Desicritics Category: Culture: Men

Understanding Myself in the US

Chaitanya S — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:35:39 EDT

The past year in the US have made me believe I’m God. And by God, I’m not talking about my divine experiences of floating in air or walking on water by the grace of the Holy Spirit called Smirnoff. That’s a different story and hard to pen down since all my friends have a different take on that.

The cause of this godly sensation is because I have read in the Bible that 'You shall not put God to the test’. Well paying heed to the Holy book, my university did not test me with a single exam this semester. My belief in my divine abilities were confirmed when my friend heard about the situation in my school and commented in a tone of reverence, “You are in heaven, dude”. Duh, of course, you mere mortal, where else does God reside anyway!

This conversation took my mind to one of my favorite songs “stairway to heaven”. All I want to say is that if you want to take the stairway to a university in heaven like mine, I’d recommend you slog your ass off under the supervision of a “verny” devil in hell called Mumbai University for 4 years and bear the scourge called Mechanical engineering. Toss in another 3 years of working in the city and you’ve won the devil’s sympathy to be granted parole in heaven for 2 years.

“I never knew my first time would be this good”, I said as I handed the pretty blond girl some bills. She gave a smile and said “Come again” before handing me my denims, belt and shoes. I gave her one more look as I walked out of the door feeling rejuvenated. After almost 5 months of self control I needed this. The urge to resist temptation is too great for a single young man to bear. I’d made a promise to my soul before coming here that I would not indulge myself in such acts. But some pleasures come at a price and every person has to pay a price for that. For someone in a distant land, such prices are usually paid either in cash or card.

I’m not ashamed to say my friend had recommended the place to me. He said it was where students usually went to seek “solace”. As I entered and looked around, I knew it would be addictive. Everything about the place was enticing. “Retail therapy never killed anyone”, I smirked as I came out swinging my shopping bags.

I was chatting with my friend the other day and she proclaimed something on the lines of “dancing is more of a mental skill than a physical one”. Now before I contest this statement, let me clarify that I suffer from a syndrome called “dancing dyslexia”. I just cannot read the steps which are being taught. I shamelessly admit that have I fractured my ankle while learning to dance. And it wasn't even break dancing (pun intended). It was jive. The only person who showed no hint of sympathy was my dance partner. To her the “accident” was a blessing in disguise as she had already suffered sore toes because of my flat footed stomping. Also, she almost had her arm ripped off a couple of times and narrowly missed crashing into a pillar when I spun her round.

But before I dwell too much in the dark ages of my youth, back to the mental aspect of dancing. Well I believe if dancing is such a mental activity, Einstein would have been an award winning choreographer. Also, Shakira would have made an amazing physics professor. Not that you’ll ever hear a whimper of a complaint for the latter. Some purists may argue that Shakira lacks the communication skills and knowledge required to teach the subject. Such purists have definitely not attended lectures in Mumbai University then.

I’ve been here for quite a while now and have been picking up some local terminologies. Americans have a habit of saying “I’m good” akin to our “No, thank you”. For example if you are asked by a host “do you want another drink and pastry”, the polite thing to do is smile sweetly and say is “I’m good”. I know I don’t do that for such invitations, but it’s just an example.

Now in my native country, the new age national language is “Hinglish”. Whilst conversing in it, at times you have no idea whether you are conversing in English or Hindi. So saying “I’m good”, if not interpreted correctly, gets a look of scorn from the conservatives, quaking in the boots by the conformists and a whoop of joy from members of the Indian Gay Society (or whatever it’s called).

Had a kind Indian lady ask me the other day, “so beta, do you want me to help you find a nice Indian bride after your graduation”. Instinctively I gave a sweet smile and replied seconds before I saw palpitations for the first time in life, “thanks auntyji, I’m good”.

Real Women Don't Cry

IdeaSmith — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:17:52 EDT

They were in the same class. In my class.

