tosh episode. Having duly tweeted it, I then looked at my Twitter timeline, and spent the next half hour or so in increasing levels of bafflement, disappointment, and fury.

I've said before, and I'll say it again, to me, "rape jokes" are not funny. I have never been sexually abused. I've been eve teased, and on one or two occasions, been very, very frightened about what might happen next. But no, I haven't been raped. Yet it's a topic I feel strongly about, and I'm known to get on my soapbox about it and the way it's discussed. And cracking "jokes" about it is something I have never understood.

So when I read those tweets this afternoon, I was upset - I suppose that's the best way to put it. I follow several Indian stand-up comedians on twitter, a large number of whom were going on and on about how Tosh's joke was a "stupid joke", or a "shitty comeback". But almost all of them insisted that there's nothing wrong with making "better" jokes about rape.

And then others, mainly women but some men too, started expressing their anger and disgust over what these comedians were saying. And then folks defending "rape jokes" got upset over the reactions they were getting. And the whole timeline turned into a battlefield for a while. I didn't say much beyond one or two generic tweets, which as someone said in an equally generic manner, was no more than tut-tutting, really. But I wasn't sure how to articulate what I wanted to say, so I didn't. At the time.

Now, some hours later, I don't know why I was disappointed. I don't know any of these men personally. I've followed them on twitter for some time now, and exchanged a few tweets with one or two of them. But by and large, I'm pretty sure they don't know I exist, and I don't think of them beyond the moments when I see their tweets appear on my timeline. But I think at that moment, seeing them, in one voice, defend "rape jokes", and insist that it was simply the quality of that joke that was poor, made me feel like there really is no hope for changing the mentality of how women are perceived and how rape victims are treated.

And then I went out for dinner with some colleagues, got thoroughly annoyed by one of them, sat through the evening with a migraine pounding my head, and eventually blocked out their voices and started thinking. And remembered something I had written on @tantanoo's blog more than a year ago:

I tend to get outraged if jokes are cracked over rape, or violence against women, or issues like that – because these are issues I feel fairly strongly about. It’s a completely personal sentiment.
But I don’t think my outrage has ever led to an unfollow or even debate – because there would have been other occasions, where similar jokes by the same people on a different issue may have been equally “inappropriate” but I have still giggled. Would be rather hypocritical of me to object now, simply because one is an issue close to my heart and the other isn’t.
Everyone has issues they get outraged over. Everyone has jokes which they will stretch till every bit of funny-ness in it vanishes. People need to chill, is all.
My two cents. :)

I didn't unfollow anyone today. I didn't engage in a debate with anyone either. I sat there, infuriated, and decided to go off Twitter till I calmed down. And then remembered that I need to chill a bit.

I came back to my room, logged back onto Twitter, and saw this post. I see her point about using humor to cope with a situation, and points to her for being able to do so. It's not something I think I would be capable of. 

So maybe jokes about rape are funny to some people. I still don't see it, but maybe they are. I also don't think the comedians defending the "sub-category of humour" that rape is part of were using it in the sense of being a coping mechanism, but maybe that isn't as important.

I tweeted a few days ago that either I'm not following people who perpetually outrage, or people now see outrage in everything. Every other day, I seem to see people cribbing about how other people are outraging over something that doesn't deserve the outrage. Well, today, I was part of the outrage. And I'm still not convinced that outrage wasn't deserved. But I do think we could have all done without it. I know I could have.

Outrage, yet again

Some time back, my friend Puneet had blogged about how Indians aren't really seen as Asians in the eyes of the world. It was an interesting perspective, and she had shared this fabulous site which attempts to prove that we are, in fact, eligible to be called Asians.

What stayed with me, however, was this comment that she received on her post:

hehehe... I guess thats what you call an irony then. I'm Indian, but nobody ever considers me to be Indian, however hard I try to be because I'm from the North East where most of us look "oriental" (or should I say "Asian" acc to your post context).

I guess we can conclude that the ignorance you find over there in the West, is pretty much abundant here within India too :) Nice post.

It's true, innit? I was once asked by the security guard at a client site about my "Nepali" colleague - she's Sikkimese.

Why am I bringing this up today, after more than a year? Because once again, I find myself worked up over something, and I'm too passive-aggressive to do anything other than blog about it.

This tweet popped up on my timeline a couple of hours ago:

Tell me when you figure it out!!! RT @b50 How the heck do sardaars land up with hot chicks?

