My stage fright knows no bounds.
In a most perverse way like much of the rest of my life, my talents such as they are, lie in the area of the performance arts. Before my ‘me-ness’ took control of this body, I was not a bad singer at all. Then somewhere in the process of growing up, I decided I would rather die than be on stage, and that was that. I forced myself on stage a few times after this malaise gripped me, hoping to conquer the fear and knowing that one good performance would do wonders for my confidence. These turned out to be occasions of such bitter failure and nightmarish shame that the fate of my singing on stage was sealed. Nowadays, if anyone were to ask me I just say I can’t sing. There’s no shame in that.
I thought, as did many others, that since I wasn’t bad with the written word, I would logically fare well in debate and recitation as well. But then again, though I conquered my fear of performing in public to the extent that I could be pushed onto the stage, gagging and willing myself not to throw up –when my turn came to speak, I would start shakily and then entirely forget what it was I was meant to say. The resounding silence of the auditorium would echo back at me, and I would open and close my mouth like a pop-eyed fish flopping about at the bottom of a boat.
Acting! By the time people had started suggesting acting to me, I had wised up to my condition, and lived my passion for it vicariously by helping out backstage as bouncer, makeup person, and general busybody.
But now that I’ve weeded out most things that inspire such terror (except trying on clothes in front of those ghastly lit mirrors in stores) I haven’t felt stage fright in a long, LONG while. (I’m a coward, but bravery is overrated anyway.)
Until yesterday that is. I went to the hospital for an abdomen scan. Apparently one needs to feel like one needs to go wee-wee, before they’ll do the scan thing on you (you need to feel the urge to go, but not go, of course.). People would keep coming at me and asking if my bladder was full, and despite the fact that I’d drunk an entire litre of water earlier on I could only shake my head miserably and whisper “not yet”. A little while later I tried to brazen it out and pretend that I needed to go. But the technician caught me out convincingly when he began the scan and sent me out with a flea in my ear, to sit and wait ‘For toilet to come to me’ in the waiting room.
An hour later and people were giving me the disappointed looks that teachers gave me in school when I walked off the stage after saying “Ladies and Gentlemen, the topic of debate for today is…is…excuse me I need to barf”. My husband, usually the most patient of souls, started looking quite distressed after one and a half hours of waiting for me “to get the urgency” as one of the staff described it. I felt like I was letting him down, the hospital technicians down, and most of all myself down. It was standing on stage all over again, I just couldn’t do it. ("feel the urgency", not do it).
I eventually got the scan done successfully, but that stage fright of mine made the simplest thing the hardest thing to do.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Goodbye my friend...
I must say after breaking my foot, my view of people has changed. I’ve been coming to office for two weeks now, the first week in full cripple regalia with a cast on my foot, and two crutches under each arm. The next week I toned down the image a bit and came in a modest crepe bandage, enormous surgical shoe, and one crutch tucked discreetly under the right arm.
My faith in human nature has almost completely been restored. People have gone out of their way to open doors, offered to help me in and out of places, and asked me incessantly how it’s happened and where the fracture was. Complete strangers have stopped me and asked “ So…what happened? Not well-ah?” ( “Ya, my foot has caught a fever, so I’ve wrapped it up warmly in brickhard plaster.”)
I have been told the fracture and torn ligament stories of everyone on this floor (let me tell you it’s one helluva large floor…try walking across it on crutches and one leg), been advised to take calcium tablets, and consult a homoeopath -- usually by people I’ve never seen before and not seen since. The drivers of my morning and evening cabs have been accommodative enough to drive as close to lifts as possible. One driver even took it upon himself to haul me unceremoniously out of the car by the arm despite my loud protestations (as he dragged me out) that I could manage myself.
Of course there is always the boor. (What would my blog be without boors? Insipid.) This one guy probably thinks I bring a crutch to work as a fashion statement, and lets doors swing back in my face if I’m following him in anywhere. Of course I give him the stink eye whenever I hop by his desk, so he’s not getting away with it.
I went to the shopping mall Forum (just me and my crutch) last week, and the advantages were numerous. Not only did I get to sit down unchalleneged on the “For Handicapped and Senior Citizen’s Bench Only” next to the entrance, strangers actually held lifts for me, and offered to stand in the billing counter for me while I sat down.
A visit to a jam-packed Hard Rock Café told the same story. We were shown directly to a table with my husband commenting in sotto voce throughout that it was my crutch that worked the trick and that we should never go anywhere without it for the rest of our lives.
But now the time draws near to wean myself off my trusty crutch. Back to being pushed aside, stepped on, yelled at. Back to having people not asking me where it hurt and not having a receptive audience as I tell the story of how it happened with a brave “I’ll be OK, don’t worry” smile on my face.
Siiiigh…Goodbye my trusty crutch, it was real special, but we knew it couldn’t last…
My faith in human nature has almost completely been restored. People have gone out of their way to open doors, offered to help me in and out of places, and asked me incessantly how it’s happened and where the fracture was. Complete strangers have stopped me and asked “ So…what happened? Not well-ah?” ( “Ya, my foot has caught a fever, so I’ve wrapped it up warmly in brickhard plaster.”)
I have been told the fracture and torn ligament stories of everyone on this floor (let me tell you it’s one helluva large floor…try walking across it on crutches and one leg), been advised to take calcium tablets, and consult a homoeopath -- usually by people I’ve never seen before and not seen since. The drivers of my morning and evening cabs have been accommodative enough to drive as close to lifts as possible. One driver even took it upon himself to haul me unceremoniously out of the car by the arm despite my loud protestations (as he dragged me out) that I could manage myself.
