Thoughts on the Mumbai blasts

I didn't want to write about this because I didn't think I would have anything to add. The incidents didn't take place in Pune after all. But after a little prompting, I thought I should atleast note what happened here.

• To give you a glimpse into life here - my parents didn't call me up as soon as they heard that the blasts occurred. It's either because they've become so common, or because of Pune's distance from Mumbai. They were fractionally more concerned when the Raj Thackeray arrest and the subsequent riots happened. Same goes for office safety meetings. We didn't have one. But we did when the Raj Thackeray incident happened.
  
• But most importantly, death and destruction doesn't shock Indians as much as it does the West. The Tsunami shocked all of us when we were in the US, but within an year or so, the word "Tsunami" was being used as a punchline or for fun reasons in song lyrics. I don't think the Mumbai blasts will be used in the same way, but you get the picture.
• The biggest sentiment at work the morning after the attacks was "Oh crap! We'll have to hear more nonsense about the so-called Mumbai spirit. Enough already!" Not fear, or anger but a loathing of the anticipated nuisance.
• I knew it wasn't 9/11 because people at work were working, instead of just sitting in shock or staring at the TV/Internet feeds. Not to imply that no one was watching the news but work didn't come to a standstill.
  
• The big news item a lot of people were watching was the call by one of the terrorists to one of the Indian channels. Again, they were amused by the fact that we had a "call-in" from a terrorist, rather than any negative feelings like anger or sadness.
  
• Personally my first concern was for my manager who was to leave Pune (for good) the very next day and go to New Mexico. (We found out a few days ago that he made it back fine.)
• Politicians are falling down like dominoes. First Shivraj Patil, the extremely incompetent Home Minister who only survived so far because of the blessing of some Italian chick. Then the deputy CM of Maharashtra for saying that "these things happen in big cities". Then the CM of Maharashtra, although I don't know why that one had to go down.
• There's a Muslim guy at work. He's part of a group of about 10 people that go to lunch together every day. He's a good worker, he was a team leader and recently he was even made manager. On the day of the attacks though, at lunch, the tension was palpable. No one was speaking to him and even he was very subdued. Things are better now.

Lola TV

Channel V has a program called Lola TV. Lola Kutty this
stereotypically Malayali-looking girl who interviews celebrities. At
first I thought it was Shenaz Treasurywala under that make up and was
quite impressed that she mastered the nuances of the Malayali accent
and small expressions. But turns out that it is a new face (to me)
called Anuradha Menon. Anuradha apparently is from Kerala but settled
in Chennai.

At first, when I thought it was Shehnaz, I thought it was quite a
"racist" portrayal but I was won over by the genuineness of the
portrayal. She wasn't mocking Malayalis as much as she was pretending
to be one of them - unlike the mehmood portrayals from the 80's where
every Tamilian was supposed to go - "Ayyo kyaa jeeee?" Of course,
knowing that it's a Malayali girl made even that black mark disappear.

It's a fun program, although, even I find it hard to understand her
accent sometimes. And I wonder how the Bollywood celebrities manage to
keep up with her!

A peculiar ... preference

We had a networking event organized at work today. A certain bigshot from upper management came and talked about career growth etc. It was a very motivational talk. The guy was White.
But what caught my eye was his wife. She was Asian (I think Thai). That's not the first White manager in the company I saw with an Asian wife. One of the White managers who works in the Pune office has an Asian wife too. And when I asked around, turned out there were a lot more. Now these don't seem like the type of modern couples that come from liberal colleges, where race is not an issue when you're seeking out your life partner. If that were the case then I'd see more Black wives, or Hispanic wives. But these are predominatly Asian women. It almost seems like you need to be married to an Asian woman to advance in this company!

Atidhi devo bhava

One of my monthly payments, like rent and elec bill, is the "society charges". These are for maintenance work like painting the walls etc I suppose. The payments are made to a representative who lives in the complex itself, a certain Mr. Mehta. Mr. Mehta is an Marathi gentleman, who lives with this wife and two young kids, a daughter and a son.

Last month when I went to pay the charges, he wasn't home, but the rest of his family was. So I mentioned I was there to pay the charges and I could come back later. His wife was used to taking payments and giving out receipts, so she said she could do that for me. As this conversation was going on, I was standing at the door, I didn't step in yet. So she offered me a seat in the living room, where her kids were doing their homeworks. As she was preparing the receipt books, she asked me if I wanted coffee or tea or something. I politely refused. Then she asked if I wanted water. I refused again. Right then, her boy (who had to be about 5) jumped out of his seat and ran inside. I paid no attention to it. As she made small talk while writing up the receipt, the kid walked back into the living room with a glass of water! I was amazed at that kid's gesture. Regardless of whether he heard me right or not, for him to perform him host duties. And he's 5!

The next time I went to their home, Mr. Mehta himself was there and again, he did all the host duties in spite of the fact that basically I was there for a business transaction and not a social visit. It was nice.

A knock on my door in the night

Last night as I was talking to my dad on the phone, I heard a knock on my door. I asked dad to hang on and opened the door. There was a guy there pointing at the door of my flat across from mine and asking me if I knew if they were away. (That's always a weird thing that happens in India - people look at a locked door and ask if the residents are home. Who do they think lives in these houses, Houdini?)

So I told the guy I had no idea. He then started asking me if the people who used to live in my flat moved away. (Another ambiguous phrasing of a question!) I told him they had. At that point he started getting personal - how long have I lived here, how much rent do I pay, how many live in the flat and how much deposit I paid. Somewhere in there I got suspicious and asked him who he was. Instead of responding, he asked me his question again. At this point I told him he needs to ask my house owner all these questions and closed my door.

Today morning I thought I'd warn my neighbours of this guy who claimed to know them. When I finished telling them what happened, my neighbour tells me, "Yeah, that's our house owner". I was stunned! What the hell, why wouldn't he just say that when I asked him who he was instead of being super creepy and asking all sorts of details. What a weird guy!

Institutional racism in India

Most of you know this but it keeps striking me as odd how there is a different pricing system for foreigners at most (if not all) national monuments. Entry for Indians - Rs. 5, for foreigners - Rs. 100. What's worse is, this comes down to racism. Because no one is checking for passports or anything. By rule, an American of Indian origin should be charged Rs. 100, but instead it's the White-, Black- and perhaps Asian-looking folks that are charged the Rs. 100.

And it's not even commented upon. I've seen atleast one incident where a foreigners walked upto a monuments and seeing the price tag, walked away. Now granted, a real tourist would pay because that's why he's there. But local non-Indians and semi-local ones, like for eg, the ones who work at my company, wouldn't bother entering these places because of this discrimination.

And that's the thing. It's not because the price tag is higher. But because they're using a double standard. Normally I'm take a lot of perverse pleasure in double standards, but this is just ridiculous.

Paid my first internet bill

I got a huge bill. But it's not usage related, I had just forgotten
about a lot of "hidden" costs like tax and installation fees. The bill
arrived 20 days after the due date!! I would have raised a stench
about it at the office but I am not charged any late fees, so it's not
a big deal.

Sweet sweet irony - when you can't use the internet to pay the
internet bill. You can pay your landline and cellphone bills for BSNL
online, but not the internet bill because the website hasn't been set
up.