And I'm sorry, but I did not find this anything other than very, very poor taste. I unfollowed the originator of that tweet a long time back, so whether this was meant as a joke, or it was sour grapes, or what, I don't know, nor do I wish to know. What it came across, however, to me at least, is terribly racist - for lack of a better word.

There are snobs, and there are snobs

I can be a snob of the first order, but something I really don't get is following people on twitter for the singular purpose of retweeting them and mocking them.

Calling someone an orkutiya or a bulb, because their idea of expressing themselves is different from yours? Because their English isn't as articulate as yours? Heck, my English is quite decent, but I'm atrocious in both Bengali and Hindi, so what do I have to be so proud of?

Following celebrities on twitter, and then spending your time coming up witty one-liners to mock them? Really? I have the utmost respect for most of these people I follow on twitter - they're intelligent, well-read, and outrageously funny most of the time. But it infuriates me when they judge people they don't know or have never met simply on the basis of their ability (or lack of it) to articulate decently in a tweet.

A lot of people cribbed about Aisha, and not purely because of its terrible script or the utterly flat and annoying personality they gave to the eponymous character (which, to be fair, was exactly how it was in the book, so you can't really blame the makers of the movie). No, a lot of people actually cribbed about what snobs Aisha and her friend Pinky were. (Like, hello, have you ever been to urban India? South Delhi, or even South Bombay from what I hear?)

My point is, people criticized, or even mocked the utter snobbishness displayed by the characters in that movie. But you, who retweets a guy because his opinions aren't completely in tune with yours, or mocks the guy who tweeted his admiration for that celebrity who may not be so great in your eyes. How different are you?

A quick rant

The mother is one of the best teachers I've ever come across. Students she taught in Class III more than a decade ago still keep in touch with her, and talk about how she impacted their lives. She genuinely loves children, and for her, it wasn't so much about teaching, but about helping the kids she taught.

Despite all this, she was always very clear that she wouldn't put up with organizational politics. Whenever things got messy, she chose to leave a school rather than have to deal with the murkiness that politics can bring.

Right now, at this very moment, I really really wish I had the courage to do that. I am sick and tired of people not showing ownership for their work, of whining because they have to handle five things simultaneously, and going and pulling down colleagues to cover up their own mistakes. And I am really sick and tired of people allowing interpersonal issues to affect project delivery.

We're all multi-tasking, for God's sake, and we're all working to meet our clients' requirements. And we're all dealing with numerous phone calls, emails, and cranky clients while trying to actually meet our deliverables. If you can't handle that, get the hell out of consulting.

I'm a workaholic, yes, and I have no social life. So I will probably continue to give everything I have to this organization. But when people behave like that, you really wish you could just drop everything and go.

And for once, I wouldn't give a damn if my colleagues read this post and got to know exactly what I think of them: that they're juvenile, petty, and immature people, who don't know the meaning of the word loyalty.

Empty Vessels

Vulturo writes on Desicritics:

"It is you who voluntarily decides to travel on the crowded bus or train, fully aware of the fact that there is not enough space for everybody, in the first place. The choice of traveling using more expensive means, or buying a car is always open to you."

Seriously? Seriously?

I was actually appreciating the author’s point of view till I got to this paragraph.

My friends call me a feminist, but I tend to disagree with them, because while I do get annoyed when I see women getting the short end of the stick, I don't necessarily believe that we need any extra favours either.

I was lucky enough to be given the car by my father to go travel from Gurgaon to JMC and subsequently South Campus, but there were days when that option wasn't there and I had to take a bus. So yeah, I’ve had my “personal space” invaded more often than I’d like to recall. I’ve done the whole crowded Delhi buses routine, I’ve also done the crowded stampede-in-the-metro routine where my classmate fell on the ground and had people trampled her – I’m pretty sure this guy has never been on the West Delhi-Dwarka metro route. I’ve had guys grope me, I’ve had a guy stick right next to me for the whole journey – the bus was really crowded when I got on and because he was much taller than me and had me backed into a corner, I couldn’t see that he had two feet of empty space behind him till it was too late, the ass.

By the end of those five years, I realised it was preferable to spend two hours taking the longer route via Safdarjung than the much faster and cheaper Dhaula Kuan/highway route, simply because the bus was familiar, and the crowd was safer. So yes, I had that choice to make and I made it, even with exams round the corner and each minute counting as precious time lost.

