Bengali Valentine's Day

So Saraswati puja is around the corner and the clichéd “Saraswati puja is Bengali Valentine's day” phrase is doing the rounds. I’m not religious enough to take offense at the mention of love on a holy occasion but the comparison is probably not valid in today’s context.

May be one or two generations back when male-female interactions were largely prohibited puja times had acted as an excuse for free mingling. But nowadays children are raised in a different manner. They study in coeducational institutions, they play in mixed groups and no one raises an eyebrow if a girl and a boy are found interacting.

Saraswati puja thus is no longer the much needed bridge between girls and boys. It definitely is an excuse for the teenagers to dress up like grown ups and feel good about it. It definitely is an excuse to have the delicious prasad and lunch. But it no longer qualifies as an excuse for random flirting.

However I feel that the best part about Saraswati puja is the irrevocable license to not study. [For those of you are unaware of the tradition: Saraswati puja is the worship of the goddess of knowledge and ironically people are not allowed to study on this day.]

Every one who has ever been a student has immensely enjoyed this study curfew.

Sometimes the work shirker inside my bengali self wishes that the job sectors had similar no work policies…sigh...

Cats vs dogs

The dog lovers’ community largely outnumbers the cat lovers’ community. I can safely say that I belong to none. I have never longed for a pet nor do I belong to the throw-stones-at-animals club. When it comes to animals I choose to take Buddha’s middle path ie be kind to them but no need to keep them at home and clean up their poop.

Coming back to today’s contest…a lot has been said about the selfishness of cats and the unconditional love of dogs. Some superficial people also argue in the lines of “Cats are cuter”/”Dogs are cuter” when you ask them which is better but we shall not veer into those lines today.

Going by the opinion of the majority we can assume that dogs are indeed more friendly and loyal. But is there no one else apart from me who admires the attitude of the cats? Right from the graceful “devil-may-care” walk, the indifferent scowl and the “I’m obliging you” glance, every thing about the feline attitude impresses me. A cat, I feel, effuses elegance and independence.

In contrast think about a dog’s tail wagging, tongue hanging and propensity to begging. The canine nature is very servile and dogs are always more than willing to please us human beings. Dogs are definitely more social. They flatter us and we tend to love them more.

But may be subconsciously we all respect the nose-in-air attitude of the cats. It's very easy to find a dog who loves his master but it's very hard to find a cat who would accept you as the master. And that is why we have numerous profanities involving dogs but almost none regarding cats.

Hugs and kisses

Let the title not confuse you…expect no mush from this article. In fact today we are going to voice our aversion for hugs and kisses.

Nowadays some people find it very normal to greet you with a hug and the oh-so-fancy air kiss. Well…some of us find it very annoying.

This is not an issue of cultural or societal changes. This is an issue of lack of judgement.

Admitted that some people find it very normal and they only try to express their friendly wishes. But the person on the recipient end might not appreciate it. We should take a little while to ponder whether a hug is welcome or not.

For instance, some of us think hugs are only acceptable from people from whom we expect carnal or filial love. We would much rather have other people greeting us on a verbal level. 

So that is all for today…we are just people who do not like their personal space to be intruded into. We are not alleging any thing, we are not doubting your well meant intentions…we just expect you to not assume that every body thinks alike. If a person never initiates a hug it is better to not greet them with one.

Adarshya Bharatiya Nari and the myth of the robust Indian marriage

Are you a female? Has anyone ever insulted you by calling you an Adarshya Bharatiya Nari (The Ideal Indian Woman)? Yes…you read that right. It is an insult and not a compliment. It is another way of calling you a wimp who cannot stand up to her own rights because that is the kind of value system India fosters for women.

A few years back funny man Mir was cracking marital jokes and as usual he had his audience in stitches. My mother was visibly perturbed. She did not like the fact that domineering wives and hen pecked husbands had become the content of Mir’s jokes. “There should be some jokes about atrocious husbands and docile wives too”, she remarked. I told that her that such plots would be the content of news channels and not comedy shows because jokes cannot be about real problems.

They say that Indian marriages are rock solid and the ideal Indian women are the stabilizing factor behind marriages and the gullible Indian ladies happily accept the role of playing the second fiddle in her husband’s life.

In the west men and women get equal privileges in a marriage. I admit that they have their own problems but at least they do not make a pathetic charade out of their marriages.

Several Indian marriages are unhappy but people just continue with it. Indian girls are brought up that way; subconsciously society ingrains into a girl’s psyche that a good wife’s role is solely to please her husband and sacrifice her own wishes.

Even today an unmarried girl is looked upon with pity. “She found no takers?? That’s rough.” No matter how much accomplished she is, the possibility of the girl herself not wanting to be chained down does not feature in the list.

In India a girl is always a commodity. Ever been to a Hindu marriage? The girl’s father transfers the ownership to the groom. Some pretty insulting verses are chanted in Sanskrit by the two men during the process in the name of tradition. [The father has to beg his would be son-in-law to take the girl…all said in Sanskrit to conceal the indignity of the act]  The girl’s consent is not asked for even once. Yet we continue with the custom.

Indian marriages do not have much hope for the girl from the onset. Every one knows it. A very obvious proof is that the girl always cries…not the tears of joy…real tears of sorrow while leaving her home. Again that’s not the way it’s supposed to happen…in the west we see the bride insanely happy. For them marriage means happiness and not compromise.

