I travelled the world and then landed in the furthermost corner of it: Australia. This blog is about politics, culture and media as seen from a global-Indian's perspective.
I was already an hour late to get home when Sid called to say that AJ was on the door crying "Mahmmamah". He is sick, and as would luck would have it I had some deadlines to manage. I felt so dejected.
But then, as I left work the tram arrived just as I reached the tram stop, as did the train. And all the pedestrian crossings were green! Never in my memory has the public transport of Melbourne been this obliging. I reached home in record time.
Someone somewhere is feeling kind towards me. It is unlikely to be the General Manager of Public Transport Victoria. Could it be ... God?
Love
The on-again-off-again atheist (aka Mumbaikar in Melbourne)
PS: This one's for you, AJ. I hope you always see life through rose-coloured glasses.
On my 26th birthday - six years ago - I hit rock bottom.
According to the “plan”, I should have finished my studies, gotten married, travelled a bit, and had my first child by then. Instead, I was still stuck in Mumbai, single as hell, and had been struggling for two years to get a good scholarship to cover a masters somewhere outside of India. Obviously, there was no child in the picture (much to my parent’s relief I might add).
It was then that I first considered the possibility that I may never get married, never have children, never travel the world and never do that blasted masters in some vague liberal arts subject that I so dearly wanted to do. After all, just because I wanted those things didn’t mean that the Universe in any way felt obliged to give them to me.
Funnily enough, it was between that birthday and the next that I finally cadged a scholarship to an arts master’s programme, got my first passport stamp (to Switzerland) and most importantly: met Sid. How far could that baby be?
Six years afar it seems. On my 32nd birthday today, I can finally say that yes, I have finished my studies, gotten married, travelled a fair bit, and yes, yes, yes, I am the mother of a two-month old baby girl.
It seemed like a good idea to view the exhibition on Louis Vuitton’s history at Museé Carnavalet in Paris. Andrew had recommended it. Besides, given my previously-expressed cynicism about the brand, I felt I owed it one chance to try and understand the secret of its unceasing popularity. Then again, we were in Marais, one of the most fashionable neighbourhoods I’ve ever visited, and it seemed somehow appropriate.
The exhibition traced the luggage-maker’s history since 1835 when 14-year-old Louis Vuitton undertook a two-year trek from his hometown Jura to Paris to become an apprentice for a luggage store on 4 rue des Capucine. It took him only another 18 years to set up his own eponymous store in the capital. But interestingly – and here’s where my respect for the company grew – the first 100 years of the luggage company were as much based on innovation as branding exercises.
Think about it: 1850s to 1950s is when the means, modes and quality of travel changed dramatically. From horse-drawn carts we sswiftly moved to ocean liners, trains, automobiles and airplanes. Naturally, a change in transport necessitated a change in our luggage designs – and Louis Vuitton constantly innovated to keep up with modern lifestyles.
Luggage and writing desk rolled into one
It started with changing the shape of our trunks from domed-tops to flat tops, which could be easily stacked on top of each other. Then they changed the material used for trunks from leather to coated canvas – less prestigious but sturdier. The House also started cleverly compartmentalising spaces inside to optimise usage. They created slim cabin trunks that could be slipped under the bunks of ocean liners and trains. They created drop leaf cases (where the front end would also drop along with the top) for picnic cases, once automobiles became fashionable. These picnic cases came complete with set-to-size cutlery inside. Among their more outlandishly innovative designs were suitcases with pop-up beds and built-in writing desks for longer exploratory journeys.
The designs were exciting because functionality and not just aesthetics lay at the heart of their creation.Interestingly, after the 1950s, such functionality-based innovation petered out and aesthetics, branding and marketing exercises took over. (It is also the time when the company moves out of family control after three generations of Louis Vuittons at the helm.) It is telling that barely two percent of the exhibits included designs made between the 1950s and now. These exhibits include the luggage custom-made for Damien Hirst, Karl Lagerfeld, Zaha Hadid and film maker Wes Andersen for his film, The Darjeeling Ltd. So their wow-factor had more to do with brand association than with design innovation.
My problem with Louis Vuitton is that even when it comes to aesthetics, the brand is stuck to one look, coming up with gazillion permutations and combinations within that narrow framework. It was Gaston Louis Vuitton – second in the chain – who came up with the brand’s distinctive lazenge motif in 1888, inspired by Japanese design which was all the rage in Paris at that time. But today, the distinctiveness and prominence of the motif has made the brand an extremely easy prey to forgers – for we live in a world of easy duplication. And yet, LVMH Group seems loathe to innovate their design which is a cash cow for them. It is a far call from the days when Louis Vuitton decided to replace leather on his truck cover with coated canvas – a decidedly less prestigious but lighter and sturdier material. He took a call based on functionality, and the canvas in elegant grey went on to become the company's signature design.