She was the quintessential behenji in a hip crowd. Plaited hair, salwar-kameez and a sharp brain. In accordance to her curd-rice genes, she took copious notes, had a near-perfect attendance record and consistently high grades. She told me once that her ambition was to become like 'one of those Matunga Tamilians' meaning the kind that preened in a new kanjeevaram at every wedding, pattu-recital, arangaitram and poonal-ceremony. The ones that shopped in Matunga market and had kaapi at Madras Bhavan. The ones whose accent bespoke Tam-Bram-Americana. The ones who worked for multinational software companies in Silicon Valley. Or married someone who did. I didn't like her. I never liked wannabes and the ruthlessly ambitious ones always scared me.

He was Mr.EasyGoing. One of the many small-town boys who made it big by getting a toe-hold in Mumbai, starting with a college admission. He hated mathematics but managed it better than several of his classmates, owing to his engineering background. Engineering in something quite unfashionable like...instrumentation? Textiles? I forget, it didn't bear remembering anyway. He was dazzled by the glamour of Bollywood, the smartly dressed girls around, the flashy cars and cool clothes that his Mumbai peers owned. He had a rustic wide-eyed charm along with the sweet modesty of someone who knows he is just a moth in a crowd of butterflies. I liked him. Everyone did.

It seemed symbiotic. She was authoritative, demanding and bossy. He followed her around meekly, doing her bidding, snapping to her orders. And things always turned out well with high marks for everyone. We called him her P.A. Only because we liked him too much to call him the more realistic-but-demeaning 'puppy-dog'. He bore it in good humour, as he did everything, smiling shyly. And all was well.

An entire year later, we had moved on to more serious things than other people's admirers. Ardent admirers had metamorphosed into abusive boyfriends, cheating rogues and impossible cads. I looked across the canteen to her, a tinge of envy in my gaze. She had always had him right under her thumb and she wasn't even that nice! And he was devoted to her.

Later that evening, I wandered back into the canteen for a quick bite and to pore over my books in solitude. The library was always too crowded and charged up with nervous adolescent tension during the exam fever. The canteen, emptied of its regular raucous crowd (now frequenting the library) was the peaceful haven I needed to concentrate.

As I sipped my tea, I looked across to the few occupied tables. They were sitting at a table in the corner. I would have moved on, except he spotted me and waved. So I waved back. And shouted a HI! across to both of them. Oddly enough, neither responded.

She had her head down on the table, turned away from me. I thought I could lip-read him telling her that he was speaking to me and that she might look up any minute. She didn't. With a surge of annoyance at her impossible rudeness, I looked back into my book. Then he called out my name. I looked up to see him frantically gesturing for him to come over. What a bother.., I sighed and shut my books.

As I walked the few feet over I suddenly had a premonition that something was terribly wrong. He wasn't smiling. And she sat stone-cold in her seat, head down like she was dead. Only when I neared their table close enough to sit down did I hear the soft anguished voice. I had to force her head up from the table. She looked awful. Hair awry and eyes swollen, alarmingly red. And a voice like I had never heard before. She was murmuring,

He says he is going to leave me. He says he is leaving. I asked him why did you say you loved me? He says he was just joking. And he is leaving.

I looked up at him, frank embarrassment at being privy to a private conversation. And I was startled by something I had never seen in his face before. It was cruelty. Sheer, cold cruelty. He was cutting her up with a knife and he knew it. It was deliberate. And then, before my eyes, Mr.Nice Guy cooly got up, dusted his palms and walked out of the canteen.

For an hour I sat with her, a girl I had never liked, while she poured her heart out to me about the crimes of a guy I thought of as a jolly good fellow. The dreams, the hopes, the expectations - everything that had lain under the ruthless ambition. All her drive and zeal to do well and carry both of them out of their lower-middle class status, out of the gargantuan family expectations that they may both be able to stand up and do what they wanted one day. And just before the very end, just before the final exams, he had cut her out. He hadn't meant a word of it. It had all been a sham. And she was devastated.

The first exam was the next morning. I kept a watch on the door, wondering if she would make it. She did. Face badly puffy, she drifted in unobstrusively. And across the room he sat, laughing and joking with his friends like nothing had happened. He didn't bat an eyelid as she walked in, deeply wounded dignity intact and sat down in the seat in front of him. And then the test begun.

