Still single in the city

Still Single in the City has moved

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Oh Calcutta and Dilli Meri Jaan

Sushmita Bose — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:51:00 GMT

It felt funny to be out of the blogging loop for three weeks. But despite my best efforts, I couldn't find time to go about it. I was in India for almost the entire time; I spent a lot of time in Calcutta (my parents don't possess the gadget known as the PC), and a fair bit in Delhi. My brother, who was in Calcutta too (on vacation) with his family, managed to take the wind out of my sails in the City of Joy. He got hit by bronco-pneumonia, and was hospitalised for 10 days, where he spent a substantial amount of time toying with the idea that he was dying. "Of course you are not!" everyone kept hollering at him. "I think I am," he'd keep whispering miserably.

After a capital touchdown on the 21^st of August, I landed in Calcutta on my mother's birthday -- the 26^th morning. It wasn't much of a birthday celebration: I reached home, gave her a gift and although she appeared to be genuinely thrilled to get a bottle of designer perfume, she cut to the chase: "Let's go to the hospital, shall we?"

Brother is much better now, and shifted to my parent's place while I was around. He's now writing a ghost short story set in Darjeeling and has completed about 2,000 words.

Bits of interesting things happened while he was hospitalised. One evening, my sister-in-law and I were leaving the hospital -- Apollo Gleneagles on the EM Bypass, a nodding distance away from where my parents now live in Salt Lake -- after visiting hours, and looking for a taxi to take us home. The main gate opens up to a little shelter where a group of Bengali men hang out. They obviously have precious little to do except in indulge in adda (whoever said it was dying form?). We were both greeted by loud calls of "Orrey baba, aar parchhi na" that roughly translates into "Oh father (the reference is to probably to ‘Our Father, who art in heaven', the Almighty), I cannot control myself any more".

It seemed a little odd to be subject to such trivia just outside the rather serious business of a hospital, but nobody was particularly bothered. Even the hospital security grinned broadly. What followed was even weirder. The hospital-controlled taxi queue was running a little racket. They were charging passengers multiple times over. "AE Block, Salt Lake," I said to a cabbie. "That would be Rs 200," he replied, chomping on what was probably gutka. "Listen, I paid Rs 40 getting here," I thundered. "Besides, this is a hospital queue -- you are supposed to take me wherever I want, by the metre... Not haggle over the fare."

He shrugged his shoulders and walked off to join a few more his ilk, all furiously fleecing hospital visitors. "Let's catch a bus," my sister-in-law suggested. But there was no bus-stand close, so we had to wait for half an hour in order to get a ‘running taxi', the driver of which tried his best to take the scenic route. After incessant arguing, I finally managed to show him the way.

There is a phuchka-wala (the gastronomically far superior Bengali variant of the gol gappa) right next door to my parents' place; he serves up awesome stuff: the spicey imli and pudhina water just right, the potato mix ekdum perfect, and the chassis of the phuchkas crisp and savoury. I -- again with sis-in-law in tow -- walked across one early evening to gulp down a few mouthfuls. We passed an Alto with a Bengali bhadralok sitting inside with a kid. Mwwuuaaaaah, he slurped, really loudly. I actually stopped in my tracks to look back at him, at which point he quickly turned his face and pretended he hadn't seen me while the kid giggled uncontrollably. "Welcome to Calcutta," my sister-in-law winked.

My parent's landlord -- who, I hear, is a ‘fan' of mine along with his wife (no, they don't know of this blog) because I am so "wonderful" (at least that's what they keep telling my folks) -- gave me two firm kisses on my cheek, while his wife gave me a bear hug.

"Guess what, your landlord kissed me," I informed my mother, as she fussed around my brother who had just come back home from the dreaded hospital.

"Oh really?" she responded grandly. "Well, he kissed me too -- on my birthday. This was right before you got here."

"You mean you managed to get kissed by your landlord before you guys came over to see me at the hospital?" my brother reacted in mock horror, from the patient's bed.

"Yes," she mumbled, before bolting inside the kitchen to fix some tea.

I came back to Dubai last week, and it felt so good to be back -- chiefly because I'd hardly slept while I was on vacation and I looked forward to some intense (and undisturbed) sleeping.

The big news here is that the Dubai Metro is on track: it was promised that the city would get a Metro on 09.09.09 and, voila, the commitment was honoured. It was a big -- and proud -- moment for everyone who lives in this city, and even though I tend to be unsentimental about these kinds of things, I too experienced a frisson of well-being. I am still to ride on a train, but since it's an overhead system, I am seeing the sleek, blue machines snake up and down for the past few days.

The timeliness of the Metro here almost made me nostalgic about India - for entirely different reasons. My apartment is still "almost ready", whereas I was supposed to have taken possession in November last year. The builder company's representative had given me his "word of honour" in the middle of last year when they wanted the down payment double quick. The handing over the keys has been getting postponed since the end of the last year. Every month, I have been hearing a different story.

This time, I routed my trip via Delhi because I had been PROMISED possession on 22 August. Alas, that was not to be. Apparently, some seepage problem has crept up, and my key-getting is an act being preserved for posterity. This, I found out after I called the building manager some 30 times; he kept disconnecting my calls, and finally took one that I dialled from a different number.

The kindly Tiger offered to come along with me -- since I am a woman, and builders in Indirapuram don't take women seriously, more so when there is a fight on their hands.

"But I came down especially for this -- and I'd booked my tickets after consulting you," I shouted at the smug-faced manager, as the site engineer looked on impassively. "I cannot keep coming to Delhi like this -- you know, based on your false promises."

"Too bad madam," Smug Faced said gleefully, as the site engineer looked very bored indeed. "You will have to."

"I want to complain to your corporate office, I want your company's CEO's number," I was getting hysterical.

Smug-Faced was looking smugger than ever. "You want to complain? Go ahead, be my guest. But remember one thing: you'll be living here at some point, I'll be working here, we'll be meeting each other every now and then... Why do you want to spoil things between us?"

"Is he threatening me?" I asked Tiger, after dragging him out of the building front office. "He IS threatening me! After screwing up on delivery time by almost a year... I can't believe his cheek!"

"It's no use," Tiger growled. "They are like that only... in fact, we are like this only. Welcome to India."

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The Shah Rukh Khan affair at Newark

Sushmita Bose — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 09:26:00 GMT

I have mixed feelings about Shah Rukh Khan being ‘grilled' by immigration officials at Newark airport. We all know Americans are a paranoid lot, and don't have the chalta hain attitude we do. It's probably more a good thing than bad -- from their point of view.

Post 9/11, terrorism has not raised its ugly head again in the US: the chief reason is because they border on being hyper about security. Compare that with India where repeated strikes in the country have still left us with gaping holes in our security system.

Americans are also paranoid about the issue of illegal immigrants: can't blame them really since there are far too many people wanting to get into the US by hook or by crook.

Of course, people like us, who don't want to be illegal immigrants in the US, get pissed off about all the fuss that is created to simply get a visa. But what to do? It's their country, and we have to play by their rules. The sensible thing to do would be to boycott travel to America in a fit of righteous rage -- but, alas, not too many people would want to do that! A few years ago, I went to get an American tourist visa, and I was told point-blank that it didn't matter that I had a perfectly good job and a good life here; the fact that I was ‘single' went against me. The visa officer actually said: "How do I know you won't find someone there and stay back?" When I shook my head incredulously, he asked me to produce ‘evidence' that I had fixed assets in India (like, a house in my name) - so that he could be sure I would come back home. "I'm only doing my job," he finally offered.

I never went back to the US Consulate after that, even though I did have a house in my name: I'd just bought one.

But the reason why I am not exactly seething in rage at SRK (even though I am a big fan of his) being made to spend a couple of hours (or is it one hour) at Newark is because it was a matter of protocol (this I gathered from whatever reports I have read -- but I have to admit I haven't been on top of this). There was some explanation trotted out: about his luggage not being in. Yes, right, he may be Shah Rukh Khan, the superstar; and somebody else may be Akbar Khan, an IT professional or a restaurant cook. But in my mind, Akbar Khan is no less a professional than SRK, so if Akbar Khan can get grilled, well, so can Shah Rukh. And I don't know why there is this big brouhaha about SRK having featured in Newsweek's list of famous people or whatever. The immigration officials probably don't read Newsweek. For every person they detain, they can't possibly run a search to find out if he or she is a film actor or a rock star in another country.