Of course there is always the boor. (What would my blog be without boors? Insipid.) This one guy probably thinks I bring a crutch to work as a fashion statement, and lets doors swing back in my face if I’m following him in anywhere. Of course I give him the stink eye whenever I hop by his desk, so he’s not getting away with it.
I went to the shopping mall Forum (just me and my crutch) last week, and the advantages were numerous. Not only did I get to sit down unchalleneged on the “For Handicapped and Senior Citizen’s Bench Only” next to the entrance, strangers actually held lifts for me, and offered to stand in the billing counter for me while I sat down.
A visit to a jam-packed Hard Rock Café told the same story. We were shown directly to a table with my husband commenting in sotto voce throughout that it was my crutch that worked the trick and that we should never go anywhere without it for the rest of our lives.
But now the time draws near to wean myself off my trusty crutch. Back to being pushed aside, stepped on, yelled at. Back to having people not asking me where it hurt and not having a receptive audience as I tell the story of how it happened with a brave “I’ll be OK, don’t worry” smile on my face.
Siiiigh…Goodbye my trusty crutch, it was real special, but we knew it couldn’t last…
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
A brief madness
People, regardless of age or background, have a few stock phrases and responses when they’re angry. I, having been in the midst of many an angry skirmish, am well placed to draw up this list of the rather senseless things people say in anger. Note that this is in no particular order:
1) When one says “I was busy” the invariable retort is – “ As if I’m not.” Noone said YOU’re not busy…I was merely saying that I WAS.
2) One often makes accusations and then adds a “and you know it” to add weight to the accusation. Often it is the first time that the accused has heard that he’s a sonovabitch, so he can very well claim not to know it.
3) “Don’t tell me what to feel!” Is another comment that puzzles me. If the reaction is far beyond what the stimulus warrants and you point that out, this is often the comment that comes whizzing back at you, even though it makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever. If I choose to laugh heartily through Schindler’s List and people turn around and give me outraged glances, does it make sense if I say “Hey, Don’t tell me what to FEEL, OK???”. Probably not. (On an aside I laughed uproariously through most of the tragic parts of ‘Life is Beautiful’. Not because I’m a chump; but because I had aimed to comfort a friend who was crying inconsolably next to me, and groped her quite comprehensively instead.)
4) If you point out certain flaws in near and dear ones, you will roundly be accused of being a complainer and a whiner, who can never appreciate one’s good side and will always harp on the bad things. In the ensuing heated argument, the original accusation is entirely forgotten, in which case this is quite a good tactic and shouldn’t be here. (But the point I was getting to before I recognized this as the brilliant ploy that it is -- I wasn’t saying that you are entirely bad, I’m just saying your habit of being selectively deaf is something I would now wish to exclusively talk about, at length, and in high-pitched tones. Again, of course you’ve done a lot of good things, but we’re not talking about that JUST now. )
5) This is somewhat similar to the last one, only from the other person’s perspective. When someone has really got into the groove and is in the middle of calling you every name in the book, you start saying things in self-defence like “Don’t you remember I lent you money two years ago, and I picked up your crazy aunt from the station because everyone else refused”, etc. and generally remind him/her that you’re not all bad and have done some rather nice things for him in the past. Pat will come the completely shameless dodge -- “Oh so you have to throw my poor aunty in my face now. There’s no point in doing a friend a good turn if you bring it up later… and now that we’re on the topic I’m glad she bit you.”
6) “When I die you’ll feel bad you said that.” With a sad droop of the shoulders, like you’re dying as you speak.
And so on, you get the drift. I dare all my readers to delve into their memories and deny they have either used these arguments or had them used on them These comments distract people from the issue; making the arguments confusing, long-winded, and not as intellectually stimulating as they otherwise could have been.
But then again, anger is a brief madness, and generally not a recognized forum for the exercise of intelligence or time-management.
1) When one says “I was busy” the invariable retort is – “ As if I’m not.” Noone said YOU’re not busy…I was merely saying that I WAS.
2) One often makes accusations and then adds a “and you know it” to add weight to the accusation. Often it is the first time that the accused has heard that he’s a sonovabitch, so he can very well claim not to know it.
3) “Don’t tell me what to feel!” Is another comment that puzzles me. If the reaction is far beyond what the stimulus warrants and you point that out, this is often the comment that comes whizzing back at you, even though it makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever. If I choose to laugh heartily through Schindler’s List and people turn around and give me outraged glances, does it make sense if I say “Hey, Don’t tell me what to FEEL, OK???”. Probably not. (On an aside I laughed uproariously through most of the tragic parts of ‘Life is Beautiful’. Not because I’m a chump; but because I had aimed to comfort a friend who was crying inconsolably next to me, and groped her quite comprehensively instead.)