But then, I’ve been stopped by a guy wearing the fancy watch and driving the big car, asking me in excellent English what my name is because he thought I “looked good”. All a street away from my house, while I was walking home from the market, in a fairly upmarket locality in Gurgaon. In broad daylight. You want me to take the car every time I go to the market?

A lot of people don’t have even those many choices. Scrolling through the comments, I see the author is one of those who is big on making “choices” – walking out of an unhappy marriage, not getting married if you don’t want to, using more expensive means of transport. I envy this guy in some ways, because he has either never faced, or never cared about familial pressures, societal pressures, or any of those concerns that tend to rule our lives. And he is therefore able to sit in his glass castle and pass judgment on the many women in this country who don’t have those choices.

So no, I don’t blame the girl he sat next to one bit for looking at him warily and turning away from him. I say more power to her because she made her discomfort obvious – a lot of girls don’t even have the courage to do that.

Oh and for the record, that whole bullshit about speaking up loudly and embarrassing a guy into backing off? Doesn’t work. Not unless there’s a substantial number of women in the bus. Which, in Haryana Roadways buses, is rarely the case. DTC Bus No. 517, on the other hand, which goes from Aya Nagar to Safdarjung, is highly recommended - both in terms of punctuality and safety. I miss that route.

NB: It's been a long time since I wrote a post that could be given my old label of "feminist rants". The irony, given Vulturo's strong dislike of feminism as a concept, doesn't escape me.

NB2: For that fellow in the comments of that post who talks about "Bra burning feminism" - he would do well to actually read up on the history of feminism. The actual act of bra burning as it's described never happened - it's a myth that's got perpetuated over the centuries.

Rants from the Sickbed

Fifth. Day. Running.

This is NOT good. My fever keeps fluctuating, and my grumpiness has reached new levels. I have spent quite some time berating my poor exhausted family over past grudges, mostly the change in my room's layout some months back (I hate it when that's done) and me not being allowed to buy something I've really wanted for the last five freakin' years. I'm fairly sure that if the gal pals were around, I would start screaming at them about the infamous incident from our third year; luckily, so far, only one of them has been brave enough to call and ask how I am.

If there is anything I have hated about this illness, it is the visits to the doc. First off, I don't like my doc. Her accent is all pretentious, and she talks to us as if we're 5-year-olds. Which really isn't wise around my dad, because ze father knows as much about medicines as most doctors. Very cool ze father is. So there.

Secondly, if I have to watch that damn LiveMedia screen in the clinic's waiting room one more time, I will just scream. Number one, it is clearly not "Live" if my two visits over the space of 48 hours had the same jokes being run. In fact, given that I was back in the waiting room after seeing the doc while my dad went to pick up medicines, and the same stuff from an hour back was being played, they clearly need a new name for themselves. Number two, not one of their jokes was funny. Zilch. Nada. AND, to add insult to injury, ALL their so-called jokes were grammatically wrong!!! There is major gnashing of teeth happening here.

On another note, what is with bloggers starting their posts with an apology for how long the post is? How do you actually know when you start the post how long it's going to be? I have never till date written a post which was exactly identical to how it seemed in my head before I actually started typing it; they always, always take a shape and form of their own. Plus, how does apologizing for the length make people want to read on till the end. Either they'll read the whole thing or they'll get bored halfway and leave - your regret at making them read such a long thing won't change their mind either way, because chances are, if the post is really as long as that, by the time they've reached that halfway point, they'll have forgotten all about your apology anyway.

I think I'm going to stop now.

Update on Antics

So I checked the BBC and CNN sites to see what, if anything, they had to say about yesterday's fiasco. Turns out the CNN only talks about the government winning a crucial vote and how this could impact the nuclear deal. BBC, on the other hand, does mention the entire drama enacted by the BJP and reactions to it.

In related news, the gits belonging to the CPM have proved just how low they are. I like Somnath Chaterjee.

Gah.

Antics and speeches

I haven't blogged in more than a month, and I really have no excuse other than a lack of effort. I have added yet another widget to my left sidebar, so you may take a look if you wish to do so.

Yesterday was an interesting day, for lack of a better word. For those not in the know, if there is any political stand I do hold, it is simply this: anti-BJP. And my disgust with that party grew tenfold yesterday.