I absolutely hate it when I go to a cinema theatre in, say, Delhi and get frisked, and am asked to overturn my bag. I complain loudly about it and stop short of saying no frisking whatsoever happens in Dubai -- but beyond that there is precious little I can do other than not going to a movie hall. Dubai has never witnessed terror strikes; Delhi has. So they have every right to overturn my handbag. I may not like it -- but that's absolutely insignificant.

Whatever happened to SRK -- was it racial profiling? Sure it was. Americans are suspicious about Asians from our side for two reasons: whatever happened on 9/11, and the increasing number of illegal immigrants. Just as Pakistanis will be viewed with some amount of suspicion in India. Or a potential Muslim tenant will be if he is trying to rent out a place almost anywhere in India other than a ghetto.

PS: Here's wishing AB and Mrs AB Many Happy Returns of the Day, and hope you have a great bash at the Habitat Centre tonight! Happiness always...

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Friends and family

Sushmita Bose — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 08:53:00 GMT

On Friday evening, I went out for dinner with a friend who I met after exactly 10 years. I'd worked with him at my first workplace, in Calcutta. He moved to the Gulf in 1999; the next year, I moved to Delhi. That was that, I'd thought. (We hadn't even exchanged email IDS -- back then, emails used to be a tenuous connection and we totally missed out on the then-nascent online trend.)

As it turned out, it wasn't quite that. In August of 2009, he found out I was working in Dubai, tracked me down, called my office switchboard number and set up a dinner appointment.

"My God, you haven't changed one bit -- you look just the same!" was the first thing he said when he saw me. I sidled into his car and gave him a big hug.

"Well, so do you," I said, semi-emotionally.

"No, no - see, I have a bald patch now, I've become old," he responded.

"Of course you haven't," I slapped him on his back.

It was awesome exchanging notes after more than a decade. Funnily enough, it felt we'd never lost touch: it was that easy slipping into back into the old familiarity. Ten years dissipated even before we'd started munching on our starters -- brilliant vada-paos at a restaurant called Caesar's.

I've always maintained that a city can only be as good as the friends you make. The reason why I think Delhi rocks is because I have a host of great friends. Take them out of Delhi -- and I'd probably never want to be there. And one of the main reasons why I'm so comfortable in Dubai is that I've made some really cool friends. The best thing about best friends is that, unlike family members, there is no baggage of ‘expectancy'. Let me tell you how.

I am going to Calcutta in a couple of weeks; I know I'll have to do my rounds across layers of extended family, and I'm not looking forward to it one bit. "They are all expecting gifts, you know," my mother informed me. "And please get some nice stuff else I'll have to live down all the carping." Also, she added, I better be prepared for some "soul-searching" questions. Like, "Do you eat out every day? How expensive is that? How much are you earning? How long do you plan to be away: are you dating somebody or what?" Etc, etc.

My friends, on the other hand, I know will just be as pleased as punch to see me.

Distance, I think, is a humbling experience. When one of my closest friends (she started out being just another colleague) quit HT in 2005, I'd thought, "So what? We're in the same city. A mid-week lunch at Khan Market will now be a fixture; and we'd meet every other weekend for a movie."

It didn't quite work out that way. Something or the other kept cropping up, and we were rarely seeing each other. There was this big comfort zone about being in the same city, about working out of offices that were barely five kilometres away from each other (I was in Connaught Place, she was on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg); in a sense, we took each other for granted. Finally, we were reduced to bumping into each other at odd press conferences and promising to catch up really soon.

Funnily enough, our relationship is back on track now. Whenever I come to Delhi, I make it a point to catch up with her, and we are spending far more quality time now -- with us being in different countries -- than we were while living in the same city.

Another friend, who I never hung out with much (since we were too busy with our respective lives in the metro), moved to Hong Kong a few years ago. We were in occasional touch over email. When I was in HK for a couple of days -- on a jam-packed schedule -- I promised to catch up with him at some point. I dug out a window of time one evening and met him at a Starbucks near the hotel I was putting up in. "We never had time to catch up when we are in the same city, but now we're meeting almost halfway across the world!" was the first thing he had to say when he saw me.

In Delhi, I was housed about seven or eight buildings away from my uncle and aunt. Back in Calcutta, everyone was thrilled to bits that I was living next door to kaka and kakima. "We'll at least be sure of one thing: you won't be able to have too much of a good time!" they gloated.

Surprisingly, for the next eight years that I lived where I did, there were no surprise checks, no self-invitations, no frequent phone calls to find out what I was having for dinner or who I was having over for dinner. Of course, I was told whenever I wanted to could go over for dinner -- I just had to inform them in advance. We caught up periodically, but only after finding out if either party was free to meet.

That's one reason why I get along so famously with them. More importantly, more than my kaka and kakima they are my best buddies.

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Whatever happened to Savita Bhabhi?

Sushmita Bose — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 16:14:00 GMT

I am proud to say that we ‘outed' Savita Bhabhi -- from her portal on to the Sunday newspaper.

More than a year ago, when I was working for Hindustan Times, one of my team members -- who used to cover crime, intelligence and terror networks -- walked into my cabin looking a tad sheepish. "Er," he fumbled with a notebook (not the laptop version, just the paper one), "I have a story idea."

He told me about Savita Bhabhi - the fact that it was the first desi online graphic novel, in episodic AND multi-lingual format. It was already a huge hit and was drawing a record number of hits. He had the contacts of the people behind the site and promised to hammer out a feature in time for our Sunday paper.

"Please do me a favour," he suddenly said as he was about to get up from his chair across my table. "Don't give me a byline for this. I mean, my regular contacts and sources would be horrified if they came across a story on Savita Bhabhi, India's first porn toon star, by me."

"Nothing doing," I said firmly. "Let the world know that you are versatile." Red-faced, he skulked out.

The rest of the team wanted to know more about the hot bhabhi. Like me, nobody even knew that Savita Bhabhi existed in a virtual form. We logged on to the site, and there were collective (and appreciative) oohs and aahs and a few horrified "Omigod, what have we here?" all around. Personally, I thought it was bit too graphic and bordered dangerously on the obscene -- but then, the numbers said it all: like the countless surveys reinforce every now and then, Savita Bhabhi too was a thumping endorsement that sex was top of the mind. It definitely deserved to be a story.

We had originally planned it for the Sunday paper page one anchor, but the gentleman heading the desk that Saturday night looked at me as if I had taken leave of my senses. "An anchor on a porn graphic novel by a chap who covers terror? Do you have any idea what you are asking me to do? Boss, this is a family newspaper... I agree it's a, ahem, very interesting story but, please, can we carry it inside?"

That's what we did. And it became the most read story in the edition and the ‘star reporter' was inundated with mails, mostly from readers who wanted more details about the website (apparently, many people were spelling the name of the website wrong!).

A few weeks ago, someone informed me that the government of India has issued closing down orders to the site. Then, a few days ago, I read a piece in The Huffington Post that said the land that gave the world the Kamasutra suddenly feels Savita Bhabhi is persona non grata because she was too hot to handle. And the site has now been closed down.

Reports elsewhere mention the site got over 60 million visitors a month; of this, more than 70 per cent traffic came from India. If the Internet market had been bigger in India, I am sure the figures would have been much more inflated. What this proves is that whatever people are saying, a hell of a lot of Indians had been flocking to the site - totally refuting the fact that we consider this an assault on our ‘culture'.

Personally, Savita Bhabhi is not my cup of tea, so it's very simple: I wouldn't visit the site. I have the option not to. But why dictate what others can or cannot watch or see or experience in a free country? Besides, isn't porn freely available on the Internet in any case? Isn't that one reason why we loudly proclaim that we are more ‘liberal' than countries like China and in the Middle East, where online porn is categorically banned?

