There’s something about US…

Its India’s Republic Day! Right time to reflect on what is and what can be…

Staying abroad always makes me love my country that much more! I miss talking in Hindi. I miss feeling the sense of belonging. No wonder I end up watching everything (well almost) Bollywood has to offer..I have watched yuck movies as Kajol’s Kuch Khatti kuch Mithi to TMK, all in the hopes of connecting to something familiar. A culture that I totally understand and relate to…And love!

And whenever I return back, ooh la la, I face a huge culture shock. Every single time! The first time I traveled in Mumbai local after returning back in 2002, I was shocked and disappointed at the appalling behaviour of aam janta. A college going girl refused to let me get off at Andheri simply because I was sitting till Goregaon. She said you should have gotten up earlier. Go figure!

In Pune, the rickshaw driver started threatening like a goon because he wanted Rs 25 instead of the minimum fare Rs 9 for a 2 min ride. In Chennai, while I was 5 months pregnant, the watchman refused to help me bring a suitcase down from the 3rd floor, simply because I was “North Indian“.

In Kolkatta, when we took a prepaid taxi from the airport to home, a man (driver’s supposed friend) forcibly entered the taxi to take a short ride and only got off because I raised an alarm.

In Bangalore, I stood in a queue 1 mile long for 4 hours to secure admission in a school in nursery class for my child. I still didn’t get it. And I was told to keep a minimum Rs 1 lac ready if I wanted admission to any school (decent or not) at all.

None of these and various other experiences would make me feel a proud Indian today! Sometimes I cringe at the appalling behaviour I see exhibited by my country people in India or abroad. Our love of showing off our wealth has led to killings of young men and women. Our love of ignoring rules led to a recent accident here killing 8 people including a month old baby. Our love of chaati-thok self-righteousness, even if wrong, has made us one of the hated communities abroad.

Not all of it is our fault. Though, somehow we are losing touch with our culture. The very thing that makes us. Made us. Age old wisdom in Yoga, Naturopathy, Daan – dharam, Prathistha, Izzat are buzz words abroad. In India, they are shrugged off. The best line I have ever heard was from a boy who refused to pick up his litter say, “Yeh Mera kaam nahi hai. Main to aisa hi hoon”.

Isn’t that also a Movie song? A reflection of popular culture.

A neighbourhood school was recently closed down here and parents protested against it. Everybody knew it was an underperforming school and was shut to save council money. But they protested as: some would lose jobs, and it would affect the community by lowering house prices. Here the concern was the impact on the community of teachers, helpers and neighbours. Not their children, for parents knew children would be taken care of adequately.

It’s been – 30 degrees Celsius here and have seen 7 storms in 5 weeks. Even after the worst blizzard, a small army of dedicated council workers came out to clean up the streets. The residents clean up the sidewalk surrounding their house for pedestrians. Life was completely normal. Nothing got paralysed. Unlike what one single rainy day can do in Mumbai!

Or take victims like Aarushi, Nitish Katara, or Satyendra Dubey.  They are forgotten people. Some of us self righteous people protested, held morchas, lit candles and went back home to sleep. These cases are swept under the carpet by us. Many among our aam junta may not be aware of who these people are. Kya kare bhaiyya, zamana hi kharab hai. Inka dekhu ya zindagi ki gaadi dhakelu? Why do we forget our government is of the people, by the people and for the people. Our netas are elected by us!!!!!!

Are we that thick-skinned, that our hearts don’t break on seeing a child mopping the floor? A poor woman being beaten to death by her in-laws? A man killed for simply doing his job honestly?

What exactly should I be proud of as an Indian? We say India has suffered from brain drain, notably to US. Here in US, the kind of Indians I have met, makes me regret being born as one. Either they are trying to take advantage of each other or are busy making others’ life miserable. Proud at earning in dollars and bad mouthing the very hand that feeds them. Bringing in aged parents to simply baby-sit their kids and do house-keeping while they go about their lives. Sad!

Ofcourse India is not just these people. Happily there are those of us who are trying to keep the Indian flag flying high. Those of us who have tried to remain true to our culture while embracing modern values. A few of us make me feel there’s hope. They know the true value of tehzeeb (manners), laaj (honour), satya vachan (truth). They struggle amongst the crowd but are still flying high. Still the voice of reason, empathy, and patience.

Today on our republic day, I pray that these good men and women get strength to fight the moral corruption in our country and vanquish it. Maybe then we will conquer all else.  Amen! Jai Ho!

Toonpur – yikes!!! TMK- super yikes!!!

Got a really looong weekend thanks to the second snow storm…This one was huge…Have never seen so much snow in my life…We got about 30 inches!!! I enjoyed it inside 🙂 no snowman for me, thank you very much! Luckily this time the parking lot was cleared by the maintenance as snow shovel would simply not work!!! So no broken backs!

Temperatures are now near 6 – 10 degree F in the morning. Do not look forward to standing at the bus stop early morning!!! Looks like I will  have to get meself some hotwheels.

Long weekend! Snowed in! No where to go! Ergo watch movies…loads of it!!!!

Caught up on Tees Mar Khan, Toonpur ka Super hero and gonna watch Phas gaye re Obama in a while!