4) If you point out certain flaws in near and dear ones, you will roundly be accused of being a complainer and a whiner, who can never appreciate one’s good side and will always harp on the bad things. In the ensuing heated argument, the original accusation is entirely forgotten, in which case this is quite a good tactic and shouldn’t be here. (But the point I was getting to before I recognized this as the brilliant ploy that it is -- I wasn’t saying that you are entirely bad, I’m just saying your habit of being selectively deaf is something I would now wish to exclusively talk about, at length, and in high-pitched tones. Again, of course you’ve done a lot of good things, but we’re not talking about that JUST now. )
5) This is somewhat similar to the last one, only from the other person’s perspective. When someone has really got into the groove and is in the middle of calling you every name in the book, you start saying things in self-defence like “Don’t you remember I lent you money two years ago, and I picked up your crazy aunt from the station because everyone else refused”, etc. and generally remind him/her that you’re not all bad and have done some rather nice things for him in the past. Pat will come the completely shameless dodge -- “Oh so you have to throw my poor aunty in my face now. There’s no point in doing a friend a good turn if you bring it up later… and now that we’re on the topic I’m glad she bit you.”
6) “When I die you’ll feel bad you said that.” With a sad droop of the shoulders, like you’re dying as you speak.
And so on, you get the drift. I dare all my readers to delve into their memories and deny they have either used these arguments or had them used on them These comments distract people from the issue; making the arguments confusing, long-winded, and not as intellectually stimulating as they otherwise could have been.
But then again, anger is a brief madness, and generally not a recognized forum for the exercise of intelligence or time-management.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Universal Language
Something I’m very ashamed of is, though I’ve spent a little over three years here now, I don’t know the language at all. It’s very strange -- usually you can’t avoid picking up a few bits and pieces here and there. After living in Hyderabad for two years I could roughly gauge what people were saying to me, and could nod my head sagely and say “wonkay” (aubergine.)
But over here, it almost seems like I’ve formed a mental block because of all the people telling me what scum I am for not knowing the language.
Three months into my stay here, I went to a doctor near my house and as I walked into the room, he asked me something in Kannada. I said “excuse me?” and “I beg your pardon” two or three times before I realized that he was speaking to me in Kannada so I explained to him that I’m Bengali and don’t know the language. To which he demanded to know how long I’d been here, why I had come to Bangalore, and why my husband had come. By then it was already 10-15 minutes into my sitting with the doctor and he had yet to ask what ailed me. (Not too much to expect from a doctor methinks -- I presume even people from Bangalore don’t make appointments with doctors to discuss the erosion of local culture.) He concluded the little interview with “you should learn Kannada if you want to stay here. It’s not nice to talk to people in another language if you want their help.” Or something to that effect. I was a hair’s breadth from walking out, but felt too ill and had waited too long so I stayed put and took it quietly. I felt a great urge to ask him if I should give him the consultation charge in rupees or Kannada money, but again, I was too sick to care about anything much.
On some level, I quite agree with some of what this guy was saying, though expecting someone to speak fluent Kannada after living here for 3 months is ridiculous, it IS true that there’s no excuse for not knowing it three YEARS down the line. In the last three years I’ve been lectured by autodrivers and a few others that I should learn if I want to stay here. I feel too sometimes, that since we’ve all but settled here and might eventually bring up little thingies here as well, it would be nice if we could communicate with people better and understand the lyrics of the songs apart from the part where it goes:
“Oh daarrrrlling, please-a come-u/I lou you maximum-u!”(I’m not kidding.)
People here feel very aggrieved about talking in Hindi and dismiss the national language argument as a lot of twaddle. I only wish to make them understand that Hindi is not my mother tongue either, and in fact is a language I don’t speak very well, and only use it to make myself understood. So it’s not like I’m any less uncomfortable than the delivery boy who I say “Ekdom bhul-bhal jinish laata hai” to. Now if I had spoken to them in Bengali, arrogantly assuming they’d understand…THAT would be obnoxious and deserving of a full lecture.
Anyhow, I hope the xenophobes here will forgive me for making one last observation from MY point of view. I lived most of my life in Calcutta and wasn’t too put out when I had to converse with people in Hindi and English when they didn’t know Bengali.(In fact I have a relative back in Cal who insists on conversing in the most outlandish Hindi if she realizes a shop-assistant or such like is non-Bengali. So it happens that often the man will talk to her in faintly accented Bengali and she'll battle on in the most excruciating Hindi). It didn’t occur to me (because that’s how it is in Cal) to feel hostile towards them because of it, or imply that they should learn Bengali (and make it snappy) if they wanted to be treated decently there. If the non-Bengalis spoke Bengali it pleased us enormously, but that’s as far as it went.
But anyway, in Rome do as the Romans. This is not Calcutta. I shall now switch on Sun TV and try to emulate the hefty heroine doing complicated gyrations in the rain. Then maybe I can reach out to my Bangalore brethren with the universal language of dance! (dramatic stamp of the foot and snap of the fingers.)
But over here, it almost seems like I’ve formed a mental block because of all the people telling me what scum I am for not knowing the language.
Three months into my stay here, I went to a doctor near my house and as I walked into the room, he asked me something in Kannada. I said “excuse me?” and “I beg your pardon” two or three times before I realized that he was speaking to me in Kannada so I explained to him that I’m Bengali and don’t know the language. To which he demanded to know how long I’d been here, why I had come to Bangalore, and why my husband had come. By then it was already 10-15 minutes into my sitting with the doctor and he had yet to ask what ailed me. (Not too much to expect from a doctor methinks -- I presume even people from Bangalore don’t make appointments with doctors to discuss the erosion of local culture.) He concluded the little interview with “you should learn Kannada if you want to stay here. It’s not nice to talk to people in another language if you want their help.” Or something to that effect. I was a hair’s breadth from walking out, but felt too ill and had waited too long so I stayed put and took it quietly. I felt a great urge to ask him if I should give him the consultation charge in rupees or Kannada money, but again, I was too sick to care about anything much.