Sid says, travel hasn’t changed much since the 1950s. It is still aeroplanes that we travel in so what could they possibly innovate over? Well, the speed, frequency and quality of our travel has changed dramatically. We travel more, for shorter distances and with far lesser luggage. Surely, that requires a new attitude towards luggage making. For example, if Louis Vuitton once came up with a case with an in-built writing desk, then why not one with an in-built laptop board, a device that has attached itself to our beings?
It is because the brand is no longer about innovation in luggage making. It is just another corporation looking for the easiest and safest way to cash-in on the hard-earned reputation of its founding fathers.
What I love most about being in Paris is that I can’t understand a word of what anyone is saying. So everyone sounds intelligent and educated to me. Besides, how stupid can they be – they SPEAK French!
In England, I can eavesdrop and am constantly reminded of the general pettiness of human race. Because really, all that people ever do is complain and bitch. Like the two ladies who sat next to Sid & I in the Eurostar to Paris. Three hours! For three hours, all they did was bitch about people, including ironically the girl for whose hen’s party they were visiting Paris.
Worse, in England I can detect accents. And it gives me a sense of people’s background and education – if not of their intelligence. I try, I really try not to judge them on the basis of it. But despite my best efforts, if someone sounds like Katie Price aka Jordan, it is likely to be a short acquaintance. Because I have only limited social time and I would rather spend it with people with whom my wavelengths have at least half-a-chance to match.
In India, the instant judgements go much further because I know the society so much better. Accents aren’t the only giveaway to people’s histories there. In India, I can guess a person’s caste, community and culture by his or her very name. Add an address and occupation to that, and a person’s whole life is reasonably mapped out before me without any effort on my part.
Of course, every now and then I am proved wrong. But it is not pleasing to start an acquaintance under the burden of prejudice.
As a student of media, I know that stereotyping people is wrong. We should not slot people on the basis of their colour, ethnicity, culture, community, caste, accent or education. Because over and above all they are individuals, and their shared cultural experiences will always be modified by their own unique personalities. But how do I train my brain to filter out people’s colour, names, accents and addresses and begin every acquaintance with a clean slate. It just refuses to listen to me.
So instead, I live with guilt: the guilt of a good, Labour-supporting liberal.
And occasionally, I escape to Paris where I can always assume the best of everyone.
***
The Scottish comedia Danny Bhoy on French accents
At least one person connected with the Delhi Commonwealth Games 2010 has finished his task on schedule - the ever dependable AR Rahman, who was entrusted with the task of coming up with the CWG theme song. (So even if the athletes have no track to run on, at least they are now assured a good song and dance show.)
Of course, the humble Mr Rahman did not only finish the song "Swagatham" but has also made it available on Soundcloud for people to listen to:
I think I want another volcano to erupt in Iceland.
After all, all along that the supposed volcanic ash was hovering above us, we had the most beautiful blue summer skies and long, warm days. There was barbeque smell in the air, streets had come alive with outdoor cafes, and even the British managed to look happy.
Of course, some people had their travel plans foiled. But as Sid and my passports were toasting in some drawer at Britain's Home Office during that time, we really couldn't have cared less.
And then, the volcano subsided, and we are back in the thick of winter again. Cloudy skies, cloudy faces, and the Home Office has still not relinquished control over our passports.
A shopkeeper in Brixton promoting the neighbourhood to Sid and I: Sunday is all shanti shanti. The fun is on Friday night, Saturday night. You can sit and see a lot of drunk men getting arrested.
BBC iplayer has just uploaded a documentary on the Australian television series Skippy The Bush Kangaroo that was played between 1966 and 69 world over. We had to watch it instantly, Sid being Aussie and all that.
No, I can’t muster much enthusiasm for Skippy. The bush kangaroo was not a part of my childhood, or my parents’. Yes, Skippy was played in more than 126 countries. No, India was not one of them. Yes, it was watched by more than 300 million people. No, that didn’t include any Indians.
The first reason is obvious. There was no television in India in the 1960s. Television only came to India in 1972 so we were never meant to catch the phenomenon in real time. But what about recordings? Sorry, even when we did get television, it was government-controlled, and the government chose to protect our pure eastern minds from nasty western programmes about kangaroos doing funny things with kids. The first western programme I watched was Bold & the Beautiful in 1994 when cable television was finally allowed to operate in India. (Of course, one can argue that it is also a fine programme about a bunch of funny creatures jumping and humping about.)
