augustfury.com

I have never voted in my life.

Well I have but that was for student body elections at IIFT Kolkata.

Anyway, this state election was just a little too special for me to miss. And though I might have travelled all across the country to do this it wasn’t as arduous a pilgrimage as I thought it would be. For one, unlike the images you get to see of villagers braving the elements to exercise their franchise I didn’t have to go to some obscure location in the middle of nowhere and stand in line to wait my turn.

The polling booth was right smack dab behind my house. There was hardly anyone there. Inspite of all the noise and vitriol you get to see on the TV, this was the most organised, civilised governmental exercise I have ever witnessed.

I walked into a school classroom that apart from five people on election duty had no one else in it. I pulled out a little sheet with the names of my parents and the housekeeper on it. Got a slip for my troubles, signed upside down and wondered why the old lady given the ink bottle, splattered it all over my left index finger while I did so.

A makeshift polling booth made out of a box of cardboard held a little machine that would decide the destiny of this state and indeed the road this nation would walk. There was an elephant, a lotus, a hand, a TV, an airplane, a kite… and I was so turned off by the choice of imagery that I didn’t bother looking at the last one.

My vote was cast with a loud electronic “Whheee” and the flash of a red light on the machine. I walked out and that was that.

I will not claim that I made an educated vote, because it wasn’t. There was very little information easily available about the candidates to actually do so, a void that AF was supposed to fulfill. The sources from where I could get any information were already biased, rightly or wrongly I cannot comment.

I voted for something that was beyond Sarkhej constituency. I voted for something I believed should have been done by the rest of this state five years back. I voted for a waning principle, which inspite of a glistening public relations machinery that appeals to a nascent marketer in me, says that you cannot commit gross injustice and right your way back into history.

As I left the polling booth and the sparse crowd behind, I realised something very important about this nation, which by accident might actually save it. Voter apathy. The educated voter’s apathy. These young men and women that have come to be the face of a certain candidate’s marketing juggernaut, speak well and appeal to the visible urban youth of the nation, those that I live and learn with… my people.

These people who I have come to know so well…they speak… they do not do.

Which is why, I in my own insignificant way know that I have made my mark on this election. And so will have the forgotten, disenchanted and manipulatable masses that can’t log on to www.jeetegagujarat.com.

The 23rd of December will stand testament.

Darn, the skeleton is out of the closet. Long after it was dead and dusted. Seemingly that is. For what its worth, racism has been an albatross around our collective necks since time immemorial.

Stripped of euphemisms, racism simply means that the color of a man’s skin determines the content of his character. Essentially, it is the irrational ostracization of a set of people on the basis of the amount of melanin in their skin, the symmetry-or the lack of it- of their noses, indeed the detailing of their eye lids. As ludicrous as it sounds, that’s that.

It disempowers, isolates and alienates people by devaluing their identity. It manifests ignorance, prejudice and uncalled for stereotyping. While it doesn’t tantamount to denying someone’s existence, it certainly is demeaning.

Truth is that we hate some people because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them. Truth also is that there is a chasm between our precepts and practice. Ironically, that very chasm is conspicuous by its absence between our collective denial and despair. Hang on, let me explain.

Our attitudes towards sexual and racial discrimination are at a macro level appallingly similar. In both cases, we don’t realize that the kind of things we do is hardwired into our systems, resulting in it becoming a way of life. In both cases, we are in denial – the conditioning being so strong- that it needs an awakening of sorts to accept the rigmarole.

Significantly, in both cases, the actions are not because we think we are superior (as is conveniently thought) indeed, our actions are the last bit of evidence of the insecurity, of the inability to measure up. In any case, racist comments say a great deal more about the people making them then about the ones towards whom it is directed.

Much like a fight against racism, feminism also is an effort at various levels to make one more conscious, aware and sensitive to the innate hypocrisy in our value system. To make the reverse journey between denial and acceptance.

To be sure, feminism is not about asking for the lion’s share of the spoils, its merely to ensure that women (as indeed, other races) too , get their place under the sun, matter of factly, without it being deemed a privilege.

You might say that cricket is the wellspring of it all, but it merely is a microcosm of the festering abscess of the society. But in what is an unflattering faux pas, Sharad Pawar- him of the legendary tongue twisters- says that the hostile antics- monkey chants- shouldn’t be misconstrued as racism. Isn’t the problem precisely that, sir? That we mess up hostility with racism? That we miss the forest for the trees?

Yes, perhaps, those people didn’t consciously want to be racist – that point is well taken. But their actions betrayed them. Betrayed the rung of the ladder they occupy in civilization! Can we then say that we are racists by default? Is it not perpetuated because we are forever in denial? In which case, as any psychologist would vouch, is it not deep rooted? Ah, so the dreaded virus doesn’t really cause discomfort to the sender, but is it any less malignant? Does ignorance of the law make a crime any more explicable? Or less illicit?