In the second week of the exams he was seen chatting up two girls from the other class. And by next month it was rumored that he was seeing one of them. The P.A. joke faded out and was never raked up again, even while other mortifying love-tales were dug up at every alumni meet.

But something shifted for all of us in that one month. All the boys from her "I'm a tomboy!" days seemed to be saying with their sneering glances, "It served her right."

And what about the girls? She had never had any friends among us. We never discussed it across our cliques and no one ever said anything to her. But none of us ever spoke him again.

She graduated with top marks and found her footing in a job-tough market. Marriage happened a year back, to another man of her own choice. Of him I know nothing more and have no desire to, any furthur. It's good to want something and wonderful to get what you want; just not at the cost of stepping on someone else's toes - or heart.

She once introduced herself on stage with -

When it rains, I feel the rain.
The others just get wet.

Perhaps she never knew that there were people who would hold out an umbrella for her. But then again, she probably didn't need it. Real women don't cry - they just feel the rain on their faces.

HIV+ By Marriage - High Court Denies Rights

Sakshi Juneja — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 04:10:06 EDT

The question of pre-marital HIV testing has been debated in media and on blogs. We are still searching for a balance between:

A) A nation’s effort in curbing a dreaded disease

B) Freeing the society of its prejudices/taboos

C) An individual’s right to protect what is ultimately a private and confidential matter regarding his/her health

While we are fighting this battle, there are causalities like this 29-year-old woman from Satara.

The woman said she was infected with the HIV virus from her husband, who had been suffering from the disease before their marriage which took place in 1997. Their child who was born in 2000, she said, was also diagnosed as HIV positive.

Her only hope was of course the judiciary, but just yesterday, that door too has been shut. The Bombay High Court rejected her plea stating that her applications under sections 498 (a) (dowry harassment) and 420 (willful cheating) of IPC does not hold, because these laws are only meant for property-related matters.

These offences (dowry harassment under section 498A) relate to property of a person. The body of a woman can, by no stretch of imagination, be treated as property, and therefore sections of cheating and willfully cheating (Section 420) would not attract in this case," ruled Justice Nishita Mhatre. […]

Though the court agreed that the woman's husband and her in-laws were fully aware that he was HIV positive at the time of their marriage, it disagreed to try the accused for willfully cheating.

As a bystander this is what I understand or more suitably can’t get a grip of…

Doesn’t withholding such vital information constitute the vilest form of cheating – that of snatching her entitlement to a healthy life – something we all regard as an unquestioned given?

In reaction to the court’s verdict, the victim’s lawyer Uday Warunjikar said

This is a case of cheating and should be treated as one of the 'rarest of rare' cases, where a HIV positive woman has come to the court saying she was cheated by her husband. The authorities should treat such cases sensitively, but here they failed miserably. The local police did not even bother to record her statement, hence she was forced to approach the court.

As someone who is very particular about her individual freedom, I cannot even begin to imagine what this woman would have gone through – to be duped twice; her marital family and the Indian judiciary.

"Scoring" in the United States

Chaitanya S — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:07:55 EDT

The Indian economy is on an upward growth path and showing a tremendous growth at 9%. My girth is doing exactly the same, though I feel my growth rate is much more. Talk of being a true representative of your country on foreign soil!

What can represent Indian more than a game of cricket? I finally played a match last month. I was looking forward to having a dream debut and leaving an impact on the game. I had this personal ambition of seeing a 50 next to my name on the score card. I got the game off to a rollicking start and reached 40 in the 3 overs in which I was in action. Suddenly the captain gestured me to stop and let someone else take over. He made it pretty clear to me that the 50 looks better next to my name while batting, not bowling! Whatever! I clearly remember hearing commentators saying “A half century is a half century in any form of cricket”. Shooting down aspirations of budding sportsmen is such an Indian trait. The captain thus displayed his "Indianness"!

I was chatting with a friend and he asked me “So have you scored in the US as yet?” I was a bit ashamed of my batting performance, but being an honest soul, I said, “Yeah it was pretty tough, but I managed 5”. Knowing every honest bone in my body, he gave me a phone call within 30 seconds of me sending the message in. “So how were they? Americans or Indians? How did you manage so quickly? Damn, 5 chicks in 3 months is rocking! Wish I’d studied there!” Maybe this is the communication gap between virtual teams that the professor warned us about in class. No wonder most people say that MBA education is mostly based on real life situations.

