Oh! Are you an Idiot or an Ignorant or a Hypocrite?

Every time I read news about our politicians and ministerial representatives being moral police and holding strong to the cliché “Treat-women-with-respect” adage, it pisses me off beyond control even more. This time around, they have banned two ads - Lux Cozy Underwear and Amul Macho Underwear. Why? They call this inappropriate and both have been prohibited for transmission or retransmission on all broadcasting platforms with immediate effect. Now, who are we kidding? The expressive lady in the ad did what is the obvious and that the underwear was durable enough to stand the tests!! Here we are talking about a straight forward ad which has nothing to do with anyone. Rather it is quite funny the way it is depicted but hello, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry is jobless and they got to clamor at something every once in a while to show their presence.

Why is any form of expression pertaining to sex considered appalling by the viewers in the country? Why is it that parents just don’t want to talk about sex to their children?

The government first banned a channel – AXN (when they showed The World's Sexiest Advertisements), then FTV and now these petty ad works. Wait a minute if you are so protective about the so called “women”, then why is it that the most gory, hurting and shameful incidents happen to your women folk in the country? Why is it that a teenaged girl from a reputed public school becomes pregnant of six months as a result of her sexual relationship with a friend of class XI? Why is it that a 10 year old was eve teased by 20+ year old youngsters and inspite of being run over by the car, why is it that no action was taken against these perpetrators until the media intervened? And umpteen number of disturbing news. Bottom line – Educate people and do what it takes to spread the word – Sex Education. Unless that happens the urge to hump anything and everything that moves is going to continue. The general inquisitive looks will turn to lengthy stares at the obvious in all girls will continue. Wait a minute there is a flip side to it, more information describing the anatomy might mislead the kids. Heck! Who are we kidding? No one is a saint and if the kids know the information and the repercussion of doing a particular act least they can do is to be informed and know how to protect them. It is all about PROTECTION and being SAFE to know when you are being sexually attacked. End of story. I think these sums up our idiocy to the core when it comes to educating the citizens.

It is for this reason that we are still thousands of miles away from the actual civilization (barring the Middle East communities). When the CBSE wanted to introduce sex education in their curricula, there were out bursts from the teaching fraternity that it was a bit uneasy subject. Hello! What is so funny and being ashamed about? It is nothing but telling the kids that they are growing old and there is going to be some kind of metamorphosis, and few things that everyone should know so that they atleast know what “Molestation” is or atleast when someone tries to do something like that. And that is why teachers should be well qualified too. Education should matter from now on for every position. Unless we are educated, we just cannot talk issues openly. Every body knows this as well! When there was a “Vibrating Condom” released to the market, there was an immediate outcry. Why? It is a sex toy and so the hippocratic ministers in-charge, felt they would be used for a wrong cause. Hello! What the hell is wrong with that pea sized brain of these people? Every developed country has a sex toy store and I feel it is most right to have them as well. Besides what is the big deal! Hippocratic society we live in is the reason for such a wasted life. We continue to rot.

What we do wonderfully by shunning away from these topics is:

1. Create unawareness among the children growing up and not letting them know what organs are “responsible” for “what” and how to be aware of sex.
2. Continue to cocoon the kids in a “mystic and hippocratic” society that “know less about sex information” is best for me.
3. Not being open to future and the forth coming generation pass on the wand of ignorance and hypocrisy to theirs doing nothing good to anyone.
4. Putting the growing kids in a spot by not preparing them to sense a sexual assault. They are as able as a newly born gazelle when the sexual predators target them.

We are living in a society where we still cry foul if we talk about condoms, sex toys and finally sex. End result is out there in black and blue as an outcome of our ignoramus life we have led so far – India ranks 2^nd in world population and 3^rd in HIV cases. The guys and gals just are equally clueless when it comes to sex for their first time after marriage. Strangely so, sex is LEGALLY allowed only after marriages. And when someone film star talks about women/men losing virginity before marriages, then it hits the headlines for a tangential reason. A PIL – Public Litigation is issued when the lady spoke bold! Yea back to them point even before they know each other the newly wed soon become parents for 2 and they still DON’T know how to please their partner and this is the end of their sex lives and their adventure (forceful) starts in public transportations where they get to express their enormous sexual feeling on other passengers! Sad story this is ONLY because of keeping every one in the dark when it comes to sharing the obvious. This only leads to ignorance and ignorance is never bliss, I tell you.

I have many of my educated friends – liberal ones who strongly feel this move was worthless and baseless. There are a few who still feel living in the cocooned up life by not talking about sex to their family is the best way to it. I feel in the end the onus is left to us on how you want to have a “real” educated life and the boon and bane nomenclature is best described by us. In the end, are we Idiots not to talk about sex and yet be top ranked with HIV cases and preemptive abortions and child abuse? I don’t know if we speak openly about issues such as these would classify as a truly educated and responsible citizen. I don’t know.