On some level, I quite agree with some of what this guy was saying, though expecting someone to speak fluent Kannada after living here for 3 months is ridiculous, it IS true that there’s no excuse for not knowing it three YEARS down the line. In the last three years I’ve been lectured by autodrivers and a few others that I should learn if I want to stay here. I feel too sometimes, that since we’ve all but settled here and might eventually bring up little thingies here as well, it would be nice if we could communicate with people better and understand the lyrics of the songs apart from the part where it goes:
“Oh daarrrrlling, please-a come-u/I lou you maximum-u!”(I’m not kidding.)
People here feel very aggrieved about talking in Hindi and dismiss the national language argument as a lot of twaddle. I only wish to make them understand that Hindi is not my mother tongue either, and in fact is a language I don’t speak very well, and only use it to make myself understood. So it’s not like I’m any less uncomfortable than the delivery boy who I say “Ekdom bhul-bhal jinish laata hai” to. Now if I had spoken to them in Bengali, arrogantly assuming they’d understand…THAT would be obnoxious and deserving of a full lecture.
Anyhow, I hope the xenophobes here will forgive me for making one last observation from MY point of view. I lived most of my life in Calcutta and wasn’t too put out when I had to converse with people in Hindi and English when they didn’t know Bengali.(In fact I have a relative back in Cal who insists on conversing in the most outlandish Hindi if she realizes a shop-assistant or such like is non-Bengali. So it happens that often the man will talk to her in faintly accented Bengali and she'll battle on in the most excruciating Hindi). It didn’t occur to me (because that’s how it is in Cal) to feel hostile towards them because of it, or imply that they should learn Bengali (and make it snappy) if they wanted to be treated decently there. If the non-Bengalis spoke Bengali it pleased us enormously, but that’s as far as it went.
But anyway, in Rome do as the Romans. This is not Calcutta. I shall now switch on Sun TV and try to emulate the hefty heroine doing complicated gyrations in the rain. Then maybe I can reach out to my Bangalore brethren with the universal language of dance! (dramatic stamp of the foot and snap of the fingers.)
Friday, February 15, 2008
The Pros and Cons of a Broken Foot
I broke my foot recently. Always one to capitalize on an experience (good or bad) for my blog, I thought I would share with my readers the Pros and Cons of a broken foot:
Let’s start with the Cons:
Very few people can really wrap their minds around the concept of a fracture. It really isn’t a big deal; but it is true that a broken foot pretty much incapacitates you for some time because striding about the world with a broken foot, though heroic and indicative of a great threshold of pain and selfless disregard of one’s own health, might not be the best thing for the healing process. So it gets to you when some people say stuff like this to you – “you haven’t BROKEN anything…it’s just a fracture! I nosed around in Wikipedia and this is what it says: ‘Any type of bone break is a fracture. The word break is not used in a formal orthopaedic terminology’. How about I fracture your foot, and then we can sit down and talk about it knowledgably shall we?
Some other acquaintances (most often than not of the professional persuasion) expect you to gaily scamper out of the hospital after the plaster is done and catch a bus to work.
People will give you strange advice like: “Snap out of it! It’s just mental strength that you need.” Right. And how about I then go on Oprah and say, “ I decided I hadn’t broken my foot painfully and walked around the world immediately afterwards to raise money for the Osteoporosis Foundation!” (Accompanied by hurrahs and tearful applause from the audience.)
Then there’s the cast that you have to wear for a whole month. For one thing you had asked for a cream cast so it didn’t clash with your clothes and they give you a neon yellow one when you weren’t looking. Then they say you can’t wet it and have to put a plastic bag over it when you bathe. So to add insult to injury your husband gets you a bright green ‘Pantaloons’ plastic bag which you tie over your bad leg with a rope and hop to the bathroom everyday.
And the itching! Sweet Mother of God you feel like ripping your cast off and raking the skin underneath with your nails. (Two more weeks to go before that’s possible.)
And then there are the obsessive compulsive doorbell ringers. If they ring once you can ignore it…but the moment they ring twice you start to think it must be really important. So you hop to the door to open it only to find whoever it is has given up and gone away on their two good feet. Then when it happens the third time in the same day you start shouting as you grab your crutches and get up: “Aaata hoooooo” “Mut Jaiyyee, main abhi aa raha hooooo” all the while working your crutches like you’re in the special Olympics. After three very exciting minutes for everyone concerned, you open the door to find a very frightened man who had come to ask you to give your baby polio drops. “Can you see a baby anywhere?”, you dangerously enquire, and he backs off and leaves before you can hop within range and club him to death with your crutches.
The Pros, of course, are numerous:
You feel like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window. Except that if you DID have binoculars, (which you don’t) you could only have watched a bevy of fat old women hanging their washing out to dry.
Just like there are people who are disdainful of your weakness in the face of a broken bone or two there are others who are wonderfully sympathetic. Your husband spoils you to death, calls and emails come in from well-wishers who patiently listen to your grievances.
A broken foot satisfies both your sense of drama and your chronic hypochondria.
You are not required to do any work around the house and have people doing your bidding when they’re around.
You get some time off from work (despite the daily calls from office: “You’re not coming in today either??”) and read up a storm. You read some books that needed time and patience, which you would never have got around to in the fret and fume of everyday life.