By blocking Savita Bhabhi, we have just proved that we, as a nation, are such imbeciles that we do not know where to draw the line. Our individual actions and decisions have to be controlled and regulated by people who govern us. So what next? Polygraph tests for everyone to determine whether or not one is indulging in sexual fantasies?

Pritish Nandy wrote a piece for The Times of India and I thought he went really overboard with his ooh-sex-with-the-bra-salesman-is-such-a-cool-thing bit. He got hit by a barrage of comments; most of them were full of condemnation at his ‘perverse' thoughts, and there was righteous anger at his calling women in a sari ‘sexy'.

But that's not the point.

My point is: Savita Bhabhi has been shown the door because it "misrepresents" Indian culture. If we actually start believing that savitabhabhi.com can deal a body blow to our culture, we don't even have the right to say we have a strong culture.

Surely, our culture can withstand Savita Bhabhi's sexual romps: so why couldn't we extend our hospitality to her?

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The House-Husband

Sushmita Bose — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:52:00 GMT

In the mid-Eighties, when my television viewing was a highly monitored (and usually censored) affair (Chitrahaar, for instance, was plain EVIL: hero and heroine singing love songs while lunging into each other ever so often was a toxic influence), I have hazy recollections of being allowed to watch a serial that aired every Sunday morning. It was called Mr Ya Mrs (or maybe it was Mr and Mrs). It starred a rather young Archana Puran Singh and Jayant Kripalani and seemed to me, at that time, as being rather unusual.

The Mrs was a working woman, even though, in keeping with the climes of the Eighties, she wore saris and not power suits. At the end of the month, she brought home the household income.

The Mr was a house-husband. He cooked breakfast for the Mrs -- and lovingly fed her parathas and aloo bhaaji (he wore an apron while he was in the kitchen to hammer home the point -- just in case viewers thought the food was being sent straight from heaven above), did all the boring household chores like dusting, cleaning and washing clothes, and waited -- with a cup of tea -- for wifey to get back home after a hard day's slogging at a male-dominated workplace.

My father -- the chief proponent of Hindi films/songs/serials being poison for young minds (he dug Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen and, like many Bengali bhadraloks, hated the Hindi-isation of cultured Bengalis) -- once happened to watch an episode of Mr Ya Mrs with a scowl on his face. Soon, the scowl was replaced by a smile, and he actually had kind words to say. "This is soooo NICE!" he spluttered. "And soooo different from the regressive regulation fare!"

His endorsement notwithstanding, Mr Ya Mrs disturbed me deeply. A working woman was an all-too-familiar spectacle. But was it alright for a man to stay at home and do womanly things like cleaning and cooking? Didn't he have more manly things to do in life -- like being a manager or checking balance-sheets in the corporate world? And how could a man be such a sissy to live off his wife? Gosh, I could never respect such a person.

Even after I grew up, I used to wonder: would I be okay if my husband doesn't do an honest day's work (read: official, not household) in his life? NO, DEFINITELY NOT. Would I be okay if I had to stay back at home and live off my husband? Well, ideally not, but if it comes to a crunch, yeah alright. I realised I was being hopelessly sexist and, worse, reinforcing man-made stereotypes, but what the hell: it's my life after all. So even though I would try my best to look admiringly at a few stay-at-home men (yes, I've known men who chose to remain at home and live off the income earned by their spouses -- usually, for a short period mind you, not for their whole lives), I would tell myself, "I can never be in their wives' shoes." Oh well, if the poor man lost his job suddenly, obviously I'd support him, but then I'd expect him to get right back into the jobs market and start circulating his CV around.

Over the last couple of years, I've come to know a handful of married women who are income-earners. The husbands have quit their jobs (conscious decisions), stay at home and do their own thing. "If this is what makes him happy, so be it," one of them told me -- very happily. "Yes, we do have to cut back on spending and, sometimes, I really miss the days when both of us were working and could hare off to Taj Mansingh for the Sunday brunch without a thought. But ultimately, nothing like coming back home to a pleased-as-punch better half than waiting for him to get back from work all grouchy and complaining."

"You know, I could never be as generous as you are," I told her candidly. "Men need to be in office, not at home." (My thinking, to a certain extent, has been shaped by the likes of my mother -- who was a working woman herself -- and my aunt, both of who used to say that having men around at home the whole day would definitely result in their marriages breaking up. My uncle was a shippie, and he would be at home three months every year. "There's something strange when a man stays at home for more than just the weekend," my aunt would complain. "I see your uncle reduced to fighting with the cook inside the kitchen, can you imagine, telling her she's using too much oil: that's so incredibly girlie! I don't care how mean this sounds -- but, I'm so looking forward to this man going back to his blasted ship for nine months.")

"Well," my income-earning woman friend smiled and informed me, "different strokes for different folks as they say!"

I asked Tiger about his views on this, and he told me he wants to be a house-husband too. "Gone are the days when a man's role used to be straitjacketed... Look at me: I can cook, I can do dishes, I can take care of the house, I love washing clothes [at times, he does go overboard with washing clothes, I have to point out: whenever he's late for a movie outing, his excuse invariably is: ‘I was washing clothes'], I love doing groceries... Best of all, I am singularly bereft of an ego. It won't hurt my pride in any way if my breadwinner wife foots the bill after a romantic dinner out."

Er, by the way, I will not be posting next weekend since I am travelling.

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Is Mrs Shiney Ahuja a good Indian wife?

Sushmita Bose — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:47:00 GMT

Two days ago, I got an email from a follower of this blog -- Atish Saha -- saying he's looking forward to a post on consensual sex vs rape -- and he's quoted the Shiney Ahuja case as a reference point.

And a couple of weeks ago, I got an email from a friend in the US who is a fan of Shiney's (yes, he has fans!). She first asked me if I'd seen Gangster -- she fell in love with Shiney after she watched it, she informed me. She also said she couldn't believe that he had up to "no good", and felt strongly he was being framed.

Yes, I wrote back to her, I have seen Gangster; in fact, I even have the DVD stashed away at Tiger's place (I've kept some of my belongings at his place -- since he generously asked me to abuse his hospitality). It had some nice songs, and Shiney wasn't too bad in it, come to think of it.

But I don't think Shiney is being framed. It's entirely logical to believe he could have been framed. That was my first reaction too. It must have been consensual sex, I had thought ("How can any woman in her right mind not want to have sex with him?" someone right here in Dubai had remarked when the episode unfolded -- and, of course, that's a very subjective point of view), and then the victim thought she can make some easy money.

My reasoning was simple: Shiney had to be off his rockers to imagine he could rape his maid and get away with it, being the public figure he is.

As it turned out, I was wrong. Medical reports clearly suggest a forced sexual attack. So maybe Shiney is off his rockers. And now that he is cosying up to gangster Abu Salem in jail, I have more reason to believe he should be locked up inside a sanatorium.

I didn't quite get exactly what Atish wanted me to post on. Was he asking me if I thought he should have been set free if it had been proved it was not rape, but consensual sex? Yes, obviously. Personal morals are personal morals, and if Shiney was having consensual sex with anybody else other than his wife with who he lives with, well, then, it's not a nice thing, but that's an issue he has to sort out with his wife, not with anybody else.

What has stunned me the most about the incident is the fact that Shiney's wife (I forget her name) has suddenly gone ballistic proclaiming her love for her husband, and shouting from the rooftops that she is the luckiest woman alive because she has him as her Significant Other. I wonder if she's still going on about the bit on how everybody is hell-bent on ‘framing' Shiney on rape charges and how he is as clean as a whistle; it's a bit foolish saying such things when it has been comprehensively proved that her husband is, in fact, a rapist. I believe a few ladies from the film fraternity have tried talking to her, asking her to get a grip and view things somewhat more realistically. But she continues to rave on relentlessly.

It was, again, in the Shiney Ahuja context that, the other day, we were having a multi-racial conversation. The two Indian women in the group - me and another friend - were in agreement: we both said we'd have walked out on our husbands or partners, with as much dignity as we could have mustered, if it had been proved that our better halves were forcing themselves -- or even being led to force themselves -- on other women the moment our backs were turned.

