Agar Saas Kabhi Bahu Naa Hoti....

Another day at Tulsi's home. The adoring daughter-in-law does not lift her eyes beyond her mother-in-law's knees. The Virani household is just beseiged by another problem and Tulsi, the daughter of a pujari is at the helm of it all. Sometimes hated, sometimes loved by the family, her character is elevated to mythical propositions.!

Business as usual, on Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu thi! Could sense a million tears rolling on the wrinkled faces of a umpteen grandmas, the fair and lovely covered faces of the million Bhabhijis watching it. And the tears seem to increase at an logarithmic[sorry for the technical lingo..:P] scale, with every increasing tear in Tulsi's eyes.

For every single person who loves these tear jerkers, there are two people hate it in magnified propositions. The kids perenially started complaining about their moms getting addicted to tvs and paying the least heed to their dinner tantrums. The husbands were irritated that they didnt get their evening chai when they came home after a 'tiring' day! All said and done, imagine a world without the soap operas?!

An idle mind is a devil's workshop they say. Its a petryifying thought to let loose so many maamis, chittis,aajis, aunties, bhabhis to be engaged in gossip, the next favourite passtime after the soaps! Ah,gossip!! While, the gossips now are dominated by whether Tulsi's sarree was looking fine to how cruel the the youngest scion of the Virani family raped the gal, imagine if the gossips had real life characters as the central leads! One day, you talk to a girl on the road and before you reach home, mom will ready with a broom in hand and a question in mouth, “who kaun thi??”. “Mom, friend!”. “Friend, ya girlfriend!! That mrs. Sharma was telling that girl is 'very bad'!! Dare i see you with her again”. Advantage folks!! Every time, you want to know about that pretty lass who has recently come into column.Look no further. Ask mom! Saves a lot of time and sometimes, insult too..

Not just this.! If not hooked to the tv, am sure she would be hooked more to your mobile! Every time the mobile goes beep beep, get ready to churn out a fictitious name from the same sex. Every time, an Aditi messages you, make sure your genes pronounce it as Aditya!! If you really dare to tell her the truth, wouldnt be surprised if either of you land up in the neighbouring hospital the same night! She, for heart attack..and you for bruised hands caused by intense concoction of broomsticks, hot metal rod and sticks typically used for hanging clothes to dry! And for the kids, you are lucky! You will be spared of the teachers rod, albeit at the expense of two more at home.

Girls!! Some special treatment for you! Everytime, you wear that jean which hugs you more than the salwars, all the nighbouring Sharmajis,joshijis and iyer bhabhis are going to peper your mom with stories of how there was another gal in the nieghbourhood who also wore such outfits and later ran away with a guy! There was no way you could ask your mom for that cute dress which your mom's favourite character was wearing.

All this fine, imagine what would she watch if not these soap operas? Aastha TV?? Ramdev Maharaj and his 'breath-taking' skills!?? And yeah, you would never be able to watch television with that oh-so-familiar argument of “Mom, dont you watch television?!”

Sometimes, i feel all the folks who are perenially against these soap opera are people who tried watching them and failed miserably in understanding it. It, indeed is complex. Here is a small excerpt about KSBKBT in wiki,

“Mihir returns from America and takes over the reins of the family business. He goes to the family temple and there he bumps into Tulsi - the daughter of the family pujari. Savita, Daksha and Gayatri plan Mihir's wedding. Mihir meets a prospective bride called Niharika, but when she seems undecided about what she wants to do, Mihir lies to her parents about his affairs in America, and wiggles out of the match. In steps Payal - with a proposal for Mihir. It is soon taken for granted that Payal will be marrying Mihir. But the differences between the two are apparent - and Tulsi and her dad, the pujari talk about this. Payal, in the meantime, goes over to the Virani household and tries to sniff out the undercurrents in the house. Payal snubs Tulsi. When Mihir hears about this, he goes to apologise to Tulsi. Payal, however, does not apologise for her conduct. She does not go over to meet Chirag either - after he is brought home by the police on suspicions of attempting to kill himself, because he has flunked in his exams. Mihir and Tulsi discover that they like each other. Savita stops Tulsi from coming to her house. “

Life is so much better with saas being once bahu!!