You have the whole day to sit in a chair and think about life, and apart from the people I told you about in the cons, no one will blame you.
And of course, you have one more thing to crib about in your blog…
Let’s start with the Cons:
Very few people can really wrap their minds around the concept of a fracture. It really isn’t a big deal; but it is true that a broken foot pretty much incapacitates you for some time because striding about the world with a broken foot, though heroic and indicative of a great threshold of pain and selfless disregard of one’s own health, might not be the best thing for the healing process. So it gets to you when some people say stuff like this to you – “you haven’t BROKEN anything…it’s just a fracture! I nosed around in Wikipedia and this is what it says: ‘Any type of bone break is a fracture. The word break is not used in a formal orthopaedic terminology’. How about I fracture your foot, and then we can sit down and talk about it knowledgably shall we?
Some other acquaintances (most often than not of the professional persuasion) expect you to gaily scamper out of the hospital after the plaster is done and catch a bus to work.
People will give you strange advice like: “Snap out of it! It’s just mental strength that you need.” Right. And how about I then go on Oprah and say, “ I decided I hadn’t broken my foot painfully and walked around the world immediately afterwards to raise money for the Osteoporosis Foundation!” (Accompanied by hurrahs and tearful applause from the audience.)
Then there’s the cast that you have to wear for a whole month. For one thing you had asked for a cream cast so it didn’t clash with your clothes and they give you a neon yellow one when you weren’t looking. Then they say you can’t wet it and have to put a plastic bag over it when you bathe. So to add insult to injury your husband gets you a bright green ‘Pantaloons’ plastic bag which you tie over your bad leg with a rope and hop to the bathroom everyday.
And the itching! Sweet Mother of God you feel like ripping your cast off and raking the skin underneath with your nails. (Two more weeks to go before that’s possible.)
And then there are the obsessive compulsive doorbell ringers. If they ring once you can ignore it…but the moment they ring twice you start to think it must be really important. So you hop to the door to open it only to find whoever it is has given up and gone away on their two good feet. Then when it happens the third time in the same day you start shouting as you grab your crutches and get up: “Aaata hoooooo” “Mut Jaiyyee, main abhi aa raha hooooo” all the while working your crutches like you’re in the special Olympics. After three very exciting minutes for everyone concerned, you open the door to find a very frightened man who had come to ask you to give your baby polio drops. “Can you see a baby anywhere?”, you dangerously enquire, and he backs off and leaves before you can hop within range and club him to death with your crutches.
The Pros, of course, are numerous:
You feel like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window. Except that if you DID have binoculars, (which you don’t) you could only have watched a bevy of fat old women hanging their washing out to dry.
Just like there are people who are disdainful of your weakness in the face of a broken bone or two there are others who are wonderfully sympathetic. Your husband spoils you to death, calls and emails come in from well-wishers who patiently listen to your grievances.
A broken foot satisfies both your sense of drama and your chronic hypochondria.
You are not required to do any work around the house and have people doing your bidding when they’re around.
You get some time off from work (despite the daily calls from office: “You’re not coming in today either??”) and read up a storm. You read some books that needed time and patience, which you would never have got around to in the fret and fume of everyday life.
You have the whole day to sit in a chair and think about life, and apart from the people I told you about in the cons, no one will blame you.
And of course, you have one more thing to crib about in your blog…
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
The Philistine Speaks Out
Should anyone ask, I would instantly call myself an artistic person rather than one with a scientific bent of mind (please!). But it has occurred to me that either the whole world is (for whatever nefarious motive of its own) seeing artistry where there is none, or I am a singularly tasteless person with nary an artistic bone in my body. The third option is, like so many other things about me, that I am a throwback to a simpler, earlier age.
After starting this blog I’ve realized I don’t feel comfortable with modern technology, I don’t like how people are nowadays (I suspect that would’ve held true whichever age I would’ve been born in), my weight that has made me a pariah in modern fashionable circles would’ve granted me appreciation as a noted beauty two centuries or so ago. And now this realization about art. Maybe I should’ve been born two centuries ago, and been burnt to a crisp by now with my dead 80 year old husband. Would’ve served me right.
Take visual art for example. Paintings. The stuff which is all the rage nowadays and are featured in newspapers simply appall me. They sell for crores and crores, and though some of the colors are quite pleasing sometimes…I honestly don’t see art in the intentionally crudely executed drawings. The distortions are deliberate, childish, and frankly…lazy. I mean, I could draw like that! (I’m of course making a generalization here, there are some pretty cool painters out there still-- I’m talking about a trend.) If you can’t draw straight why be a painter? More importantly, can’t the buyers see that they could just hand their 6 year-olds a huge canvas, a couple of brushes (or maybe not), and a pleasing combination of midnight blue and yellow ochre paint and ask them to knock themselves out? Then they could splurge on a really fabulous frame for the painting, and still save some money to put in the kid’s college fund. Not to mention keep the kids occupied for an entire afternoon.
(Oh yes, ‘Philistine, philistine!’ everyone is crowing by now. ‘Why does she comment on that which she doesn’t understand? Art is not supposed to depict the external but the internal, perspective is a conceit, proportion is something imposed on the artistic few by the majority with commonplace minds. Reality is relative, etc.’ I would’ve appreciated all that if art was a mixed bag, with both realistic and er…whatever schools of thought. But I don’t understand why modern art has to be in most cases..well… so ugly, why a common person has to risk damnation to claim to like it. All I’m saying is art could be prettier. (Shame on me.) It could look more skilled, like the person hailed as the great artist can actually DRAW. And by saying that I know I will be condemned as the bourgeois that I am to the end of my days.