In the end, who am I, Dudleybouy – Am I an idiot, an ignorant or a hypocrite?

P.S:

Some information which might look like I have contrived is echoed by a news article “Here”. Which only means the feeling is right :-]

Pass me the new culture, Dudleybouy!

Being in Madras, a remotely cosmo city when I left India and to see what it is now after a while is heartening. Things seem to have reversed as is the case in all major metros in the country. For instance, I was in a restaurant, a calm one at that outside the city about say 50 KM's mark for my dinner and I for once felt I was truly in a cosmopolitan city. The table behind me was reserved by folks from Middle east, a big family that, the table to my left was by a few over-the-hill aged Americans and a table in front of me was occupied by a "single" American and in a far off place an North Indian family. Now, maybe the place I went is a very posh kinda expensive one but heck this was not it was a few years ago. Interesting, if this was one thing, the walk in the mainstay city was another story. Every time you would easily see a young blonde walking past with her mobile phone in her hands, or couple of laid back folks from Europe doing the road stunts trying to run from one side of the road to another, or go to a ice cream joint, viola, foreigners again trying to soak in the ambiance whilst rummaging the joint to eventually settle down near a corner over looking the road spot. And then slowly take out their laptops and start playing with that with a frequent giggle. Oh! then you always got the Generation Y kids as well making their mark.

And I slowly take in all these changes and smile deep down at the transformation not just by the inflow of international citizens but also how much things seem to have changed within the country as well. Cool sneakers, cool gadgets, cool fashion statements and the exposure these young men and women get will definitely make them a good competition at the highest level .. Man, I love this all changes which has been eluding the city.

Interesting to say that this would not have been possible if not for the market doing well in the IT front which is aiding ALL other fields of interests indirectly in a big way. A statistics taken across the world would show that Indians are the optimistic ones when it comes to being consumers of any goods/products or with their life. Why? Because of the surplus money they have right now. People feel taxed at work, take a 3-4 days off to fly to Thailand for a body massage and a good vacation, flying to Singapore/Malaysia for a vacation WITH the family when the kids have a summer break, if no time to go to any other country they spend good sizable bucks on being "metro sexual" and that is the new age gender classification and men are not scared to accept that classification, or honey moon to exotic places and finally when they have a feeling of been there done it all, they go to Africa to see the other part of life where people struggle to make two ends meet (Not to say everyone in India are better off, but the statistics is based of the folks in the echelon unit of the society). Brands are no longer a strange word in this new culture. Louis Vuitton to Prada to Puma to Ego to Hugo Boss to Tagheur to eat outs to hang out options to what not. The country is now in a metamorphosis trying to grapple and hug all the brands & all the newer things which is a common in a "Developed" country and passing on a new flavor of life to the new age Generation X and Y Indians. Oh! plus the plush jobs and greater brands settling in India makes it that much more an interesting place to work.

Now to do a counter comparison, not many family in the US actually fly out to any other country for a vacation, perhaps the country has so much to offer to them. That is a different story but this comparison in itself is sufficient to just see how the culture has changed thus far. An air ticket is about 30 grands to Singapore and a family of 4 would be spending about a 0.1 million rupees for the air ticket alone which works to about 2000-3000 $. And that is a lot of money and not all get to do that abroad (may be within the country too, but things are changing and numbers are increasing). The term "Chauffeur" is a derogatory term in the Europe these days and we borrowed that and we use it to good effect that all corporates get pampered with a "Chauffeur" driven car. Where is this luxury any where else in the world? I would say NO WHERE else but India. That is what makes it an interesting proposition. Got bucks, learn to live like a real king sized life and get be grounded by this new economy driven by the youngsters and an intricate society values (shock and awe). Live in partners are not a strange awe word no more. Playing with multiple boyfriends or girlfriends now is an art which all the kids have mastered, work hard and spoil yourself and finally shout loud - One life mate. Live it king size. This is the new age Indian attitude - the new age culture.

If people are willing to work and not make money by seeking alms and change in attitude of the people over respecting people for who and what they are and finally respecting the dignity of labor then I think this is the best place to be eventually. But mind you that is bloody, mighty big IF.

Pass this new culture to me dudleybouy !!

Bon Aprees Midi.

Weekend- Movie Preview

I, watched this rather very interesting movie - Apocalypto directed by Mel Gibson in 2006 which won quite a bunch of awards for exceptional work. This movie was a very interesting one indeed. Per an review for this movie - The plot of the movie was the desire to portray and explore a culture as it existed before the arrival of the Europeans led Gibson and Safinia to choose the Mayans for their high sophistication and eventual decline.