Every Class has a….

Contrary to most people, I find the classes at IIITB very interesting. Because, it’s a class of 150 students(not sure, if all the 150 students are human only. I do know some vampires who do not sleep!!), there are a large number of samples whom you can observe to keep yourself amused!(According to a certain GNS Prasanna, increasing the accuracy 10% requires 100 samples.) Err, Before you draw your conclusions, I am not talking about chick watching!! None that way have arrested my eyes still..;)

While, our UG classes were composed of a more homogenous group of ‘kids’, this class can roughly be classified into groups with certain defined characteristics.

1. THE GYAANIS!

This breed of students is the “who’s who” of the class according to the lecturers. Typically, these folks have a work experience of 2 years working in a huge company..(That’s a different story that they got extremely frustrated there to return to academics.!)

How to identify them?

Their eyes are fixed either on the black board…err..smart board or the lecturer and there is an unfailing head nod for every brilliant point that the lecturer makes. They laugh, but only when the lecturer cracks a joke! The only time, they will be seen talking to their neighbor is when the lecturer has ‘explicitly’ asked them to talk to their neighbours.

2. The Wannabe Gyaanis!(The HeadBangers!!)

This is the most interesting breed of characters you can find in the class. This clan’s motive and objectives are as diverse as the methods they employ to prove their Gyaani quotient!

If you just had a glance at them, I wouldn’t be surprised if you mistook the class for a rock concert. Infact, Newton could well be proved wrong about the ‘perpetual motion machine’! Their hands are perennially in simple harmonic motion throughout the class, and I mean it. If you are unfortunate enough to sit besides them, you are also sure that you wont be able to sleep inside the class. These folks constantly have this “Oh!!”…”sss…..”..”Ok!!OK!!” reaction and the decibel levels are adjusted precisely enough for the lecturer to be able to hear it.Some of the other common characteristics in this group is laughing like it’s the first time they have heard a joke when a teacher is rebuking a student, having that *How can you do this!!* look when they see someone snoring in class??

3. Type Writer

This group theoretically, does not have an independent existence of its own and could potentially belong to any group, with a very high probability of belonging to either of the first 2 groups. Btw, I will better stop commenting on these people because on the eve of exams, the best thing to read is inevitably their notes..:P

4. The Sleeping Buddha

Now, this is my favourite group of people for the simple fact that unless they start snoring are the least annoying of all. For one, they do not make me feel guilty of wasting time in their class. That’s a different story about why they sleep in class. A couple of them because, I hear they were debugging a 2000 lined C code, a few after reading the research papers all night, and most of them because they felt the teacher was trying this best to put them to sleep. Did I mention someone dreaming about his gal?:P

Overall, these are the ‘nice’ guys of the class.

5. LiveWire

This is one of the rare breeds of students in class who are extremely vulnerable to being punished by teachers and being hated by the nerds. These noble souls do the yeoman service of trying to convert The Sleeping Buddhas into any of the other class of students through their occasionally witty jokes. However, on their off days, it is extremely tough to tolerate the various Pjs that they generate with such tremendous regularity.

Oops, Last but not the least, there is also a certain guy who is so jobless to ‘observe’ whats happening in the class, and not whats happening with the lecturer!

They come rare, or do they?

The relationship between celebrities and our lives is often complex, interwingled in a complex network of patrochial emotions, colour complexions and somethings, as trivial as sharing the same birth date or same star sign. Neither are these relationships eternal. Or maybe not. A section of people certainly shall overlook the darker shades and love them for what they have been loving them for.

Yet, more often than not, our idols are not loved for what they are more famous for. I love a certain genius called Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Or should I say loved?! Yes, I love Tendulkar for all those breath taking strokes which are beyond the realm of other immortals. The Tendulkar who scores centuries at his will inspires awe in me. Those brilliant stories of a teenaged Tendulkar getting hit by a Waqar bouncer and the warrior clinging on the match with blood on his face still evokes goosebumps in me. Did i forget the Sharjah blitz where he cut the likes of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne to size? Yet, I loved him for something else.

