Camera obscura

Nearly everyone I know loves to travel. Some more than others. The hubby and I talk frequently of the day we will host our own travel show. Even though I am a fan of Samantha Brown, I promise to be less effusive. For our show, we could travel around India with the Northie – Southie angle. Or we could both explore the world with the history nut – photography enthusiast combination. It helps that both of us are foodies and again we form the preferably herbivorous – mostly  carnivorous combo. Its brilliant I tell you. Anyone smart enough to pick up this idea?? (Yeah yeah, so its not a new idea…SHUT UP)

Anyways, our last long trip was to the UK. Our primary stop there was London, with some time in Edinburgh and Inverness. The hubby is a huge fan of the land of the stiff upper lip and of the scone, it was his third trip there and my first. Actually, it was my first trip outside Asia. I fell in love with the place instantly. I could shift to Edinburgh today. Maybe someday, or the TV show might take us there.

Our trip to Scotland was spent in great company, some friends from campus and my brother. All of us travelled by train to Edinburgh in a quiet coach. This effectively meant every joke or fit of laughter was succeeded by us checking our volume and whispering for the next several minutes till the cycle repeated itself. We drove around in the highlands on the way to Inverness. I found the place I want to retire to when I am old – its a tiny village called Braemer. It is the most quaint and pretty place I have seen ever. It reminded me of the kind of place where James Herriot’s books are based. I could imagine the church bells being the only loud noise and everyone going about their business at a most relaxing pace.

London was awesome from a touristy perspective – despite walking around enough to end up with aching feet everyday, we could not see everything in 2 weeks. In fact, a mix up of our return tickets gave us an extra day in London, where we enjoyed the services of the most entertaining guide. None other than one of the beef eaters at the tower of London. A delightful sense of humour and an enthusiasm for their work made it a fantastic experience. There is much I can talk about every experience there. I might, depending on the free time in office and the feedback to this post.

The idea behind this post was to showcase a few of my favourite photos from the trip, but I have rambled on.

Anyhow, as they say in my office: Please find below, some photos from the Scotland trip. Do let me know in case there is any feedback. Regards.

First morning in Edinburgh

Idle day at the St. Andrews golf course

Our B&B at Inverness

Pretty Flowers

Hope you like them, if yes, please let me know. If not, well, I had fun taking these photos, so shut up.

p.s. Click on all pictures to magnify. Click. Now.

Twinkling eyes, deep breathing and tight slapping

I read this interesting quote from funny-man Drew Carey.

“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.”

Interesting and heartening. Good to know that there are others in the same boat. By now you know this post is going to be a rant. Or, to be more specific, the muffled screams of a frustrated worker who has to act restrained at the workplace. Without this restraint slapping of people will happen. (Not too hard of course. That would destroy the perfect equilibrium of stupidity and incompetence in the slapees heads.)

I dislike my job as much as the next person. Like most people I have had hopes of falling (just slightly) ill just so that a day of work can be avoided. That pain has now turned into an obsession. And when I obsess I think. Shudder. And when I think I categorize. Shudderer.

I believe there are 3 main categories of people ( I love categorizing people ):

1. People who have a twinkle in their eyes when they think of their job: While such people can be annoying sometimes, especially on Sunday nights, you can’t help but generally feel happy for them. These people are generally good at what they do. And as a result would be successful in what they do. You will also notice, if you don’t you are categorizing them incorrectly, that they do not tomtom their love for work much. They are not always satisfied with work conditions, boss etc. But inherently work is not a scary monster for them.

2. Then there are people who have to start taking deep breaths when they think of their job: These would form the largest chunk of the population I assume. Sad souls who suffer from inertia/laziness, and end up spending a third of their life doing something they absolutely, thoroughly, sincerely HATE. What is worse is that a large proportion of this group could do something more productive, satisfying and meaningful if they put their mind to it. This group can be divided into cribbers (everyone who knows them is aware of their work situation) and avoiders (even their closest friends would not be able to recall what they do. Chandler from Friends comes to mind).