Back to the point, I did not have the heart to act like my captain and curtail someone’s excitement. But after a few seconds of listening to a running commentary of his own exploits, I let the bubble burst and told him I meant cricket. Suddenly I was flooded with comments of how busy he was, how late in the night it was for him and how he really had to hang up.

Statistics show that 80,000 Indian students come to the US annually. I am dead sure that when these 80,000 cross the psychological barrier of making the first long distance call to their friends, the first question they are faced with is the one which faced me. Friends back in India don’t give two hoots about whether you are pursuing an MS, an MBA or a janitor’s diploma.

Hard as it may seem since I’m a “pakka Mumbaikar”, I’d rather be a Dravid than a Tendulkar on foreign shores (figuratively speaking, of course). That will equip me with the perfect technique to “score” consistently in alien conditions rather than just “plundering” on home soil. Now I’ve realized what they mean by accomplishments in India not being appreciated as compared to foreign ones.

Since I’m on the topic of sports, I have to mention my experience in a bowling alley. Now my bowling in the alley isn’t as accomplished as that on a cricket pitch. So by the time we were half way through the game, the screen displaying scores appeared like a chart of noughts and crosses. I had most of the noughts because of innumerable gutter balls and my friends had the crosses because of perfect strikes. One of them asked me “Bet you’ll never manage 3 straight crosses?” Well I could have shown him a few sheets with my name and lots of crosses under that. Too bad Mumbai University does not return our engineering answer sheets. But the score sheet surely evoked nostalgia of my engineering tests, with the crosses, and the zeros right next to them.

But things aren’t all that bleak in my life. I think I’ve finally learned to cook now and my roomies have heaved a sigh of relief. Well I don’t blame them. If the cook doesn’t eat his own food, it surely does provide food for thought to the others. Well I’m proud to state my cooking has reached a stage where I can satiate my own taste buds without going green in the face.

I was chatting with one of my friends yesterday and she asked me,”You’ve been there for almost 3 months, what was the most difficult thing you found fitting into?” I read it and I bit my lower lip with regret. That question hit me where it really hurt. An honest answer was typed back. “My denims”.

Sir Salman Rushdie: Have Pen, Will Kneel

commonsense — Sun, 6 Jul 2008 02:08:56 EDT

When one thinks of Sir Salman Rushdie, the words modesty and humility immediately pop up in my mind. Oops! I intended to say just the opposite of how that last sentence came out. Oh well! Some time back somebody with an undeniable mean streak wrote that Sir Salman would be quite upset if he were to receive a Nobel Prize for Literature. He would probably fulminate “Why after so many years? And why only one, not three Nobels?”

Last year when the list of those who would willingly prostrate themselves before the Queen for the honor of adding Sir to their names was announced, the not-yet-Sir Salman exclaimed that he was “humbled” by the news. A few days ago when he finally got the chance to kneel before royalty, he almost stumbled. A “case of nerves”, he explained later. Somebody who had never passed up a chance to take a swipe at the pretensions of Empire and its hangers on, was now tamed and domesticated. Privamavda Gopal, writing in The Guardian, described Sir Salman as a shadow of “his own creation Baal, the talented poet who becomes a giggling hack coralled into attacking his ruler's enemies.”

Quite a contrast to the response from the black British poet Benjamin Zapaniah who when approached with an offer from Tony Blair to receive the Order of the British Empire (OBE), refused to mince his words: “Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours!” As he explained later, in a piece published in The Guardian, “there is a part of me that hopes that after writing this article I shall never be considered as a Poet Laureate or an OBE sucker again.” Taking a dig at some of his fellow writers who offer “pathetic excuses” such as "I did it for my mum"; "I did it for my kids"; "I did it for the school"; "I did it for the people", he recalled that “I have even heard black writers who have collected OBEs saying that it is "symbolic of how far we have come". To understand why he was so surprised by the letter from Tony Blair, he cited a poem he had published much before the offer of an OBE:

Cause every laureate gets worse
A family that you cannot fault as muse will mess your mind,
And yeah, you may fatten you
Don't take my word, go check the verser purse
And surely they will check you first when subjects need to be amused
With paid for prose and rhymes.