Something that made me feel am him. Something which made me more elated than he was everytime he crossed the three figure mark! It was the distinct blur between the genius and the teenager on the street dreaming about wearing the indian colours which endeared him to me. The Indian middle class had finally its hero. I still remember the saasumas and bahuranis fighting about who the greatest batsman of alltime was? The Great Gavaskar or the then prodigy, Sachin Tendulkar.

It was not only the strokes and records which made him the favourite son of every Indian household. They were other players, the Laxmans and the Azhars who were a conniesseurs delight, the Dravids, the Robin Singhs who sweated and struggled and in some sense truly showed what sports was all about. There also came a certain Prince from Kolkata who brought passion into the game. The youth loved this man. The ones with more grey cells endorsed Dravid. For the artists, Laxman was what they watched cricket for. Yet, Tendulkar was what every mother wished his child was. By Tendulkar, I do not mean wading the bat like a wand. They wanted their sons to be Tendulkars of science, arts, history. Yet, unfailingly, this comparison is decietful. How easily we are trapped to thinking all they meant was being excellent in your profession?

The phenomenon of Tendulkar was much bigger. The middle class hero had finally arrived. He was mild mannered,yet he did not live in his shell. He did not go to the Bishops and the Baldwins! This lad went to the neighbhourhood Shradashram school. He made sure, his first coach earned the adulation he duly deserved. Ramakant Achre had become an household name. The teachers too loved him! Remember, in those days, sports idols was not something that was encouraged. The India in 90s didnt allow you to “stay hungry,stay foolish!”. In some ways, Sachin was a revolution. None of the guys who stormed into the Indian team had ever failed in their high school exam. Yet, Sachin was no rebel to the common man. To them, he was this son of a Marathi professor who went on to make India proud. None of those page 3 pictures for this man! He cried like a child when his dad passed away. Didnt have any of those fancy hairstyles or those wannabe tatoos in his hand. The only time, his photo came in the front pages when he wasnt in his warrior gear, coverd by the navy blue helmet with the Indian flag noticably on top was when he was receiving some award or made a visit to some temple. Yes, he was in some ways the Good Boy! And uncharacteristically, this good boy was not boring. Dravid too, very much the poster boy of Indian cricket. Yet, he was boring to most.

Most people would have chosen to ignore the news about Sachin's new 60 crore rupees mansion. For some reason, I cannot see the halo around Tendulkar anymore. Probably, the same news article with Vijay Mallya as the central character and I would have celebrated it. The show of opulance is not something that we have associated Tendulkar with. He was the middle class hero.

Perhaps, Was.

The search of the middle class messiah still continues....

For how long do i shout?

Whats the coolest thing these days? Wearing a pair of Gucci jeans? That livestrong band? Talking to a couple of chicks(in Tamil, read kadalla podying!) ? Probably not! These things have become more for the wannabes! The latest fad, i believe, is people trying to be cool by flaunting statuses criticizing attacks on the psuedo-intellects! A spontaneous protest where a few glasses broken being branded hooliganism without second thoughts. Whereas a protest, where emotions had to be manufactured and most people who went there was only to be photographed so that they could flaunt it as their DP's to impress their latest muse was branded the second freedom struggle in nation!!

And the icing on the cake is an article by the self proclaimed intellect, who sometimes also claims to be the messiah of the masses, Mrs. Burkha Dutt!! And she says the Indian junta has lost his ability for the intelligent argument and has instead resorted to intolerant ways! But, is there anything else that he can do?

Its a different story when a large majority of folks suscribe your views. Possibly, you will be heard. But if you are a silent minority, will you be heard? The politicians dont need you because your votes wont count, if you have one! The news channel wont reach you, because its more busy with folks who feed them money! Try a 'non-peaceful' protest?!! The police will book you in 'goonda law!'

The only way to publicise your thoughts seems to be a la chappal throwing,breaking window panes of a few even more helpless people! Yeah, this is not right. But where does the common man go? He will surely not win the debate against the more educated folk. While our man is slogging with an auto rickshaw, the so called elite intellectuals have busy honed their skils to talk and talk well too! And they asking the hapless rickshaw drivers to come,argue and differ with them is to ask Muhammad Ali to call a few geeky Iyers into the ring! The outcome, we know!

