With compliments

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 9 February 2013

There was a time when diaries, calendars and fountain pens made for great corporate gifts.  As kids, we eagerly looked forward to our father to bring them home at the beginning of the year. Sometimes there was such a surfeit of stuff that the diaries were used for practising school composition and hand writing, and every room in the house had a calendar for decoration. The pens were kept in safe custody and handed out on special occasions such as exams or an essay writing contest in school.

Those were the times when the compliments, as we fondly called them, were innocuous gestures that acknowledged good will between business associates. They were just part of corporate camaraderie, and to some extent a promotional tool for the brand, that was accepted and reciprocated, almost like exchanging sweets on Diwali, Eid or Christmas.

But things have changed and how! We are some weeks into the New Year and I don’t have a calendar on my walls yet. Since I have no major use for diaries and pens, thanks to the superfluity of gadgets around here, I don’t rue their absence. But I miss the calendars. It is not that compliments have become an outdated concept, it just that they are not anymore what they used to be – simple gestures of business good will. Corporate gifts have now gone high tech with tabs, smart phones and the like going out to clients and customers, making the giveaways look more inductive and influential than appreciative.

The methods of complimenting these days are so lofty that it makes one suspect the purpose. Is it more to entice than to encourage? Does it play on the agenda of buying people out than paying tribute to their association? For securing prospective deals than to build relationships? No matter how covert the agenda, it is hard to ignore it. Let us accept it - showing carrot is not a new human tendency. It is just that we have discovered discreet ways of doing it. Cynical as it may sound, yet much of what we give is for winning favours in return than out of a generous spirit. It is a deeply entrenched habit in us, which we have now converted into a tradition. We promise our children presents if they will excel in the exams, we buy people gifts so that we stay in their good books, we tip the cleaner at the carwash so that we get more than the customary service...why, we even turn the cartoon channel on to induce our toddlers into eating or allow an extra hour of PS3 to our boys and a day out for our girls if they do our bidding.

Knowingly or not, we have cultivated a character that looks for easy routes to achieving goals. We have now found better backhand strategies for clinching deals and seeking favour. When it is open and naive, we call it a compliment. When it is clandestine and devious, we call it a bribe. When we do it in our private circles, we call it a token. When it is done in the public domain, we call it kickbacks. And when the proportions are big and scope is infinite, we just brand it as corruption.

The concept of giving and taking is too complex to understand. It is tough to define what is fair and what is unscrupulous, for there is a huge grey area in between. What probably determines its moral standards is the intention that drives the act. Often the intention is less than complimentary and charitable. Just as bitter is the truth that there are no friendships without self interest, there are probably no giveaways without an agenda. It would be foolhardy to imagine that it is all out of love and kindness, for believe me, there truly are no free lunches in this world!

 

 

 

Just pain, no gain

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 18 January 2013
 

Even a third grader would know that birds fly southwards to escape winter in the north. But some dumb homo sapiens, like the twosome here, defy common sense and always head the other way by default.

Ours is the kind that is so geographically challenged and directionally deficient that we ask Lady GPS to guide us home every day.

Take this for instance. The price of gold was surging. Go, get the gold, they said. The rich cows flocked, grazed and had their fill, smartly stocking up on the bullion. The lesser ones, like yours truly, kept slavering at the effervescent market with no dough to expend on what the experts said would fetch handsome returns. We waited for the funds to collect and finally went and got the bar. Pity, that we didn’t use the gold dispenser at Atlantis. It would have added glamour to the asset that everyone believes would turn around and help us in old age. But no one told us that we had just hit the North Pole in winter. The metal faltered, got grounded and didn’t take to the air again. “It is good in the long term,” we whispered wearily.

And then, a need for cash arises. Let’s get the gold out, we decide. What we hear at the gold store makes us see red. “It was at a high the day Obama won the election. It has fallen again,” says the gold man. “That was only two days ago. Can’t you do something to get us those rates today?” I plead, staring at the loss. The gold man smirks as if to say, “Lady, get a grip. I am not trading potatoes.”

Scenario two. The Dollar was riding high against the Indian currency. Thank you, said the Gulf Indian who had funds in his local accounts. Some, like us, said, “Where do we go for Dirhams now? Didn’t we buy gold with it? We tracked the rates and queues at the exchange centre spitefully till the Dollar began to flounder again. It was a huge relief to know that the world around us had slid back from an ‘advantage’ point, and we were on ‘deuce’ again.

A few months down, the money collects and we wait for the Dollar to appreciate. Following Murphy’s law, it doesn’t. That’s exactly when there is an urgent need back home for cash. We wait for a week before the emergency presses on us and we dump the money at a six month low rate. We rue the notional loss for days, even as we watch the Dollar’s upward swing. Two months later, the US dollar regains its former glory against the India rupee, and all we do is slump with the currency, stare at our dismal bank statement and swear.

Scenario three. The business channels blare out that the stock market is on fire, and our spirits rally in tandem. As market amateurs, we waver, unsure of where to wager our money, reading up company fundamentals and corporate news, looking for cue.  By the time we do the homework, the stocks have soared and we buy some crap at illogical prices. Soon the market corrects, tanks and we wait to cross the red and exit with nearly burnt fingers and crushed sentiments.

We recently bought the scrip of a beleaguered Indian private airline hoping that it might be revived by a takeover, a la Satyam. The stock promptly slid and we panicked, even as no news about a resuscitation plan for the company emerged. We finally sold it at a loss. A few weeks later, we saw reports of a foreign airline’s plan to shop for stakes in the airline. The stock heaved and we sighed.

“Do you think the creator forgot to put the financial compass and navigator in our system?” I asked my husband.

“Apparently,” he said wryly, and switched the business channel off.

Wishful thinking

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 4 January 2013

 

I lost two chunks of my heart in December, as the year drew to an unceremonious close. They were prised out of my chest by a maverick 20-year-old in Connecticut and a group of bestial elements in Delhi.

It wasn’t for the first time that I was feeling the rupture at the centre of my existence. It has happened many times before, and it will happen again whenever evil strikes. But strangely, this time, I didn’t feel the usual numbing pain. There was only a fleeting sense of Déjà vu, which induced an initial feeling of nausea, soon settled into the void created by the lost pieces of heart.

I mutely watched the world up in arms against unhindered use of guns, demanding lasting solutions and an entire sub-continent baying for the blood of half a dozen savage creatures, and feverishly discussing means and methods to stop these acts of evil.

It was a coincidence that I had shared little thoughts of a theological nature with my pupils only the other day. They were small, yet significant dialogues, on the existence of evil as an inexcusable, yet all pervading element, in the world. Even as I explained to them that vice existed as a complimentary to virtue, and it was the way nature chose to find its balance, I was looking within me for answers to more compelling questions about the nature of evil and its resolution.

