FlipSide

I find it strange that tobacco companies can thrive and grow and get away with making a skull and crossbones and a health warning bigger on every pack while hookah bars are raided, fined and the youngsters who are there fined as well and treated like criminals. Well, that’s what it looked like from newspaper reports yesterday morning in the Pune papers. And I wondered just how senseless our laws and regulations are becoming.
If tobacco is so dangerous, why are companies allowed to package and sell it? If it is an abomination to society, should it be sold at all? And yet, you see cigarettes and tobacco packets being sold just about everywhere. You see them sponsoring events and getting around advertising restrictions with ease. The sweepers who clean the streets every morning have a wad of tobacco in their mouth – is anyone checking them? The youngsters in the colleges that abound on our street puff away on cigarettes all day long – there doesn’t seem to be any ban on that. And yet, a bit of tobacco smoke drawn through water in a restaurant seems to attract fines and warnings.
The point is, why this pretence? If the authorities are so concerned about the health of their citizens, shouldn’t they strike at the root? If tobacco is available freely, then don’t take away the freedom to smoke it or chew it. Otherwise, find ways to stop making it available. If companies are given the freedom to make and sell tobacco products, consumers should have the freedom to buy and use them. It really is, or should be, as simple as that.
What I would like to know is this: would it be legal to take these people to court? How can something that is not banned be subject to fines? Granted, there are certain non-smoking public areas but restaurants are free to set their own special smoking zones. Maybe we need an astute lawyer who will fight on behalf of these hookah bars and put an end to this nonsense by making these perpetrators pay up. Last I heard, we live in a democracy and Big Brother had better not be watching and making up his own rules!

May every Indian have enough to eat and a bed on which to sleep.
May the cancer of corruption be rooted out and the sunshine of integrity shine on us.
May the divides of class, caste, religion and colour fade and the oneness of being Indian bloom.
May the best of our traditions merge with the best of new technologies.
May we always look after our young, our old, our disabled and our weak.
May we forget our enmities and forge friendships instead.
May we think beyond the ‘I’ to the ‘We’ and realise that therein lies our strength.

~ Shalini Kagal

The fourth estate should ideally be the conscience keeper of the nation but when certain journalists join the feudal bandwagon that our politicians have been riding on for years, you wonder just how far removed they are from reality. I’ve always liked the way Tavleen Singh writes though I haven’t always accepted her viewpoint. Her article in today’s Indian Express however, was an eye-opener. It seems to reiterate the politician’s view that the voter is important for just one purpose – to vote them into power. After that, it seems to be a ‘take it or leave it’ dismissive attitude. Even worse, when questioned, there seems to be a ‘How dare you’ attitude that surfaces. Almost as if to say, once you’ve made your choice, you better put up with anything we do – or else.

The journalist feels that people power is backing the wrong horse – they should read the new bill before they support it the way they are doing. She is also quite sure that if they read it, they wouldn’t extend the kind of support they did. Why? Because the bill could investigate ordinary citizens as well. Let me tell you, Tavleen, that ordinary citizens like us have nothing to hide. We pay our taxes, we try and live our lives as honestly as we can and we hope our elected representatives spare a few thoughts for us. Who need to be worried about the Bill are the ones who are corrupt. And if the Bill is misused, a thousand Hazares will rise up to correct it, never fear.

So don’t brand them sanctimonious activists, please. After years, this is a bold U-turn back into the road to honesty and accountability. Will we stumble? Sure we will. Will we fall? We might. Will we turn back to the murky, slimy Corruption Causeway that we’ve been forced to travel on for years? Hopefully not. And the activists have made it possible. And taught sanctimonious politicians that they are answerable to the people who put them there, that they can’t just dictate and do just whatever they want and hide behind their positions of power.

You have some great ideas in your article – I’ll grant you that. But how pray will they ever be implemented if left to the politicians? We needed this hysteria as a reminder to the politicians of how they got there and what their duties are. If the politicians want to function according to the letter of the democratic law, they have to abide by the laws of democracy too. If they can have an amnesia spell about the ‘of the people, for the people, by the people’ bit soon after they get elected, then they need gentle reminders. When their hide of forgetfulness stays put, they need mass hysteria to come up and kick them – not only to remember but also never to forget again. Making laws, as you say, is the right of the governments – but when they are ineffective and corrupt, they lose that right. That was the reminder in the ‘mass hysterics’ as you term it, last week. It would do them well to remember.

You can read the article here:

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/hysteria-will-not-end-corruption/774100/0?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4da1141e69fa2b38,0

There were times when I wondered whether it was ever wired into our DNA. In my heart of hearts, I’ve always accepted that if I didn’t stand up for something, if I didn’t say Nay when I should, then there were no shades of grey for me to stand on. And yet, I remember a time when honesty was the rule, not the exception. When a man’s word was all that was needed to serve as a binding contract, when even the hint of any unethical step was enough to make you want to slink into a sea of shame and never show your face to people again.

So where, oh where has all that gone? It’s been a slow process, the layers that have settled over that particular gene till at last, it was well and truly dormant. Some felt its occasional stirrings but it was firmly pushed into its place with a ‘But what can one person like me do?’ The winds of change blew slowly but surely. A little ‘something’ to hasten up a slow file, a few notes surreptitiously slipped into a waiting palm to get out of paying a fine, a little more something to get a coveted job. Till what was against our natural self became accepted and what should have been a screaming against what should not be, became a whimper.

Should we have really been shocked at the enormity of the scams? What does it matter if it is a rupee or a few crores? It all belongs to the same unethical bandwagon. What we needed was a thorough cleansing, a purging. And one man came along to start the process. Somewhere, deep inside all of us, that ethical gene is stirring and trying to break free. It’s tough to get through those layers of conditioning but we can, we must, we need to and we shall. This time, we need a thorough overhaul. No more armchair ethics. This time, it has to come from deep within each of us.