Forget the fact that they were behaving like brattish school children with the way they were constantly interrupting various speeches and not letting Members speak. The entire drama they enacted with bringing money into the well of the House waving it about like frenzied idiots was absolutely sickening to see.

Let's accept for a while that their allegations are true - which I by no means do, if for no other reason than the facts that a) I'm biased, and b) I'd like to see some proof before I make up my mind. If the allegations are true, why couldn't those three MPs go the media or the Speaker (because I'm fairly sure going to the police, as Amar Singh suggested, is something no politician would ever do) as soon as it first happened? Why wait till an hour before the PM's speech, and 90 minutes before the actual vote?

I caught some of the speeches in the evening, including Omar Abdullah's absolutely brilliant speech. I had to go out after that, so i missed the whole part about the PM not being allowed to give his reply and therefore laying the text on the table, but I did read it this morning, and think it was pretty darn decent. I do wish our Prime Minister had more of a personality, however. His speech could be greatest thing since sliced bread, but one would never be able to tell because his delivery is usually so very... flat.

Another person I wish had better delivery is Rahul Gandhi. I caught his speech on the news channels at night, and while I appreciate most of what he said, including his responses to the idiots in the Opposition and the Speaker, his way of speaking was not that great. Omar Abdullah, on the other hand, was impassioned, furious, had conviction in his voice, and was just... brilliant.

While watching the news, I also happened to catch Rajdeep Sardesai on Cnn-IBN talking about the tapes he has and his statement that he is not part of any "larger political battle" and his decision to not telecast the tapes but instead hand them over to the Speaker. I admire his decision and all that, but I want to know what those tapes show.

I still hate the BJP though. And I'm extremely relieved the Congress is still in power. if only for another six months. And I really wonder what is going to happen to this country of ours.

An opinion on recent events

Abso-freakin'-lutely.

Admittedly, I don't know much about both this incident or the Scarlett Keeling case. But, I reiterate. You cannot blame a girl's lifestyle or background for the atrocities carried out to her. That's just cowardly and stoopid.

Yes, I do think it was completely irresponsible of Scarlett's mother to leave her 15-year-old daughter in a place like Goa, in a country like India, and go off, no matter what the reason. But to say that is why this happened is just sickening.

You know, when I was working with RAHI Foundation, I used to hear of cases where the mother knew the father was molesting his child(ren) but didn't do anything about it for various reasons. Whatever the reason, putting the entire blame on her for what happened to her child(ren) is just as ridiculous. Yes, there is some blame there too, but not entirely.

Why are people always so keen to blame anyone but the perpetrators themselves?

I hate thinking of titles for posts

Do you ever look up at the sky and watch those two white fuzzy lines which get and longer and longer as a jet flies overhead? Isn't it really cool?

Ahem. This is not what I meant to write about.

Right. So as most of you know by now, I am not particularly un-judgmental by nature. I am, in fact, a snob, forsooth. (Always wanted to use that word, don'tcha know? Should there be a comma before it though?)

Now despite my judgmentalness about most things, if there's something I don't get fussed about, it's the way people dress. As I've stated before, I think it's absolutely ridiculous to blame the way women to dress for the animalistic tendencies of men. I don't care if people want to wear mini skirts or tank tops, or if they want to wear saris or salwar-kameezes. I don't even know half the time (OK, a lot more than half the time) what is supposed to be in vogue at any given time, apart from the fact that it's never what I want to buy. If a girl wants to dress a certain way, and can carry it off, good for her. What's your problem anyway?

What I do get somewhat hassled by, however, is when some people insist on dressing a certain way, when it very obviously does not suit them. I know girls who can wear anything - even the ugliest pyjamas available in Sarojni Nagar - and still look gorgeous. But let's face it, not all of us are made that way. Most of us look nice in certain kinds of clothes, and not so great in other kind of clothes. And anyone with the slightest brain in their heads would figure out what suits us and wear that, rather than what's in fashion. Of course, if you're like me, you'd stick what makes you comfortable, and hang fashion altogether, but that's just me.

My point is, when you're short, and have a somewhat healthy build, wouldn't it be a better idea to not wear tight and short T-shirts? Or those clinging type of gowns which I didn't know people outside of the red carpet in Hollywood actually wore? And well, if you absolutely have to wear such T-shirts, and pair it up with low-waisted jeans to boot, would you please, oh please, not sit anywhere in my line of vision?