In some ways, this problem provides a more monsterous anologous in the Maoist revolution. Its the voice of a community long supressed by the rulers convieniently. The only way, their voice found a national stage. Did i hear someone saying dialogue? Dialogue with the politicans? You must be kidding! On one hand of the table, we would have battle hardened politicians and on the other hand, a few tribals. I dont see much scope for imagination of the result.

While a soulution to this problem seems an NP-Complete problem in computer science lingo, we could do better by refraining ourselves from the temptation of painting people who wanted to put their views across in manner, not acceptable by ordinary folk in such pathetic colours.

Wasnt he a bit luckier than you?

Thus mourned the Apple's site “1955-2011”! RIP! Agree! Every wannabe geek outwitting each other on Facebook trying to mourn the deepest way possible! RIP, we said! Agree..But someone said, “End of an era in innovation!!”...Err,WAIT, In a bid to sound cooler, havent we romaticized the Jobs saga to a dream which we so wanted badly!

Cut to the 90s and watch any Bollywood/kollywood/sandalwood(No, I dont mention Hollywood, because I havent seen them!) movies and you find a Hero, typically a brat, who is willing to bash up so many men stronger than him just to protect his love!! Ah, didnt i forget, so often than not, our hero, this dude is a college drop-out!! At around exactly one hour after the movie starts, he loses everything in life. Until, about an hour from here, its all melancholy! Till suddenly, that drop of blood drips from his forehead. Till the villian insults his mother. Till his girl is raped!! The man, comes back. Wins everything. Conquers your heart. Movie Super Hit!!

Isnt the Jobs saga too all about this? An arresting personality with extremely well documented powers of persuasion, possesing amazing amounts of eccentric energy, Jobs was the poster boy that the IT industry badly needed. It had got tired of the “soda-potti”[thick] glass adorned geeks strutting away endlessly on that Vi editor, the species in research labs who didnt understand why the sun rises in the west and whose speech always contained words like Amdalh's law,arrays, Hamilton's problem and ilk. Jobs was the man! He knew it,IT. He could speak to you. He could convince you! But to hail him as a visionary?? To credit the Apple product that you own to him?? For Barack Obama to say, that works become easier because of him?? For people to believe, dropping out of college is cool?

Pursue your dreams he says!! Duh.!! Boy, he was born in US!! You get paid shit good sums for the shit work that you do!! Is he even relevant in India? And chasing dreams reminds me of the countless girls who go to Bombay with Madhuri Dikshit in minds only to end up in Kamathipura and the guys in some garrage! Alas, not everyone who works in a garrage gets to head Apple one day.! In fact, a large measure of the adulation that he recieves, some says is because of his technical 'ingenuity'!! Crap!! I shall show you shit loads of better programmers in your next street. There are some others who call him a 'visionary'!! Err, Really? Is there any single invention which can be credited to him? Please, No Ipads and blah blah! Its a simple Tablet already come up by Microsoft years ago. Am appaled when someone says Ipad is an invention. If indeed that was an invention, what about the thousand papers which come out from the numerous labs where students work for pittance of money and out of sheer love of technology! Well, if you had to credit him. He was an amazing speaker. A person who was at the right time at the right place. An excellent orator that he was, he knew HOW TO SELL!! He was a pied piper! A piper who could make you dance to his tunes. Someone, who knew how to make a bride out of a donkey. An amazely good businessman!

“Stay hungy, Stay foolish!” Again fancy stuff!! Out of so many of the college drop outs how many end up as Steve Jobs! Infact, Steve Jobs as an icon is a creation of our ever lasting fantasy to take the easier route in life. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Dhirubhai Ambani possibly because of their rags to riches story are immortalised more than some of their peers like Michael Dell, Richard Stallman and the recent progidy Mark Zuckerberg! Infact, to me it sounds a dangerous precedent to glorify someone to these insane levels. Steve's incomplete dots formed the circle. Will yours?
Infact. It would be a huge disservice to the lakhs of Apple employees whose brains power those lovely machines on your palms. If at all there was something really great about Jobs, it has to be his oratarial skills.An immaculate businessman that he was, a little introspection from our side about the cult image that we have granted him would do no harm!!

P.S: Rip Steve Jobs!