One of my Spanish friends, at that point, suddenly asked: "Isn't that supposed to be the metier of an Indian woman? To be right behind her man -- whatever he does? To be forgiving even if he does the unthinkable? You are entitled to be angry of course... But then, you have to smile and take him back -- in the larger interest of the family and society at large, right?"

"Well, no..." my Indian friend started defensively. "No longer. We're changing. India is changing."

"Oh come off it," this time it was an American. "I mean, you guys may walk away without a thought, but then you would be considered unconventional. You're not typical Indian women."

"I think that's hogwash," I said very loudly, a bit too loudly. But I was still snuffed out by triumphant strains of: "It's alright if the man sleeps around outside marriage -- the woman will sulk but then come to terms. God forbid if the woman does that; actually, you know what? Indian women never sleep around!"

The conversation changed to something else soon after.

But I was left wondering: who is the Typical Indian Woman? Shiney Ahuja's wife? I don't know, but I could do with some help from all of you.

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The Decriminalisation of IPC 377

Sushmita Bose — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:21:00 GMT

I am too excited about the Delhi High Court order scrapping Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, so I couldn't wait till Sunday to post. I heard about the ‘landmark judgement' at 4 pm on Thursday, when one of my colleagues, a young Indian girl, informed me in a baffled tone: "Did you hear about the Delhi High Court order? They have revoked IPC 377."

"Are you serious?" I almost couldn't believe my ears. I checked Google News -- and there it was. In one stroke, the Indian judiciary had emerged out of the Dark Ages and blazed into the third millennium. "Hooray!" I said.

"You mean... you support the decision?" my colleague asked me, sounding most disbelieving.

"Yes, of course, isn't that a no-brainer?"

"But it's so unnatural, it's so WEIRD. How can they legitimise alternate sexuality?"

I explained my theory to her: your personal life and your sexual orientation is your choice; the state -- or anybody else -- cannot tell you what to be or what to do. As long as you are not harming anybody or acting against larger public interests, you are free to do what you want. You cannot arrest someone because he or she prefers to be with a same-sex person. Simple. "Cheer up," I told her, as she continued to look crestfallen. "We've proved today -- at least our judiciary has -- that we are capable of free thinking: surely, that's worth something?"

"This means, soon, we'll all be arranging same-sex marriages?" she continued, looking very miserable. "Parents will be expected to get their sons married to a boy? Oh dear!"

Well, I laughed, same-sex marriages are a long way off. "This basically means that being homosexual is not equivalent to being a criminal." She looked a tad reassured, but then I completely ruined it for her by saying, "It'll be really awesome if same-sex marriages were to be legalised in India! I can picture some of my gay friends getting married."

After that, I tried by best to do damage control by explaining the likely consequences to her -- in very objective terms. This is going to -- hopefully -- encourage more gays to come out of the closet, and we won't be confronted with situations where a gay man is forced to marry a woman, and the marriage ends up in a disaster for both parties. AIDS campaigns will be easier to manage with more people being upfront about their sexual preferences. Families of gays and lesbians will realise what their wards are indulging in is not "illegal", and will be more accepting of their choices.

Provided, of course, we, as a society, come out in support and categorically state being a homosexual is NOT a stigma and reaffirm it's just a way of life. Finally, I told her: "You're straight, so as a woman you'd want to be with a man -- that's your prerogative, nobody is asking you to do otherwise. So if somebody is homosexual, why would you want to take away his or her basic right to be with the person he or she wants to be with?"

I don't know what the ‘straight' reaction is back home (I'd love to know, so if any of you have any information about what the average man or woman on the street is thinking, do shoot me a comment), but most Indians here greeted the news with either wide-eyed disbelief or a snigger. Cherry Tree -- my Mallu friend -- was as happy about it as I was. "This is really great news," he exulted. "People have every right in the world to be what they want to be: straight or gay."

When I told an American colleague about it, she almost whooped. "Wow!" she said. "That's so cool... you must be over the moon. There must be celebrations back home, right?"

Er, not really. Religious heads -- from all denominations -- are, predictably, muttering darkly how all this goes against "Indian culture". A noted doctor has reportedly said that "HIV, AIDS and venereal diseases would spread like wild fire if such a move is made legal". Does he mean that ‘in the closet' gays will suddenly throw caution to the winds and be imbued with a deathwish? What were they doing so far? Practising safe sex has to now be equated with criminality?

Politicians are going slightly batty: they are making all kinds of confused noises. I guess they are trying to figure out if the gay community can be channelised into something more meaningful -- like, say, a vote-bank.

Newspaper reports are quoting people from "all walks of life" saying this order is antithetical to our "values". Huh? Really? As far as I know, our "values" also teach us not to mix around too freely with members of the opposite sex -- that's a sign of bad upbringing. If I stay out too late with a man, my neighbours will make it their business to find out why I am being dropped back home by a man at 3 am. God forbid, if he comes inside my house at that hour; my landlord will most likely give me marching orders the next day itself for indulging in sinful activities. So why are we suddenly getting so excited about a man's place being next to a woman -- not next to another man? Does this mean that girlie late nights will now suddenly be viewed with a great deal of suspicion? ("No, what EXACTLY were you girls up to?" I may well be asked by upholders of our values).

It amazes me we've grown up so fast. Even 15 years ago, homosexuality was almost unheard of -- in public domain. My first encounter with it was a reel one -- the movie Philadelphia. "What was the funny thing about the film?" somebody asked me. "The fact that the character Tom Hanks played on screen was dismissed from work because he had AIDS," I replied. "No, silly," I was told. "The funny bit was that he was gay... didn't you find that odd?"

I didn't. I realised I hadn't even given much thought to it because, in the movie, Tom Hanks being with his boyfriend (Antonio Banderas) seemed so normal. They were in love, right?

Then, Fire happened. Personally, I thought it was a bad movie because it was too apologetic. Even as there were large-scale protests all over India and movie theatres were forced to stop screenings, in Calcutta, a lobby of women marched down one afternoon saying it is not an offence to watch a movie with a lesbian theme.

I grew up too. I now have many close friends who are gay. I am sure my friend Ashok Row Kavi is a happy man; he's always believed in wearing his heart on his sleeve. Maybe it's too soon to personally name the others, but the wonderful thing is all that is about to change.

So, here's to a new India -- where co-existence and acceptance and tolerance will be the ways forward. Let's hope we don't turn back from here.

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Girls Evening Out at the T20 Finals

Sushmita Bose — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 09:18:00 GMT

I have a simple theory about supporting a team when a football or a cricket match is going on: I always root for the best-looking side in the tournament. If it's the full line-up in cricket, then I invariably veer towards New Zealand (Daniel Vettori takes the cherry on the cake), and I am deeply saddened if they happen to make an early exit. This time, the Twenty20 ICC World Cup almost eluded me: my TV, given to me as part of my ‘furnishings' in my apartment, does not beam any of the international sports channels. I'd occasionally see -- and hear -- some folks in office whoop and then go tsk tsk, and I when I asked them what was going on, I was told it was the T20 tourney.

India, I heard, couldn't make it to the semis.

And a few days later, I heard that Pakistan and Sri Lanka had made their ways into the finals.

It was Maria's last day in Dubai last Tuesday. Last Sunday was the finals. "I want to watch the match," she announced grandly. "And I want YOU to watch it with me. What's more, you'll have to support Pakistan."

I am always game for a girlie evening out, but I produced my theory on good-looking sides. She didn't buy it. "Hey, this is Pakistan vs Sri Lanka -- I don't think you'll get see Greek gods in any case, so you may as well give me company."

We decided to go to a sports bar. One of the sports bars next to our apartments apparently has a TV attached to every table, but we pitched for the old faithful - The Old Vic at the Ramada, also shouting distance from our nook. There was a giant screen put up, and a few smaller ones all over the place. When we walked in, Sri Lanka was already batting. "Look at Sangakkara," I said excitedly. "I think he's very hot, I'm supporting Sri Lanka."

"He's not," Maria countered. "Look at his nose, it's too long."

"It's not too long, it's fine, it's better than Umer Gull's nose," I maintained stubbornly. "Er, two women in a bar alone, do you think people here may think we are, you know..."