PS: I swear, the comments on the last post have convinced me this topic deserves a post. But it'll have to wait. Exams are on, and I barely come online these days. Quelle horreur!

PS2: I am beginning to feel I'm awfully opinionated. Ya think?

Saturation point anyone?

Did you know I am fed up with hearing about what the Bachchan family is up to every time I happen to put on the news? And that I really don't care what Kareena and Saif are up to? Yet, this is the stuff the news channels keep harping about these days. Not much I can do about it, except stay away from Aaj Tak as much as possible.

There's a gentleman who happens to have reached his saturation point as far as reading about farmer suicides goes. Are we really to stop "harping" about things that are sad realities just because some people are fed up with these issues? Yet carry on with the intimate details of the lives of random people who just happen to be in the business of entertainment?

What's a 'poorist', by the bye? The Free Dictionary doesn't seem to know the word.

Trials and tribulations...

Some years back, we bought this set of four stools, to be used when we wanted to eat our meals at the kitchen counter. Whenever possible (that is, when one or more members are absent), I like to take two stools to sit on. It's more convenient that way.

My height has been a source of dissatisfaction for me for as long as I can remember. Not just because I can't reach the top shelf anywhere in the world. No, no, that is the least of my concerns. I have people to do that for me. My problem is with my height itself. 5 feet and half an inch. Yep, half an inch. Not 5 feet nothing, not 5 feet one. No, it had to go and get stuck at just half an inch past five feet.

One of my dearest-yet-annoying-est friends is a giant. I stopped tracking her height years ago, but I can safely say she is well over 7 feet. And thin, to boot. Fairness and equity were clearly not a priority for the Creator when He/She was doling out attributes.

And then there is the fact that while I got stuck at this height in my early teens, the guys my age suddenly decided to all shoot up when we hit our late teens. One day I'm talking to someone very comfortably, the next day I'm getting a freakin' crick in my neck.

I have recently discovered the joys of wearing heels. I resisted them for a long time, because I can never quite walk comfortably in them, but I have now figured out what kind of heels suit me and I am therefore happy. I bought a pair of shoes with the heels about one inch high and realised that would have been a very acceptable height for me. You would've never heard any complaints from me with that height. Well, maybe one or two, but not many, believe me. The two-inch heels I bought, on the other hand, are just a tad too much. I need to bend while standing and writing, or while washing my hands. And let's face it, that's an advantage you tall creatures will never have. Hah.

Where the...?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole point of upgrading software is to get new features, not lose out on the ones I already have and like.

Everywhere I turn, however, just the opposite seems to be happening. Adobe Reader 8 took away the Insert Bookmarks option, the latest version of Windows Media Player doesn't seem to have auto playlists, Gmail won't let me use Page Up and Page Down while applying labels anymore, and for the life of me, I can't find the Set Language option in the latest version of Microsoft Word.

Sheesh.

Dear stranger,

Here's what I think.

If you're doing drugs, you're probably doing it hidden away in some corner of some place I never ever go to. So while I think it's stoopid of you to ruin your life that way, it's not really my problem if you choose to do so.

If you're in the habit of getting drunk regularly (yes, I know - alcoholism is a serious problem, and I should be more empathising; I try, believe me), again, it's not really my concern what you do to your liver. Unless, of course, you are married to and are making life miserable for me or my near and dear ones.

But when you smoke, dear stranger, it's not just your lungs you're filling with God-knows-what. It's my lungs too. You smoke out in the open, just anywhere you please. And you think it's cool. But I have to inhale that same air. Smell that hideous smell which makes me feel queasy without fail. See those ashes fall to wherever you choose to flick them. Why the devil should I have to put up with that?

For a more - how shall I say this? - eloquent opinion on smoking, you may read this. Thank you.

NB: Yes, I do seem to be on a roll after a month of silence, don't I? Ironic, considering I had two weeks of vacation earlier this month. But apparently inspiration strikes only when I am neck-deep in work and really shouldn't be taking the time out to blog.

Fair game

I am so sick and tired of people using that old excuse of women dressing provocatively whenever a woman is molested to justify what men do.

On 16 September, close to 43,000 men collected near IP College, in North Campus, to give two exams: for joining the Delhi Police as constables, and to become Lower division Clerks. After the exams, mobs of 200-250 men together started moving towards the college, and innumerable cases of molestation occurred that day. The two worst cases that I heard about on the radio this morning including 250 men surrounding one girl and tearing her clothes, and pinching and touching her all over, as well as another case where some 15 odd men dragged one girl into the lift at the Vishwavidyalaya Metro station and molested her there. There were no police or security forces present, and when the girl molested at the Metro station went to lodge an FIR, she was apparently told by the police that security at Metro stations is the responsibility of the CRPF and has nothing to do with them.

