I have to admit that I had no idea I was public property.
I really wasn't aware that politicians had a say in deciding what I could wear, what I could drink, what time I would be allowed to show my face in public...
And I certainly didn't expect that if I failed in meeting their demands, they could hit me with impunity.
You have got to see it to believe it:
Now that I am wiser, I expect no one's going to spend a jail term for this attack. Only we women will end up self-imprisoned in our own houses because the world is increasingly unsafe.
Meanwhile, instead of distancing themselves from the violence, this is what people who I now realize are my masters had to say in support of the attackers:
"It is not good for a young woman to go to a pub.” Bijoya Chakravarty, BJP’s national vice president
“India is not Europe. Mushrooming of pubs is not part of the Indian culture.” Manju Kumar Majumdar, Communist Party of India state secretary
Well I hope it is Indian culture to wish painful lives and painful deaths to certain people. Coz I am certainly going to indulge in it.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Bailout's not a bad word, provided...
If you're alive, I suppose you're aware that a financial doomsday is underway and that governments across the world are scrambling to resurrect the economic system.
Few like the idea, and no one likes the scale of the giveaways - still, more or less everyone agrees - it is necessary to get the financial system out of trouble by buying out bad assets, infusing capital, reducing cost of funds, etc etc. Even I, who thinks the banks bought it upon themselves and deserve a whipping, realize that there is no point sitting on the sidelines and applauding a fall - something needs to be done.
The problem is that the something costs a hell of a lot: adding up to trillions of dollars in US alone. And that's not counting the contingent liabilities that the government has taken in its books.
The measures have yet to prove they work - stocks are still falling, as is industrial production and consumer purchase. The only thing up so far is unemployment. Of course, the lack of results so far hasn't stopped other nations from following suit - but that is expected. Anyone who wants to be re-elected will have to show that they are reacting to the crisis.
What is more interesting is that media and (former) free market enthusiasts are broadly supporting the bail-out moves. Sure, "experts" on TV, the same guys who thought derivatives were awesome and high debt the signs of a healthy economy, are now giving speeches on what checks and balances should exist when taxpayers help out the industry. But by and large, all channels, all economists, are supporting the giveaways.
How things change... Do you remember about a year ago, when India's agrarian crisis was in the news? When things were so bad in the sector that forget unemployment and losses and poverty and famine, the situation had reached a stage where farmer suicides had become a norm? And the government announced a loan waiver?
[Here is what I wrote that time.]
Well, that bailout was certainly unwelcome. The experts were aghast - there was no proof it would help in the long run, they said. And this would encourage farmers towards willful default, they warned. Let the market sort out troubles, as it always does, in the long run, went the suggestion.
Suddenly, now that help must reach the white collar worker and the shareholders, the same arguments have been put to rest.
That's right,
Few like the idea, and no one likes the scale of the giveaways - still, more or less everyone agrees - it is necessary to get the financial system out of trouble by buying out bad assets, infusing capital, reducing cost of funds, etc etc. Even I, who thinks the banks bought it upon themselves and deserve a whipping, realize that there is no point sitting on the sidelines and applauding a fall - something needs to be done.
The problem is that the something costs a hell of a lot: adding up to trillions of dollars in US alone. And that's not counting the contingent liabilities that the government has taken in its books.
The measures have yet to prove they work - stocks are still falling, as is industrial production and consumer purchase. The only thing up so far is unemployment. Of course, the lack of results so far hasn't stopped other nations from following suit - but that is expected. Anyone who wants to be re-elected will have to show that they are reacting to the crisis.
What is more interesting is that media and (former) free market enthusiasts are broadly supporting the bail-out moves. Sure, "experts" on TV, the same guys who thought derivatives were awesome and high debt the signs of a healthy economy, are now giving speeches on what checks and balances should exist when taxpayers help out the industry. But by and large, all channels, all economists, are supporting the giveaways.
How things change... Do you remember about a year ago, when India's agrarian crisis was in the news? When things were so bad in the sector that forget unemployment and losses and poverty and famine, the situation had reached a stage where farmer suicides had become a norm? And the government announced a loan waiver?
[Here is what I wrote that time.]
Well, that bailout was certainly unwelcome. The experts were aghast - there was no proof it would help in the long run, they said. And this would encourage farmers towards willful default, they warned. Let the market sort out troubles, as it always does, in the long run, went the suggestion.
Suddenly, now that help must reach the white collar worker and the shareholders, the same arguments have been put to rest.
That's right,
Bailout's not a bad word, provided... you're rich.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Of course I went to Leopold's.
I was in Bombay for just three days. After the mandatory hours of family get-togethers and upset stomachs, there was no time for Vada Pav or chowpatty or even chappals on Linking Road.
But I couldn't leave without seeing Leo once again, nor without a glimpse of the Taj.