Isn’t the repartee in Chak De India (where the girl, on being asked whats the difference between Andhra and Tamilnadu fires back) more than a smart aleck moment? A grain of profound truth in the least?

That Andrew Symonds - as charmingly ferocious a cricketer as he is- chose to react the way he did- is as much a testament to the man’s worthiness of being a champion as it is of his strength of character.

As proud as we are of our pluralism we cannot wish away, indeed, brush under the carpet what is a damning reality. In the same vein, we cannot get away by saying that there is nothing we can do to redeem ourselves. We cannot continue asking the wrong questions because we fear the right answers. We cannot despise or oppose what we do not understand.

A case in point is Global Warming. For aeons we were told that carbon emissions was at best a figment of a scientist’s fertile imagination, at worst, a way to divert funds from belligerent shock and awe activities. (Denial). Without so much as battling an eyelid, we now think that it’s beyond us to take remedial action. (Despair). The journey from denial to despair. Without a pause. Without a thought. Without action.

What do I seek to achieve? Right after reading this, consciously look within. Do your actions- or fractions of them- in hindsight ring with racist overtones? If yes, awareness of the same will undo half the future damage. You have sensitized yourself for a start. While eradication might be a pipe dream, damage limitation might be a goal post we all can work towards.

I don’t claim to be non racist; it is not a case of holier than thou. But by having asked –and continuing to -myself these questions, early in the day, a process of detoxification is underway.

One is not trying to suggest that we should have inter- race marriages, that there should be no listing castes on matrimonial websites. That is none of my business. It is for each of us, however, to play the devil’s advocate. To introspect our failings, to come to terms with our own action- or inaction and internalize the subsequent essence.

Unlike an anti reservation bill, or a women’s reservation act in parliament, which are functions of a legislation, anti racism begins and ends with your attitude,thoughts and actions. Think about it, this is no psephology. Not exactly hop, skip and jump. But you get the point.

Meaningful change has, I dare say, never been easier. We owe it to ourselves. Perhaps our immediate descendents will have one less demon to contend with.

To invoke Mark Twain * “I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can’t be any worse*.

Yes, I know you can’t agree more on that. Yes, I can also see the unmistakable and accurate truth of it evident in your eyes. Yes, I second your thoughts of initiating an anti racism campaign

What you are about to read will serve as the body of a letter to be sent to the CEO of HDFC Bank and also the basis for legal action against that bank.

I have been a proxy customer to HDFC bank for about 6 years now, largely through my father trusting me with his ATM/Debit card while I played the role of the impoverished student.

It was not until the sultry May of 2005 that I would personally add to their illustrious list of clients as I opened a salary account with them, under their attached plan for preferred customers’ families.  I should’ve known that something was amiss when the gold credit card I should’ve received with my starter pack never came around. Maybe I should’ve known when their sales executive who came running to my office to get me to join up(since dad was a preferred customer), handed me a temporary debit card (robbing me of my name and turning me into a number in their overcrowded database) and then summarily disappeared. Even my cheque book was ashamed to bear my name, and slowly the ignominy of being me in HDFC bank began to set in.

To read on and know more about the wicked ways of HDFC Bank, go here.     

Well it’s been ages since I contributed to the site, but I think I have a small success worthy to narrate.

Answer me this, how many times have you gone on a long/short road trip and ended up getting extorted at the pre-planned break journey eatery or restaurant?

Plenty of times I’m certain if you are poor enough as me to use road transport.

It’s funny isn’t it how some half-toothed individual manning a dusty little pan ka galla in the middle of nowhere(also known as Karnataka) thinks that charging you 50% over the price of anything is somehow justified. Makes the Maximum bit in Maximum Retail Price sound rather redundant. But who could be bothered to haggle with someone about a Coke bottle in the middle of nowhere.

So let’s switch focus to I-Know-My-Rights-You-Capitalist-Pig Kolkata.

I must say ever since I’ve been living here, I’ve seen a lot of interesting sights and people. Unlike some of my batchmates, I’m rather enjoying the eccentricities of the city rather than getting worn out by them.

So the other day a few of us from class were having lunch at one of the somewhat better eateries in the IT-infested Sector-5 area. One of the guys bought a pet bottle of Sprite and since there were 3 of us, we asked for a couple of glasses to share.

The attendants refused.

They said that they didn’t have any glasses, when I could quite clearly see a whole trayful of them on the watercooler.

After a little haggling they said they could give us glasses, but we would have to pay for them separately. Once again haggling ensued. Hungry stomaches & disinterested disgust outweighed the spirit of rebellion and hence an agreement to pay was reached, upon which quite magically 2 plastic glasses costing Re 1 each were produced.