Zapaniah ended his piece with a final jab: “Stick it, Mr Blair - and Mrs Queen, stop going on about the empire. Let's do something else.”

When the desi writer Amitav Ghosh heard that his book_The Glass Palace_ had been short-listed for the Commonwealth Literature Prize, he swiftly wrote a letter of protest to the committee. In his letter he demanded that his book be withdrawn from the short-list and reminded the committee that “the issue of how the past is to be remembered lies at the heart of _The Glass Palace_ and I feel that I would be betraying the spirit of my book if I were to allow it to be incorporated within that particular memorialization of Empire that passes under the rubric of "the Commonwealth".

This stance will of course do nothing to stall the continuing co-optation and neutralization of colorful critics, raconteurs and assorted shit-disturbers without whom the blandness of life would be unbearable. Some like Christopher Hitchens can be tamed even without such awards! However oxymoronic it might sound and regardless of how pissed off his colleague Keith Richards and his other admirers were, Sir Mick Jagger is now a fact of life.

Last week, at about the same time when Salman Rushdie was going down on his knees, it was also announced the media’s demon of the year Robert Mugabe had been stripped of his knighthood. Apparently this was also the case with the Romanian dictator, Nicolai Causescu who was “de-knighted” barely a few days before his execution. Thus are villains either glorified or vilified, depending on the compulsions of what is called real-politics.

Maintaining one’s integrity and resisting such rewards for ensuring good behaviour is of course not an easy task. But it is not impossible. There is the example of Jean Paul-Sartre, the first individual to refuse the Nobel Prize in 1964. In his own polite version of “stick it!”, Sartre refused that ultimate dream of many by remarking: “it is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form."

The only other person who had the courage and integrity to say “stick it!” to the Nobel Prize was the Vietnamese leader Le Duc Tho (1973 Nobel Peace Prize). He was the co-winner of the Peace Prize (1973) with that renowned peacenik and anti-war monger Henry Kissinger. Needless to say, Kissinger grabbed the prize, presumably with both hands, prompting the now famous one-liner by the singer-songwriter, satirist and ex-MIT faculty member, Tom Lehrer: “political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.”

Short Story Review: A Brown Man by Prasenjit Gupta

Shantanu Dutta — Sat, 5 Jul 2008 03:52:05 EDT

Vijay teaches in the English department in a small American town in Prasenjit Gupta’s short story “A Brown Man”. He is single. His mother in India wants him to marry an Indian girl; no foreigners were to be trusted. So Vijay found Asha his girl friend for three years until her – more liberal in her ways than even the white girls his mother worried about, left Vijay for a hippie.

Vijay is single and lonely and his departmental senior Philip and wife Sharon are good friends and they are trying to act match maker; but that is not going to work for Vijay is very conscious of parental authority and won’t do any thing that will offend his mother, but then Philip and Sharon do not know that of course. So they introduce to Vijay, a distant cousin by the name of Amy who is on a short vocation and staying with them. Vijay is not too interested; remember his mother is wary of white girls out to seduce her son, but out of courtesy to Philip and Sharon who are good people, he agrees to spend some time with Amy and “show her around” the town.

Amy is a good enough girl but Vijay is not interested; he has already been hurt once and remember; his mother has warned him to wary of the white girls. “Don’t bring home a foreigner” was the unambiguous message. Though they go out several times and though they get along well enough, there is no trace of romance. He shares about the Indian girl who left him and she in turn tells him about the boy who left her. Slowly he is falling in love with a white woman despite all the warnings that he has received. On one of his monthly phone calls to his mother, he crosses the Rubicon by telling his mother that he has been seeing a white girl. She sighs into the phone. A sigh of hopelessness.