Colaba had been my home for a special year - my first year as a working woman living alone in a big city. My office was a five-minute walk from Gateway. Searching for paying guest accommodation, it took me no more than a first glance to decide the area would be home too. Yah, the low tide stank badly and my male colleagues felt protective when I left office late in the red light district.... but I had rarely felt so comfortabe in my skin as there. What else can you feel in a place so alive? Here, the lights were always on. Days brought in a stream of shoppers and tourists. Nights throbbed with youngsters partying. And the food... that in itself was worth a migration.
So when the mayhem began, as I saw the events unfold from another country, I stopped in my tracks. It was surreal, seeing the gun shots, the raging fires, the mass murders playing out over an area whose every road I knew. I felt sure the stains wouldn't go away, couldn't go away, that the episode would change the picture of the Colaba I knew.
I have always avoided revisiting places from my past - there's something disquieting about finding out that the see-saw and swings park from my childhood is now a parking lot, that the school field has turned into an academic block... I prefer staying away, with a hazy but original picture intact in my head, than seeing the changes and getting a cover version lodged in my memory instead.
But this was different. I felt compelled to go, to be a part of what had happened, even if two weeks too late.
And so I went.
My visit turned out to be quite surreal, but not for the reasons I had expected. Thing was, nothing much has changed. The stalls that line the road outside Leo are still choc-a-bloc, as are the tables behind the open-door ground floor of the restaurant. There's the same steady hum of traffic in the background and the same loud hustling and bargaining on the sidewalk.
I drive through the alleyways that gradate this bustling scene into the decorum of the Taj. Saloons and shops that you go to only if you know where you're going. Quiet as always. And open for business still.
A few more turns, and only then I see the first sign, the only sign I see, of the terror attack: Peeking out above the heritage buildings is the corner spire of the Taj, still blackened at the edges by the fire that is now symbol of the terror attacks. A baricade stops me from taking the road by the sea and searching for changes, but by now I know, Colaba is determined to erase reminders of those three days of November.
I suppose the tingling in my stomach was the fight between a relief that things are the same and an awareness that it could so easily have been different. Never before had I walked the place thinking how fragile it was.
But no, Colaba is not fragile.
Ironic, isn't it? Those gun-toting agents of terror tried to change the map of Mumbai, but succeeded only in firmly entrenching Mumbai to what it has always been. If there's one place where old buildings won't come down, where old favourite restaurants won't shut down to relocate, where street stalls won't be asked to vacate public space - it's here.
I was in Bombay for just three days. After the mandatory hours of family get-togethers and upset stomachs, there was no time for Vada Pav or chowpatty or even chappals on Linking Road.
But I couldn't leave without seeing Leo once again, nor without a glimpse of the Taj.
Colaba had been my home for a special year - my first year as a working woman living alone in a big city. My office was a five-minute walk from Gateway. Searching for paying guest accommodation, it took me no more than a first glance to decide the area would be home too. Yah, the low tide stank badly and my male colleagues felt protective when I left office late in the red light district.... but I had rarely felt so comfortabe in my skin as there. What else can you feel in a place so alive? Here, the lights were always on. Days brought in a stream of shoppers and tourists. Nights throbbed with youngsters partying. And the food... that in itself was worth a migration.
So when the mayhem began, as I saw the events unfold from another country, I stopped in my tracks. It was surreal, seeing the gun shots, the raging fires, the mass murders playing out over an area whose every road I knew. I felt sure the stains wouldn't go away, couldn't go away, that the episode would change the picture of the Colaba I knew.
I have always avoided revisiting places from my past - there's something disquieting about finding out that the see-saw and swings park from my childhood is now a parking lot, that the school field has turned into an academic block... I prefer staying away, with a hazy but original picture intact in my head, than seeing the changes and getting a cover version lodged in my memory instead.
But this was different. I felt compelled to go, to be a part of what had happened, even if two weeks too late.
And so I went.
My visit turned out to be quite surreal, but not for the reasons I had expected. Thing was, nothing much has changed. The stalls that line the road outside Leo are still choc-a-bloc, as are the tables behind the open-door ground floor of the restaurant. There's the same steady hum of traffic in the background and the same loud hustling and bargaining on the sidewalk.
I drive through the alleyways that gradate this bustling scene into the decorum of the Taj. Saloons and shops that you go to only if you know where you're going. Quiet as always. And open for business still.
A few more turns, and only then I see the first sign, the only sign I see, of the terror attack: Peeking out above the heritage buildings is the corner spire of the Taj, still blackened at the edges by the fire that is now symbol of the terror attacks. A baricade stops me from taking the road by the sea and searching for changes, but by now I know, Colaba is determined to erase reminders of those three days of November.
I suppose the tingling in my stomach was the fight between a relief that things are the same and an awareness that it could so easily have been different. Never before had I walked the place thinking how fragile it was.
But no, Colaba is not fragile.
Ironic, isn't it? Those gun-toting agents of terror tried to change the map of Mumbai, but succeeded only in firmly entrenching Mumbai to what it has always been. If there's one place where old buildings won't come down, where old favourite restaurants won't shut down to relocate, where street stalls won't be asked to vacate public space - it's here.
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