3. And finally people who have a creepy smile when they think about their work: These are the super annoying, one-tight-slap worthy people you will occasionally meet. They talk louder and faster when talking about their jobs, perks, awesomeness of their office. Puke. Puke again. Their business trips to Manesar are more fascinating than your vacation to London. Their boss makes more money than yours. Now you could see them as people who see their glass half full. Or, like me, you could see them as sad people who overcompensate for the painfulness of their work. As much as I dislike such people, they also make me feel happy about myself: At least I am honest. (If you think I am looking for anyone worse off than me, well go to hell!)

Think about which category you fall in and let me know.

My major learning from this analysis is, specialize when you are young enough. I have been involved in hazaar things always, but picking the one that will make me shift from deep breathing to twinkle in eyes is nearly impossible

P.S. Recently heard a podcast by Alain De Botton who talked at length about people liking their work and trying to find meaning in work. Check out his site here www.alaindebotton.com/

Impossible! Really??

Recently noted on the guardian website was an article talking about how Bristol, Sarah Palin’s daughter has broken off her engagement. A lot of us must have expected that the whole , ’she is not going to be a single mother’ and ‘they are getting married soon’ bakwaas was exactly that. She said in an interview that mom’s belief of abstinence is “not realistic at all”.

Just made me think that abstinence being un-realistic, is such a cultural phenomenon. I am by no means for or against Sarah Palin’s belief, so that is something we are not discussing here. What I want to understand is what is it that makes something un-realistic in the US, completely acceptable and manageable by a large majority in India.

Before I go any further, I must say I have not been to the US yet, so my knowledge comes from books, movies, TV and the net. Also I understand that there must be a sample of Indian youth who do find it unrealistic to abstain, not talking in absolutes here.

Are Indian parents better at programming their kids? I have seen the youngsters in a place like Mumbai, where drinking is fairly commonplace, gujju jain kids from pure vegetarian families choosing not to drink, not even curious enough to try a sip. Its interesting. I keep wondering if it is oppressive upbringing or excellent upbringing or something completely different. The same logic applies to loads of Indian kids from many different states and cultures not sleeping around with anyone or experimenting with multiple people seemingly out of choice. It does not seem like oppression because the kids are fairly happy with their families and their lives. I would assume anger as a reaction to restrictions but I have rarely seen it.

Are Indian kids fundamentally different from their American or European counterparts in that they have different priorities and different needs. Is it in some way related to different races being fundamentally different? I don’t think so, but I don’t know (Indian engineering students would become even harder to explain then). Or is it that exposure to the other sex and to a lifestyle of open sexuality is limited/non existent and that is the explanation to how Indian kids/youth behave.

I don’t understand this yet. Why is one person’s impossibility another person’s given?

P.S. Thanks to AMI for framing the last question.

We, the unruly people

On Sunday, I became the target of the psycho ramblings of a super idiotic imbecile on a bike. What happened was this, we were at a traffic signal waiting for it to turn green. The bike in front of us,  ahead of the stop line got slightly nudged by the car on their right and the driver nearly lost balance. The pillion rider however, just got down and started screaming at me saying it was all my fault. He did not pause to hear any explanation, looked at hubby, who looked at him with the most dead pan expression possible. He ended the tirade of noise by telling my husband, why don’t you drive.

At the very next signal, I again stopped behind the stop line and then saw around 5 car owners park (or should i say start their creep) in front of me. Both incidents made me super mad. I actually could not see why following the rules was a good thing for me, when nothing happened to the ones who broke them.

After some thinking, I have no answers but a lot of questions about the way we as a country operate. I know very few people read this blog, but maybe one of them will be able to answer them or maybe I am just cribbing so I get the pain out of my system:

1. Does the lack of disincentive to break rules, become the incentive. – I mean the people who cut in line before me never got caught, why should I follow rules the next time.

2. Why is it that in case of traffic incidents, Indians always assume the bigger car, the richer looking person, the woman is at fault. Why can’t we argue about the traffic on the merits of the case. I really believe that if someone gets hurt breaking the rules, there should be little or no sympathy for them. Why does it not happen? Is it because our mentality of the 60s/70s bollywood, where all rich men were corrupt and bad is still there somewhere.

3. Why is it that when we, as a people, do not value time and don’t believe that reaching late anywhere deserves even a polite apology, that we need to run, push, shove and break all sorts of rules reach the front of the line. Isn’t the idea of  being first in line, contrary to our chalta hai attitude? The people who break the signal with their traffic creep, gain what, 30 seconds or maybe 2 minutes, going somewhere where they are already around 30 minutes late. Whats 35 compared to 30 man, why do it?

