Bone Cutter

And Finally ..., Diary 2 Responses »
Aug 012010

Was at the dentist yesterday. To have extracted a molar in the lower jaw that had been killed by the wisdom that grew in a strange way.

The dentist took out a particularly mean looking instrument.
“what is that”, i mumbled – the jaw and lips numb & heavy with local anesthetic.
“a bone cutter’, replied the dentist – without missing a beat.
He then smiled and said “don’t ask me any questions”

after that, I didn’t.

Am I the only one with visions of Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman in the Marathon Man – when sitting in a dentist’s chair, I wonder !

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Posted by gargi at 9:02 am Tagged with:

A Near Miss ...

And Finally ..., Diary 5 Responses »
Jul 302010

…. this morning.
It was a normal Friday morning. Got up bright and early to get to college. Finished lectures. Began driving from Sophia College to Bandra.
Just as soon as you get out of the main gate at Sophia, you drive down a narrow winding road to get to Warden Road – then Worli, then Bandra. Usually it is fairly smooth driving.

When i got to the end of the narrow road, the road had narrowed to 1.5 lanes. there were trucks parked on the right of the road – construction trucks – that were brining building material. Some of the old bunglows on this road are making way for high rises.

There was a signal, a few cars ahead of me, and I was waiting for the lights to turn to green. In the side view mirror I saw a truck rolling back. There was no place to move. The only place to go was ahead, and there were vehicles there. I pulled the hand brake. And waited.

Crunch. I heard glass go crunch. Trust me, it is a scary audio effect. The video was worse. A few tons coming down slowly against your car. And suddenly it stopped rolling. Someone had obviously pulled the hand brake on the truck. I could hear my heart thumping, my hands shaking and my brain slightly off kilter.

The lights changed to green. I moved out. Turned onto Warden Road, pulled over and checked for damage. The body of my car is fine but for a dent. The rear lights on the drivers side, and the tiny window on the rear were shattered. The truck was coming down at an angle -would have probably hit the driver. Was terribly lucky.

The shakes came later. I drove for a bit. pulled over at worli sea face and sat in the car for around 20 minutes till i came back to normal. Then i drove home to leave the car and get to work !

Sometimes, it doesn’t help just being a good driver, or even a safe one. It’s also a matter of luck…. Today I got lucky.

p.s. it is a good job that the Tata’s build their cars like tanks. :) the Indigo Marina (that i drive) is a battle vehicle. we should possibly send it to the front !

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Posted by gargi at 4:03 pm Tagged with:

Khap, and how I learned to Love Logic …

And Finally ..., Caste, India, Society 10 Responses »
Jul 052010

Today is Bharat Bandh…. at least Mumbai Bandh. The road outside my house is deserted. All the building kids are out playing football. There isn’t a rick to be seen. Buses are few & far between …. And, I have nothing better to do than catch up on reading.

Amongst the old headlines that I read, in my poor inflated google reader, was one that struck me as being the panacea to all problems. It was, of course, my favorite body – the Khap Panchayat – coming out with another gem. They advocate the lowering of marriage age – from 18 to 15 for girls – to prevent elopement and therefore honour killings!

Om Prakash Mann, Haryana president of All India Jat Mahasabha, said.

“By lowering the legal age of marriage, young couples can be prevented from eloping. A girl brings shame to her family when she runs away. Parents kill the guilty children in a fit of rage,” he said.

My first response was WTF, and my second was ‘what a brilliant idea’ – if we take this kind of thinking to its logical end, think of all the social problems that we can solve. I have jotted down a few, please feel free to add your thoughts to this

  • Rape – Men Rape. If men are castrated (chemically, we don’t want to cause the poor dears any pain) they can’t rape. So castrating all men – whether or not they are potential rapists will prevent rape.
  • Widow remarriage is against our custom. If we didn’t get married, we won’t get widowed/widowered … abolishing marriage, therefore, will prevent widows. and therefore prevent the socially delicate problem of widow remarriage.
  • Female Foeticide - If men are castrated, and marriage is banned, then there can be no children and therefore no female foeticide
  • Dowry – if there are no girls there should be no dowry. But, to be on the safe side, let’s ban all goods and services. And, while we are at it – let’s ban money.
  • Pollution – Industries cause pollution. Get rid of industries then most pollution will disappear.  Also, since industries produce goods, and people ask for goods as dowry – banning industry will also stop dowry …

finally, even if there are only one boy and one girl from the Jat community renaming after all our strictures are followed, we will still oppose intercaste marriage — because it is against our culture :)

And finally, to all my friends who were embarrassed by the Maulvi’s and their idiot fatwas, don’t worry  the Hindus have caught up :)

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Posted by gargi at 3:38 pm Tagged with: , , ,

Gems from Students 2010

And Finally ..., Desi Pundit, Diary, India 27 Responses »
May 222010

Every year, at around this time, I trudge down to Mumbai University – Kalina to correct/moderate papers.