"Doesn't matter," Maria reasoned. "See," she pointed around, "there are mostly Pakistanis here and, right now, they are far too excited by the cricket... God, if Pakistan wins, everyone will be so happy, it'll be one good thing to happen to us after a long time -- you better start cheering for us."

Groups of Brits and Aussies occupied a few other tables but they were keen on drinking intently and appeared rather disinterested in the goings-on on-field - and onscreen. I ordered a Bacardi Breezer and cocktail samosas; Maria had a bad throat, so she wanted only warm water. "By the way," she added huskily, "my sister's also coming here to hustle you into supporting Pakistan."

Her sister walked in 15 minutes later, and kept adjusting her hair and looking at herself in the mirror. "Is Pakistan wicket-keeping?" she suddenly asked. "It's called fielding, you dodo, not wicket-keeping," Maria snarled. "Oh whatever," her sister said. One more patting of the hair. One more look stolen into the mirror. "A guy I really like at work is also here, he's sitting at the other end," she whispered into my ear. "I've come here just for him." And then, loudly: "Do I look pretty?" "Awful," said Maria, "the poor chap will run for his life... anyways, he's not interested in you."

"You look REALLY nice," I offered. "Shall we go and look him up?"

She and I went to the other side of the L-shaped bar, and she pointed out a man sitting with some 10 other people in a dark corner, nursing a large whisky on the rocks. "Do you think he's hot?" she wanted to know. "Ummm, you are better by far," I said. "I really like you Sushmita," she beamed. "Once Maria goes, you and I can be friends."

Maria glared at the two of us when we returned after our sightseeing. "Are you here to watch cricket or lech at men?"

"Both," both of us said.

The match, it seemed, was going Pakistan's way. I tried to clap once when a SL bowler (I forget who) got a Pakistani batsman out, and at least 30 people turned and stared at me. I squirmed in embarrassment. The two ladies sitting with me burst out laughing, even as one of them tried to steal yet another look into the mirror.

As Pakistan won, shouts of ‘Pakistan zindabad' erupted, and a lot of people enthusiastically hugged each other. One very drunk -- and very happy -- gentleman staggered over to us. "I have ordered a cake -- in my team's honour -- and you ladies will not go anywhere without having a slice of that. Also, I want you all to order a round of drinks -- it's on me." Having said that, he raised his voice and shouted: "EVERYONE IN THIS BAR... THE NEXT ROUND OF DRINKS IS ON ME."

"I think I'll tell him you are Indian, he'll retract his offer about the cake and the drink," Maria joked.

"Don't you dare, the cake looks really yummy," I said. It was, even though someone spilled a glass beer onto it.

A solitary Indian gent (other than me, that is) skulked away. I have a feeling he was rooting for Sri Lanka but couldn't be very vociferous about it since he knew he'd be outnumbered. We skulked away too, after gorging on fat slices of the black forest cherry cake. "Let's scram before the drunk man starts insisting he wants to pay for our drinks," Maria's sister had hissed. "I have a feeling he'll want our numbers."

"She just wants to leave because the guy she's after just left -- she's hoping to ‘accidentally' bump into him in the lobby," Maria snorted. "She's so pathetic, isn't she?" Well, we did 'see' the man in question, but he seemed to scurry away a tad too furiously. "There I told you so," Maria was triumphant.

"The man is such a creep," her sister fumed. "I don't know why I like him still. Maybe he has a gilrfriend. Sush, tell me na, am I better than him or not?"

"Far better," I said. "You'll get a really hot man, don't worry."

"Yes! Yes!" she pranced around on the road, while Maria rolled her eyes up.

We walked back home, laughing and giggling. It was a great evening.

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Postcard from Pakistan

Sushmita Bose — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 08:06:00 GMT

Maria Waqar, my fussy Pakistani friend is leaving for grad school: she'll either go to the London School of Economics or National University of Singapore -- depending on which place gives her better financial aid. It's a strange feeling when your best friend in a place from home is about to leave... but she's left me with a piece that she wrote on me. I wanted to share it with you:

MARIA'S BLOG: 'BEING BEST FRIENDS WITH THE ENEMY'

"The souls are (like) an army joined (in the world of spirits) whichever souls knew each other (in that world) are attracted towards each other (in this world) and whichever remained distant and indifferent (there) are disinterested to each other (in this world)."

A friend emailed me this saying by Prophet Mohammad which absolutely fascinated me. I have always wondered why one feels an almost instantaneous attraction to certain strangers in the madding throng of human beings. How people find their "soul-mates" unexpectedly through the most random coincidences.

What would the pre-existence world to be like? Kant rejects the possibility of knowledge regarding metaphysics, asserting that without both understanding and sensibility you cannot have knowledge of the Transcendent. I admit that without sensibility, I find it very difficult to conceive of a metaphysical realm of wandering souls. Even my wildest imagination (read: understanding in Kantian terms) betrays me as my mind, effectively regimented by images from Hollywood ghost flicks, does a hackneyed job of picturing a world that possibly existed before time.

This place was a bleak expanse of space where souls drifted towards and away from each other. These peripatetic "entities" searched for similar souls, in order to communicate, to commune, to find missing parts of themselves in other spirits. And it was in this space- bereft of borders and demarcations that my lost soul met Sushmita Bose. Her liberal dispensation was reflected in her amorphous shape. Unfettered by a rigid "form", she appeared a tad more ethereal than the rest of the souls. She looked at me. My capricious spirit was drawn to her. I guess I figured she was a bit crazy like me....

However, I met Ms. Bose on this planet under radically different circumstances. I was introduced to her by my line manager (LM) on her first day at work in Khaleej Times (KT), which was roughly three days after I had started working there. She was a petite Indian, dressed in black capri pants and a casual oversized t-shirt. "Hi, I am Sushmita. I just came from the airport!" she said confidently, as she shook my hand.

A couple of days later, I found her chatting with my LM in the pantry. As I poured water in a Styrofoam cup, I noticed her smiling at me. I responded with a courteous smile but soon observed that she was checking me out. Discomfited by her scrutiny, I awkwardly gulped down the water in one sip and scurried away from the pantry. I jumped to the conclusion that the new Features Editor of KT had a serious staring problem.

A day or two later, I found Ms. Bose in the pantry again. She appeared comfortable and garrulous in the company of old-time Indian employees of Khaleej Times. Wow, these Indians seem to flock together... she just came and look she has fitted in with them, I thought. I was hit by an odd pang of loneliness. Although there were many Pakistanis in the office, I could not imagine hanging out with even one of them. They were just not my type.

A few weeks passed and I capitulated to my innate laziness by deciding to come to office by noon instead of coming early in the morning as I initially did. The company car would pick me up from my apartment in Bur Dubai by 11 a.m. along with Ms. Bose, who was temporarily lodging at Ramada Hotel in the vicinity. During our daily journey through the traffic-clogged Sheikh Zayed Road to our office in the dusty locale of Al-Quoz, we chatted about various topics: politics, Indo-Pak rivalry, Dubai, UAE, work, past professions, our lives back home etc. Yet I always hesitated in expressing myself with candour. Convinced that Sushmita had much more in common with her fellow countrymen/women, I was sure that she did not want to genuinely befriend me. I thought that for her, an Indian, I would always be the "other" -- a girl from the wrong neighbourhood, who was good for random chit-chat but not worth getting close to.

But my perception soon changed. One day, during our routine car journey to work, we happened to talk about India's development. "Well at least your country has done better than mine! It is developing quite fast," I commented cautiously. But to my surprise, she completely bulldozed over the premature pillar of political correctness that I had just erected in our nascent friendship. "What nonsense! This India Shining is such a myth. India's development has benefited only a minority," she strongly asserted. She went on to passionately speak about the contradictions of economic development in her country while I listened intently. So she was not the I-love-my-Incredible-India, Pakistan-is-my-personal-enemy and Kashmir-is-ours-Jai-Hind sort, I thought with relief. In fact, she was the antithesis of it. She was perspicacious and intelligent; with an incisive wit and a great capacity for critical self-reflection.