Stepping aside from the surrounding din, I quietly descended into a space that was beyond the uproar and distress that had built up in the wake of the twin events. I watched from my little log cabin the helplessness and misery of a human race lost in the wilderness of its own insensitivity. For once, I knew that that answers lay not in legislations. No civil code, no matter how severe, can tackle the issue of impulsive wickedness and immorality. Fear of retribution can be a deterrent only to a sane, rational mind. It can produce no effect on an insensitive, dehumanised being that has no ethical bearings. If you or I don’t indulge in an evil act, it is predominantly because of our inner sensibilities. Fear of law is only a supplementary binder. Instances of abject inhumaness are fallouts of the combined absence of this instinct to abstain from offence and restraint by law.

So, who in the end is to blame? And when will we find a solution? Does the buck stop with regime controls, or is it an incurable malaise of a doomed society that has lost sense of what’s good, bad and ugly? It is easy to proclaim that the social fabric is in tatters and it needs mending, but pray, can we put things in order with just platitudes on moral behavior and poor upbringing? It is so simple to speak about the other man’s faults, which we tactlessly separate from our own. To us, it is always the government, the justice system and the society (that excludes us) that are flawed. We hunt for punching bags, as if the onus of working out solutions lay outside of us - he, she, they…

Aggression is an inherent quality that hibernates when the soul is in place, and takes evil forms when it goes astray. It is this missing soul that we need to recover to bring succor to a battered humanity. Now, more than ever, we need apostles who can help mankind tap its innate goodness.  We need a genuine miracle that will restore human conscience, and plant our race in a realm of godliness. We need salvation from our own spiteful vein.

As grief and anger coagulated across the US and India over the gruesome incidents, it was for this miracle that I prayed – silently and ardently. It was an inward journey towards finding lasting hope, peace and faith.

The downs of life

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 15 December 2012

Thoughts about disease and death are awfully frightening; talking about it is even worse.

But that was precisely what the insurance consultant sitting in front of us was doing – telling us about the two most imposing reflections that our mind chooses to sidestep, while we merrily dig into the meatball of life. We behave as if the two big D’s were things that could happen only to someone else, even as our core instinct prompts us about the possibility of the former and the certainty of the latter in our lives.

“I am sorry, but I have to be a little raw about this,” he announced, giving his audience a grating presentiment of what was to follow. We felt our stomachs tighten as he spoke of all the things that we had to know about ‘possibilities’ and ‘eventualities’, but had chosen to ignore for obvious reasons. The session wasn’t as innocuous as it had been when we had taken our Life Insurance policy many years ago from the ubiquitous LIC agent back in India. It is strange that the phrase ‘in the event of death’ did not sound so sinister then as it did now.

With a health insurance card from the company that takes care of medical expenses here, there was little else that weighed on our mind until we cruised into the mid-forties and the shades of grey started showing up. We realised that old age (albeit, still some distance away) was not just ‘a natural occurrence that we could handle when we came to it.’ Instances of critical illnesses among old people (and some younger) we knew and the utterly prohibitive cost of quality health care and treatment that we heard about forced us to do some serious reality check. It wasn’t an easy exercise, but who said life beyond the glam years was so easy?

The literature that we were handed out blew the living day lights out of me. It gave us a heads up on the worst possible ways to die. I felt as if I was being asked to choose my most (in)convenient way to do it, and then I was being given not a clever way to buck it, but a fair chance to beat it. There were, of course, no guarantees on coming out alive and well, but we all have the right and responsibility to put up a fight, and to do that, it is now not enough to have guts and gumption. We need lump sum cash in our pockets.

My grandpas and grandmas ended their run on this earth so peacefully that not even the seasons noticed their passing. The paper in my hand suggested that things might not be so peaceful. Along with new inventions for better living, there are now newer, mysterious and often unpleasant ways of quitting this world. Blame it on life style shifts, natural inequities or plain irreverence to the cosmic law; we may, for all you know, get the short end of the stick, and we had better make ample provisions for it. 

It is certainly not a jolly thought to dwell in, especially when life is riding the crest and things are gung ho, but it helps to swallow the bitter bill and be prepared. Not all of us can boast of chunky bank balances to support our future medical needs. We often scrimp and save for our children’s future, our retirement, a world tour, but very seldom for that prospect of falling grievously ill.

It will be tough to convince the irrational mind that taking an insurance cover against such a contingency doesn’t mean that we are going to contract something critical. Far from it. It is only like carrying an umbrella in our bag even when the skies are clear, for, as Forrest Gump’s mama often said, “Life is a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.”

Finding a perfect Recipe

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 8 December 2012   I am a lucky wife because I have a husband who makes my morning tea on the weekends. That just means two days of tolerating a concoction that he has fondly labeled garma garam chai (piping hot tea). Truth be told, he has never got it right despite all my efforts to teach him the recipe; yet every time he asks me to comment, I exclaim, “Super!” He smiles thankfully knowing that I have lied yet again. The only thing he hasn’t ever figured out is whether I lied out of obligation or love. This charade between us has gone on for years now, even as he asks me, “What exactly do you do that I don’t to make it so well?” I want to shrug and say “I don’t know,” but I cock a brow and say airily, “extra love, perhaps.” I have never tried to master the art of cooking, thanks to the undemanding palates of my family. Like many other skills that I possess only in passable degrees, I have just got by with my culinary capabilities. With no fixed methods, it has always been a little bit of this and a little bit of that going into the pot, with the result that I turn up different versions of the same dish on different occasions. Mind you, they have not always been as delectable as I would have liked them to be. I am as clueless about a lip-smacking outcome as I am of a disaster — no credit to the cook or blame on the book for either. I have often seen cookery as a parallel to life, especially when taken within the constructs of success and failure. Mitt Romney must have spilled as much man-hours and money on the campaign trail as Obama, yet the outcome we had on the election day would see the former spend a life time contemplating on what went wrong. There was something missing in his recipe that he would be at pains to fathom. Obama, for his part, would still be wondering through his worry-tinted smile how he got those ticks in the electoral boxes. Ask anyone who has won life’s grand slams and he would rattle off platitudes likes persistence and planning as the stilts that raised him to glory. A discerning few mention grace as the catalyst. A team at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, recently claimed to have cracked the code to achieving box office success for Bollywood films. It beats me to think that one can win handsomely with some smart number crunching alone. If only success was so easy to compute and arrive at, if only it was math and not a matter of how the dice fell, many of us would have been bestselling authors or screen scorching stars or globe-trotting entrepreneurs. While it is within everyone’s individual capacity to slog and stretch one’s limits, the abstract ingredient that we call ‘luck’ is something that one doesn’t find in recipe books and road maps to success. It is something that plops into our cooking pan and makes even the humble porridge a contest winner. It certainly helps to take tips from the experts and add value to our methods, but eventually we make our own dish with a unique taste of its own. It is nearly impossible to say what makes some enterprises so wholesomely successful although one can ascribe several variables to it; just as it is impossible to say what makes my tea taste better than the one my husband makes, although I can claim a dozen things, including the love ingredient. The truth of the matter is that there is no perfect recipe — either to cooking porridge or brewing tea or crafting success. We all follow our own recipes to make our meal and in that lies the relish.