I, for my sins, am the chairperson for one of the papers. When asked the first time what does the chairperson do – I was told, quite seriously, ‘woh na, paper submit karta hai, aur reciept leta hai‘ .

As usually, the papers were a mixed bag – some good, some pass mark quality, some that have you chuckling, and some that have you shaking your head in sheer wonderment and asking ‘who taught this’. When you have paper after paper that spouts out the same garbage – you know that it is not student error, but teacher error !!

In any case, here are some of the best responses:

a) Educated people in India live in the cities and speak and read English. We (as in these) watch English channels. The rest of India that is illiterate speak their mother tongue or vernacular languages. They watch regional language channels because they don’t understand English because they are illiterate.

b) Hindi is the mother tongue of India. Over 99% of India understands and speaks Hindi except South India which speaks Dravidian and North East that speaks Chinese.

c) Rajiv Gandhi is the grandfather of Rahul Gandhi and is the farmer prime minister of India

d) Indira Gandhi’s daughter Sonia Gandhi is the chief of the Congress Party

e) The British started the AIR in 1757 and DD a few years later to keep the Indian people subjugated

f) The Gandhi family fought for India’s Independence – Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi all went to jail when the British wanted to stop them from attaining independence

g) Hindi is the National Language of India.

h) People who don’t understand Hindi are anti National

i) Hindus speak Hindi. the non Hindus speak other languages

j) People in villages are poor and illiterate

h) villagers like to watch music, dance and soaps. City people like to watch news and IPL

k) the BBC was used by the British to keep Africa and India under control. That saved the expense of having a big army

l) People who are poor do not have television sets and hence do not know what is happening

m) poor and illiterate people in villages cannot afford DTH and do not know what is happening in IPL

I can see these nameless, faceless students anchoring news – not very long for now….

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Posted by gargi at 10:41 am Tagged with: , , ,

A Nightmare

And Finally ..., Caste, Desi Pundit, Diary, India 6 Responses »
Nov 122009

Sometimes, the mind is a dangerous place to get lost in.it is a place where time & space are elastic and past, present and future co-exist without any issue.And it is even more scary when that manifests itself as an almost lifelike, real event.

Amma had a nightmare a few days ago. She, appa and her kids (all 3 of us) are hauled up before a caste court, which wants to annul my parents marriage. Her father and brother (both are no more) are part of the nightmare – and speak for the caste panchayat against my parents and us. My parents and the 3 of us are in current avtaars – current age etal. My grandfather is from 30 years ago (when he died) and my uncle from a decade ago. The caste panchayat – in her nightmare – wants to try us as a family and pass judgement on our caste transgressions. My mother was shaking and visibly upset when she told us the nightmare.

When my parents got married – 1965 – they broke caste rules. They belonged to the same gotra - and they decided to get married. This according to caste rules is a strict no no. The mildest punishment was excommunication – essentially being made outcaste – and the most stringent punishment is death for the offending couple.

Thankfully, both my parents came from enlightened families. My maternal grandfather (my dada had passed away 3 years earlier), and my father’s elder brother – stood by the couple and ensured their marriage went off without a hitch. A large chunk of the family boycotted the wedding – because it wasn’t the kind of thing that was done. But, given the minor scandal that it caused – my folks got their marriage registered – because, technically – at least according to orthodoxy – the marriage was not valid !

44 years later, my mother wakes up to a nightmare that her family was going to be hurt because she broke caste rules.

Everytime there is a news report on couples getting burnt for breaking caste laws – my mother goes quiet. It never bothered her earlier – but then, she wasn’t an avid news viewer then. But for the last 5 years or so, she has been getting affected by this. One morning, about 5 years ago, i woke up and went to the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee – mom was talking to dad about a couple who got burnt alive in Haryana for getting married within the gotra - mom was telling dad ‘it could have been us’.