But I’m not the only one, there are a lot of closet realists out there, people who secretly wish to put up beautifully detailed cityscapes, and pictures of ripe mustard fields, rather than tortured depictions of half creatures in magenta with big boobies.
Granted I don’t understand these things, but I thought the main thing about art was to reach the heart rather than exercise the mind. If I actually have to school myself in art to understand and appreciate it, then how is it different from science?
The same goes for music. I felt incredibly old and ignorant yesterday as I watched the Grammies. People, who in my mind were very frankly singing (if you were lucky,i.e, the rest of it was rap) a lot of bad notes and were obviously striving more for volume than tunefulness, got standing ovations. Standing ovations no less. The audience got to their wildly expensive designer heels and put their bejeweled hands together to applaud men and women who came and talked or shouted their way through 5 minutes. Then Andrea Boccelli and Josh Groban sang an operatic tribute to Luciano Pavarotti that, even though opera is not my thing, took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes. Finally, I thought, a performance suitable for the Grammies. But the beautiful people just sat firmly in their seats as if to say “Yawn, singing in tune is so passé. And it didn’t have the word ‘fuck’ in it even once!”
I KNOW I sound exactly like my father here, but that’s how I feel nowadays. I feel bewildered and unhappy that what I find beautiful and touches my heart is considered laughable by all the rest. Admit to liking music by the Eagles, The Corrs, or Mariah Carey’s older stuff and you’re just asking to be lynched in a musically knowledgeable crowd. (Even MENTION Bryan Adams and you’ll have to change your name and move to another town.) I know much more about music than I know about art, but I still have to disagree with the intellectual school who insist that Bob Dylan is a great singer (he can’t sing, people! He’s a GREAT poet.) and contradict the ‘homeboys’ of the other school who swear by Kanye West. (He don’t sing no song, my brudders, he only talk, y’all.)
There is of course no accounting for tastes and I respect that. What I don’t respect is the way people go by herd instinct and claim they LOVE stuff which will make them fit in. That’s what I’m ranting about here. The people who had been touched by Andrea Boccelli yesterday (and I’m SURE there were many) should’ve had the courage to get to their feet and applaud him (regardless of the fact that he couldn’t see them;)) and those who thought Kanye West makes crap music should have stuck to their seats like glue.
And now, I shall put my things in order and write my will, before I die of old age (which sounds imminent) or the pitchfork wielding lynch mobs show up at my door.:)
After starting this blog I’ve realized I don’t feel comfortable with modern technology, I don’t like how people are nowadays (I suspect that would’ve held true whichever age I would’ve been born in), my weight that has made me a pariah in modern fashionable circles would’ve granted me appreciation as a noted beauty two centuries or so ago. And now this realization about art. Maybe I should’ve been born two centuries ago, and been burnt to a crisp by now with my dead 80 year old husband. Would’ve served me right.
Take visual art for example. Paintings. The stuff which is all the rage nowadays and are featured in newspapers simply appall me. They sell for crores and crores, and though some of the colors are quite pleasing sometimes…I honestly don’t see art in the intentionally crudely executed drawings. The distortions are deliberate, childish, and frankly…lazy. I mean, I could draw like that! (I’m of course making a generalization here, there are some pretty cool painters out there still-- I’m talking about a trend.) If you can’t draw straight why be a painter? More importantly, can’t the buyers see that they could just hand their 6 year-olds a huge canvas, a couple of brushes (or maybe not), and a pleasing combination of midnight blue and yellow ochre paint and ask them to knock themselves out? Then they could splurge on a really fabulous frame for the painting, and still save some money to put in the kid’s college fund. Not to mention keep the kids occupied for an entire afternoon.
(Oh yes, ‘Philistine, philistine!’ everyone is crowing by now. ‘Why does she comment on that which she doesn’t understand? Art is not supposed to depict the external but the internal, perspective is a conceit, proportion is something imposed on the artistic few by the majority with commonplace minds. Reality is relative, etc.’ I would’ve appreciated all that if art was a mixed bag, with both realistic and er…whatever schools of thought. But I don’t understand why modern art has to be in most cases..well… so ugly, why a common person has to risk damnation to claim to like it. All I’m saying is art could be prettier. (Shame on me.) It could look more skilled, like the person hailed as the great artist can actually DRAW. And by saying that I know I will be condemned as the bourgeois that I am to the end of my days.
But I’m not the only one, there are a lot of closet realists out there, people who secretly wish to put up beautifully detailed cityscapes, and pictures of ripe mustard fields, rather than tortured depictions of half creatures in magenta with big boobies.
Granted I don’t understand these things, but I thought the main thing about art was to reach the heart rather than exercise the mind. If I actually have to school myself in art to understand and appreciate it, then how is it different from science?
The same goes for music. I felt incredibly old and ignorant yesterday as I watched the Grammies. People, who in my mind were very frankly singing (if you were lucky,i.e, the rest of it was rap) a lot of bad notes and were obviously striving more for volume than tunefulness, got standing ovations. Standing ovations no less. The audience got to their wildly expensive designer heels and put their bejeweled hands together to applaud men and women who came and talked or shouted their way through 5 minutes. Then Andrea Boccelli and Josh Groban sang an operatic tribute to Luciano Pavarotti that, even though opera is not my thing, took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes. Finally, I thought, a performance suitable for the Grammies. But the beautiful people just sat firmly in their seats as if to say “Yawn, singing in tune is so passé. And it didn’t have the word ‘fuck’ in it even once!”