It is the end of Amy’s vacation and they are going out for their last outing. Amy has never looked more beautiful and Vijay knows that if he must propose, this has to be the night. As they are settling into their meal, a white man comes and sits down opposite their seat and looks disdainfully at him and admiringly at Amy. Vijay shrinks within himself as he remembers the many times he has been snubbed at by white people over the years. The dinner ends with the proposal never uttered and Vijay drives a very visibly low Amy back home. The next day, as Vijay drops Amy to the airport, she casually mentions that her old boy friend wants reconciliation and she was open. Vijay shrivels further inwards as he bids her good bye … for the last time and heads back home.

Is racism for real or is it an imagined shadow that Vijay seems to see every where, often without any substantial basis. His colleague Philip and his wife Sharon cared enough about him to notice his loneliness and try and do some match making and Amy as she went out with him, evening after evening dared to hope that the man she had come to love and to admire would one day propose to her. But though he skirted edgily around the subject, he never did. He was haunted by his own mother’s demons – that white American girl was bad though Vijay’s own experience was to have been let down by an Indian girl trying hard to be “Western”.

Now that racism is no longer institutionalized, it is obviously that much more difficult to track down and identify. And how much of it is real and how much of it is magnified by past experiences, mental imagery, perceptions –true and imagined that we end up interpreting wrongly and often with tragic consequences as happened with Vijay? Vijay’s interpretation of what a white woman would be like was largely conditioned by what his mother whispered on the phone as they talked every month and indeed in India, even before he had left the country’s shores to go to America. Although he had enough caring white people in his life, he still could not bring himself to trust himself and trust them when it came to the defining moment of his life and that moment eventually passed him by.

We talk often of stereotyping – racial and ethnic and religious and others and imagine that these flawed judgments that we make of others harm them, discriminate against them, and deny them opportunities….. But stereotyping is actually like a boomerang it comes back and denies us the very same joys that we imagine others are losing out on.

Born Confused: Hi Dad...er...Mom

temporal — Fri, 4 Jul 2008 01:50:40 EDT

Poor baby!

The two word opening is not condescending.

Can you imagine the little baby being utterly confused between mom and dad. Thank you mom….er……dad….er…..not you mom, dad…

34 year old Thomas Beattie, former pageant queen Tracy LaGondino of Hawaii, lately of Oregon has given birth to a baby girl, ABC News has reported.

He told People magazine he decided to get pregnant after wife of five years Nancy had a hysterectomy.

So to answer the question: how can a man be pregnant? Well, Beatie actually used to be a woman, then decided he wanted to be a man, and then decided he wanted to have a baby. When he had surgery to become a man, he had his breasts removed and was given testosterone to make him look and sound like a man, but he chose to keep his female reproductive organs. So Beatie is really a man/woman hybrid. Call him a freak, if you like.

Baby incubating aside, renting a womb aside, switching roles aside, I found this very interesting. Beattie has a penchant for coining words. Look at this play on maternity clothes:

'Unfortunately, they don't make man-ternity clothes,' he remarked recently.

Is it progress? Tides run - time does not remain still. But what is this? Will pigs fly next? Will democracy take root in Iraq? Or Pakistan? Will Bal Thackeray come out of the closet? Will Modi waltz with Mullah Omar?

What will the kid do when the school wants her to bring her dad with her next PTA meeting?

Now there will be no solace in beer drinking. A beer belly can be mistaken for pregnancy.

And did you read about the one year old baby carrying another fetus? No, not another miracle, I assure you. It is a medical condition called FiF. Fetus-in-Fetus.

So to the All India Eunuch Association Chairperson and the Von Siffers: hold your peace. We are not there yet.

Movie Review: Hancock

DeepakMaini — Thu, 3 Jul 2008 13:44:01 EDT

I’ll rate the movie, just for you, against my will: 3.5/10. I won’t tell you why. That’s for you to find out.

*** WARNING SPOILERS ***

The movie starts with this guy sleeping on a sidewalk bench, snoring, drunk out of his stocking cap, macho-ising big-ass, Burger King’s burger-sized sunglasses. Suddenly, some cops are shot at from a van on the interstate. This awakens the badass superhero and taunts him to save this fucked up world — fucked up at least for me. The superhero clutches a bottle of I-have-no-clue-what and begs his pardon and lets the cutie know to mind his sweet, little ass business. At least, he doesn’t shoot him on an intergalactic trip, as he does later. Now, I could write the whole storyline and bore everyone to chronic constipation, but I know better.