Ridiculous, na? Where else but in Bengal.

We did demand that we get a bill for the glasses and one of the more outspoken amongst promised vengeance.

Now this is something that has been on my mind every time I’ve taken a bus, ended up at some sort of fair or went to a pricey restaurant. How in the world can anyone charge you above a clearly stated Maximum Retail Price?

Since I was sharing lunch with sons of Supreme Court lawyers, the question begged to be asked. Can they?

Well as I figured, no. You can actually take this up with the product distributor and then court.

Then how does a hotel end up serving you a Rs 175 Kingfisher Premium or how does that lounge bar justify selling you a Red Bull can for Rs 200?

Well as long as they serve it to you in a glass then, yes. In a bottle/can, as supplied from the company…No.

Following day, another bunch of us go to the same establishment for lunch.

After lunch, a couple of the guys buy a couple of Cokes priced at Rs 10 each. Sounds fair enough, but not when the bottles turn out to be your Aamir Khan endorsed Chotta Cokes.

If paying Re 1 a glass was bad, paying 10 bucks for a Rs 7 bottle… a premium of close to 50% was absolutely ridiculous. Memories of dusty lil restaurant en route to Bangalore followed.

Well since I was a little wiser thanks to the knowledge gained the other day, I insisted that my friends get a bill for this and hand it over to the Supreme Court twins.

Delaying tactics is what we got. Who’s ever heard of a bill for an overpriced chotta coke?

We finally got a ‘Kaccha’ bill, but that wouldn’t wash with us. Least of all because the coffee pot that served as the water dispenser on the sink had no water. So, after about 10 minutes and a little shuffling across a couple of the counters at the food court we finally ended up with something that half-resembled an actual bill.

The following are its exact contents:

1 Pineapple Shake 25
2 Cold Drink 14
Other Charges 6
Total 45

Ah… so it wasn’t just an honest oversight on their part, that they were selling a 200 ml bottle of sweetened water at 1.5 times its cost.

We demanded to know what these “other charges” were. The guy at the cash counter thought we should ask the attendants who served us. Incidentally, it was those attendants who directed us to him.
Finally, a quiet gentleman standing in the corner watching this episode from the very start decided to come and clarify this little matter.

We presume he was the manager since he was the only one there who had a clue about what we were up in protest about. He explained how this happened everywhere and that this was perfectly normal. A 50% premium in a run-down foodcourt with a locked lavatory and a wash basin without water? I think not.

Well in his defense I must say that he gave in easily. I just said that those places could charge to the high heavens because at the least they gave you a damned glass! Where was ours?

No glass. No 50% for you. He accepted quietly.

He made some sort of an act of scolding the attendants about how many times he had told them to serve drinks in glasses and that they could only charge Rs 10 then. They looked on cluelessly.

He instructed them to henceforth serve cold drinks in glasses only. He didn’t answer us when we asked how much he would charge us if we insisted on drinking directly from the bottle though.

So we got our 6 bucks back, and another 6 for batchmates who had come in earlier. Not bad work given the scale of the matter, eh?

So we left with enough money to buy an Egg Roll at Nizam’s. But as much as I love Egg Rolls, it was a of greater satisfaction to me to have been able to make something right with a simple understanding of one’s rights.

It also settled a longstanding feud between myself and all those extortionist highway restaurants that dot this country’s bumpy highways.

To whoever who happens to read this, don’t ever pay more than you have to. And cry consumer court at the slightest hint of commercial extortion. The results are yours to see!

Since updated on 8th September 2007. Find it on the forum here.

“Losing your sensitivity is the saddest thing that can happen to you while you are still alive. It does not mean you have grown up. It only means you have died while you are still alive” – I rattled away, not half realizing the enormity of what I had uttered, until bells started ringing a dime a dozen in my head. For a moment, I thought I was thrice removed from the realities of the day.Thirty six hours, a business plan presentation and organizational development workshop later, questions continue to explode in my head like luminous, sparkling fireworks. I am yet to fully comprehend the proclamation I made, which perhaps had been brewing in my subconscious, lurking on the horizon, before it gate crashed into my conversation with a friend. It seemed innocuous, matter of factly; the irony is still not lost on me.In its broad contours, sensitivity means rapid and swift perception of the senses in responding to or even pre empting change. It is a catalyst -that defines your relationship and helps make sense- of the world around you. It is the ability to empathize- to live and take the moment for what it is, in the context of one’s immediate external environment.

When was the last time that you actually took a close look at your surroundings?
 
I think most of us are so caught up with our own lives that we hardly ever stop for a little bit and smell the roses. But that phrase comes from an era bygone… these days you’d be hard-pressed to find any roses to smell… or for that matter anything remotely pleasant smelling within your neighbourhood.
 