Fantastic indeed and it was truly a bloody movie and with powerful visual effects and obviously an interesting and the usual Gibson movie. Quite a serious foreign language movie I have seen so far. The character of Jaguar Paw was the best. Oh well he was the main character to say the least :)

If you really have to see how much the Mayan civilization was self sustained be it medicine, science and yet religious and blind beliefs. Gibson has taken the movie quite nicely and interestingly goes to even show the religious beliefs and human sacrifice to wade away ill and prosperity to the colony. Fantastic to see them on the big screen. But I did not know anywhere in my research post the movie, that Mayan Civilization actually did human sacrifices, it was the Aztec culture during the Incas [OR] was it that the people in Mayan Culture slaved to be the religious sacrifice in Aztec? I would really like to know the relation. Anyway, back to the movie, I liked the scene - "The Eclipse" where the heat priest over looks his men pull out the heart from the slaves and cuts the head and the head rolls down an atleast 200-300 step architecture, mind blowing. Critics too had a few interesting comments on the Solar Eclipse showed in the movie and it can't happen that fast but hey it just a 2 hour film !

If you like foreign movies, this is a must watch and quite interesting indeed. Here are some pictures from the movie:

Until later, Take it easy.

Pass me the culture !

I was wondering aimlessly today and that is when I started questioning myself about what is a culture to a person ,what is it for a group of people and what is it for an organization and finally what is it at a country level? The main thought here was not to state the general feeling by most is wrong or to muscle in my thought as a dictum of any sorts. It is just and solely my thought as such.

Well then as I say this, I cannot help compare this to the environ where I live, Madras, a fairly orthodox and conservative place and along with all that extremely Hippocratic place too. Hey which place in India is not Hypocratic? That would be something which I would reserve to write at length. For the time being, Madras can be safely assumed to be a no nonsense city, a metro of nice sorts as compared to other funnier places in India. I don't have anything against this place. But I wanted to pick a city to elaborate my thoughts. This city is extremely pivotal in shaping and building entertainment while generating great opportunities to the likes of cine world- Kollywood, Soap operas and what not. When we scan these components and look a bit more closely, not one movie gets away without a hot song (per Indian standards). Wet skin, inappreciable attire and total female exploitation err. Sometimes out of will too. These are acceptable and part of the culture and when this happens in the real life then it is the technology which has killed the culture.

Lets go back for a while. For a singleton community(defined before time of modern era), a culture to him/her is being nicely dressed with an ability to earn the bread in the most legitamate way PLUS the work ensures no physical contact or any communication with the opposite sex. The gains with this attitude were mostly the Arts, Music, Architecture and sports but all this started in the earlier times had hugely suppressed the involvement of women as such. Women were in the house literally 24 * 7 under the pretext of taking care of the house (primarily because they were not educated) and everything under the roof of the house. The men were the stronger ones. The men could do what they want but were justified with the rules of the society being defined and re-defined. Every family had a good 9-10 children. Women were child creating machines, which they did without much regret. This was the period when the Kama Sutra was created by a sage (supposedly) . A true display of what men thought of but were not sure if it was right to practice it. So I am pretty sure the creator of this would not have had the guts to propose anything like this. This was the culture then in those dark ages. "Keep it indoors" was the rule of the thumb which was passed on to another era as time changed.

Let's forward a bit, a progressive evolution, a common man in present world. Ask him/her what he/she thinks about the culture and the habits of existence. I bet my dollar, deep down the heart, nothing much has changed in the attitude of men in this neck of the woods. They still think women as weaker sex, providing the only opportunity to be scantly dressed in cinema in order to be successful and yet thump the heart fast and say "Culture" is close to the heart. The hypocrisy. Men with shorts are viewed differently once upon a time. He is "so cool". Spice it with an accent. When the same thing happened to women, men were the first ones to react differently. I don't blame them. Women were created beautiful but lets keep it at a decent intensity. If we had lived that way we would have had gotten every reason to say "My Culture" is good. What would people do in turn? We stalk them, we chase them, it becomes our birth right to harass them. And do we say anything to that? No, the solution to it is women should NOT be fashionable. Get back to the older ways of life - by being suppressed, then it is safe. Now do we say that as our culture? Would we dare to say that. No. Why? because this has a bad image to the the way we live our life. At the end should a women undergo unjust, then it is because they have been provocative. The problem was them and they are the solution as well.