But don’t feel sad for us. We had our own home-grown – and may I add grander – fix of kids-in-the-wild programming. Appu aur Pappu was a television serial broadcasted from 1987-88 on late afternoons every Sunday. Pappu was the son of a forest officer. Appu was his pet elephant. Together, they foiled the plans of poachers and smugglers, rescued stranded travelers lost in the jungle, befriended tribals, helped wild animals in peril and had other adventures. And boy, did we love our Appu! Believe me, if you think that the dumb kangaroo was the shit, wait till you see what a clever elephant can get up to.
Of course, it was a copy of Skippy. But then, Skippy was a copy of Flipper, an American television serial than ran between 1964 and 67 about the son of a Chief Warden of a marine preserve who befriends a dolphin, and how they together save the world.
But there is one difference. Sid’s Skippy was carefully documented, archived, turned into a cultural reference point, and is still being discussed in documentaries 40 years later. Why? Because it had a marketing machinery behind it. I can't even find a wikipedia page on my Appu to prove to Sid that he was for real.
***
Try looking up Appu aur Pappu on youtube at your own peril. Whatever turns up - I can assure you - had nothing to do with my childhood. And if you have any doubts about elephant intelligence, here is BBC saying boo to you.
All right, so the 1980s theme party that Sid and I attended on New Year’s Eve wasn’t as scandalous as the “Prostitute & Pimp” party thrown last month by one of Sid’s friend. But dressing up in George Michael gear or Madonna’s Who’s That Girl-attire didn’t make anyone look better than prostitutes and pimps.
Of all the English cultural quirks – read, kidney pies and Katie Price – it is this predilection for mass ritualistic fancy dress parties that I find most peculiar.
Now, for us Indians, it is a simple equation. If we are going to a party, we try our best to look our best. We are too conscious of not being good looking enough – not tall enough, not fair enough, not thin enough, not blonde enough – to treat our looks with any sense of humour.
But by corollary, does it mean that the English are so confident and bored of their good looks that they are ready to spend so much time, energy, money and effort into making themselves look ridiculous? (Now if it were Italy or Spain, I wouldn’t find that confidence questionable. But England?)
Or is it that they are so convinced of being irreparably ugly that they see no point in dressing up? Their act of looking silly is rebellion against the French and Spanish pressures to look good, which they know they simply can’t achieve, so why try!
Or perhaps, as Sid says, they are just interested in have fun!
All you thought you were doing was putting that peculiar, white, chewy-looking thing into your mouth (much like that dirt-filled plastic giraffe off the floor the other week). But little did you know that in that tiny act of eating your first piece of Indian food what a gigantic rite of passage you’ve crossed.
For that was no ordinary peculiar, white, chewy-looking thing. That was naan, the finest gem of the great Indian cuisine. And as one-half of your skip ancestors will agree, it is the most splendid gift given to the world by your other-half of Indian ancestors.
Yah, yah… I know. Some will tell you that it was zero. Others will try to convince you that it was the Gandhi’s non-violence, and still more will whisper that it was actually wireless technology that Marconi stole from Dr JC Bose of Kolkata. (Bloody Italians, never trust them!)
But..but.. little Anjali.. don’t let that fool you. Think for yourself. So without the zero, we wouldn’t have had computers. Without wireless, the world wouldn’t have had cell phones. And without non-violence, we wouldn’t have had… well, nobody really practices it anyway, so it is a moot point. But without the great Indian cuisine, we wouldn’t have had dal makhnis, navratan kormas, matar paneer, shahi kebab, rogan josh, biryani and of course that tasty piece of naan in your mouth. Life wouldn’t have been worth living really: cell phones or no cell phones.
Why else do you think the English turned up at our doorsteps with guns and canons? It was the mysterious, aromatic curries that we laboured over for centuries to perfect that seduced them from thousands of miles away. And even as they left kicking and screaming, they took away enough Indian chefs to their cold, icy homeland to have all the Chicken Tikka Masala they fancied.
Can you think of anything else from India that the world has shown such remarkable interest in? Which is why, while others will want to dunk you in holy water or make you read the Hebrew To’rahs, we Indians keep it simple. Chew and gulp, chew and gulp – and there won’t make a better Indian than you.
Yours
Always ready to enlighten you on your Indian heritage
As perhaps Mae West would say - I’ve been thin and I’ve been fat, and believe me, thin is better.
Except, of course, on Boxing Day: the beginning of the Christmas season sales.
Because if you are size small, you share your dimensions with the shopping locusts of London – the slim, small and highly fashion conscious South East Asians. Even before the sun breaks through the inky skies, they have already attacked all the chain stores giving the best bargains and ferreted away all size smalls in all colours, textures, hues and cuts.