It's our second home

Khaleej Times (Issues) / 2 December 2012

It is that time of the year when my nationalistic sentiment stands deeply divided – this period between Diwali and the UAE National Day.

It is almost impossible to not feel the joy of belonging to a country so doused in the gaiety of a festival that makes entire neighbourhoods in Dubai take on an Indian avatar. It is equally impossible to be not in awe of the euphoria that sweeps the UAE in hues of red, green, white and black in the days ahead of December 2 every year. 

For an Indian to who Independence Day and Republic Day back home just meant two days off work and the national parade watched on TV, the fervour that is displayed here in the days leading up to National Day is a source of wonder, and many times, acute envy. As I wade through the sea of national colours now spurting in all possible forms, I put my patriotic responses under the scanner and fetch results that might explain the ambivalence prevailing in my heart.

There are no two ways about the fact that I love my country, but it is like the love a parent has for his or her wayward son. You love him because he is your flesh and blood, and it is not within your capacity to hate him despite his deficiencies. You censure him for his errant manner. He doesn’t give you sufficient reasons to compliment him yet you celebrate his birthday because you can’t disregard the congenital link.

You can’t disown him because he defines your existence in many ways. Often, you conceal your parental love and berate him, even as you wish that he gave you a chance to put him on the pedestal and raise a toast to him.

And then you have a friend, whose son is an epitome of virtues, and you almost wished that he was yours. Over a period of time you establish a bond with him that nudges and dislodges your parental leanings. A war in the heart ensues. Your affection is put to test. You have to choose between your son who went astray and your friend’s boy who gave a new meaning to your life with his charming ways and endearing company. You loathe making comparisons between them, but you do it anyway. For all the admiration you have for the latter, you know he can’t be yours. Sooner or later, you have to return home and share the roof with your incorrigible brat, in the hope that someday he would turn the corner.

Year after year, during vacation, I suffer the pangs of my divided love between the land of my birth and land of domicile. Just a few days into the holidays, once the early charm of homecoming wears off, I long to return to Dubai. The reasons are too stark and murky to merit detailing in the present moment. Back here, life acquires a rare charm and quality. It gains an even tenor, making monsoons and monsoon weddings in the family a distant memory that I cherish, but don’t sigh for audibly. Even my houseboy who shares a ten-by-ten room with seven of his friends and slogs for more than 12 hours a day says life here is a fairytale for many reasons.

Every expat here has more than one reason to love this place. Like the friend’s son, it cannot be completely ours, but while we are here, we owe a large share of our happiness to this land that we have nested in.

For this reason, l’m going to don some merchandise in the Spirit of the Union colours this weekend to express my gratitude and appreciation towards the nation that makes me smile every time I get off the plane. Sometimes, it feels good to wear your heart on your sleeve.

The anatomy of humour

Khaleej Times (Life) / 10 November 2012

SINCE I LOVE to begin my day with a smile, I reach for the comic strips of the day in the newspaper even before I brew my morning tea. The nuggets of humour, often laced with gentle wisdom, set the tone for my day. And sometimes, I even snip and put an exceptional one up on the face of my fridge for the benefit of guests.

Humour to me is indispensible. I can giggle at PJs (including the horrendously silly elephant-ant tales) and guffaw at the seriously funny gags by stand up comedians on TV. I can laugh heartily at the innocent humour of Calvin and Hobbes and chuckle at the cheeky office wit in Dilbert. The only thing that doesn’t easily tickle my funny bone is the laboured slapstick jokes and cheap puns in Indian movies.

Yet for all the love I have for comedy, I am a dud when it comes to making someone laugh. Try as hard as I may, I cannot produce a piece of writing that can evoke an instant burst of laughter. Every time I have tried to share a joke that I had heard elsewhere, I have had my audience looking up in anticipation, waiting for the humour to spill and sweep them over, only to find the joke fizzle and plonk like a bird dropping in our midst. It is almost like trying to hit a six and getting caught at mid- wicket. The charitable smiles on the faces in front of me makes me want the earth to cave in and consume me even as I am tempted to apologise for the cropper. But I let it be, happy in the thought that if not with my badly recast joke, I have at least given them a reason to laugh with my pathetic expression of humour. If you can’t crack a joke, be one yourself. People love to laugh at other men and women than at funny stories.

Two sets of people that I admire and envy greatly are talented humourists and slick marketers for possessing skills that I now believe are more DNA-related than degree earned. I can’t sell a hand-kerchief even to someone with a nasty cold, nor can I pull off a comic caper to amuse even a toddler. I am not exaggerating; smiley icons have been a great god-send in my effort to be humorous, at least in my personal correspondence. It is pitiable that I have to punch in a smiley face to hint at the humour intended in my words, but it is better to ride piggyback than to get grounded.

Humour, though, is quite a subjective area. I have seen hardcore defiance bordering on contempt next to me, even when I hee-hawed uncontrollably and got the soda in my mouth out in a spray. Apparently, what amuses one man does not amuse the other. The fact is you can’t hard sell comedy. You can’t plug a comic gag on your listener or reader, or play goofy just because you have a job to complete. Yet, humour to a large extent is a universal feel-good tool. Whether it tongue-in-cheek, in-your-face or naively jocular, it can change the contours of a stressed world and put a smile on its face. I wonder whether I’ll ever be able to learn the ropes and dish out a genuine course of comedy some day. But perhaps my DNA is not suitably wired for such fare.

Being funny is no joke and I would rather not steer into the territory of men out there doing this serious business of mirth and madness. I recognise that it takes more than a red foam nose and cartwheels to be a clown who can unleash a laugh riot. It is an art that not any pedestrian can pick up from the sidewalk and peddle at will.

Blissfully Anonymous

 

Khaleej Times (Life) / 26 October 2012

 

 

To the director of my destiny,

 

I have a confession to make, and considering that it takes a strong pack of nerves to own up to serious howlers in life, this is a rare act from me that has come after careful consideration of facts.

There was a time when I had relentless desire for popularity. I had to be famous through one way or the other. I did not ask you for wealth specifically, because I am a noble soul and cannot brook being labelled a greedy fiend by you. I was clever enough to know that cash was a corollary to fame. If one came, the other had to trot behind anyway.