That is the way the hypocratic society in which we live like to define the term "Culture". We have been the only culture that had taken so much pride in involving in something as cruel as "Female infanticide". Cruel us. And yet we are so proud. Damn ! And yes come to think about the most easy ways of extrapolating the term "Culture", the most prevalent, "Arranged Marriage". I, for one, think the people incubated here are the most blessed ones. Even the creatures in the lowest food chain, need to impress the partner to ensure that the strongest proliferate. Instead what do we do living high up in the food chain? Make a business outta it. The man clocks 30, the women strikes 22 and then we got a business on hand. Make a deal. Ask for tons of money, land - termed dowry, the women now gets to be a house partner and marriage is on the way. We say this is the highlight of the Indian culture. By doing this, we have successfully held the "Culture" together. How? I find it so strange to believe in the system. It is still a taboo to exhibit love or affection in public. This is so weird. You like someone, what would a hug got to do with the society? and apparently this is the no-no per the culture. There are so many pot holes in this sort of existence. We have so quickly gotten modernized at the same time the old, strong hypocratic life styles is holding our legs ever so tightly and pulling us. The people of this era are the most troubled because they can't look forward at the same time can't stay back and continue the older way of existence. Poor Us !!

The baton has been passed again to us - another era. Now, I think men should shed slowly the hypocrisy and selfish motives and women should be more independent and then hold things together. The baton that has been passed on for time immemorial has something that we should not follow anymore, something that we should take forward. With education now available to all and everyone should ensure that the good part of the legacy is chaffed from the bad. The term "Bad" and "Unacceptable" is something that is very very subjective to the year of existence. Few things that were unacceptable in 1850 cannot be blindly followed now in year 2007. You use contraception now means you don't bring any bad to anyone. You love someone you have not brought the full house down. It is just a way of moving forward.

I, for one, believe the term Culture is so losely used these days for everything. For me, it refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. Different definitions of "culture" reflect different theoretical bases for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity. In general, the term culture denotes the whole product of an individual, group or society of intelligent beings. It includes technology, art, science, as well as moral systems and the characteristic behaviors and habits of the selected intelligent entities. In particular, it is a mutual exchange of ideas for the survival. That is how so many eras have come into being and we remember them for what they offered us and what we learnt from that.

The Initial cross over

Well, now that I am home, going to work was something that surely was something that I never had in the top of the priority list but there are a few things in life which we cannot run away from. So I had to show up to work and as strange as it could be I had a very funny feeling when I stepped into the same building where I was working a few years back. New people, new policies and everything new were how I will say things were from the start. Slowly, by about 11:00 I came over and met the team which had been working remote – they were the people whom I did not even know how they looked. The mails were how I could relate to how they looked. The place looked alien to me, the work looked alien to me, the food, the climate and everything surrounding every single thing appeared so darn alien.

The initial few days were the most trying ones for me and not once I had a thought on whether I made a correct decision at all to move back. Such was the state of mind. It was nerve wracking and almost very very emotional for the fact that I used to get mails from the folks in US every other day, to top it I was just not able to relate myself and people were generally more hostile to start with. With the passage of time, things are starting to smoothen a bit and I am getting the grip of things to an extend such that I am also fiercely competing with other for seats in the bus(I still remember how I stood away thinking it was a line and how much I was fooled to see a women storm push me only to comfortably sit and travel), am slowly getting to the desi walks of life in style.

There are a few things in mind currently and until that works in my favor sooner than later I will not begin to lament if my decision to move back to India was a smart one or not. I am an eternal optimist and I will work my way. Until then in that note, varta :-)

Out of my comfort zone!

Well this is not the autobiography of Stephen Waugh. But it was more how I felt when I thought it was decision I had to take for my own betterment to straighten myself out for a little bit. As I decided to move out of a place in abroad where I lived,worked, worried, was morose,happy, happier, became wise, had fun and suddenly I realized it was all going to be like a nostalgic feeling. This decision was something which I took in a conscious state of mind and I knew it was not going to be difficult. And rightly so the last week or two was unbelievably stressful for me - both professionally and personally. I had to clean out a place where I was living for such a long time and then if this thought was on one end of the stick the other was to think of people with whom I worked and known with time.

The sadness is one thing and what happened in the last week with farewell lunch and free food from the cafeteria practically everyday for me through the day (I think they did not enjoy the thought that I was leaving home. I think so!). But that is when I thought for a little bit how much we get used to a comfortable situation and the normal ways of life, the people with whom you work, the food, the climate, the routine. It is strange that half the people around don't realise that. Perhaps they don't have time to reminise.Better still !

"With greater power comes greater responsibility" - you know who said that. I can only draw an analogy on how beneficial it gets to an individual with respect to the thought process and the existence. We surely get used to how to handle things in a known environ more than an unknown. After all this nostalgic feeling came the fear, the anxiety, the undue pressure when the time was almost set for the move. I wish I do well and I don't end up regretting the move I wanted to make for several reasons best known to me and I shall take that with me to my grave!

As of now it is time to really think about the "comfort zone" loss.