4. Why can’t we learn the basic rules of decency and not throw garbage out of vehicles? What bothers me more is that, I can’t figure out the source of our problem. Is it lack of education? No.  I have seen educated professionals, working in an MNC do it. They think nothing of throwing paper in and out of the local trains. Is it lack of money? No. I have seen people throwing chips packets, fruit peels and even toll booth receipts. They say the best way to take care of a problem is by eliminating its source. Since the source is not clear, will we never solve this problem.

5. Are we justified in blaming governments for all the faults in the system? When the government comes up with rules which are intended to solve citizen’s problems, and we find loopholes to game the system, aren’t we at fault? We blaim it on our politicians because we expect them to be smarter than us, more honest than us, more selfless than us. They come from within the system, why should they be better?

What I find really funny in this whole thing is that on a collective level, we find it difficult to admit that our country is unclean, few people follow rules. Even when we are shown examples of other countries handling things better than us, we have a list of excuses ready. Who are we trying to fool when we give explanations for these problems. Here is a list of some reasons why other countries are not as happy as us.

1. Singapore is nice and clean, but itna freedom nahin hai ki aap ek kaagaz bhi phenk sako or chewing gum khana bhi allowed nahin hai. No yaar, its too clean, almost antiseptic. (yeah. correct. Throwing paper is like a birthright no. I mean c’mon, why would people be happy when they have to carry wrappers of chocolates with them till the next dustbin.)

2. Hong Kong is nice, very good place to work, but your civil liberties are non-existent. You can’t protest against their policies yaar. (What an insight, thats why we are in such an awesome place, we can protest. And break rules.)

3. US or UK mein standard of life to achcha hai, but culture kharab hai. (As SRK said in Swades, when all arguments fail, we bring out the trump card of sanskar and sanskriti)

I don’t think that all is going wrong in our country, absolutely not. But we need to accept the issues and try to solve them. First we change ourselves, then we change our politicians. And now for the toughest question. How??

3 Questions. No clear answers.

3 thoughts and many more questions:

1. I have never met anyone who doesn’t care about what others think of him/her. Everyone has their own circle, which makes them think “what will they think/say about me”. My friends (nearly all) care about what their friends/colleagues think, my parents’ generation seems to care about a larger circle (friends, relatives, neighbours, loosely defined category of log (people)). People in the media care about critics, people in the corporate offices care about peers and bosses and so on. Why do we tell people “to hell with what other people think” when we can’t follow this ourselves. Seems to me, noone can but nearly everyone preaches. The worst is when parents warn kids not to succumb to peer pressure, and will make kids jump through hoops so that their own peer group doesn’t judge them.

I thought of this because in my opinion the opposition to the depiction of poverty in Slumdog is basically a bunch of Indians thinking, ” ab western world mein log kya kahenge/sochenge” (What does the west think/say about us)

2. At a party some time back, we were discussing how a lot of countries have a counter culture driven largely by anger which surfaces in the form of graffiti, rap music, dark art etc. but not India. What I found surprising after this observation was, not only is such counter culture missing, I see a lot of happy and content youngsters coming from the most restricted families, not even tempted to break the rules just because they find rules stifling. I mean, when I was young, I grew up with my share of fights with my parents because I thought they were too narrow minded. I see these youngsters and kids and wonder if they ever get thoughts of rebellion or being restricted, I think not.

If I am right, is there something parents are doing right in India or are they emotionally paining their kids so they follow rules or is it that the repressed frustrations of the kids will raise their ugly head in some fashion later in their lives?

3. Why do the extremists of multiple religions talk in the same tone and about the same things (Marriage, Women being inferior to men, women should dress modestly etc.)? If they have some agreement on some of the things, why do most of them say we are right and all other sects/religions a work of the devil?

I fail to understand the need to stay true to one particular culture/faith/belief system. Accepting change in beliefs is in my opinion a sign of maturity. It is unlikely and also unbelievable that any sensible person has believed in the same thing all their life. I am sure as kids we thought that 16 is obviously the age when life is completely clear to you. If we can change views why should it bother us if others believe in different things. Their views on anything and everything, are most likely going to change in the future, just like yours did and will.