I didn’t want a sample of fame that you grudgingly showered on me for only fifteen minutes, nor did I want to be famous just in my neighbourhood. I had wanted to be genuinely well known — the kind that people recognised from far and mobbed, the kind that stared out of glossy magazine covers, the kind that had a ready retinue in attendance; in short, the sort that the world saluted, cheered and drooled over.

It was a dream that I had played out in my mind many times and prayed would someday materialise, even though I had no clue how. I had left it to you to make the blue print and execute it with a whoosh of your wand. I knew I didn’t have it on my face (and the rest of my bulk) to be a super model. I didn’t have enough spunk to be a political powerhouse. And I surely didn’t have what it takes to fashion an Academy award winner out of me, nor have whatever else it took to garner mass appeal. Yet I imagined that if you wished, you could make it happen even without any merit in my kitty. You had after all crafted Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian. If nothing, you could at least get me hitched to a famous man for husband and let his surname rub on me.

Alas, you turned your back on me. After years of waiting, I gave up on you and put a lid on my innocuous aspirations and earnest appeals. I was reconciled to the fact that it wasn’t in your scheme to make me renowned. You relegated me to a non-descript life in a bustling city where not even my neighbours recognised me. For too long I was filled with spite and a sense of deprivation, until I learnt about the existence of creatures that slavered over and intruded into the precincts of the rich and the famous, and made a mockery out of their lives to be served to the scandal-loving public. Call them Papparazi or what you will.

I now shudder at the thought of having a denuded existence with no doors to shut the world out, living life as if I were in the Big Brother’s house, constantly under surveillance. I now see what it means to be Lady Di, Aishwarya Rai or Kate Middleton — ruthlessly hounded and hunted down.

If you had said ‘yes’ to my prayers, I might have made it to the hallowed firmament, but I would also have had to jettison the little pleasures of watching the sunset on Jumeirah beach, sipping French Vanilla at Tim Hortons, loitering aimlessly in Dubai malls, haggling cheekily at Meena Bazaar, having falafels from roadside joints, taking a stroll down Karama with my husband, walking around without make up in my tees, capri and flip flops...

I confess that I was sore at you and had felt severely let down when you handed me this obscurity, but I now understand and appreciate your judgment. The perks of fame are not a patch on the joys of anonymity. Must give credit to you – you are an ace and know your job too well.

Thank you, God, for the small mercies.

Safe havens for the elderly

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 20 October 2012

I AM PRESENTLY on a holiday in my hometown in India, to spend a month with my aged parents.

The other day, for the first time in all these years, a random thought regarding my parents’ declining of health crossed my mind: Mom and dad should perhaps pack their bags and go to an old age home. There, I can imagine the instant look of horror on your face! You would want to censure me, stamp me evil and ungrateful but I am unaffected. Even if the world declares war on me, I would stick to my view and you will soon know why, and in all probability, agree with me by the end of this article.

This particular rumination hit me on October 1 — the International Day for Old Persons. And no, that’s not preposterous and mean, but, in fact, purely coincidental. Keeping with the mood of the event, reports and discussions on the rising levels of geriatric abuse and fervent calls for restoration of old-age dignity have been rife in the media. Everyone, who has a voice and conscience, has been condemning the manner in which we are choosing to treat our old people. Even in the midst of the din, I hold my own – my parents should go to a home for the aged.

Picture this: An old couple whose children live abroad, who have equally old people for neighbours and who grapple with ailments — frail limbs, failing memory and undulating vital parameters. They live in a house that needs to be preserved with regular maintenance work. They have chores to take care of that involve constant squabbling with the house help and the handy man. They have utility bills to pay and banking issues and tax returns to deal with, and worst of all, they live in the constant fear of being robbed or murdered for petty cash and jewelry they keep as their savings. It is a scenario that can incapacitate the most gallant veteran in town, and induce insomnia and panic attacks in their children living miles away in foreign territory.

Now imagine a new setting: A common abode for old people in a locality that is now aptly re-christened a ‘retirement community’, where none of the above concerns afflict them and where most of their routine affairs are taken care of. This is a place where loneliness doesn’t debilitate the mind and there is no house to maintain and no kitchen chores to do. Doctors are available to attend to any emergencies. Isn’t the very idea invigorating to our generation of overseas sons and daughters?

Of course, there are innumerable instances of filial ingratitude in our society where the old folks are trashed and trampled for the most selfish reasons, but that’s not what prods me to support the cause of old age homes. We need a mechanism that offers safety and support to our parents, because it is practically impossible for many of us to be by their side at all times. Our folks themselves desire independence and for many reasons would dispose suggestions to live under our roof as unviable. Thus, the only arrangement that can guarantee their well being and our peace of mind is a ‘retirement community.’

My earliest memory of an old age home is a decrepit building, where the unwanted elderly crouch in corners and cursing their fate. They were cast-aways who were dumped by their families and were often forgotten. But times have changed and so has the concept of old age homes. It is no more the place that children choose to offload their burdensome parents; it is where we believe we can deposit them to be kept in safe custody. It is where they can re-retire and lounge unencumbered by the hassles of a changing world and enjoy their retired life.

Viva la Gangnam style

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 13 October 2012

It is time to play the devil’s advocate.

This article is in support of all those who thought Kolaveri Di was the coolest piece of music ever composed; for all those who have now taken up phantom horse riding for a dance form and have made gallop their natural gait; for all those who added Fifty Shades of Grey to their private library as if it was a classic that would be later bequeathed to their children; for all those who considered movies like Rowdy Rathore, Tiger and Eat Pray Love phenomenal, and thus helped them clinch blockbuster status; for all those who can’t figure out why they are being slammed for loving all these. Tastes, after all, are a matter of personal predilections over which not even one’s spouse or pet dog has any right to comment. And finally, for all those who wonder if there are species on earth left that can listen to Beethovan or Bhimsen Joshi on the weekend and read Ernest Hemmingway, Thomas Hardy or George Orwell on a flight.

Folks, this one is for you. I wholeheartedly stand behind you in your struggle to hold your own against an orthodox cluster that has made a habit of passing judgements on everything you do—from the way you dress in your slit-in-the-knee jeans, to the tattoo on your back to your spendthrift ways, to even your new methods of loving and leaving.

I understand (and I say this without an iota of malice or pretence) that you live in a completely altered environment from what your geeky uncles, aunts and professors lived in. It is banal to go into the details of your smart, sassy world, but you need a strong case to present to the old school, lest you are mauled and maligned for no apparent fault of yours.You need to tell them that you dumped what they called timeless, because you had less time. You need to tell them that what they thought was classic, rings to your ears as crass.