The movie raises many questions. I enjoy questions. There is a delinquent superhero. Fantastic. Many bagfuls of points to the writer. The writers create a superhero, but with a twist. This time the superhero is fighting himself more than any bad guy. The first question is whether he can fight himself better than fighting anyone else. Good. Over this fuming cauldron, they add Charlize Theron and make the superhero like this goddess. He does. He likes her. To connect all this up, they make the goddess’s husband want to change our delinquent superhero’s image and add a little heart shape on his chest. So the story kicks in. Superhero. Goddess. Public Relations Expert.

Flying, bullet ricocheting, wolverine flying suit. All that nonsense. Then, the meat of the story. The superhero gets back with the fucked up world. Truce. Clap clap. He saves people, police officers. He says Goo…d Jaaaab to everyone, several times. Cool. Before that he goes to jail, where he sticks someone’s head up someone else’s ass. Good stuff. There is some cute humor, too, which I liked, at the very beginning of the story, when the Public Relations Expert brings the superhero home, after the superhero saves his life from a fast-moving train.

The first part of the story ends here. Go get some popcorn.

The Goddess is a superheroine. She had lived through ages. 4 BC, too. People came after her with swords, and our superhero saved her, so he did in Miami, the last time around. Confused? Hehe. Ok. The superhero and superheroine are…I won’t tell you, go find it out. They are immortals. They were not alone, once. There were others of their kind, but they all died…because…because they became human. They died because they fell in love, just as humans do, and became mortals. Sorry shit. They were made in pairs. They were love bluebirds, cooing somewhere in the desert. So the deal is to choose between a normal, loving life and wife, and a life full of frolicking, drinking, flying, immortality, over that a superhero status, badass image, and droves of Los Angeles bitches, and truck and whale hurling, and finally a chance of being an asshole. Ooooh. Ooooh. Ooooh.

The second part ends. The fucked up writers of this fucked up world weren’t happy with just one story. I hate it.

Now, the big question. Would our superhero worry about the second part of his name or would he like to stay alive (staying close to the superheroine means death, remember?) and jump in out of the planet and hurl whales and trucks everywhere in the atmosphere? That, my friend, is the question that touched my heart. It has a direct relationship to human life. God fucked this world up by giving two things to men (women bear a similar analogy. Please sit down and keep your gun away, feminists of this world. OK. Write an article and publish it — you know where). First: Brain. Second: Something Hancock has, a man has, the name “Hancock” has, and the husband of a hen has, however small. That’s a fucked up mixture. Right? Why do I have to go after this half-species called women? Why? I spend so much of my time around the two things, of course, only when they work in tandem, not as separate entities, because separately at least one is endearing, I mean the brain is.

So our superhero has to make a choice, which is the climax. The movie starts with our superhero being lonely and shit pained with his bad image and ends with making the choice between “ahem ahem” and flying in the Los Angeles sky. And he makes the choice, as we all make at some point in our lives. Booty or Boom Boom? I say booty. Oh yeah?

Over The Hill

heartcrossings — Wed, 2 Jul 2008 00:22:28 EDT

Reading this article on been there done that desi dudes reminded me of desi men I have met in the past. Each acquaintance was instructive in its own way. The author might be on to a microtrend here that Mark Penn's eponymous book neglected to capture.

Most of these men were back in the dating scene after a one or two year hiatus. After scouring the market for close to ten years preceding, they had finally found the trophy wife to take home. Unfortunately, the the marital state lasted all of ten months or less before they parted ways. So in their late 30's to mid 40s, with half their net-worth gone in the divorce settlement they are back in the market with some vengeance. They are candid about being "super-selective" and come armed with failure-proof checklists that are as exhaustive and they are exhausting.

One senses a certain pressure to make up for lost time. Career growth and investing are the dominant themes of their lives. A sporty coupe and a downtown loft are typical. They speak of their married siblings with more than a twinge of envy. Their gated communities, Indian association cultural events, PTA meetings are both trite and desirable. They often mention the ages and birthdays of nieces and nephews.