I wonder about caste at times. I wonder about its hold on people, despite its call to murder and burn alive people – because they broke some rules that lost relevance 3 millennia ago. I am curious about the kind of people who defend caste – saying it is part of our cultural heritage. I am fascinated by the power that caste bodies – panchayats – wield that gets a woman approaching 70, to have nightmares 44 years after she and the man of her choice broke the rules !

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Posted by gargi at 10:39 pm Tagged with:

Obama's Nobel ..

And Finally ..., International 5 Responses »
Oct 102009

….cute, but slightly premature.  After all, he was only in office for 11 odd days when the nominations closed !

Great intentions, great promise of a better tomorrow …. but delivery would be nice !

It was fun being on twitter yesterday – pithy one liners flew across the length and breadth of the world -  140 characters of dripping sarcasm :) some of my favorites :

@sumants RT @MitchBenn: It’s official: George Bush was such an asshole you can win the Nobel Peace Prize just by not being him.

@sidin Obama to win Commonwealth Gold & lifetime Oscar. Also X Prize, Magsaysay and Bigg Boss 3. And Dancing With The Stars

@shefaly Ok let me understand this then. Obama has been granted anticipatory No-bail?

@IndiaVoice india’s bomb makers — the ones who made the thermonuclear dud — are better deserving of the nobel peace prize.!!!!!!!

@MrsStephenFry Yet ANOTHER year overlooked for the Nobel Peace Prize. How many more do I have to kill to win that thing?

@samitbasu I hear next week’s special item on Mafia Wars is a Nobel Peace Prize.

I hope that the world is not destroying the man with the weight of expectations. He is not the Messiah — he is flesh and blood and fighting a rather cranky system. Give him space and time to get his work done …. .. and, maybe then a second Nobel would be in order…

But, on the positive side, atleast he didn’t get it for literature !

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Posted by gargi at 8:40 am Tagged with: , ,

mere paas maa hai !

And Finally ... 1 Response »
Aug 182009

From Every English language daily, this morning

anil dhirubhai

there is a very good reason why the term fratricide exists .

Maybe the mother should make them both sit in the corner, and take over both companies !!

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Posted by gargi at 10:07 am Tagged with: , , ,

The End.

And Finally ... 9 Responses »
Aug 162009

Amongst the saddest things in life, is the end of a relationship. It could be any relationship – the sorrow is different, but it is still sorrow.

Why do relationships break up? Maybe they were never meant to be, maybe you outgrow the other party, maybe you got into to it for the wrong reasons.

In most cases relationships don’t start or end in a blaze of glory. In most cases you have drifted into one, and it is most likely they whimper into nothingness.

How do you know it is the end ? It starts when you stop having conversations, because every conversation turns into combat. Soon, there are no safe zones left – all that is left is to reminisce about the past – ‘tujhe yaad hai ‘ type of conversations. It’s almost as if you are using the past to camouflage the emptiness of today. It continues when you start running down the other party – their ideas, their dreams, their aspirations, their friends, and it dies – when neither can let the other grow and in fact stand in the way of growth.

Sometimes, we let memories hold us behind. Sometimes, we think that it can get better – after all, there was a time that there was something to write home about – can it be recaptured, can it be salvaged?

But, then you ask the other question – is it really, really worth salvaging. Is this what you want for the next one, two, five, ten years? Can you really be happy with the level of compromises that you are making to maintain a status quo – and to what end is this status quo – is it to prove to the world that you have managed a long running relationship, is it to prove to friends that you aren’t a failure, is it to family that you handle things on your own ? Is it because you can’t handle pity or sympathy – or is it that you are afraid of going it alone, or is it that you feel that you are too old to start again ?

Somehow, whatever you decide – there is going to be hurt. the question is – should it be a short, sharp cut or a slow whimper into nothingness ?

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Posted by gargi at 7:48 pm

The Dog (ess) of Big Things

And Finally ..., Doggy Tails 1 Response »
Aug 092009

ranno

The Boss.

Quite a character. Swears like a sailor. Commands like an empress. Plays like a child. Is stubborn as a mule. Sulks like a prima donna. stalks like a hunter. pranoid. self willed. with a sense of humour . Never name your dog Rani or Raja – they get delusions of grandeur.

We initally wanted to call her Cleopatra – thank heavens, we didn’t. Had we done that , she would have insisted on bathing in asses milk !

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Clap

Posted by gargi at 7:46 pm

Me & the Gym !

And Finally ... 2 Responses »
Aug 032009

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Clap

Posted by gargi at 7:37 am Tagged with:
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