You are a lot on the move, and can’t care about using your head for frivolous things. Your head has other uses — to build a career, sort out perennial money woes, tackle a nagging boss (both at work and at home), climb the social ladder and much more. Amidst all these, what you are looking for is some quick fare that will revive you instantly and give you a shot of adrenaline to stay in the rat race; not sedatives that will make zombies and ninnies out of you (combat games on PS3 are exceptions). Yours is a life on the fast lane, and you can’t nod off while you are at the wheel. You need to be alert, so you tune in to funky remixes that keep you jazzed all the way.

Tell them not to ridicule your choices, because you can snigger at theirs too and ask, “Seriously guys, how do you read through books full of words and expressions that give tedious descriptions instead of telling the tale as it is? Don’t you catch cerebral fever?”

Tell them that you love quick, easy-on-the-grey cells stuff that doesn’t weigh you down with literary eloquence. So what if novels these days use yuppie language and read like movie scripts? What if the movies are a slew of bizarre sequences that follow illogical plots? What if the music you shake a leg to is bereft of lyrical quality and just goes bang bang bang? It is what you understand. It is what you can bite, chew and digest. You love burgers and hot dogs. Now if they call it junk, are you to blame?

Move over quality, welcome mediocrity. Let’s now “Oppa Gangnam Style!”

Lost in the accent

Khaleej Times (life) / 5 October 2012

MY HUSBAND and I recently got two free tickets to the latest Batman movie. Although popular wisdom and practice prescribe that anything that comes gratis must be grabbed and gobbled at once, I asked my husband to pass on my ticket. He could watch the movie with whomever he wanted, for all I cared. I wasn’t interested in watching it because I don’t, for the life of me, understand a word of what goes on in an English movie!

The last English film that I watched in a cinema was either the first or the second part of the First Blood series during the early eighties. I still can’t say which was worse on my ears — the guttural mumblings by Sylvester Stallone or the rattle of his machine gun. I was accompanied by my neighbour and family, whom I considered superior creatures for being able to enjoy the movies. But the best I could think of doing was plugging my ears and squeezing my eyes shut till it hurt, and wait for the lights to come on at the end of the movie. (One can’t even doze off with so much noise around you!)

And now decades later, I still don’t have the guts to walk into the cinema to watch an English movie. Believe me, I have let gems like Titanic and The Beautiful Mind, and magnum opuses like Gladiator and Braveheart pass, while the world was raving about them.

My friends were surprised at my linguistic deficiency and I guess they even chortled in secret. It is just a mind thing, they said. You will get tuned to it if only you started watching them, they averred, almost like one gets used to driving in Dubai. But the truth is, I cannot follow the movies, and the bigger truth I deeply suspect is, not many of them can either.

I wonder what it would be like to walk up to a non-native speaker, who has just stepped out of a cinema playing a Hollywood blockbuster, and ask him whether he understood every word spoken in the movie. Chances are — assuming they are not offended and are willing to be candid — that they will give me a coy grin and say, “Well, kinda. We understood what was transpiring.”

Now, I don’t want to spend money to ‘kinda’ understand things, especially when I can follow things almost completely free of cost in the cosiness of my living room. God bless Mr. Whoever for tagging English sub titles to movies on TV and DVDs. All right, watching classics on screen does make a sinking Titanic in the Atlantic look like a paper boat sinking in a plastic tub (especially on the 21-inch screen that we had way back then), the Roman army look like a swarm of ants and the Spiderman look less amazing and more like the commonplace gossamer spider crawling on our house wall. But at least, I don’t have to strain my ears, glue my eyes, blow my brains and yet come out of the hall completely disoriented just like I used to after our Calculus classes in junior college.

I don’t know if this issue with English movies is a woman thing, becase I haven’t heard men grumble about it as much as women. Men are probably more able to, by some strange design, able to follow the different accents of the language. Or does the truth lie elsewhere? What’s your bet on the possibility that a majority of those proficient, self-styled, non-native English movie buffs are in the same boat as me, but are merely too vain to concede that they too only ‘kinda’ follow things?

“Believe me, that’s generally the case,” a male acquaintance recently confessed.

Ah, that’s some relief! I now feel completely vindicated about a prolonged feeling of inadequacy. It’s okay to not understand English in the movies, after all.

Leaders of the heart

Khaleej Times (FIRST PERSON) / 25 September 2012

Like most people that I know, I am not a political aficionado, nor do I hold much regard for the profession (yeah, who does?).

But in the first week of September, I was glued to the television watching three political speeches by two men and a woman who came across as top-notch executives, dead serious about running the business of a nation called the United States than mere politicians pitching for votes to stay in power for another term.

Having no private stake in the great American dream, I had least interest in the statistics that were laid out in their speeches, nor could I vouch for its veracity. Yet, I sat riveted, catching nuances of oratory and trying to understand if anyone who could speak a language well could pull off such sterling performances. Perhaps not, the text and tele-prompters notwithstanding.

Of course, the purpose being political, direct and indirect salvos were fired by the men at their Republican rivals, but it had none of the high strung, soprano effect that I am so used to hearing in India. There was no use of lung power that made their spiels sound like hoarse battle cries; nor was there any tinge of incivility in their tone. Mingling policy with personal references, they created a political symphony that wafted out and touched the animated thousands gathered in front of them and many others dispersed across the globe.

As an old time fan of Bill Clinton’s inimitable oratory skills, and having taken a liking for Obama’s eloquence since the historic acceptance speech four years ago, I relished the veritable flavour of their speeches at Charlotte. Given the nature of the profession they are in, not all that they utter may be scratchless truths, but even the rhetoric they speak has a rare quality. Their promises to the people have the power to convince, and amazingly, even when they take a potshot at their rivals, they don’t sound like hot-headed rabble-rousers.

Notably, such leaders succeed in persuading a nation to trust them to do the job they have under taken for the sake of the people, than for their own. They come up trumps as political captains possessing great managerial qualities, leaders who make ‘shared responsibility’ and ‘being together’ indispensible virtues in the task of nation building. And what gets them the votes is the hope they kindle in their people, and the kindred spirit they evoke among them.

Applied within an organisation, these very aspects can help a corporate head establish an enviable rapport with his workers. In a domestic set up, this is what keeps the family intact and in good faith. Every team needs a leader who strikes a chord with his people and promises that even the worst scenario would pass and that there is hope for us if only we take the strides together.

Every citizen, every employee and every family member is prudent enough to know that not everything the boss says is going to be true, for things and people can fail. But if his tone vibrates with earnestness and his intent is selfless, even his half promises can comfort them. It can propel them to stretch their limits towards achieving their common goal. And when there is a concerted effort from every single quarter, when there is faith reposed in the leader who reaches out and makes them feel important in the scheme of things, conditions begin to improve and prospects get better.

Whether in running the affairs of a nation, or an organisation, or a family, it is important for powers that be to instil hope and restore confidence in their subjects, especially during hard times like now. It is this that Obama, as the CEO of the nation, along with the former president, the first lady and their team sought to achieve at the Democratic National Convention, and boy, what a neat job they did!

