Moody Fellows All!

There was great consternation in the Revolutionary Party headquarters.  At 11 that morning, the pronouncements of an entity called Moody’s had sent the mood of all the Revolutionaries into a tailspin. After sulking for 13 years, the Moody’s chappie had decided to upgrade the Indian economy.  And as the morning wore on, and it became increasingly clear that the Moody pronouncements had placed a feather in the political cap of the ruling dispensation, the mood in the office became increasingly hysterical. Stock market analysts lovingly spelt out the contours of what it meant to go from Baa3 to Baa2. News channel anchors belted out endless sentences – some of which made some sort of vague sense, most did not – about how the Moody’s guy had finally done the right thing by India. Blah, blah, blah. But tiresome blah, considering the party had just celebrated the success of the anti-reform narrative, that they religiously believed people had begun to buy into, in larger and larger numbers.

“I tell you, these guys are all hand-in-glove. All these right-wing non-intellectual types – basically the ones who control the world markets. “

“No doubt about that. Look at the timing, na. Just when an election is around the corner. They want to make sure their man continues to win.”

“Comrade, we can’t let this go without a fight. We need to tell that Moody guy that we’re wise to his antics.”

“Seriously. Call Cybernath. He’ll take care of the social media bit.”

Within minutes, Cybernath was on the job. And in no time at all, he had hunted down the pesky Moody on Facebook.

As the name Moody swam into his vision, Cybernath took one swig of chai, and let his fingers loose upon the keyboard — magically transmitting the angst of all his comrades into Moody’s corner of cyberspace.

“How dare you say our country’s economy is on the road to recovery? Do you know anything about the way economies like ours work anyway? We know you have taken money from the right-wing leader. Shame shame…”

“Long live the Revolution…” he signed off with a flourish, and hit Post.

Two minutes later, when it became apparent that he had hit the wrong Moody, Cybernath felt pensive. For all of two seconds. After which he rebounded, with characteristic vigor. “What does it matter? Anybody who calls himself Moody is suspect anyway.”

In his dressing room, someone alerted Moody the cricketer that there was an inexplicable outpouring of venom against him on his Facebook page. Moody gave him a blank look, before going back to strategizing for his team for the upcoming tournament.

In another continent, ghosts of the Roman mob tittered, as they gossiped in the bye-lanes of Rome. “Remember the time when we lynched the wrong Cinna?” one asked.

“I am Cinna the poet. I am Cinna the poet.” One of the spirits simpered, mimicking the hapless bard.   

“Tear him for his bad verses!” The rest of the ghosts shouted, reliving that moment of pure glee.

Mother’s Day – From ‘Boohoo’ to ‘Buyhoo’

Wake up this morning to the sound of two grown-up men serenading their mother. Rush to figure out where this is coming from, and realize it is DD National on TV, which is playing Bollywood numbers dedicated to “ma” on Mother’s Day.

The ongoing number talks about how pointless it is to look for God, since ‘he’ (she?) is unlikely to look very different from ‘ma’. Two decidedly middle-aged sons, in a boat, with their mother…telling her she is ‘God’.

(At this point, special effects play to indicate a dream sequence.) I’m the woman in the boat, with two grown-up sons telling me I’m God. I smile. For a tiny second, I feel powerful, and then I gnash my teeth, and scream: “You scoundrels! You think I enjoy being this blasted wish-fulfillment tree that you guys have turned me into, all your miserable lives? Now, get off my back, for heaven’s sake, and let me live the rest of my life as a human being.”

(Special effects) – I’m back on my couch…until the next song starts – this time, it’s an adolescent boy singing to his mother, while his sister hovers in the background, maintaining a diplomatic silence.

“How sweet you are, how good you are, how lovable you are…’ and on and on. Even as an ego-boost, that’s pretty lame. If you’re a mother, there’s only one question these words can trigger: “Cut out the BS…what do you want?”   

The next number knocks me over completely. It has a little girl standing on a stage and singing, “I’ve seen mother, but I haven’t seen mother’s love.”

“How sad for you missy! Maybe you didn’t look in the right place. Or perhaps, like the eight-armed mother in the instant breakfast ad, the poor hapless woman is just too busy running around all day to let all the ‘love’ hang out.

By now, I’ve had enough. So, I turn off the TV, and pick up the newspaper. Only to be greeted by Mother’s Day ads – get her this, get her that – the front page, the page after that, and the one after that. They’re all just teeming with ads – about what sons and daughters should be buying for their mothers. I smile. This is a world I’m comfortable in. No airy-fairy mother-worship here…if you want to be all theatrical on one hand-picked day of the year, and declare your love for your mother, get her STUFF… a little materialism never hurts anybody, does it?  Especially, mothers….!!!

So Many Demons to Deal With!!!