I KNOW I sound exactly like my father here, but that’s how I feel nowadays. I feel bewildered and unhappy that what I find beautiful and touches my heart is considered laughable by all the rest. Admit to liking music by the Eagles, The Corrs, or Mariah Carey’s older stuff and you’re just asking to be lynched in a musically knowledgeable crowd. (Even MENTION Bryan Adams and you’ll have to change your name and move to another town.) I know much more about music than I know about art, but I still have to disagree with the intellectual school who insist that Bob Dylan is a great singer (he can’t sing, people! He’s a GREAT poet.) and contradict the ‘homeboys’ of the other school who swear by Kanye West. (He don’t sing no song, my brudders, he only talk, y’all.)
There is of course no accounting for tastes and I respect that. What I don’t respect is the way people go by herd instinct and claim they LOVE stuff which will make them fit in. That’s what I’m ranting about here. The people who had been touched by Andrea Boccelli yesterday (and I’m SURE there were many) should’ve had the courage to get to their feet and applaud him (regardless of the fact that he couldn’t see them;)) and those who thought Kanye West makes crap music should have stuck to their seats like glue.
And now, I shall put my things in order and write my will, before I die of old age (which sounds imminent) or the pitchfork wielding lynch mobs show up at my door.:)
Sunday, January 27, 2008
The Highwaymen came riding, riding, riding…
So I’ve been dancing around this topic ever since I started the crib. I kept putting it off because, for one, until very recently I had to interact with these people twice a day and felt very strongly about them. (That’s an understatement.) Now that I have some distance I feel I can write more objectively.
For another, they have asked the Government to raise their basic fare and the fare per kilometer and that really got my blood boiling.
Auto Drivers, ladies and gentlemen, are scum. Scum from the lowest reaches of hell. Dante was wrong -- there are actually 10 rings of hell and one is reserved exclusively for auto drivers. (A glaring oversight on his part.)
A month after coming to Bangalore, I was walking down a slightly deserted road at night and couldn’t believe it when one of these worthy gentlemen leaned out of his trusty auto and snatched at my bag. Luckily he couldn’t get a good grip on it and sped off into the night. That was a very appropriate start to what would be a very long and interesting relationship with the members of this profession.
In these 3 years I have been asked to get out (nowhere near my stop) in the coarsest language (sundry times), grabbed (twice), threatened (the exact words were: “I know where you wait for autos, I’ll be there tomorrow.”). I have been cheated out of 100s of rupees, on top of being asked—almost without fail -- to pay more than the meter indicated.
I do not even count among these offences the constant ‘No’s I have had to face whenever soliciting their services. Sometimes it feels like in their frenzy to reject customers, they turn down perfectly lucrative opportunities. I understand that they believe they are striking a blow against the moneyed classes by thus rejecting us, ‘look at who is begging whom now’ is what they no doubt say to each other as they sit back in the auto stands and discuss philosophy. But then maybe they shouldn’t masquerade as auto drivers and take up something more constructive, like join a Maoist group (if it’s not too much hard work.).
The rare few who actually feel like putting in a few hours’ work and consent to take you (they pick and choose customers like the belle of the ball chooses suitors, and as carefully), will always ask for more, stating that where they’re taking you is so out of the way that they would NEVER get a customer to bring back to a more sensible location. So we are supposed to care about how much they earn (or don’t in this case) even after we have been dropped off. Even though they show no such consideration when you are standing in the pouring rain at 9 at night, begging one auto after another to take you home. On one such occasion after some 20 refusals, I remember asking the auto driver in desperation, “So where do you WANT to go? I’ll go wherever you want, as long as you take me…”
Of every 10 auto drivers that come your way nine will reject you (unless it’s a very desirable location like MG road or Commercial Street). But this is the fun bit of it: they declared a STRIKE to protest a night bus that the government wanted to introduce saying it would THREATEN their livelihood. The government actually gave in and it was bye-bye night bus service. They STRUCK work again (which frankly isn’t much different from a work day for them.) when the government decided to introduce the Metro to Bangalore, again because it would ‘deprive them of their livelihood’. It’s like highway robbers complaining of too many policemen on the road “We haven’t been able to surprise any victims! I haven’t cut a single throat in days!”.
Fortunately the government was sensible for a change and didn’t give in to their ridiculousness.
Now they’re asking to raise their fares, and apparently the government is considering it seriously. Hello? What about the fact that they always take more money anyway? Do you think they’ll change their ways just because you’ve raised the fare? How about ensuring they’re not all borderline gundas and thieves before allowing them more money?
And for those people who obviously have never taken an auto in Bangalore, and think this is all a much ado about nothing and that if we just reported them to the police everything will be just hunky dory -- lemme tell you something, you %$#@s. This one time, a friend of mine had walked up to a cop who had seen the whole thing and complained. “Say that again in Kannada and I might consider that a complaint” the good policemen had responded.