A fleeting thought on prayer...

The efficacy of prayer is not in getting desires fulfilled,
But in getting to that point where there is no desire to fulfill...
Does anyone out there have a GPS that will take me to that point???

Please avoid presents

 

There was a time when I loved receiving surprise gifts. Not anymore. Not because I don’t like being thought of fondly by someone, their thoughts deftly wrapped in gilt paper and satin ribbon, but what used to be pleasant surprises earlier, are off late turning out to be shocks evoking confusion and consternation. I have half a cupboard stacked up with things that I received in gifts - things that I have no clue what to do with. For all the love, sentiment and formality yoked in, I would hate to put a tag of ‘unwanted’ on them, but that is precisely what they are. Unwanted.

After lugging them around to the many houses we have lived in, I have now reached a point of serving an ultimatum on them.

If you thought disposing them off is easy as dumping your old shoes, think again. Most of them are spanking new, and throwing them away is heart wrenching. It is someone’s money after all, whether you got it first hand or second. Trust people to pass on things that sat unwanted on their shelves for a long time and when the clutter got too cumbersome, they wrapped it away. To me that is a mean thing to do. Moreover, to think that something that is absolutely useless to you can be useful to someone else is gross over estimation.

I am reminded of how one Diwali, a box of sweets that we had given to a relative trotted right back into our house after a few hours. Do I need to elaborate how?

So, re-presenting was not an option. I considered putting them up for sale on local e-commerce sites. In an age when everything from disco lights to dish washers can be sold on line a few ‘collectibles’ shouldn’t be a concern, right? Wrong. I soon realized that people really didn’t buy such small stuff second hand even as my adverts sat online for months. The tea sets weren’t bone china and the show pieces were no piece de resistance after all. Believe me, some things I wanted to dispose off were even hard to classify or describe.

I rued the absence of the garage sale culture in our place. We don’t have a private garage all right, but if only we could have an approximation of it! Someone suggested the flea market. But after the disastrous e-selling attempt, I couldn’t summon the courage to put my wares on display where they said only second hand items could be sold. Now, is my ‘unwanted’ stuff first or second hand? Should I deliberately scratch, chip or stain them to give them a second hand appearance?

Wonder why we are so obligated to be bounteous on people! Why do we get stressed about giving presents that we don’t even know will be cherished? Why can’t we be candid enough to ask what they would like and if we are asked for our preference, why can’t we spell it openly, instead of acting modest and saying, “Oh, please don’t bother,” knowing well that they would bother. Telling helps both sides. They will not be hassled about getting it right, nor will we be stuck with something genuinely redundant in our life. 

It is a pity that gift coupons are still a relatively unknown phenomenon out here. Wish we had more such avenues to gift and give. Letting your friends know your budget is far less offensive than foisting odd things on them, it is less embarrassing than having them see your nail impressions on the price labels. For some reason, we still balk at letting people know our limitations.  

Many years ago, my parents had insisted on footnoting our wedding invitation with a “Please avoid presents.” If I were wiser then, I would have added, “Flowers accepted.” It’s nicer to have a room bedecked with bouquets, than a cupboard choked up for years.

 

The Powerpuff Girls

Khaleej Times (Issues) / 7 September 2012

MARY KOM may not be the quintessential poster girl of the new age Indian, but to me she is a star. Not for the Olympic medal she brought home, but for the sheer woman power she represents, quite literally.

The day I watched Mary clobber her Tunisian rival in the quarters and later even when she went down fighting against a bigger opponent in the semis, I said to myself, “Here is a woman that no lusting Indian male would ever think of messing with.” It was an odd remark to make for a sporting hero, but Mary’s feisty blows in a strange way assuaged my disgust at the growing instances of sexual crime against women in India and elsewhere.

A couple that we know recently shifted from a locality in Sharjah that they felt was getting increasingly dangerous for their ten year old daughter. Without going into details, they voiced their fears about letting their young one walk around the place unescorted. Their concern was not unfounded or exaggerated, given that women and girls are stalked and stared even in this place that is far more secure than India.

The apprehensions of parents with a daughter cannot be undermined or belittled — not even in the best of places in the world — for there are demons in every society regardless of laws and legislations. And in a legal system that is as slack as the one in India, where eve teasing and gang rapes have become alarmingly common and the punitive action against the perpetrators does not effectively deter offenders, the less the hue and cry on the issue, the better it is considered. Consequently, this pathetic state of affairs has prompted many parents to equip their little girls with defence tactics by enrolling them in martial art classes.

Learning martial arts was completely unheard of in our times. This was not because things were any more safer or we were any more daring or our parents were any less anxious, but because in those days women travelled less distances to schools and colleges, did not party late or go out with friends and didn’t generally work in other cities or overseas. Back then, as soon as the girl completed her study and the maggot of worry chewed away at the parents’ hearts, they found her a suitable groom and transferred her custody to a man.

It would be scandalous to even talk on such retrograde lines now but time has turned many corners since then. Women are now waging fierce gender wars and winning them. Girls have smashed male citadels and entered even the boxing rings. Yet, for all the gallant strides made, the reality remains that women are still targeted by evil predators on the prowl.

It is against this background, that I celebrate Mary Kom’s victory. In an everyday scenario, she represents a feminine force that can deliver a mighty punch on the nose of the man who tries to act funny on the street or in the office cabin. Having a few techniques under her karate or taekwondo belt can transform a woman who would ordinarily be bundled into a vehicle by a gang of miscreants into a self defense expert who downs them temporarily to find an escape. Practically, it can instill oodles of courage and confidence into our women who are raring to live life to the fullest.

So, wouldn’t it be a great idea to have martial arts integrated into our school system in place of lame physical education sessions? Parents should seriously think of giving daughters self defence aid along with art, music, dance and swimming lessons. Our aim should not be to create million dollar babies to win boxing matches, but to empower our girls to lead a fearless life in a mean, heartless world. It’s time we belted them up.

Writing our remembrance speech

Khaleej Times (ISSUES) / 24 August 2012

Every time the world loses a living icon, we are treated to reams of tributes in the days that ensue. It makes the loss feel larger than it truly is; the person more real than he actually was and the tributes themselves contrived, and obligatory.

And after the initial outpouring has run its course, gentle criticisms start trickling in, making us feel that the hero was less super and more human, after all. The eulogies that seemed so authentic a few days ago, convert to gentle disparagement of a mercurial life that ended in ignominy, or glory blown to bits by common flaws, or simple blemishes that we failed to see so long.

From Michael Jackson to Steve Jobs to Rajesh Khanna, we saw it happen in recent times. Although frailty plays peek-a-boo with their names in the aftermath of their passing away, their lives are largely defined by the greatness of their deeds. They are remembered for the pleasant things than the odd chinks, and when the world mourns their loss we know that it is because they had touched our lives in some unique manner.

