Do not Call

We all know that laws in India are farce, and meant to be there for the sake of it, not to be followed. Compliance is a bare naught and you just need money to buy your immunity from law.

The great visionary lawmakers managed to create the farce placeholder rules for just every damn thing. Say for instance, the majority of the text messages you receive on your phone (unless you are hotly in love), or the majority of the calls you receive on your phone are technically illegal allowance. All these ask for money - in some way or the other.

One fine morning ... 

"Hello Sir, this is Imran from Jumpstart Consultants" 

      "And?"

"Sir do you recall we met about six months back at Spice mall, where I discussed with you a really great ULIP?"

      Oh ya I do recall that trauma. But I recall I'd prayed you not to try contacting me again. I said: "But last time you failed to sell it. Why again?"

Laughs. "Sir, we at Jumpstart would like to maintain a good relationship with our former clients. And have come up with an unique plan to ..."

      ... loot me ... 

"... manage all our clients' assets. Sir we already have all details about your previous policy, and would provide you free consultancy on this, like when to exit, which one to buy, which riders to pick ..."

      ... and how to swindle all my money ...

"... what are the risks involved - all these from our experts"

      "But why are you doing this?"

"Because we would like to maintain a great relationship with our clients" 

       "Look dude! I am not taking it what you do it as a past time, like social service, and moreover, I am yet to be your client - I dont recall you ever selling anything to me"

"Your  ULIP was procured  through us. I told you sir!" 

        The backend processing unit of the Insurance company or the agent must have sold out my policy number. Last time I met this guy he showed me an absurd set of terms where you get an absurd cover for everything upto a terrorist strike on an aeroplane. Everything  was still fine, till the guy wanted to provide a proof for this unbelievable statement the next day. He forwarded a mail containing a loose discussion of these terms among the senior staff of his organization. And I asked him not to call again. This time too I will say:"Could you please not call me again?" 

"Sir, give us an opportunity to serve you"

        I hang up.

One of my biggest mistakes ever was to do some research about personal loans. And even after three years, I get a call on a fresh Monday morning, like this:

"Sir, do you need a personal loan?"

"No, by the way ... who asked you to call ... (she hangs up) ... me?

Battered so many times, at last, I decided to hit back.

Another day:

"Sir, our bank is giving you a personal loan?"

            "Kitna kilo chahiye?"

"What? Sir?"

           "...  Mutton abhi mil jayega. Pork aur beef thoda delay hoga. Abhi kaata hai. Fleecing chal raha hai."

"What the ...?" (hangs up)

Wrong numbers also carry a similar junk payload - I am usually gentle to these guys - with one exception, a call which followed a pushy crank call:

"Hello? Mohit?"

I swore silently and answered: "Yes?"

"... abhi tak samaan nahi pahucha yaar"

       "Aare mere ko bachao !!"

"kya!? Kahaan how tum?"

 With a trembling voice I said:  "main Islamabad mein!"

"... kya ... ?? kayse ?"

        "Mujhe Taliban ne utha liya ... "

Somehow the guy did not even think this can be prank:

"Kya bol rahe ho?"

         "1 karor maang rahe hain"

"Rupaye!!?? Ransom?"

         "aare nahin! rupaye nahin!"

"fir?"

         "Rasgulle!"

"kya bol rahe ho?"

          "Tumhari baap ki shaadi hai na?"

"what are you saying Mohit?"

The guy was a tough nut - I continued:

          ".. actually your father flew in like the Superman to save me"

(guy hangs up...)

  

There were extensively publicized reports when the Do not Call (DNC) list implementation was announced by the Telecom Department. But I never came across any improvement to this menace. Try http://www.donotdisturb.in/ to register with various organizations.

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Oh Calcutta!

One of my friends once asked, "Is it true that there is a Bandh in Calcutta if the tram fares go up by 10 paise?"
This is what remains of the character of the soul City of the Bengali people. And this is not all propaganda.


From what was once "the Second City of the British Empire", it has descended to a overcrowded unplanned chaos, strewn with shanties and black sludge canals, hawker encroached roads and sidewalks, shabby public vehicles, bumpy roads, ill-panned shaky humps (locally called "fly-overs"), effectively, a provincial capital of insignificant political, economic and even (ever diminishing) cultural importance.

And inhabited by mostly old and middle aged Bengalis whose children work elsewhere. Thanks to a political climate which breeds everything that I mentioned, and in addition works hard to repel the honest and hard working, the enterprising and intelligent. The stinginess has got imbibed into the culture because the City has turned into a old age home. People think twice before spending their hard saved money, in a place without ventures, opportunities and hope. Almost all business houses have left the turbulence. Post Offices dealing with deposits and monthly interest based income schemes have turned the most popular means of income.

A place where people have stopped dreaming, and having ambitions, this is a common sight: young people sitting at street corners doing nothing other than eve teasing and playing cards, day long. Some of the more enterprising believe in landing a job as the most important aim of their lives. Forget about working, they enjoy the gherao and Bandh culture. Who would like to work if it were perfectly legible to earn, whatever meagre, without working. People, in a way savor a Friday Bandh, if not a Monday one. There are no shortage of issues and there are no shortage of people to enforce the calls. Newcomers desperate to impress their political bosses ambush even ambulances and fire tenders.

There is not a single hospital of repute. And those which are there are heaps of filth, layers of protocols and infested with crooks. And of course the doctors readily see patients, but in his private chamber. At the hospital, the most brilliant suggestion would be "Referred to Vellore". Means in plain language, "please take him away, or we will not be responsible!".