So there you are. People here have so taken this behaviour for granted that they simply advise you to buy a two-wheeler when you tell them of your auto woes. It doesn’t seem to matter to them that Bangalore gets an increasingly bad name simply because of auto drivers and refuse to look at the issue as a serious law and order problem. I came across an old college classmate who shifted to Bangalore recently from Bombay. She said she felt awful here and missed both Bombay and Calcutta miserably. On further probing it turned out she was shocked by how auto drivers lived by their own rules here and that she felt on the verge of tears every time she prepared to ask one of these thugs to take her somewhere. “Even normal human codes of conduct don’t apply to them it seems!”
Though I have SO much more to say, I won’t. If I were to give you details of some of the incidents I just touched upon, it would shock non-Bangaloreans to the core no doubt (people from here would just drawl “ I told you to get a two-wheeler”.) but it would take days and days to do.
I should mention that I have met one or two decent auto-drivers in my time here. I consider it a little bit akin to the “prostitute with a heart of gold” phenomenon.
Anyhow, now that I have that off my chest I feel much better, and even better still at the thought that my office cab-system allows me to avoid these rogues like the plague.
Wishing all my fellow-city dwellers similar good luck.
For another, they have asked the Government to raise their basic fare and the fare per kilometer and that really got my blood boiling.
Auto Drivers, ladies and gentlemen, are scum. Scum from the lowest reaches of hell. Dante was wrong -- there are actually 10 rings of hell and one is reserved exclusively for auto drivers. (A glaring oversight on his part.)
A month after coming to Bangalore, I was walking down a slightly deserted road at night and couldn’t believe it when one of these worthy gentlemen leaned out of his trusty auto and snatched at my bag. Luckily he couldn’t get a good grip on it and sped off into the night. That was a very appropriate start to what would be a very long and interesting relationship with the members of this profession.
In these 3 years I have been asked to get out (nowhere near my stop) in the coarsest language (sundry times), grabbed (twice), threatened (the exact words were: “I know where you wait for autos, I’ll be there tomorrow.”). I have been cheated out of 100s of rupees, on top of being asked—almost without fail -- to pay more than the meter indicated.
I do not even count among these offences the constant ‘No’s I have had to face whenever soliciting their services. Sometimes it feels like in their frenzy to reject customers, they turn down perfectly lucrative opportunities. I understand that they believe they are striking a blow against the moneyed classes by thus rejecting us, ‘look at who is begging whom now’ is what they no doubt say to each other as they sit back in the auto stands and discuss philosophy. But then maybe they shouldn’t masquerade as auto drivers and take up something more constructive, like join a Maoist group (if it’s not too much hard work.).
The rare few who actually feel like putting in a few hours’ work and consent to take you (they pick and choose customers like the belle of the ball chooses suitors, and as carefully), will always ask for more, stating that where they’re taking you is so out of the way that they would NEVER get a customer to bring back to a more sensible location. So we are supposed to care about how much they earn (or don’t in this case) even after we have been dropped off. Even though they show no such consideration when you are standing in the pouring rain at 9 at night, begging one auto after another to take you home. On one such occasion after some 20 refusals, I remember asking the auto driver in desperation, “So where do you WANT to go? I’ll go wherever you want, as long as you take me…”
Of every 10 auto drivers that come your way nine will reject you (unless it’s a very desirable location like MG road or Commercial Street). But this is the fun bit of it: they declared a STRIKE to protest a night bus that the government wanted to introduce saying it would THREATEN their livelihood. The government actually gave in and it was bye-bye night bus service. They STRUCK work again (which frankly isn’t much different from a work day for them.) when the government decided to introduce the Metro to Bangalore, again because it would ‘deprive them of their livelihood’. It’s like highway robbers complaining of too many policemen on the road “We haven’t been able to surprise any victims! I haven’t cut a single throat in days!”.
Fortunately the government was sensible for a change and didn’t give in to their ridiculousness.
Now they’re asking to raise their fares, and apparently the government is considering it seriously. Hello? What about the fact that they always take more money anyway? Do you think they’ll change their ways just because you’ve raised the fare? How about ensuring they’re not all borderline gundas and thieves before allowing them more money?
And for those people who obviously have never taken an auto in Bangalore, and think this is all a much ado about nothing and that if we just reported them to the police everything will be just hunky dory -- lemme tell you something, you %$#@s. This one time, a friend of mine had walked up to a cop who had seen the whole thing and complained. “Say that again in Kannada and I might consider that a complaint” the good policemen had responded.
So there you are. People here have so taken this behaviour for granted that they simply advise you to buy a two-wheeler when you tell them of your auto woes. It doesn’t seem to matter to them that Bangalore gets an increasingly bad name simply because of auto drivers and refuse to look at the issue as a serious law and order problem. I came across an old college classmate who shifted to Bangalore recently from Bombay. She said she felt awful here and missed both Bombay and Calcutta miserably. On further probing it turned out she was shocked by how auto drivers lived by their own rules here and that she felt on the verge of tears every time she prepared to ask one of these thugs to take her somewhere. “Even normal human codes of conduct don’t apply to them it seems!”
Though I have SO much more to say, I won’t. If I were to give you details of some of the incidents I just touched upon, it would shock non-Bangaloreans to the core no doubt (people from here would just drawl “ I told you to get a two-wheeler”.) but it would take days and days to do.
I should mention that I have met one or two decent auto-drivers in my time here. I consider it a little bit akin to the “prostitute with a heart of gold” phenomenon.
Anyhow, now that I have that off my chest I feel much better, and even better still at the thought that my office cab-system allows me to avoid these rogues like the plague.
Wishing all my fellow-city dwellers similar good luck.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
