Monthly Archives: February 2009

The Consortium of Pub Going Loose and Forward Women

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I love it when citizen protest raises valid points.  I love it even more when it becomes inventive and uses humour.  There is nothing better than sending a message across with a smile, and it is even better when you laugh.  As a weapon laughter is bang on target.  I joined the Consortium on Face Book because I like the idea of women uniting against the pub incident.

Hmmmm, okay!  I also joined because I like being considered loose and forward at 50 – its quite Mata Hari sorts.  At my age dahlin, its a compliment ;)

These girls have launched quite an innovative program.  I got a mail today which I am copy+pasting

Dear All,

You may have heard of the Pink Chaddi Campaign that kicked off three days ago to oppose the Sri Ram Sena. The campaign is growing exponentially (1,300 at this point in the life of our Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women) and that is not surprising. Most women in this country have enough curbs on their lives without a whole new franchise cashing in with their bully-boy tactics. Of course, a lot of men have joined the group as well.

Here is we want to do with the Pink Chaddi Campaign. Join in. Be imaginative, have fun and fight back!

Step 1: It does not matter that many of us have not thought about Valentine’s Day since we were 13. If ever. This year let us send the Sri Ram Sena some love. Let us send them some PINK CHADDIS.

Look in your closet or buy them cheap. Dirt-cheap. Make sure they are PINK. Send them off to the Sena.

The address to send the package is:
Pramod Muthalik,
Chief Bully Boy, Sri Rama Sena,
#11, Behind New Bus Stand, Gokhul Road, Near Lakshmi Park,
HUBLI – Karnataka

If you don’t want to mail it yourself, you can drop it off at the Chaddi Collection Points. We will be collecting across the country through this week and sending the packages on February 12. More information about Chaddi Collectors in your city soon on our blog:

Step 2: Send the Pink Chaddi Campaign a photograph of the package.

Tell us how many chaddis you are sending out and inspire other women in other cities. You can either mail the information here or you can mail it at our facebook address.

Step 3: On Valentine’s Day we do a Pub Bharo action. Go to a pub wherever you are. From Kabul to Chennai to Guwahati to Singapore to LA women have signed up. It does not matter if you are actually not a pub-goer or not even much of a drinker. Let us raise a toast (it can be juice) to Indian women. Take a photo or video. We will put it together (more on how later) and send this as well to the Sri Ram Sena.

Step 4: After Valentine’s Day we should get some of our elected leaders to agree that beating up women is ummm… AGAINST INDIAN CULTURE.

For right now, ask not what Dr VS Acharya, Home Minister of Karnataka can do for you. Ask what you can do for him. Here is his blog.
http://drvsacharya.blogspot.com. Send him some love.
Cheers!
Sharmishtha
For the Pink Chaddi Campaign

Tell me, how can I simply not support such actions.  If I dont have pink chaddis, I’ll buy a few for the cause!

Do visit the blog and support us.

Say no to moral policing

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I got a link early this morning to a wonderful effort being made by a blogger in Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi and did my bit to publicise this effort.

We have to take a stand against this Talibanising of our culture by hooligans.  I found Union Minister Renuka Choudhary’s suggestion quite interesting.

I have never thought that Valentine’s Day is special.  It is just a whole lot of sugar products and over-priced roses being marketed by retailers.  But dammit I defend every one’s moral right to celebrate it the way they deem fit.

So this Valentine’s Day, I am gonna take me to a pub, and raise a toast against moral policing.

Gives me two wonderful things to do

1. Drink

2. Thumb a nose at the regressive types.

Cheers.

The random tag game

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I have been tagged by Tikuli and Sue to do this at Facebook, and lazy bum that I am I figure it would make a good blog post and will show up on FB any way.  Here goes ………..

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.

1. I hate dieting.  I am a foodie and I swear pizzas and chocolate haunt me in my waking and sleeping moments taunting me and teasing me when I diet

2. I love watching music chanels on TV, and those music shows – both American and Indian idol, Sa Re Ga Ma

3. I love Abhay Deol’s movies.  He is the only kaam ka Deol

4. I like to write … always.

5. I love flowers, you can bribe me with them

6. You can bribe me with good food and alcohol too

7. I hate seeing kids being bullied – I get so mad that I could do something violent against the perps.

8. I cant see animals being mistreated either

9. I am deeply suspicious of medicines.  I prefer to self medicate on herbs and stuff.

10. I am totally happy in my own company.  I love me

11. I like wearing simple comfy clothes, decking up is painful

12. I am always short of sleep – can’t get enough

13. I sleep diagonally on my bed – dont ask me why, I just do

14. I am so happy I am nearly 50, I go around blaming every lapse on my old age

15. I use age as an excuse to forget anything I dont want to do

16. I dont wear make up – not even lipstick.  Not even when I was young.  I really have to be bullied into wearing some.

17. I stock up tissues.  I need a box in every corner of my room …. home

18. I drive like a woman, slow, erratic and talking on my cellphone

19. I am looking for subjects to write on, every minute of my life

20. I love bold colours, all the chatak ones, the bolder the better

21. I want to stop coloring my hair, but my sons refuse to let me

22. I have no notion of money management or sensible future planning

23. Life to me is an adventure – cant live carefully

24. I dont know how to tie a saree

25. If any one takes away my laptop and internet and I will commit murder

Phew!!!
I tag everyone to do this, its fun

Citizen Action by bloggers

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I got a letter from our very own IHM, and decided to do my bit about this isssue instead of sitting on my backside moaning about the system.  We are the system truly

I decided to given this website very evocatively named Never Forget 26.11.08 some international webbie love

I request you all to visit the article so that it stays on the top and google can get to it.