Later on, I realized that Ms. Bose was as further away from political correctness as one could be. One day after failing to communicate properly with a Malayali designer at work, I turned to her to vent my frustration. "They don't know English and their language is so strange!" I whined. But I regretted saying those words the second I blurted them out. After all Sushmita, too, was an Indian. I feared that she would dislike the failure to culturally cope up with her compatriots. But again, she surprised me. "Yes their language is quite a tongue twister!" she remarked and then babbled some gibberish to mimic the Malayalam language. I laughed, relieved to find out that she was actually a cool person without any hang-ups.

So this was how a strong camaraderie, which barely witnessed a day's break in nine months, was established between a girl from Lahore and a chick from Delhi. This is how two women from opposite sides of the Indo-Pak border, stuck in the lonely city of Dubai without their better halves, mutually sought comfort in gossip, conversation and cinema.

One reason why we clicked so well was because we hated and liked the same people, regardless of their nationality. And we both were indifferent to attempts by fellow countrymen/women to befriend us by using the trite nationality card. She was warned by a certain Indian at our workplace not to "trust Pakis" while a Bangladeshi photographer tried to find common ground with her on the basis of their common Bengali heritage. Similarly, lecherous Pakistani men at work often approached me with the not-so tempting proposition of a ‘friendship'.

As we eschewed membership in ad-hoc national and ethnic fraternities/sororities at work, we both realized something deeply important: nationality is irrelevant in determining the potential for a meaningful friendship. The horizon of genuine friendship lies far beyond a few common denominators of nationality, skin colour, language and ethnicity.

Nevertheless, I am utterly averse to the rather contrived notion that Indians and Pakistanis "are the same people" who were separated by evil ploys of native politicians in collusion with the British decades ago. I and Sushmita are not the same people; we are in fact radically different individuals coming from distinct worlds. But the disparity between our backgrounds has given us the opportunity to learn, adopt and adapt to each other's cultural baggage. She introduced me to Bengali cinema and I got her hooked onto Pakistani food. She educated me on journalism in Delhi and I enlightened her on political Islam in Pakistan.

Plus, the institution of friendship -- which is supposed to make us evolve into more open, tolerant individuals -- would be quite meaningless if it was bereft of debate and discussion. Hence, I feel that the repartee of arguments and counter-arguments that we engage in while shopping for groceries at Spinneys, dodging fast cars on Mankhool road and "chilling out" over weekends have helped us evolve into more considerate human beings. Ms Bose in many ways is like Nietzsche's dream-child; she is liberal, agnostic and westernized. I, on the other hand, have a bit of everything - liberalism, conservatism, religiosity -- in me. Our ideas clash, ever so often, but our minds have always been receptive to divergent views. And therefore we have found a middle-ground of sorts; she often, albeit sheepishly, asks me pray for her while I have become far less judgmental than I used to be.

Back at home in Pakistan, India possesses the paradoxical status of the enemy state as well as the culturally similar neighbour. Ironically enough, in the neutral multi-cultural setting of Dubai, Sushmita, my purported Indian "enemy" lives only two buildings away from me! And yet, my "neighbor-foe" is also my best friend. The contradiction inherent in these multiple categories -- this simultaneous dynamic of negative and positive, of repulsion and attraction -- shows that national and religious classifications based on difference fail to capture the complexity of human relationships.

So now I feel the need to actively assert my character as an individual in a global environment, instead of merely relying on religious and national denominations to define myself. Yes, I am a Pakistan and a Muslim. But I am also an avid cheese-cake lover; I believe that my obsession with soft mounds of cream cheese layered on crisp biscuit crust constitutes an integral part of my personality. And for me, Sushmita is an Indian, an agnostic and a Woody Allen movie fan. Our views on religion collide head-on, and our national identities seemingly contradict. Nevertheless, my cheese-cake mania and her love for Woody Allen movies gel seamlessly together. (Toss in two cups of Darjeeling tea and the combination is surely a sinful treat!)

And this is how I and Sushmita connect as individuals; as people who like Hollywood classics and calorific sweets. And as people who miss home and try to recreate it together in Dubai. And although it seems too soon for our friendship to be relegated to the virtual world of e-mail and chat messages, I have a strange gut feeling that we will soon meet again...

She prepared to exit the world of souls. I asked her where she was going.

"To the other place," she replied.

"Will I ever see you again?" I asked her in a dejected tone.

She smiled mysteriously.

"We will meet again in the other world. But it will be different from this one; it will be a fragmented world. There will be territories, borders and partitions. And other people will try to determine who we are and where we go..but you and I will still find each other just like we did in this place.."

After uttering those words, she vanished.

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How About Going Dutch?

Sushmita Bose — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:12:00 GMT

I've always been confused -- and rather intrigued -- about the issue of settling the bill after a meal or a drink. Unlike Westerners -- who go Dutch, right down to the service charge -- we Indians usually have this thing about letting one person pay. "Let me take this": that's the sentence everyone longs to hear at the end of the eating/drinking session, from somebody else. There are token murmurs from the others assembled around the table, like, "Really, there's no need to do this, let's split this, shall we?" And then, "Actually, I'm not carrying cash so I'll pay you when we meet next..." I know of a few becharas who are forever footing the bill with a forced smile on their faces.

I've also known folks who are totally comfortable letting others pay for their lunch/dinner all their lives. Once, I'd asked one such cad why he didn't feel guilty about not EVER offering to pay. "It's simple," he said without a trace of remorse. "My friends all earn more than I do -- they can afford to pay for my meals. My relatives (that ones who take him out for meals) are all older than I am so how can I offer to pay? That's bad manners, no?"

Somebody else I know, a lady, maintains that she NEVER pays if she goes out with a man. "Aw c'mon, it's the manly thing to do yaar. If a man cannot be chivalrous and pay up, it's clearly a matter of bad upbringing." She also clarified the said men are not ‘dates' who should be paying in order to impress the woman; they are just friends or acquaintances.

There is another way of dealing with the bill-settling business: taking turns to pay. The other day, a friend was griping about its unreliable mechanism. She met a friend at a cafe and had reasonably-priced sandwiches once, and my friend's friend paid for it. The next time they met, they went for dinner to some really snazzy Chinese restaurant, and the bill was a real bomb. My friend had to pay it since it was "her turn". It was nearing the end of the month, and she was broke -- but she had to pick up the bill. "I don't know why we can't just go Dutch all the time, that's so much more equal," she complained bitterly.

I had this arrangement with a dear friend who I used to meet at least once a fortnight when I was in Delhi. We'd always go to a place called Four S in the Defence Colony market where there's happy hours on almost all the time, drink ourselves silly and eat chilli chicken dry (my friend has been on a no-carbs diet for a while now, but at times I'd go a bit crazy craving carbs so I would order fried rice and gobble it up at one go). I paid for one outing and she would for the other. And since we'd be ordering pretty much the same stuff, the bill rarely wavered, leaving no room for discontent on either side.

In Dubai, whenever I go for an evening out with the ‘Western' expats, I'm doubly careful about splitting the bill: even if it means overturning my handbag and rolling out a few coins -- so that the division is fair and square to the last fil (100 fils add up to a dirham) -- I do that. At times, I have to admit, it's a bit odd. Say, we are having a coffee at Starbucks, and one cup costs Dhs12 or 13, and the bill comes to Dhs25 for two cups, one has to be precise about the Dutch thing and offer exactly Dhs12.50 and not Dhs12 or 13 (plus the tip of course!).

But all said and done, methinks it is better by far to be a slightly fussy about payments and appear to be mechanical, than be taken for granted in the name of our famed hospitality. I remember when I went to Calcutta, just before I left for Dubai, a conversation I had with one of my uncles. In this case, I realised that being "an elder" was not a good enough reason for him to think otherwise. The conversation went like this:

UNCLE: "Aren't you going to give us a treat? You're deserting us. Take us out for a five-star meal." (He has a largish family.)

ME: "But I am the one who's going away - shouldn't I be accorded a send-off?"

UNCLE: "You're the one who's going to earn a tax-free salary... I am, on the other hand, saving for my retirement."

ME: "Excusez-moi (that's French, not Dutch, for you know what), I haven't received any salary so far (forget the fact that my retirement plans were being completely discounted) -- my treat can happen when I come here the next time."