About these two movies what can one say except why do we even bother? Akshay Kumar needs to break out of his screaming hysterics mode. It was cute in Hera Pheri, adorable in Heyy Baby. The movie that actually made him work for me as a hero was Namastey London where for the most part he keeps his mouth shut and uses his eyes to communicate.. That was hot baby!

He has certainly lost the plot once again! His Houseful, Singh is King, Khatta Meetha and now TMK are all shove-it-down-the-drain types.

TMK does not feel like a typical Farah Khan movie. While both her previous movies were nonsense for content, there was a style and an oomph which carried interest. I for one could watch OSO, and Main Hoon Na more than once. (On DVD/TV of course, wouldn’t waste money on expensive tickets).

TMK has no story whatsoever. The thefts are harebrained or should I say bird-brained. Katrina’s role was just that, bird brains. And boy was she perfect in it. Katrina is a perfect example of how we go for looks rather than talent. She is perfect face for the Barbie doll, she is that plastic! Here however she had little to do except run out of the scene!

Lets not get talking about direction. For it was quite directionless. At one point it was pure mayhem. Reminded me of Housefull where everyone was running around and no one knew why. Did someone ghost direct TMK?

So those who haven’t watched this movie, please don’t!

Toonpur ka superhero was another let down. I can not say Ajay Devgan or Kajol were at fault. They did their jobs impeccably. The animation was a total letdown. The voiceovers were horrendous. They could have gone places with proper actors lending voice and actually emoting the lines. The scenes were always a little dark and characters looked totally out-of-place.

What is good about the movie was the originality of the story and the  attempt at humor. Not Gappi but Big Ben. Everybody had some sort of gun, so Ajay has “Dev” gun! The lines were funny but the humor was completely lost due to bad voice overs. They story line was extremely clever, involving game levels in a story was a brain wave. The writer needs some encouragement and bigger budget. Next time Mr Producer pay attention to finer details.

To get rid of the bad taste left due to these movies, watched Transformers. Again! I always get hooked onto these movies no matter how many times I watch it. Terminator, Independence Day are movies I would watch again and again and I am not even an action girl. Give me British comedy any time.

My child..my inspiration…

I recently read an article in Daily Mail, London, where a woman laments about how tough it is to handle her son..It often drives her to madness and at times she hates him for it.

I kind of understand where her emotions come from. Our lives are so stretched, our time limited, our interests varied that it takes a simple shoe tear to make us fly off the handle. Add a naughty child to that, and you have a recipe for a breakdown. Tough on mothers’ today, especially on working mothers. I dare not think of the single mom.

Of course my daughter drives me mad. Especially now that she attends full-time school. She chooses her own dress, her shoes, even her clips. Of course it will be the wrong choice for the weather. She wants to wear a sleeveless in 30F. Exasperating to say the least!

But this little girl has also shown me new paths. She has inspired me to better myself (if only to set an example).

She inspired me to start designing and making new dresses for her. A skill I never thought I possessed. To go with the outfit, a gal always needs the right accessories. So I have ventured to jewellery making. Now neither sewing nor jewellery making was something I ever thought I would do. Nor would I do it for money. The pleasure on her face when she likes her new dress and the matching necklace, earring, bracelet set, is something to die for.

This holiday season, she made me ultimately do something I always wanted to but was too lazy to attempt. I actually wrote and printed a book for her. Her class was discussing various holidays around the world. Aditi wrote about Diwali, India’s festival of lights. Her teacher wrote to ask if we had any books or decorations to share with the class so they would understand the concept better.

I ran to all the book stores and of course none of them had any book available. Some of us were cheap enough to buy the available book, use it and return it. So the shops stopped carrying the books at site and you could only pre-order it. So after running pillar to post I  thought what the heck why not simply make up a story like we normally do.

Thanks to MS Powerpoint, I managed to create a story book with Aditi as the heroine. 🙂 I saw the pride on her face when her parents walked into her classroom. I read the book aloud and later gifted it to the class.

I am really thankful to my daughter. Usually we parents teach our children things. In my case, my daughter is teaching me to learn new things, build new skills, chart out a different path. Generally I wouldn’t have done any of this. Although I have always wanted to write a book, I never actually sat down to it, until my daughter warranted it.

Thank you Aditi.

And to all other parents, in case you need a book on Diwali to share, let me know I will forward it to you, free of course. It’s high time we spread some good things about India.

 

A story of Diwali

A story of Diwali

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,300 times in 2010. That’s about 3 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 46 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 71 posts. There were 57 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 70mb. That’s about a picture per week.

The busiest day of the year was May 11th with 41 views. The most popular post that day was About Swagata Chowdhury….

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were orkut.com, en.wordpress.com, facebook.com, orkut.co.in, and karankavyaakaran.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for cumberbatched, swagata chowdhury, swagata blogspot, goldfish bowl, and pushtiie.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

About Swagata Chowdhury… July 2009
11 comments

2

My creations… March 2010
2 comments

3

Shashi out, Mahi out, Rishta.com out and summer’s just starting! June 2010
4 comments

4

I am Cumberbatched!!! November 2010
2 comments

5

My first pet :)) July 2009