When it comes to relationships, they are determined not to let the horrific experiences of the past kill the youthful exuberance and romanticism of their late teens. Despite running several years late, they refuse to be precipitate and catch-up with their peers.

On the surface that might look like a winning combination - there is this perfect houseblend of ambition, determination, romance and an indomitable spirit. What's not to like? Plus they are articulate, well-read, and well-traveled. The long - suffering independent, successful, opinionated, confident desi woman who had despaired of ever finding a partner in her own community is bowled over by this Renaissance man who is as much in his element in a sherwani as he is in an Armani tux. He bakes almond cookies to die for and can toss up a mean green salsa. Tandoori chicken is so passe - he prefers variations on his grandmother's recipes.

Soon thereafter, the cookie crumbles. He wants the woman in her mid 30s, contending with a ticking biological clock, ovarian cysts, baggage from failed relationships and marriage, fighting cellulite and bulge not to mention social pressure to get hitched post haste to pretend she was sixteen all over again.

She needs to forget lessons learned the hard way - that desi men have completely different standards for girlfriends and potential wives. They will make haste to sleep with the former but wait till the wedding night for the later. At sixteen everything is fresh and innocent, you go with the flow full of optimism and good cheer. Returning to that frame of mind more than sixteen years later takes more than a leap of faith and not many are able to make it.

Desi women routinely disappoint such men and in a variety of ways. She wants to jump right into marriage and we have not even been properly introduced yet. She is way slutty - too ready and much too soon. She is too demanding - i.e. she wants the man to be emotionally available for her and stop shopping around for a bigger better deal. She's really nice but she'd not fit in with the rest of the man's family. She broke up with her ex for the wrong reasons. She is not serious enough. She's does not let her hair down and have fun. The list is endless.

They expect a lot from a relationship while having very little to offer unless the desi men then count their yen for being blatantly irresponsible in the name of an eternally "youthful spirit". In not being able to clearly envision the desired life partner, they idealize every last attribute until the end product is an unreal cesspool of contradiction. After a certain age youthfulness is more vice than virtue specially when its application is so selective. Youth is not consonant with an iron-clad prenup, with paranoia about emotional involvement and with being utterly jaded.

No Pride But Gay - India's Gay Parades

Sakshi Juneja — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 11:55:23 EDT

While the three other metropolitan cities of India had the Gay Pride, Mumbai’s non participation was definitely a subject of much debate and bewilderment.

I mean, if Delhi could have it, then how come the most recognized city on the Indian map, the city of dreams, the fabled city of chill and chic, didn’t?

‘Hypocrisy’ is the one-word answer I got when I posed this question to a Gay friend. Apparently, there is much infighting and lack of unity among the various Gay groups and NGOs in the city. The divides runs deep between the classes and the masses, and never the twain shall meet - or so he said.

The white-collared lot happily goes about its business without caring about ‘burning’ issues like rights or laws, said another Gay friend. In Mumbai, it seems, not many can be bothered enough to dress up and walk the streets the way they did in Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata. But the same does not hold true for parties, I recently discovered.

Boy do they dress up there, and boy, do they party.

In snooty South Mumbai, I experienced my first of such parties. As a straight person, one doesn’t often get to see this side of Mumbai, and my Gay friend was only happy to take me along to one of the dos. Us three straight chics and five strapping Gay lads.

They say that first impressions are the lasting ones. Well I had more than my share of first impressions:

I often wondered where all the cute men have gone. Now I know.
Indian men can dance. Rephrase that – Gay Indian men can dance – the pelvic thrust being an extremely popular move.
Swapping partners, a common thing.
Several men. Five women. Not one got a second look. (I’m talking about the women.)
The ladies toilet isn’t just for the ladies. If you know what I mean.
Makeshift bedrooms, the restrooms.
Celebrity spotting. No Karan Johar though. Or his better half.
And… the best bit… all of the above happening on top of a family restaurant.

The pride may not have happened in Mumbai. And it’s probably more than just lack of unity between Gay groups. After all how can we forget our political mai-baap also play moral police at the drop of a hat.

But, who says the pride in their identity isn’t there?

(* Pic : Times of India)

Check out the YouTube Video Footage. Some powerful stuff.