Uncle-ji looked very glum indeed. Of course, there was no treat forthcoming from him, but my plain-speak ensured me an escape outlet from paying the price for a five-star lunch for six people.

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Ghost Stories

Sushmita Bose — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 09:27:00 GMT

Like all ‘sensible' people, my views on ghosts and spirits are very, very ambivalent. I've never personally had a spectral encounter, so I cannot, with great conviction, proclaim there is a domain inhabited by spirits and spooky creatures. But then, I know of a great many friends/relative/acquaintances who swear there is a world of the ‘living dead'.

This week, I heard about yet another such incident. A friend claimed he was almost assaulted by a ‘spirit' while he was asleep. "I felt this clutch on my chest, as if someone was trying to pin me down... I felt immobilised and I was shouting at this thing, and I know I wasn't dreaming because I could hear myself shout... Finally, I managed to get this thing off my chest. Phew!" He also claimed that he was imbued with a great deal of energy after the encounter, so he got up and went for a long walk and a swim. He's a fairly agnostic person, so I have a feeling he wasn't making it up.

I talked about this to my Pakistani friend, and she said that she's heard of similar incidents happening to people she knows. I felt a tingle going up -- and then down -- my spine. It was creepy.

One of my closest friends is dead scared of ghosts. She never watches scary movies, she blocks her ears whenever anyone in the vicinity starts narrating a ghost story, and if she's alone at home, she sleeps with all the lights on. She'd told me about this one strange occurrence. She was in Bombay, and staying in a hotel. "Hotels I've always considered safe, since there are people just down the corridor," she said. She put the bathroom lights on at night just before she went to sleep, and put off her bedside lamp. Soon, she was fast asleep. Suddenly, she felt someone sit on the edge of her bed. "The mattress sank under the weight, and I could distinctly feel a presence." She shot out of bed, put on all the lights, called up her sister -- and spent the rest of the night wide awake.

Our ancestral house in Calcutta was more than a hundred years old. My grandfather was a rationalist so nobody in the family was allowed to speculate on ghosts and stuff, but all our maids used to say they would "feel" a presence from time to time (I'd, of course, never felt anything, but then I'd be careful not to go to the dark, forgotten corners that our house had in plenty). And it was not the same presence, they'd claim. Whenever I'd get suitably frightened, I'd forget my grandfather's diktat and confide in my mom, and she would always say that these ‘spirits', if they existed at all, would be ‘nice' . "They must be people who lived in this house, who loved you... so, don't be scared... They're just looking after you." I didn't quite buy that, although I'd bravely nod my head.

Let me leave you with a story that I have heard from someone I'm sure was telling the truth: my paternal grandmother, who was the nicest, most non-speculative person in the world. She was also an extremely educated and modern woman. This is a story dating back to the 1920s. Her father worked for the Railways, and was posted in Shimla; then, he was suddenly transferred to Calcutta. He had to move with his wife, their six kids and a faithful family retainer (my grandmother was about 10 years old then). They didn't own a place in Calcutta, so they rented out this two-storied house in what is now referred to as north Calcutta. The ground floor had the living room, a hall and the kitchen, while the first floor housed the bedrooms. The living room had inbuilt cupboards with wooden and glass facades, my grandmother took special care to point out, while she was narrating this ghostly tale.

The family retainer was asked to sleep on the floor of the living room since there was no room upstairs. The first night was fine, everyone slept well. On the second night, everyone upstairs were woken by screams coming from the downstairs living room. "All of us rushed down to see what had happened," my grandmother continued her story. There, the family retainer was in a state of panic: he had been woken up by the sound of one of the inbuilt cupboards opening creakily. And then, a young girl, not more than 15 or 16, dressed in bridal finery, appeared from inside the cupboard and asked him to leave the room. "She was indicating that I should leave," the retainer, who was sobbing, claimed.

My great-grandfather was absolutely sure he was making up the whole thing, and boxed the poor chap's ears. Then, he asked him to sleep upstairs with the rest of the family. "I saw her, I saw her," the chap kept mumbling, as he climbed the stairs. "I'm going to fire you if you say that one more time," my great-grandfather hollered at him.

A few days later, my great-grandfather went to the local market, where he met an old college friend. When he told him about his transfer, the friend asked him where he was putting up. "Oh, that house," the friend exclaimed. "Did you know it has a strange history? The family's only daughter died on the night of her wedding... It was quite a bizarre incident... I believe she was dressed as a bride when death came for her. The family moved out after that."

My great-grandfather was tongue-tied. Then, he and his family and the poor retainer -- too moved out of the house in a month's time.

Let me know if you any of you have a ghost story of your own. I'd also like to know about your views on this matter.

By the way, there is a graveyard right to next to where I live in Dubai. Apparently, it used to be the ‘royals' cemetery. "Don't worry," mean people tease me here. "Even if you get visitations, they will be from the royalty."

I smile dutifully but, at times, I do I feel a tiny clutch of fear.

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The Mutton Curry from Lahore

Sushmita Bose — Sun, 31 May 2009 10:13:00 GMT

In Calcutta, in the good old days, eating chicken was distinctly déclassé. Your ‘class' was determined by whether you served - among other fishy courses -- good-quality mutton (there were ‘select shops' catering to the ‘good-quality' demand) on occasions ranging from family dinners to weddings. This was much before the health lobbyists had started their anti-red meat campaign in right earnest.

My grandfather, a spoilt brat in his growing-up years (he was the only son), would come back home from school in the late afternoons (after playing cricket post-school) and get half-a-kilo mutton cooked to perfection (kosha mangsho, as the Bengalis call it), along with scores of luchis that were served piping hot. This he had every day (and he lived to be 85). Once, when he was served vegetarian fare (because mutton was not available that day), he, in a fit of pique, threw his plate on the floor, breaking the fine china into fine bits. His tearful mother vowed that never, ever would such a mistake be repeated. Such used to be the power of mutton.

Funnily enough, I was never a mutton fan. I've always preferred chicken. And, these days, I am vegetarian at least five days in a week.

Nevertheless, I used to dig my maternal grandmother's (I call her Dimma) mutton curry; her culinary skills are legendary. My mother didn't quite inherit the same traits from Dimma, but she too makes a mean mutton vindaloo once in a while. My paternal grandmother used to make awesome mutton roasts. And then, there is my best friend's mother's bhuna mutton, which is pretty divine. These were the four preparations of mutton I enjoy/enjoyed eating, other than occasional meat dishes I'd partake at restaurants.

When I was in Delhi this time, I took Brian to Oh Calcutta, and we ordered both fish and mutton, cooked Bong-style. I have a feeling he enjoyed the fish more (it was cooked in mustard sauce), but I'm not sure. Brian?

But poor Brian has not had the Lahori mutton: it's not some random dish called so because a restaurant-owner thought it might be an exotic-sounding sobriquet. It comes from Lahore. My Lahori friend in Dubai first got me this mutton - in vacuum-packed tins - when she went home early this year for a four-day break. "I don't know if you'll like it, but I want you to sample some Lahori food," she said defensively as she handed me the tin. It was cooked, she explained, by a husband-wife team who her mother knows pretty well.

With no expectations whatsoever, I opened the can of mutton, spooned out a few pieces, and had it with a couple of triangular parathas. I've never eaten something like that before. It's easily the best mutton I've had in my life. It actually beats Dimma's famous mutton curry hollow (sorry, Dimma!).

I made a friend eat a bit of it (I was too greedy to give him a substantial portion from my tin), and he almost had tears in his eyes. "It's such a pity that India and Pakistan have a Line of Control dividing them: imagine if the two countries had been one... we could have had this Lahori mutton every now and then... every day maybe... Life would have been so much better," he sighed.

I keep hustling my friend to get me more mutton. So each time any Lahori known to her mother - friends, relatives, even neighbours - comes to Dubai, a few tins of mutton are sent for me. I've even presented my friend with a business proposition: I want to team up with her mother's Lahori cooks and open a restaurant in Delhi. She laughed, and joked about how the Indian right-wingers may not take that kindly.

But I'm dead serious, I told her. "Hmmm, not a bad idea actually," she said. "I'm dying to go to India, and if I become a partner in this restaurant business, I can be there often."

