Long Live the White (Hu-?)man!

"Hello, sir," the boy with the thirty-two-watt teeth in his mouth said. He shook hands with my Canadian friend and walked off. That was the first time in our lives my friend or I had come across this boy.


That, and a bunch of boys shouting 'hey, bro' at my friend from their school's (toilet?) window made me realise that foreigners were as much of a rarity in Dombivli (for I shall refrain from generalising it to all of Maharashtra or India) as any sense of privacy or basic etiquette while dealing with people who are not 'us'.


The distinctions begin at the root. To me, my friend is a friend and a human being. And my suspicions are that, to most Dombivlikars, my friend is a phorenar    just another face that stands for 'America' or 'England'. As my friend later pointed out to me, he was the centre of attraction because he was Caucasian; had it been a dark-complexioned person, regardless of their nationality, they would have become African to most people around. Likewise, every Asian person would've been Chinese or Nepalese.


The causes begin at the base of perception. Indian blockbuster-commercial-senseless-stupid movies have mostly portrayed Indians as a cut above the rest. If there is an Indian and a phorenar, and they are up against each other for something, the Indian has to be morally deserving of the prize   after all, by virtue of being Indian, he/she doesn't smoke, isn't a prostitute, doesn't sleep around town, and doesn't use four-lettered-words. And the phorenar does it all. Even one is enough for him/her to lose out. In Aa, ab laut chalein, everyone but the Indians was shown to be a stereotypical crack-house-like character. Well, the Indians in the movie could obviously use Indian swear-words (for they're not four-lettered usually) and spit and urinate in public. Shit. Pardon my French.


Finally, when we were seated on a bench in the compound of the building he was staying in, a man came up to my friend. I expected him to be an acquaintance of my friend. I wasn't very surprised, though, when all the man said was, "Namaste! Who house you come in?"


And at times, things cause you embarrassment. I wait for change. I hope it'll come. But not until the media and education portray foreigners more responsibly and realistically.

An Eclipse Sans The Twilight Saga

An SMS from Sharvari flashed across the screen of my mobile phone as I was walking out of my maths tuition-class:

"Look out of your window! A lunar eclipse!"

That was hardly less than enough to send me dashing towards someplace I could have an unperturbed view of the Moon from    for I come from a nation and a community which have quite a few intimidating myths associated with eclipses (more of this later).

From http://tech2.in.com

As I gazed at the phenomenon of the moon's complete shadow-ingestion   if I may say so   I couldn't help but wonder how it is a chance of sheer probability that an eclipse occurs. Later, in the train, when an interested co-passenger asked me the technicalities of an eclipse, even as I explained it all to him (which in turn made him ask me if I was a student of the Sciences and to which I replied, to his surprise, in the negative and that I was saying what I remembered from my ninth standard Geography), I pondered over the fact that the Earth forms a near-collinear pattern with the Sun and the Moon every full-Moon day, just that it's a little off the line. It's only on two or three occasions a year that it forms the required 55.5° with the Sun, casting its shadow on the Moon. How is it that so much of nature is planned to such repetitive details, I thought, and still do.

Enough of the Astronomy for now    the socio-cultural aspects of an eclipse in India are pretty weird at first sight, and it is quite simple to note that the fear of the eclipse emanates from the legend I'll tell you of. My granny always told me that when Lord Ganesha, the God of the Arts and knowledge fell down while running with his mouth filled with modakas (an Indian sweetmeat) and hands laden with them too, the Moon started laughing at the 'comical' situation (who of us wouldn't have? The Moon couldn't have rushed to save Ganesha even!) and Ganesha took offence. He then put a curse on the Moon that 'snakes will come to bite' the Moon. That's an eclipse for you (well, at least if you're Hindu :P).

It's forbidden to cut vegetables, have food, play (for you might get hurt and the wound shall not heal quickly) or even drink water when the eclipse strikes (not very much unlike the way a clock does :P). And after the eclipse is gone and done with, you must have a bath, can gorge on food,  and life comes back to 'normal'    that is, if you can ignore the hordes of beggars on the streets demanding their share of alms after the world has been rid of a huge strike of lunar eclipse! :P

The Anti-masculist Web

Sharvari told me today how her mum reacted to her decision of coming back to college for a degree in English Literature once she's done with one in Psychology    Aai's aai seems to have been pleased by the fact that Sharvari Aai isn't concerned just about degrees, but about education as a holistic concept. One year spent on learning something newer and/or deeper is certainly not a waste of time.




I wonder, at this moment, how my mum would react were I to tell her I want to do something of that sort. Am I allowed to assume? I have never asked her anything of that sort, though I have told her an umpteen number of times that I am going to remain studying at least till when I am 35. And she's reacted to it as if it were a joke    laughing, telling me how I might want to work by then (not that I said what I said in a very serious tone :P ). But I'll be asking my dad at the end of this post to gauge his response. Fingers crossed to that. :)




One must here realise that I come from a society where social responsibilities are hugely segregated according to sex. Earning would be expected of men in their twenties while only would be so much as appreciated of women of the same age (or any age, for that matter). Thus, it is not just the women who end up losing out on a lot of opportunities, but also the men    at an age when people in the more developed countries might be experimenting fields and disciplines (I am considering here that people have a general urge to gain knowledge), Indians are stuck with and unwilling to reach out beyond what education they already have obtained    out of what psychologists call learnt helplessness.




But I am going to fight my way out of this morass.




P.S. My dad considers pursuing another course along with the one after my first degree to be an intelligent move    he thinks about how I can avoid wasting a year. 


P.P.S. I'm sad. :'(