Today, while traveling to college, I was listening to the radio, and that's when I heard about all this. Two radio channels had got girls from IP College on air, speaking about what had happened, and what their demands were. Listeners were, as usual, asked to call up and give their opinions. One lady called up and spoke at length about how women dress in skimpy clothes and provoke men. Do the people who say this actually believe it themselves? Half the women who are eve-teased or molested or even raped on the streets are dressed in salwar kameezes. Yet this arguement comes up every freaking time. It came in the comments left by two male friends when I wrote about eve-teasing more than a year ago. Women in villages don't dress in short skirts; yet they're raped by men from their village, their neighbourhood, their own family.

Sonia Faleiro wrote this piece about a week back. Reading it just reminded me of how helpless we women still are. No matter how much hogwash you spout about us having made so much progress (and if you give me the example of Pratibha Patil being President I might just slap you), the truth is, we have so far to go it's not even funny.

My mother tends to laugh of my paranoia about feeling unsafe on the roads. She says she heard enough comments during her college days. I point out to her that she studied in a city like Kolkata where a dozen people would appear to defend any woman who is so much as whistled at. I, on the other hand, have the supreme misfortune of being privileged enough to study in the Capital of India, where a woman is raped in broad daylight at Khooni Darwaza, and not a soul comes forward to help her. Where a woman goes to the police to lodge an FIR about having been molested, and they refuse to do so.

I travel by DTC buses almost everyday. And I never know whether that man pressed up against me is doing so because of how crowded the bus is or simply because he gets some perverse kick out doing so. I've been followed by a guy driving a Camry and speaking English while walking home from our neighbourhood market - so what if I live in a supposedly posh colony. It doesn't matter what I'm wearing, where I am, or how I look. I'm a woman, traveling alone in the city of Delhi. That makes me fair game.

The countdown...!!!

In exactly nine hours from now, I shall be extremely busy. Busy reading the long-awaited last installment of the Harry Potter books.

I started reading these books when I was in Class X. The first four books had come out, my brother and father had been borrowing them from friends and were obsessed with them, and I was exasperated at the amount of time they spent discussing someone called "You-know-who", a term they used mainly to irritate me, I might add. That year, we gifted my brother all the four books for his birthday, soon after which my half-yearly exams got over and I vowed not to study for the next one week. Having nothing else to do, I started reading the books. And I was hooked.

In the seven years since, my kid brother has "completely outgrown" the books, as he puts it, but I've remained an ardent fan. For the first time ever, I have not read any spoilers (and those who know me will know what an achievement that is for me), I have stayed away from all potentially spoiling places, and like with the last book, tomorrow, starting 9 A.M. IST, I shall be reading the book non-stop till I finish it thank you very much.

As is usual with Harry Potter, the advent of the release has caused every freaking newspaper and news channel to go into a spin. One enterprising channel, Headlines Today, decided to have a different take on the hype: it decided to interview all those people who hate Potter on what they have to say about the books.

You know, something I really don't get is how people can pass judgment on things they've never been exposed to (OK, smoking doesn't count; that's just dumb). I mean, I can't stand SRK. I think the man just can't act. However, I have every right to pass such a statement, because I have sat through plenty of movies starring him, and have formed this opinion based on those movies. And that is something I am entitled to.

But when you freely admit you've never read the Harry Potter books, don't make an ass of yourself on national television comparing the Harry Potter books to Cinderella "where someone comes and waves a magic wand and everything will be fine". That's just embarrassing yourself. Or, for that matter, say that you would rather see a Govinda movie than the HP movies because when you go for a movie, you want "entertainment". What're the HP movies doing? Lecturing you on global warming?

Yes, the books' success has a lot to do with hype and sheer marketing genius. Yes, there are a lot of kids out there who pretend to read these books or maybe do read these books simply because their friends do - I know one such kid personally. But you cannot deny the fact that there are also a lot of people out there (of all ages I might add) who adore these books and will continue to do so for quite some time to come.