Years ago, when I was in school, somebody had read out an article from a kiddie Bengali magazine called Anandamela about a dream line-up in cricket if India and Pakistan had not been partitioned. Imran Khan and Wasim Akram could have opened the bowling attack along with Kapil Dev, and Javed Miandad could have been first down.

On hindsight, I think I'd have taken the Lahori mutton over Imran Khan/Wasim Akram/Javed Miandad any day.

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DPS MMS Redux and Subcontinental Morality

Sushmita Bose — Sun, 24 May 2009 08:51:00 GMT

In last week's blog post, I did not mention that I watched Dev D with this Pakistani friend of mine. She had been very keyed up about ‘Emosional Atyachar' and had made me promise I would bring back the movie DVD -- one reason why I didn't watch Dev D in the theatres in Delhi.

Halfway into watching the film at my apartment in Dubai, when Chanda's life was being played out, I exclaimed, "Oh-o, this is like the resurrection of the DPS MMS scandal."

"What was the DPS MMS scandal?" my friend, sitting next to me, wanted to know.

I told her. She listened intently -- especially the bits about how the girl's family had to relocate to some other country to run away from the ‘shame' -- and told me about a similar incident that took place in Pakistan. This was, allegedly, in some shady Internet cafe, where the owner used to film couples (sitting inside the Net cubicles) "making out"; he then made a DVD and circulated it all over. With disastrous effect. One of the girls caught on film committed suicide, one other was honour-killed by her family, and the third ran away from home (by far, the best scenario).

"At that point," my friend continued, "all I wanted to know was: why is it that the girls/women in our countries have to face the brunt of it all." The boys, it seems, had had their ears boxed, and then it was pretty much alright: they went on with their lives.

This was not some Pamela Anderson-Tommy Lee exhibitionist stuff; this was supposed to be a private moment, and somebody decided to (a) exploit the situation to get rich quick, as in the Pakistani case, (b) one of the parties had clearly decided to backtrack away from the privacy clause (probably for kicks), as in the Indian case.

Let me not get into the morality of it all: whether it was wrong or right for high-school teenagers or college-going youngsters to indulge in sexual romps. There are bound to be two schools of thought on this one -- and let me tell you that the more ‘liberal' one does not have anything to do with the ‘evil Western influence'; it's more likely to be a hormonal matter.

I wanted to know why we are still so regressive in the 21^st century Indian subcontinent -- and mind you, we are talking people in the upper echelons of society, where everyone is educated and worldly-wise? Why do the odds continue to remain so heavily stacked against girls/women when it's a matter of sexual indiscretion? Any views on the matter?

I was really reassured watching Fashion though (again, a Moser Baer DVD that I got from Delhi this time). In the movie, the ‘middle class' leading lady from small-town India has quite a few sexual romps (part of the rites of passage into the big, bad world of the fashion -- some are for convenience, some thanks to rave-party-induced hazes), gets pregnant, has an abortion, smokes, drinks, does drugs -- but gets back on her feet. All on her own.

In the end, her disapproving, middle India parents turn turtle and are proud of the fact that she's made it without anybody's help -- even though they have seen her lingerie ads; even though they've watched breaking news on telly of her arrest following a spree of drunken driving; and even though she's told them all unsavoury details of her life.

That's one reason why I thought Fashion was a more evolved film than Madhur Bhandarkar's earlier Page 3. In Page 3, the heroine leaves the ‘society circuit', and says the party is over for her; in Fashion, she comes back to it -- because it is the right fit.

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Dev D for the Oscars?

Sushmita Bose — Sun, 17 May 2009 11:01:00 GMT

I admit I am incredibly un-cool and unfit: I've not watched Black Friday. In fact, I didn't have a run-in with Anurag Kashyap till very recently -- when I watched Dev D -- but there's nothing personal about that, just blame it on bad planning.

Dev D, as far as I know (I may be wrong), did not release in Dubai, and I'd have probably given it a go-by, had it not been for my one-time boss, Aditya Sinha.

Aditya is a Stanley Kubrick and Ian McEwan kind of person; he'll also probably go down in history as being the one person who hated Omkara -- and had the temerity to write about it in Hindustan Times, where he used to work with me before moving on to seek sambhar and southern comfort in Chennai.

His no-holds-barred trashing of Omkara was his swansong for HT. I know he did not write out the critique to garner eyeballs and depart in a trail of hate-glitz; he genuinely disliked the film. We were, predictably, flooded with angry mails; a few readers even claimed decisively that this was ‘IT', that they would never, ever read HT again. Such was the power of Aditya's toxic keyboard. I watched Omkara soon after, and didn't quite agree with Addy's take, but that's a different story.

About three (or was it four?) months ago, Addy called me all the way from Chennai, while taking an idli-sambhar break at work, and ordered me, very tersely, that I must, at any rate, watch Dev D. "There's only word to describe it: superb."

So, on one of my whistle-stop weekend trips to Delhi, I asked Tiger to get tickets for Dev D (the movie was playing in Delhi at that time). He got tickets for Delhi 6 instead, and insisted I had wanted to see Abhishek Bachchan croon masakhali, masakhali while Sonam Kapoor flailed her arms about and a pigeon (called Masakhali) chortled contentedly in the background. Of course I hadn't, but that was Tiger trying to cover his tracks.

I almost fell asleep watching Delhi-6, it made no sense to me, Monkey Man or no Monkey Man -- but again, that's another story.

Dev D was still playing in Delhi theatres when I visited this time, and when I wondered why that was so, given that the DVD was out for Rs 149, I was told the sale tale of how the film industry in India is bearing the brunt of the recession. New films are hard to come by, and multiplexes are running at huge losses showing old films that audiences have already seen.

I brought back the Dev D DVD with me from Delhi, and watched the film sometime last week, two days after I landed back in Dubai. I was sleepy as hell, and not in the best frame of mind, but here is what I thought.

Dev D did not overwhelm me in the way, say, The Reader did; but then The Reader, to my mind, is by far the best film that emerged from the Oscar stable this year. Having said that, I maintain Dev D was a fascinating film, despite its overdrawn bits. This year, it should definitely be India's official entry to the Oscars -- not, God forbid, Rab Ne Banaya Jodi or Dostana (let's hope no one tries to pass it off as Bollywood's making of Milk).

Anurag Kashyap could be our Baz Luhrmann meets Quentin Tarantino: he makes his point by being funky, he uses colour like a true artist, and he's fast and furious. On an international stage, he wouldn't be politically correct like, say, Aamir Khan, and will have much more to say than point out, with a contrived look on his face, that modern-day India is all about a triumph of democracy, and that is what is reflected in Bollywood (I know Aamir has not said that, but I wasn't really being specific here).

Dev D almost belongs to the independent genre in the filmi republic. The hero is not a rock star; the heroines are not virgins/virginal. It bucks the basic trend in the most in-your-face manner ever -- and nobody gives a damn. In a sense, it is a triumph of democracy. It's the story of real India.

The movie's soundtrack by Amit Trivedi takes the pants off Slumdog Millionaire (of course, that's a personal opinion, and anybody is free to differ). I'd heard the CD before I watched the movie, and didn't pay much attention to it (other than Emosional Atyachar) -- but club the soundtrack with the moving picture, and it's pure gold.

Abhay Deol is the next big rising star. I don't know if he'll ever be a Shah Rukh Khan or an Amitabh Bachchan, but he's plain Jane super. If someone like Abhay doesn't become a superstar, then that would be Bollywood's biggest tragedy, much larger in scope than Mughal-e-Azam.

Mahi Gill -- is she related to the eminently forgettable Priya Gill (they look similar)? I even did a Net search. She's pretty darned good, and in the DVD cover of Dev D, she looks a lot like Suchitra Sen, the original Paro in the Bimal Ray version.

All in all, guys, I think we have a winner.

I had thought I'd write about my Delhi trip. I'll do that (hopefully) next week. This week, I just wanted to tell you about the single-most important physical takeaway I got back from India: the DVD of Dev D -- that beats the tranche of Terracotta shade of Color Bar lipsticks I bought for myself hollow.

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