And all that is left are the trampled remains of a colourful sale that is not of much use to size Smalls like me anymore.
I am researching weird statistics for a magazine article. And here is an interesting one I found: "2 out of 3 of us would not give up our spouse for a night even for a million bucks."
I told Anon that I was going to do a “get coffee for boss” job. She thought I was going to live the Wake Up Sidlife of Konkana Sen Gupta. Which means that I would get hit on by the boss (editor of fancy magazine with saxophone on his office wall), get squired around the jazz joints of the city, graduate to a columnist, and get to dump the boss – all in the span of a month. And I’ll get paid to do all this.
Unfortunately, life’s not like that. Internship is only for a couple of weeks, boss is a woman, there are no saxophones on the office walls (I checked), and I won’t be paid.
This is what annoys me about Bollywood. It doesn't makes films about life. It makes three hour long advertisement clips on life. Which means that everything is colourful; everybody is young, hopeful and charming; Mumbai is all sea, rains and chor bazaar; bosses flirt with you; Daddies are rich – and everyone had paid jobs. The dilemmas, frustrations, betrayals, failures and Bombay gutters – all the things that make life real, gritty and so worth fighting for – are airbrushed away. It is a big huge advertisment industry.
Of course, not that anyone minds. My 24-year-old sister called from Bangalore and said, “Wake Up Sid was so real. I totally identified with it.”
Clearly, as a race, we deserve Bollywood and Dharma Productions.
First, Brown and Co announced a super tax on banker bonuses.
Then, Sarkozy gleefully signed a deal with Brown to do the same in France.
Today, Obama called the heads of the top 9 American banks to candidly discuss their obtuseness.
If bankers are in any more doubts about their dizzying unpopularity - here's Guardian reporting on how cleaners are economically worth more to British society than its bankers.
Even if Me and Orson Welles hadn’t been so well-acted; even if it hadn’t explored the ambitions, envies, inspirations, insecurities and egos that drive the theatre world with as much insight; even if, Claire Danes hadn’t looked quite so radiant, Zac Efron as charming, and Christain McCay as flamboyant; even if, it wasn’t a well-told tale of the coming of age of a cocky teenager against the backdrop of Orson Welles’ 1937 theatre company in New York – I would have still enjoyed the film.
Because after watching Fantastic Mr Fox, The Imaginarium of Dr Parnasus and 2012 in succession, I couldn’t bear to watch another film where humans, if at all, appeared as props to their more fantastical computer-generated counterparts. I wanted to watch a film where the agonies, joys, treacheries, dilemmas and nuances of the real human-inhabited world around us were the main and only focus brought to life by flesh-and-blood actors.
Yesterday, Sid and I happily went scavenging through the Borders book shop outlet in Angel. The chain bookstore went into liquidation last week, and we were hoping to capitalise on its bad luck.
No, Borders doesn’t have my sympathies. None at all! Borders would like you to believe that Amazon.com did this to it. But I wonder if it was Amazon that was responsible for its poorly informed staff, boring recommendations, and topsy-turvy book management system.
A few months ago, Sid walked into a Borders bookshop with a specific book in mind. It wasn’t just a vague idea, he didn’t just have the subject in mind – it was a specific book by a specific author that he was after. He couldn’t find it in the supposed designated area, so walked up to the staff. The staff took him back to the designated area, and started looking around in confusion – obviously, it wasn’t there. So he looked up the computer systems, stocks hadn’t run out. The book was there in store, just that the shop assistant had no idea where it could be. Sid left in disgust and bought the book on Amazon.
The problem is that Borders tried to attract buyers with coffee, toys, CDs and beautiful pictures. So it got coffee drinkers, toy buyers, CD hunters and picture gazers – it didn’t get in book lovers.
Here is my contribution to solving UK's rising unemployment which stands at 7.8 per cent of the population at the moment and is predicted to rise to 9.5 per cent in two years. Gordon Brown should make it illegal for service companies to use any kind of automated voice recordings. No company should ask its clients to speak to automated voice services to pay for bills, send details about addresses or changes in them, or any other inquiries.
We just moved out of our old place and I had to go through an immensely long and frustrating exercise to get my address changed and outstanding bills cleared off with government councils, gas, water and electric companies. All of them forced me to speak to automated voice services. None of these enlightening conversations eventually worked out because either the automated voice couldn't understand my accent or because I didn't read out the addres exactly as it had on its records or whatever. So I was passed on real operators eventually anyway. But not before I had already wasted much time and patience over delightful chats with machines.
It is poor service, it wastes my time - and most importantly, it is taking away some poor unemployed British sods job. Get rid of it!