Religion flows in a controlled stream. Godmen, squint or otherwise, are a little more popular, in daily terms, than Gods. It is true that fanaticism is less apparent in Bengalis than elsewhere in India. However, the religiosity is more intense than it should have been: the pragmatic young have mostly left. Religion comes with its own bonus of ills, which thanks to the steady decline in the intellectual caliber, is catching up. People are surely learning more charming stuff.

Tagore flows. Not in their hearts, but to the gutter of experimentation and misappropriation. Tagore is a lone hope, and with little of the talented intellectual left in these gutters, Bengalis love clinging to his beard. The way to demonestrate this is by arranging shoddy and makeshift evenings of Rabindra, Nazrul, Sukanta and what-not geeti. I always thought sharing Tagore with anyone else is sheer felony. Cheapness of His people caught up with Him after all.

Educational institutions and the Education system have been destroyed, with medical precision. Syllabi of the state boards have stagnated in the '60s while Dilli boards (by the way, even Bihar board) has moved on. I marvelled why they never taught us the vacuum diodes at IIT, which had a heavy boring chapter in the HS syllabus.

A Bengali, who prides his language, culture, and cuisine, Calcutta often visits my heart. I was not born there, neither brought up, nor lived there long enough. But I could realize the central stream of my Bengali being passing through the City. Bengalis cannot be without the City. My bias to look as the darker side of things may be due to the fact that I did not give the sloth enough time to set in. The insiders have no idea how far things have moved on, elsewhere. Wake up Calcutta! We yearn to see Bengalis known in Delhi as bhadroloks, and not maids or drivers or rickshaw pullers.

The ruling communists have always whined about bias from the Centre. And the immature opposition have always blamed the communists, turning off any lights that caught their eye. If there is a political conspiracy for the plight of this great City, it must have been framed by each of those shoddy, shortsighted, hopeless and unscrupulous representatives that the people have elected at every election, communist or otherwise.

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Being Indian...

I once took pride in my nationality. Over time, I realized with my conscience that I was indeed, taught to do so. My conscience - my sense of right or wrong, the rational right or wrong, not the solemn one!

Nationality, in the broad sense, is a political instrument to create more positions of power. We are taught to love our nations, and follow its political intelligentsia, blindly. It is a mass hysteria, created to imbibe partisan ideas, inculcate hatred which teaches people of the same ethnicity, background, and above all language to live separately, and so unfortunately, proudly so. I have deliberately missed religion from the previous list, not exactly because I am an atheist, but because religion could not make it to this list. Independence struggles are written down in gold, by the first rulers of the new nation - the same struggle which termed them as terrorists a few years back, by the bygone rulers. Ahoy! a new nation got created: we have a few more bastards legibly eating our resources!

Independence, albeit won sixty years back seems lost, to the color of her skin, the language he speaks, the money I have, the caste you belong to, and above all our religions. Don't misunderstand independence - after all its India's independence, from the ruthless British, not yours, fool.

And for whom? The story of independent India is after all written by our political muscles. India would not have been any worse as a dominion of Britain. We proudly forget that all the infrastructure, from railways, roads, hill stations, museums, postal system, educational institutions, judicial system, to the Central Secretariat and Parliament were in fact built up by the British. We would have been no better than Somalian pirates without a British occupation. Numerous little kingdoms would have fluttered around ... passing down realms of power down blood lines. Well, quite similar to what happens today!

Way back in history, some great men made socialism a way to equality in society, and some capitalists denounced it. We somehow caught the buzzword. But with our mighty traditions we are worse of both worlds. The range of money which is spent by a citizen over a day, varies to extents which are would put even the biggest capitalists to shame, or the poorest of failed states to relax. But unlike capitalism nothing seems to work here: there are red tapes everywhere, we picked up the easy (and worse) part of socialism.

With out basic rights getting dictates by hegemony, casteism and intolerance, elections being fought by narrow minded regional mongrels just after a quick buck, and even the head of state chosen carefully to be dumb....

... sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic .....

... any one ?

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Blindness

Is it only the blind who know the agony of blindness? In fact it is quite the other way. The original blind does not care for the existence of light. Blindness to a blind is like flightlessness to man. You miss flight only if you have known to fly, seen what it is.

Blindness is definitely an extreme pain to those who have just lost their vision. However they too, eventually get accustomed to their dark world. In a way, they learn to be blind. Some sell it to generate sympathy. Some are forced to blindness and used by others, sometimes themselves blind, for profiteering.

Certain faculties of the blind get unusually amplified. They feel things which cannot be felt by those with vision. They become extremely sensitive, reacting to events which never get affect one with vision. Good and bad are not exactly black and white; they are just names – extremely subjective in their meanings and values. Some words are common, but after all, the dark is a different world.

Blindness unites the blind. They feel for each other, discussing the pain which can be called as pain by just the blind, attributing all of it, and perhaps more, to those with vision. They are not bothered by the pains typical to people with vision. The one with the light however feel for the blind, and toil for their welfare. In fact, in the long term, only those who see light may realize the agony of being blind; May really forgive the mistakes that blinds make so casually, habitually.

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The Affair

I am married for about three years now ... And my wife often says, I have transformed over the last year.

I have loved twice, may be thrice in my life - but never so deeply, so madly. For her, I have learned to sing. Watched videos I've never seen before (!). Performed caricatures which even my wife has missed. I have cut down on my sleep, worked late at night, and again woken up early. Just for her. To steal just one more sweet moment with her.

People have asked me: Is it worth it?



My daughter, Mehuli just turned a year.

Unlike motherhood, which is felt in flesh & blood (my wife once told me) from the moment one comes to expect, fatherhood (I know) grows up: softly, from the awe of that little pink thing, to the joy in seeing her smile at me, to the wonder in seeing her walk, the charm of hearing her call, to the love I feel today.

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