If you've read the books and haven't liked them, fine, that's your right. If you've chosen not to read the books because you think you won't enjoy such a genre, again, that's your right. But don't pass judgment on something you know nothing about while pretending to sound like an expert. Because all you do is sound like an idiot.

PS: Ten points to whoever figures out why the colour of this post is what it is.

Ignorance isn't always bliss...

Over the years, my family has contributed to the bank accounts of several medical practitioners. Save for the really serious and scary illnesses (much to my dismay, I might add), between the four of us, we've managed to have pretty much every illness in the books. And managed to visit numerous doctors and hospitals to boot.

Which is why I was rather startled to discover a new side to Indian doctors some time back. Someone in the family is undergoing treatment for something (forthcoming, ain't I? it's not me, by the way) and has been visiting a new doctor (by new, I mean we hadn't honoured this particular place with our patronage previously).

So anyway, this particular chap has been prescribing medicines to us, and as our habit is, we've been coming back home and looking up those medicines on the 'net. (Have I not told you how useful the thing is?!?) And as it turns out, this doctor is not as forthcoming as we'd like him to be. He has prescribed two drugs, one which is for something entirely different from the presenting problem, and another one which can have serious side effects if used for a long time.

Now maybe these medicines are what is needed for our situation, but that does not mean he can give any freaking drug without even explaining to us why he's doing so or what possible consequences there could as a result of these drugs.

My father tells this is very typical of Indian doctors; they like to believe we're all ignorant buffoons and don't need to be told anything beyond the very obvious. I think it's utterly irresponsible of them to do so. Not everyone looks up their prescribed medicines like we do, and there is always the chance that things could go very wrong with the consumption of these drugs. And it amazes me that these doctors can be such idiots.

I'm sorry... I didn't plan to!

It's a good thing I neither went into journalism, nor have any plans of doing so. I think journalism, or at least the kind of journalism I'm talking about, involves a certain amount of objectivity or detachment from the facts of whatever you might be reporting. I don't have that.

There is no doubt the possibility that I might develop such an attitude in the future, but as of now, I don't see that happening. These days, I tend to get a little too worked up about most things that I read about in the papers.

I read this article earlier this week, and all I could think was, "momentary lapse"?!? Bull. Even if it was, the girl was eight years old people!!! How can you forget the utter brutality of what she underwent simply because it wasn't planned?!? Oh, and the fact that the so-and-so didn't kill her, but simply left her to bleed to death really does let him off the hook, doesn't it? And of course it doesn't fall under the category of "rarest of rare" cases, because child sexual abuse is so bloody common in this country.

Someone I know is of the opinion that Santosh Singh was given the death penalty solely because of the public opinion surrounding the case. I'm beginning to believe he's right. Do we really need to create public outrage every single time we want to see justice? Is creating a brouhaha the only way we can get justice?

I was a much happier person before I started reading the newspapers.

People are scum

One of the few newspapers I actally still have some degree of respect for is the weekly Tehelka. Yet, reading it week after week fills me with a sense of despair about our country. What is wrong with us? There appears to be corruption, injustice, poverty, abuse, and whatnot is practically every aspect of our society. Someone do something!!!

Read these articles:

DALITS, LIKE FLIES TO FEUDAL LORDS
JUSTICE FOR ALL, FOLKS
Dalits go on rampage in Nagpur over caste killings
Dalit killings: Curfew in Maha town
For more articles...

I defy any of you to claim you didn't shudder in revulsion while reading the first article.

Yes, I'm a feminist. So people reading this will probably start again about how I always get riled about these issues. But come on, being horrified about this incident can't be just for that reason. What kind of inhuman savages carry out such atrocities?

The last time I wrote about women being abused by men, I was rather startled by some of the comments I received wherein some men felt that you can't blame men for reacting if women dress in a certain way (not that I've seen all those many women dress in mini-skirts on the roads of Delhi - known as the rape capital - but I'm sure that's due to my selective blindeness). What's their excuse now? Why were these two women tortured, raped, and killed in such a brutal manner? What's the justification for the two sons of Surekha Bhotmange being beaten up, killed, and mutilated?

It's been more than a month since this incident, yet no action has been taken till this past week. It's only now that after Dalit youths turned violent while protesting against the murders that some degree of action has been taken. The Maharashtra givernment has finally ordered a CID enquiry, and the case will apparently be tried in a fast-track court. Whether that actually happens remains to be seen, but I do wish some protest marches could happen about cases that don't just affect people in the Metros.