Is that how it will be when we leave the arena? It’s time to take stock of our innings here.

Imagine that you have been on a guided world tour with 15 other families. Places seen, pictures taken, milestones reached, mementoes collected, connections made, friendships built and life experiences shared. Ask anyone — upon return — memories about the people you were with will be more enduring than the places you visited. Every time you view the album, thoughts about your fellow travellers will emerge, evoking a smile, a fond thought, a smirk or a sneer. Remember, those viewing your pictures at the other end will be summoning up images of you too — gentle or otherwise — depending upon how you had conducted yourself. It is this that makes the trip worthwhile than the mountain views and museum visits. The mementoes and milestones are part of personal fulfillment, while impressions that we leave behind are for the world to reminisce.

At the time of our departure if we can have people lament over the loss of a dear friend and human being than just of a celebrity, if we have a eulogy at our memorial service that extolled our genuineness than our sterling track record, if people acknowledged that it was a life well lived, then we would have truly made the grade.

Come to think of it, won’t it be worth the while to try and draft our own remembrance speech, and let it chart the course of our life? Let there be something in it beyond making millions and marking anniversaries. Nothing can be a disservice to our existence in this world than characterizing it in terms of possessions and popularity.

We may or may not engineer new things for the world to revel in, may or may not be able to create jobs with an enterprise, may or may not regale millions with our tunes, find new methods to alleviate pain and poverty or get to the bottom of the big bang theory. But there is one thing we can all accomplish in our own little inconspicuous ways — leave lasting foot prints on the sands of time. How we do it amidst this hurly burly of modernity is for each of us to decipher. It may not be possible for everyone to make a podium finish, but if we have had a good bout, we will still be good enough to be remembered; just that we need to find the best way of bowing out of the ring, medals or no medals.

It shouldn’t matter if you go to the grave as a rich person, as Steve Jobs said. What should matter is going there as a good person and transferring your innate goodness to the earth to be recycled back into the world.

The odd case of social networking

Khaleej Times / Opinion (Issues) 5 August 2012

THE DAY I heard about the big Facebook IPO, I asked, “Do people really think this fad is going to last and stock it up to help them when they retire?”Brand me orthodox or anti-social, but in my private opinion, the FB is more like a conjugal intruder or a femme fatale (forgive me for the analogy), that will eventually get dumped by its ardent lovers. Here is my FB own story.

After being hounded by several FBians of different ages, I finally jumped on the bandwagon some time ago.

Now what?

Add friends, they said.

Who friends?

Those long lost ones from school and college.

You mean the ones who ate all the idlis and dosas from my tiffin, the ones who gave leaky pens when mine ran out of ink in the class, the ones who thought I was a loser just because I couldn’t cycle or swim and those who looked scandalised when they saw “One Hundred Years of Solitude” in my bag and exclaimed, “you, and Marquez”?

Why in the world would I add them? They were not my ‘friends’ then, how now?

That’s how it works. You send friend requests to all the people you know, from far and near, they said.

But they are in no way my friends! Does the FB have anything like an ‘acquaintance’ option? Nope?

Then forget it, I am not game.

Wait, they say. You can invite your close friends, the ones who have stuck by you, and the ones you reach out to when you simply want to unwind or de-stress. You sure have such entities in your life?

I try to think and count on my fingers. Now why do I want them on my FB list, when I can simply call, mail or text them?

Dummy, you are so out of step with the world, they slap their head. Do you know what wonders it can do to your network? They explain that it could get me exposure, it could breathe new life into my three and odd year old debut novel, I would know people across the globe and this could further my gains.

Gains? What gains? They ignore my question. I intercept their sermon and explain how at the time of my novel, I had reached across to scores of contacts, writing to them individually, appealing to them to be charitable enough to buy than ask for a complimentary copy. In response, I got loads of congratulatory messages. Only some went on to place an order or go and buy it. Fewer still wrote back with their comments. Moral of the story – knowing people is just not enough.

Hey, FB lets you take a peek into other people’s lives as well, they say suddenly as if throwing up an incentive, or lets you know whereabouts of someone you left behind in time. Or better still, it lets you tell the world what’s cooking in your kitchen.

Ugh! I have no interest in knowing that a distant contact’s pet dog has died of pneumonia or view someone’s pictures taken on a tour to Timbaktu or tell them that I had an uncouth encounter with a rogue lizard in the closet. Give me a break. I have enough happening in my life and have no time to go after the co ordinates of old neighbours and schoolmates, or open the windows of my life to them.

Utterly mulish, they mumble and give up on me.

So, here is my updated FB status. Several friend requests in waiting, from people I know in varying degrees or don’t know at all. The latest is from someone who has over 3000 friends and is only as familiar as an alien to me. Can someone suggest one good reason for me to confirm his request? Or why I must clog my in box with odd notifications?

Charity begins in the heart

Khaleej Times (Issues) / 27 July 2012

Back in India, it is common practice to ‘(p)reserve’ leftover food from the previous days for the house help or the roaming alms taker.

In many orthodox families, these leftovers are assigned a special place, at bottom most tray in the refrigerator and sometimes out in the open, for, their consumption or even sharing of space with the day’s fresh cooking is taboo, and is vehemently opposed by the elders of the family. However, with the passage of time and widening of views, the religious aspect has bowed out and now this theory and practice of handing out leftovers and old, used out things to the ‘poor and needy’ has acquired a whole new aspect.

Once, a woman relative who had pushed food from the previous week into the innards of her refrigerator and gone on a trip handed it out to her maid servant when she chanced upon it a week after she returned home. With a look of glowing satisfaction over her charitable ways, she exclaimed, “What a blessing that we have someone to give these leftovers to! Else the whole thing would have gone waste. It is one good meal for these poor things and I am glad I am feeding them. It is still not rancid, you see.”

I blinked hard. Did she mean to sound pleased to have not wasted the food, or vain over her largesse, or was she merely shaking off a secret guilt of dumping something that was inedible for her family, but could mean a feast for the poor woman’s children?

“I am not sure if they should be having it. If it is not good enough for you or me, it isn’t good enough for them either.” I must have sounded oddly ecclesiastical and moralistic, but I spoke my mind.

“Oh, they are used to it. A little here or there doesn’t matter to them. They will add some spice, boil it and refresh it. It is better than throwing it in the bin. It is filling some empty stomachs, after all.” I gulped emptily, as she spoke those words of vindication.