For those of us here want to clean up the filthy world of Indian politics; maybe it would be best to start at home.
 
I walk to work everyday (well office is pretty close by) and believe me in recent times I have managed to get more acquainted with the happenings around me than I would desire. And to tell you the truth it is extremely surprising that most well to do Indians are over time allowing conditions around them to bear close resemblance to some Dharavi slum.
 
With the consumerist culture that sells us things in attractive packages growing at a rapid pace, the Indian consumer doesn’t seem to have any idea about what to do with all that enticing, non-biodegradable packaging that convinced him to buy something that he didn’t really need in the first place.
 
Once done consuming, this mess couldn’t be his headache anymore… out it goes. If you have a good enough municipality they’ll collect it and transfer it to wreak havoc on the environment out of your sight and if you’re unlucky enough to have an inefficient municipality you’ll end up living in your own filth… much like man’s new best friend - pigs.
 
What I saw, everyday atleast got me interested in doing a little photo essay of my city and locality. I hope that some people reading this, who feel strongly about the accelerated deterioration of their dwellings will take this up as a small project, to highlight what is going wrong with their locality. This may not achieve much but atleast it will get people to take a good look at their neighbourhood and realise what its coming to and finally do something about it.

Just a little documented exercise in awareness.
 
Since it can’t be loaded on to the site directly, I’m just going to paste the link of a small Flash film that I’d like people, specifically within my city to take a look at.
 
 
To view the flash documentary directly, go here.
 
To discuss on the forum, go here.

Well this is for the uninitiated, who might for good reason wonder what AugustFury.com is all about.

To get a clue and then some, read on here.

Backdrop:

It was the beautiful month of September, blossoms hung high, birds sang songs sweet and merry whilst siblings of mine thrust silk sarees into a plastic bag headed of to the neighborhood Snow-XYZ, to get the bag’s contents dry-cleaned.
As she packed away the three sarees, one to be darned and the other 2(including an expensive silk) to be dry-cleaned, she gleefully envisioned getting them back all crisp and fresh smelling. But that was not to be. Trusting and naïve as most 27 year old post-pregnant sisters of mine are little idea did she have of the twist of fate that was to befall her.

The Sequence of Events:

In the stated month, the stated contents were moved to the unstated establishment for the above stated purposes. What was to follow was a gross misstatement of all that has just been stated.
On the date of collection, it was noticed that the silk saree was conspicuously absent. The loss was immediately reported and the ritual passing of the buck ensued. From the nearby Snow-XYZ the complaint was moved to the manager in the head office who figured that the missing item was misplaced at a factory where all the pressing is done. A matching blouse was furnished to aid in the recovery process, all to no avail.
Since the saree was deemed irretrievable, my sister decided that the least these Detergent Devils could do was to compensate her for the loss, settling at a rather reasonable Rs. 4500.
The benevolent dry-cleaners showed her that behind the bill was stated their policy of paying upto 12 times the cost of the cleaning charges in the case of any damage or loss.
The cleaning cost was 15 rupees. Do the math. More calls were made, more calls were forwarded, more calls went unattended…quintessentially she was left more harassed than a call centre employee. After three more weeks of passing the buck without any bucks actually finding their way to my sister and leaving her to feel more like Insat-3A with all the circles she had run around in, they made another magnanimous offer of Rs 500 to settle the issue. Enough was enough…threats were made to make Snow-XYZ look less than snowy white in the newspapers and of action from the consumer courts. Maybe given their service standards they were so used to numerous idle threats coming their way and hence hardly balked, ignoring the whole matter.

Mission Not-so-Impossible Commences:

Round 1: A New Hope - My sister henceforth known as Agent M, as demanded, made out a testimonial of what had happened, tendered proof of the transaction having taken place and the compensation claim that she was making and submitted it all to the court in triplicate.

Round 2: Revenge of the Sis - Three weeks on in early November, the case is formally accepted into the court, whereupon my sister is required to file an affidavit stating the details of what happened and make a formal claim to the courts upon which the courts send a notice to the opposing party who will file their own counter affidavit. This is where our hero steps in - he prepares the affidavit after 15 laborious minutes spent online in finding a sample affidavit to knock-off. This stunning effort would be the turning point in this, twisted uncannily similar to Star Wars, saga.

Round 3: The Dhobis Strike Back - The dry-cleaners admit that they lost the saree, but file an affidavit as colorful as this narration about how the saree was torn and that it was sent for darning; that even the blouse used to match and find it was old and tattered. Such imagination… maybe they should’ve written this piece. Another generous settlement offer of Rs 1500 comes our way…
No can do, we’re going to court.

Satire till you tire!

Here’s hoping to spawn a generation of Indian Political Satirists, frankly coz we desperately need their kind, I sure do.

Here’s one from me, and yes the quoted excerpts are for real.

Read on here.