We can’t really blame the complacence of the Indian men. With rampant cases of rapes, wife beatings and women’s humiliations around most Indian husbands feel that they are giving a royal treatment to their wives. The question of guaranteeing equal rights does not even occur to them.

And yet we stupidly hope to eradicate female foeticide. It’s natural for every parent to hope for a son…their child is precious to them…in a country like India they would want it to have the edge of being a male.

So ladies…do continue to be apologetic about your basic rights, do continue to succumb under the societal pressures, and do continue to curb your own wishes…after all the legacy of continuing the myth of the robust Indian marriage lies safe in your hands.

Books vs Movies

Some of us love books…some of us love movies…and some of us have time for neither.

But what happens when a book is made into a movie?

Almost never would any one find a movie meeting their expectations if they have read the book version.

You see reading a book requires a lot of patience and concentration and it fuels up our imagination. [Actually this bulk of effort often acts as a deterrent to book reading. Watching a movie does not consume so much energy and people often dump books in favour of movies. ]

Let’s delve into our psyche while reading a book. As we read we visualize the described imagery and the events occurring in the book. So in short when we read a book we subconsciously direct and watch the movie version of it.

After that experience a movie version is bound to seem insipid. We have already watched the movie!!! And that movie had been directed by you, customized to suit your own whims and idiosyncrasies. No matter how much the poor movie director tries to cater to the mindset of his audience it is not possible for him to outdo the little directors sitting inside our heads.

In my life I have found only one movie which was better than the book. The movie was directed by Satyajit Ray and I had read the story after watching the movie.

To this day I don’t know whether it was Ray’s sheer caliber which made the movie a better experience or was it because I had read the story later.

Verdict for today? If you want to enjoy a movie do not read the book and if you have already enjoyed the book then don’t waste your time and money by watching the movie.

Bhagwan darshan

People take a lot of trouble to visit the places of god. Tell people to work out every day and they will turn up their noses but ask them to climb a flight of 1000 stairs to a holy shrine and they would readily huff and pant all the way.

What I do not get is why this tremendous hype is associated with paying a visit to gods’ places. God is definitely not our friend…friendship is possible between two equals and with God we always take a servile demeanour and deep down we harbour the hope to get a big favour done in return of our piety. That’s definitely not the code of conduct between friends.

Now think of our mythology. You will get so many examples where people have observed penance for thousands of years to please a particular god. And when they finally appeared they inevitably asked for immortality. Do you see the hypocrisy? A person who has already survived a thousand years without food and water was already blessed with a pretty long life. Now instead of making good use of it the idiot chose to waste the years in penance…only to ask for the same thing.

Most of us do not understand the rote chanting of the mantras. Mantras mostly consist of praises of the gods and glorification of their attributes interspersed with the odd request of looking after the well being of us, mortals. Basically while worshipping we choose to flatter the gods in a quaint language (Sanskrit) and we expect gods to be pleased with us.

I like the way Durga puja is celebrated. No one is thinking about religion. People have hastily got their yearly makeovers and during the festivities they would eagerly show their new selves off. People would visit the deities more to observe and appreciate the art than with the intention of appeasing the wrath of the gods. The children are happy to get a good break from studies, the young and unmarried are all decked up and busy falling in durga puja-induced-short-term-love, the newly-weds are busy getting themselves clicked incessantly, the much married women are planning pot luck meals while their husbands are excitedly planning about the other kind of pot.

That’s a mature way to deal with a festival. No one is expecting to get favour from God just because they have participated in Durga puja. They did it because they loved it.

Recently an important gentleman who is a strong contender for the upcoming elections criticized the decision to hunt for gold based on a seer’s dream. He was cursed by the seer and had to issue a public apology. Sigh… May be we need a law to restrain people from obsessively performing puja and depending on god...logic is clearly not working…will a prohibitive law work? I don’t know exactly what but something needs to be done to protect this country from blind faith. Do you have any idea??? Please do share...

Transience

I have reached a decision and I would like to announce it to the world.

“It is not possible to be happy.”

Do I hear a pandemonium of protests?? Hear me out before you all pro-happiness people start to counter me.

It is possible to experience brief spells of happiness spread over a period of time (ok...let’s call that a lifetime) but to expect to attain a perpetual state of happiness would be to aim for the unattainable.

Look around…there is not a single person who can claim to be happy all the time.

There are people who would say that a lot depends on your perspective which is true. What makes you happy might not be a trigger for me but that does not mean people who have set easier goals in life are more likely to be happier.

Unlike what wise men (majority of society calls them wise…I think otherwise which is palpable from my snooty and derisive comments) tell us happiness is not need-based. If you tone down out your expectations you do not make yourself closer to happiness…you are just giving in to sloth (a sin according another set of wise men…these people have no consistency) Your acceptance of whatever life has to offer might make you fitter for survival but it does no good in making you happy permanently.

Happiness can be at best likened to orgasms…it is definitely possible to have lots of them in a life time but it would be moronic to expect to experience it 24/7.

If that is not good enough a deal for you try to pay off your karmic debts fast and wait for your next life…may be it would be set in Utopia.

PS: People with opposing views are most welcome to start a debate. I being a “jhogrute opinionated bong” am fond of participating in heated arguments.