The world over, homo sapiens have had to deal with so many demons in the last few weeks. Look at the Americans – in a soul-sucking election campaign that seemed to go on forever, you had half the country ‘demon-izing’ the other half. While one half shouted that the other half was rallying behind a ‘demon-gogue’ (well, actually demagogue, but nobody doubted that they meant ‘demon-gogue’), the other half was mighty cross with the ‘Demon-crat’ (yes, yes, I know - Democrat, but you get the gist) candidate, who had these curious memory lapses when it came to questions about inconvenient emails.

Then came the results. And more demons with it – this time in the form of ‘demon-strations’ across multiple cities – some simply ‘demon-strating’ against the brand-new President-elect, and some ‘demon-strating’ what exactly they thought of folks who didn’t quite look like them, or behave like them….

 And then of course, India! Just when those of us, who had got hooked on to the soap-operatic twists and turns of the US elections, were settling into our couches to watch the finale, the leader of our ‘demon-cracy’ unleashed ‘demon-etisation’ upon us. And when such a tricky demon is let loose, can ‘demon-ization’ and ‘demon-strations’ be far behind?

We’re now into a week of ‘demon-etisation’ and while I’m still struggling to ‘demon-etise’ my share of the notes that have been so summarily thrown into ‘disrepute’, my boss thinks I’m nevertheless obliged to work on a ‘demo’ (surely, a shortened version of demon?) of a product that I’m supposed to sell to a specific ‘demon-graphic’.   

With so many demons on the loose, I’ve decided that we need to formulate a workable game plan to deal with them. Let’s start with ‘demon-graphy’ - a study of demon populations and how they shape ‘demon-cracies’ across the globe. Now, if you think that should have been ‘demon-ology’, well, you can always ‘demon-strate’ to express your displeasure over my choice of words. After all, I’m as ‘demon-cratic’ as anyone can be in these unsettling times.

Facebooked Lives

 

It’s been an entire week since I posted anything on my Facebook timeline. My wall looks sullen. Gives me dirty looks whenever I go online. I need to yank the dust covers off my life and get some decent pictures out in the next few days. And I need to come up with something new…something pretty…and something witty to go with the pretty … little flags that declare how awesome I am, and how well I have my entire life under control.

Just look at what my friends are doing – there’s Sheena who’s posted pictures of her bungee-jumping in Alaska, for god’s sake… and Rohini, who went all the way to Goa to get married, and plastered her wall with gorgeous pictures of the ceremony against a mind-boggling sunset… and Meera, who pops up all over social media with yet one more award for her latest documentary. I could go on and on. Seriously, they’re all doing something exciting; something fun.

And here I am on a horribly warm Monday morning, inching my way to office through peak-hour traffic, with an irate auto driver as my companion. Wait a minute - his moustache does look out of the ordinary. Perhaps I could quietly take a photograph and then post it on my wall with a witty comment. On second thoughts, that may not be a good idea… what if he sues me for online harassment?

Perhaps I should seriously consider dating Sudhir. That guy has been dropping hints for a while now. And I must admit, he photographs rather well. Will sit quite prettily on my wall. Me clinging to his arm, with the Lonavla lake in the backdrop…I could even sneak in the Lake Isle of Innisfree into the caption. Sounds colorful, na? So what if my conversations with him don’t go beyond five minutes? Thankfully, Facebook doesn’t require him to talk. But then, I do. And oh dear god, I’ll need to put up with his endless bragging…besides, once we’re up on Facebook, I can’t even dump him before a decent interval. That won’t show me up in very good light. That’s just too much bother, for a few good pics on your wall, don’t you think? 

But, what else can I do? I know…I’ll sign up for that month-long pottery class. Hopefully, at the end of it, I would have turned out some classy pots and dishes, that I could showcase on Facebook.

One second…I think that’s my phone…. Hey, Maria, where have you been all these days? So, what’s new? What about Rohini? No, I haven’t. What??? But she just got married!!! Poor thing….

So, then, Rohini’s marriage is over. God, she’ll need to take down all those gorgeous photographs on Facebook. Perhaps she’d do well to shut down her current account and open a new one. Like Tara did last month. Would be nice if Facebook had an in-built mechanism to help you sail through the times when life is doing the 'tossed upon stormy seas' routine on you.

Come to think of it, Facebook owes it to us, don’t you think? I mean, after all, a spectacle should always be worth looking at. Think of it. In any case, Facebook knows pretty much all that’s happening in our lives. So the moment it realizes you’ve had a break-up, it could pull up a suitable photograph from your albums, Photoshop it to show you against an exotic yet brooding landscape, and play melancholy music in the background when someone clicks on it.

Now, that would be something. Living the life Facebook built for us – way simpler than Facebooking our actual lives, if you ask me.