Come to think of it, haven’t we all been agents of pseudo philanthropy at some time or the other? Remember how when we were asked to cough up relief material for the flood, tsunami, earth quake or famine affected people around the globe, we stuffed bags after bags of overused, frayed clothes that we had no place to keep in our house? How many times have we been guilty of finding relief appeals a means to get rid of the rubbish choking our closets, sometimes disposing even inner wear and towels! I have witnessed volunteers at pains to sift through mounds of refuse, separating the truly usable from the trash. Does it take too much of good sense to know that it is to real, living people like you and me, people at a disadvantage in a world of imbalances for no fault of theirs that we are passing this junk to in the name of charity?

For once, in this season of giving, let us get reasonable for the sake of our own conscience. Let us give only if we really have the heart to help and not to clear clutters or gain an ego high. What is old and decrepit to us is so to those whom we give. What is unpalatable or worse for wear to us is so to them too. Depositing bags full of unusable refuse makes a mockery of the fine virtue of charity. Let’s not wait for the use by date to pass. Let’s feed when the food is still fresh, clothe when the cotton is still crisp; let’s count those to whom we give as human beings made of the same elements and sensibilities as we are.

Wishing you pest of luck

Khaleej Times (Issues) / 19 July 2012

 

It is the season of pests. The weather in town is getting cozier for the creepy crowd to swarm into our homes, no matter how well swept, mopped and disinfected. The sightings of three bed bugs and some other romping creatures in our house last month openly challenged the hygiene quotient of my immaculate home and freaked me out of my wits. Of all the intruders, the most wicked is the bed bug - the nocturnal vampire that sets shop and proliferates as if there were no tomorrows.

I clearly remember the night it first registered its presence home. An itch on my elbow, followed by another. As the island grew on my arm I knew there was something on the prowl in the bed. I looked in the dark at the snoring bulk next to me, unsure if I must stir him out of sleep.

Something just bit me, I said shaking him.

Nothing bit me. You must be imagining, he mumbled when I tried again.

Imagining? You don’t imagine such things. Look here, I said, stroking the island on my arm.

He pulled the blanket and turned to the other side.

Frustrated with my attempts to wake him up, I turned the lights on. The sudden glare forced him to sit up and squint at me, irritation galore.

Get up. I want to check the bed, I said urgently.

I pulled the pillows and blankets out, flapped them hard, peered into the bed and then saw the frolicking, little pest against the pristine fabric.

There! Get him, I screamed.  By now wide awake, hubby boy swooped down on the devil and crushed it, leaving a brilliant red spot on the sheet.

That’s my blood, I squealed with horror as if I had just survived an attempt on my life.

Least amused by my theatrics, hubby boy slumped and picked up his sleep and snoring from where he had left off.

Turn the lights off when you are done, he droned.

I failed to fathom why in the world the bug had picked on me while the guy next to me slept like a baby, oblivious to the presence of the terror elements in our midst. Wallowing in the self pity of being a soft target, I lay awake, shuddering at the slightest tingle against my skin. A strand of hair, the fold of the sheet, the air from the AC, everything made my skin creep. Fear, when given some leeway, doesn’t just mar your sleep; it wrecks your sanity and causes brain damage.

Get the pest control guys immediately, I said the next morning. I‘m sure there are more guys holed up in there and we must flush them out ASAP, I said with the gravitas of a homeland security chief. And so, the commandoes arrived, armed to the hilt, to evict the evil creatures.

Our home is now sanitized. But the scourge and its lieutenants will creep back, I am sure, once the vigil slackens and the effect of the operation wears off.  It is impossible to wipe out evil completely, but that can’t push me into a state of perpetual fear, can it? You can’t stop taking the public transport or going to restaurants and hotels or giving clothes to the laundry for the fear of bed bugs. Just as you can’t stop eating out because of a recent report of food poisoning, or stop leaving your home because some house in the neighbourhood was broken into, or stop flying because you read about underwear bombs, or simply stop living because the new world is fraught with danger. Life has to go on, picking its way through the warren of apparent risks, genuine threats and perceived fears. Some precaution and prayer can help bolster our confidence. The rest is destiny, for, if anything can go wrong, it probably will.

Gifts from the Gulf

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 2 July 2012

I REMEMBER a time, several years ago, when I used to look forward to the visits of a maternal uncle and a family friend from the Gulf.

The two men would come once in two years with goodies — colour pens, perfumes, dresses in garish colours and wild patterns and once even a chain with a locket watch. The distinct foreign scent that wafted out of the packet took my breath away as I gratefully accepted whatever came with it, doing nothing to hide my toothy glee, although mom and dad protested to the gifting that by then had become a happy routine.

My sister and I wore the pleated skirts and twirled like ballerinas, sprayed the scent all over us, slung the mini purse from abroad on the shoulder, peppered our speech with accent and acted like foreign madams. Those were days when gifting wasn’t mere posturing or formality; it was a gesture that was imbued with a sanctity largely missing today. Much as it was a ritual to carry presents when one visited relations and friends on a vacation home, there was a genuine sentiment of joy in both giving and receiving, no matter how big or small the present was. Even scented erasers and 3D rulers were prized possessions to flaunt in school.

Cut to the new age. Consider taking paint boxes and Chinese toys to the young ones and be prepared to be damned and shamed. And, why not? The things you take home, those little things that once made your day, are now on display at the nearest variety store back home, thanks to China. “Oh, we have this in the store here. Cheap things. I had hoped you would get me an I-pod Touch,” the little fellow mumbles. And then as if to belittle you, he lists the things his maternal uncle from the US had brought in the previous year. His slightly older sister then dumps the dress you thought was ‘oh, so pretty and princess like’ and didn’t even buy at a sale by saying, “I don’t wear these sort of clothes. Moreover, it is not my size. I don’t want it!”

Chocolates, the less said the better. “You either get us Ferrero Rocher and Lindt or nothing,” the boy quips. Older lads prefer laptops and smart phones, young girls are confused about their choices, their parents cast aside (albeit discreetly) smaller stuff along with the love you tucked inside and there are those who remark, “We get better dry fruits here these days, although expensive.”

Very well. Get them if you like, you want to say, but you don’t. You want to say that things are pricey there too and buying expensive presents isn’t even a remote proposition to you, but you don’t, because you can’t talk about dearth, deficit and downturn to folks who now watch cricket on LEDs, drive SUVs and whose children wear uber cool clothes and accessories. To a majority back home, a guy in the Gulf is always in plenty, enjoying manna from heaven, no matter which way the world goes. They won’t believe that you haven’t got a bonus or a raise in three years, that your tax free income doesn’t pack in as much as it used to, that you live in the perpetual fear of the pink slip and that life abroad is no more what is used to be.

It is not about presents anymore, it is about meeting their expectations. It is not about the sentiment that you pack in, but the worth of what is inside. It is not about what you think they might like, but their newfangled preferences. We are fully conscious of it, yet as creatures of habit and slaves to a tradition, we scramble from store to store, looking for bargains and means to fill our vacation bags, eager to please but never quite measuring up, time after time