I also request you all to visit the website www.neverforget.in and do your bit for our country.

Thanks 1conoclast, it is a tres magnifique effort.

Fresh Material for Ekta Kapoor

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43 year old Chander Mohan, son of former Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal, and the Deputy Chief Minsiter of the same state goes underground for 3 months.

He resurfaces as Chand Mohammad, married to the Additional Advocate General of Haryana, Anuradha Bali who has also converted into Islam and is named Fiza

They both lose everything for love, their influential positions.  He gets disowned by his embarassed family (I think he lost more), and in any case he is in deep shit with his wife and grown children.

They put on a brave front and smile for the cameras.  P.S. The lady is very very good looking.

Reality settles in.  I suppose once the euphoria died down and he realized the cost of this step, he wanted to back-step.  They have a passionate fight, he walks out, she overdoses on some pills in a bid to commit suicide.

She is rushed to the hospital.  Her new hubby is nowhere to be seen.  Once she recovers, she holds a tearful press conference telling people that he has broken her heart and her trust – dammit she looks lovely and brave fighting tears.  News is that he has gone to first wife to make up.

Today Chander Mohan aka Chand Mohammad is in the news saying he loves her dearly but “respects” his first wife too.

Ekta my dear …. are you following this real life drama?

My suggestions for the soap

1. Fiza (yeah, it sounds more lovely than Anuradha) has a great future.  Enter mentor to boost her morale up …. A Whoopie Goldberg kind of character

2. Dont make her a Tulsi kind of person.  She does not have that steel.  Make her sweet (capitalize on that smile honey).  Get her a book deal on her life.  She can go on shows and stuff – beauty bhi toh kaam aaye

3. The ‘wronged woman thing” does not have long innings.  She could get a career path with some Naari Manch or the National Commission for Women …. but its boring.  However if she plays her cards right – a movie by someone like Mahesh Bhatt?  Ekta, you could get someone to play her sympathiser while giving her a movie deal, what say?

4. I saved this one for the last – because here is what I would do if I were writing this saga

  • She is neither married nor un-married
  • She is neither Hindu nor Muslim

I would make her a religious guru kind of person.  She has classy beauty, a natural flamboyance and great skin that does not need too much make up.  As a guru for women, she would come out beautiful.  She can campaign against the Hindu fundamentalists, the Muslim fundamentalists.

Lady don’t cry – you have a great life ahead of you.

All hail our leader, the woman scorned

MAHA NARI ANURADHA FIZA KI JAI

Disclaimer : I am not a political person, nor do I have anything against the people involved.  They chose to live their personal life in front of the media.  I am just a spectator with opinions.

We are like this only Part II

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We women can fly planes

We women can defend our country

We women can go into outer space : I think a link would be unnecessary here

We can be surgeons, or even an autorickshaw driver

But we can not sit in a pub and drink!!!  Weird.

Why? Because our illiterate moral police thinks so ….

Sita used to drink and even had a favorite tipple as per a historian who has read the ancient books.

Who are these thugs and their political idiotic mentors trying to protect?  Us women?  Which culture are they professing to defend?

Or are they running scared at the sight of emancipated independent women and hiding behind their Daddy’s dhoti?

Maybe they have erectile dysfunction at the sight of independent women

Or may be they are plain jealous of the aaj kal ki aurat jaat

The Namesake : A Book Review

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Jhumpa Lahiri writes about Bengali immigrants and their American offspring. It is a recurring theme in all her books and short stories. The children grow, and slowly get assimilated into the American society, but somehow the older generation gets left behind. The younger people can not relate to them and there is a communication gap.

This is a story about Gogol Ganguli, the “American Born Confused Desi” (Desi means Native in Indian vernacular) and his coming of age. Ashok Ganguli and his wife Asima are Bengalis from Calcutta who are first generation immigrants living in New England. They have a son who is named Gogol after a Russian writer. The reasons are complex. Ashok had been reading a book by Nikolai Gogol on a train when it derailed, killing everyone sleeping around him. He survives and credits the Russian author with saving his life. The son hates his name, as he complains, ‘that it is neither Indian nor American but of all things Russian.” Plus – and the issue dogs him for years – he cannot imagine saying, ‘Hi, it’s Gogol’ under potentially romantic circumstances.’

Read more here