 

 

Five Ounces of Beauty, Please

Once upon a time –when I was in college – we had beauty parlours. Now – never mind what institute I’m in – we have beauty salons. In my addled understanding of the world, the term ‘beauty parlour’ had a more honest ring to it. It immediately brought to mind the Spider going ‘Will you walk into my parlour?’ to the optimistic Fly. With the context that clearly laid out, those of us who chose to walk into the parlours, knew what we were in for – if we didn’t, too bad. We should have paid more attention to the rhymes they taught us in school.

We knew that the benign expression on the proprietor’s face would last only till the door shut behind you. We knew it would be replaced by a brooding sorrow as she surveyed your topography and began to enumerate the myriad shortcomings of each body part till you were literally screaming for help – Her help; if the lady was too busy, or had more important clients to be beautified, then you were willing to settle for help from the lesser angels who would work their own lesser magic upon your self-esteem, till it rose – hopefully - like the proverbial phoenix. And in this alchemical experiment, you were willing to brave a little discomfort: facial hair screaming in agony at being plucked out unceremoniously; head reeling inside a heat-spewing contraption that had you wondering whether they were sending you to the moon to get some help with your hair. All this and Hell too, for the value-add at the end of it all – hair arranged in jaunty curls, skin that didn’t look as though somebody had scribbled over it (I understand that with the dawn of the Tattoo Age, this is no longer a concern), and eyebrows that arched at just the angle that was considered fashionable that week.

Basically, you walked into a parlour where they put you through some pretty horrible stuff, and at the end of it, you hoped that the version of you that walked out would be a minor upgrade of the version that had walked in. You weren’t certain that this would indeed be the case, but then there was always hope that all that torture inside had cancelled out some bad Karma and that the reward would be about five ounces of what was generally accepted as ‘beauty’. 

The term ‘salon’ suggests a more genteel world – a world of gracious hostesses, good food, enchanting music and scintillating conversation – where dainty ‘Salonistas’ make your warts disappear painlessly, eventually turning you into a work of art, all ready for public display.

With all these possibilities swirling around in my optimism-soaked mind, I stepped into a beauty salon the other evening. The lady at the reception gave me a dazzling smile and gestured toward a voluminous chair. The optimism meter inched up. I looked around. Corridors of steel and chrome stretched out in all directions, most with yet more corridors branching off from them. Like an intricately woven web. The Spider beckoning? The optimism meter began to fluctuate.

A booklet appeared magically in my lap. It had two parts: The Body and The Mind. The Body had these sections: Facial Engineering, Nail Modelling, Hair Management, Skin Centre and Posture Specialists. The Mind had these: Beauty Meditation, Practicing Wakefulness, Breathing for Beauty, and Thinking Your Way to Beauty. Each section had several sub-sections; the sub-sections had tertiary sections and each sub-heading and sub-sub heading was followed by nuggets of wisdom that my feeble brain found hard to digest.

I walked over to the receptionist and asked her if I could just get a simple hair-cut.

She gave me another brilliant smile, this time, somewhat tinged with pity, and told me that their in-house beauty expert would like to offer me some free advice. Before I could turn down this generous offer, a firm hand was guiding me into the glass-walled cubicle of the beauty expert.   

Half an hour later when I crawled out of her office, I knew what an enormous task the salon had on its hands – my skin, my face, my hair, my posture, my breathing, even my attitude to life, had to be treated if I wanted to lay claim to anything remotely close to what is now accepted as ‘beauty’. A simple hair-cut would do me no good. They would have to correct all that was wrong inside, before they could begin tinkering with the outside. As the wise in-house expert told me “We don’t do patch-work jobs. We give you a holistic beauty treatment.” In other words, they wouldn’t sell beauty in ounces. You had to get at least a gallon - maybe ten, if you were me.

My optimism meter had exploded and I needed some fresh air to clear the pieces from my mind. I walked out of the salon and headed towards a side street, where I located one of those old-world beauty parlours. I walked in and, in a voice emptied of all optimism, murmured, “Hair-cut.” A dour-looking girl pushed me into a high-backed chair and launched into the familiar litany about how thin my hair was, how damaged, how dry, as the scissors went snip, snip, snip. But I didn’t care. Here was a place that still sold beauty in ounces. And five ounces was all I needed.

Just five ounces of ‘beauty’. Just a teeny-weeny upgrade of the old hardware, thank you. Not a completely new eco-system fashioned by the Beauty Merchants. 

Primey in Parliament

Primey in Parliament,

Reading out his notes;

“Boo,” went the Bungee Jumpers,

“Let’s go get some votes.”

“Ah,” said the Primey,

“That’s not fair.”

“Bah,” said the Bungee Jumpers,

“We don’t care.”

Upty Downty

Upty Downty stole some coal,

Upty Downty hid it in a hole;

The Auditor freaked,

The Opposers shrieked,

And the coal — it stayed forever in the hole.