All over the country, it’s like an epidemic raging. A welcome, long-needed epidemic of ethics. It’s making that dormant gene break loose and it’s lighting a fire across the nation. Are we going to catch it and spread it?

Shalini Kagal

To support Anna Hazare’s movement to push for the Jan-Lokpal Bill, sign up here:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_anna_hazare/?cl=1007829060&v=8807#top

We dreamed of freedom – and we’re caught in the throes of corruption.

We wanted a democracy – and we have a politicians’ raj.

We fought for principles – and we are surrounded by the lack of them.

We resisted with non-violence – and we’re erupting with violence.

We got rid of the aggressors – and replaced them with tyrants.

We rose up against inequality – and we still run with reservations.

We joined together as one – only to be divided as many.

We came together with courage – and we now don’t dare question.

We were active in our purpose – now we’re passive in our apathy.

We’re still proud to be Indian – but we’re not proud of what some of us do!

~ Shalini Kagal

All you guys and gals so very young
When you want to have some fun
Just say No because the rules
Forbid you all from being cool

No parties, please don’t touch a drop
Or you’ll find those blooming cops
They’ll come and drag you off, oh dear!
Because you see, it’s just so clear:

ONLY THE POOR CAN PARTY!

So who cares if they yell and scream
And dance in drunken state extreme
The loans from us go up in smoke
But – wait – they are poor folk.

You can never, ever say a word
When the music blasts through hours absurd
They can all do as they please
It’s just our kids the authorities seize.

ONLY THE POOR CAN PARTY!

So don’t tell us it’s the same sauce
For goose and gander just because
A democracy we might be
We still deify poverty

YES, ONLY THE POOR CAN PARTY!

The day before yesterday, a Symbiosis party at a farmhouse near Pune was broken up by cops because they found post-grad management students drinking. Not creating a nuisance, not troubling anyone, not doing drugs, just having fun. Why don’t they apply the same rules to the goons who drink and party till dawn right in the heart of the city?

Switch on any news channel, open any newspaper and it hits you between the eyes. Cases of rape being filed against men across the country. Now if it were a child, if it were an innocent little girl, if it were a defenceless woman who was kidnapped and carried away, my blood would boil like any self-respecting person’s would, But when it’s a case of rape after a couple has had consensual sex for a year, five years, even ten and the woman then cries ‘Rape’ loud and clear because the man doesn’t marry her, that sucks.

I read about two cases in the Pune newspapers this morning and quite honestly, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. All the women have the same complaint like a stuck record – ‘He promised me he would marry me!’ So, dahling, because he did that, you jumped into bed with him and when he doesn’t you get all upset! You poor thing! You probably suffered through it, time after time, you didn’t enjoy it one bit and the only reason you did it was because he said he was going to marry you. You horrible hypocrite! All right, if he locked you up and forced you, he should be cooked slowly in boiling oil. But if he didn’t and you just went along with it, that, my dear woman, is not rape. It’s you having a great time and when you don’t get what you want, you cry foul and run off to file a police complaint.

It gets worse. What about the suicides where the watchword seems to be ‘Cherchez l’homme!’ Death is always tragic and suicides more so because it means that there was something terribly wrong in the person’s mental make-up to take that drastic step. I’m not talking about brides or women who are harassed and where death is deliverance. I’m talking about women who are attractive, the toast of the town, with everything they could possible want, who go do this and their boyfriends or lovers are hounded by the media as well as their social circle. The reason? He probably told her he wouldn’t marry her and she went off in a huff and ended her life. Do you honestly think a man should marry a woman who can go off the rails like that? Don’t you feel someone close to her should have recognized the signs and taken her for treatment?

This witch-hunt doesn’t do anyone any good. It gives women the right almost to have their cake and eat it too. So men have been doing it for generations but getting your own back for what your forefathers – or whatever the feminine of that is, definitely does not sound reasonable. We need to bring a bit of sanity into the situation, not have a media blitzkrieg like we had recently. It could start with treating mental problems more seriously and getting treatment for them. So many suicides and so many emotional as well as marital problems can be avoided if we treated mental problems as conditions or diseases that need medication. Let’s get rational and stem the flow, now. So we don’t lose our young women and we don’t harass our young men.

~ Shalini Kagal

Looks like the tweeting minister who loves to cut a dash

has been hoist with his own petard! Here are a few proverbs

he could have kept in mind!

You win some, you lose some tweets.

The early tweet catches the worm.

Tweets speak louder than words.

Don’t tweet your dirty linen in public.

It’s no use crying over missed tweets.

Too many tweets spoil the broth.

The last tweet breaks the camel’s back.

Tweeting is the mother of deceit.

There’s no fool like a tweeting fool.

Two tweets do not make a right.

There is a time and a tweet for everything.

You cannot have your tweet and eat it too.

Tweet unto others as you would like them to tweet unto you.

Tweets can move mountains – and ministers.

All is fair in tweeting and war.

~ Shalini Kagal

The D-Day was yesterday. ‘No more scarves or masks that cover your face’ was the edict. Did the police ruthlessly tear away every scarf wrapped around the typical Pune two wheeler rider’s face? Oh, no. They’ve just pushed the deadline forward by a day or two. Will the girls – and boys too – who ride the many scooters and motorbikes that are so much a part of the city follow this rule? I seriously doubt it.

For one thing, this is one city that really doesn’t like rules. Riding on the wrong side of the road, not bothering to wear a helmet, riding three to a two-wheeler right past a cop – and when caught, accelerating so the poor cop is left behind rattled and fuming.

This rule is a lot more. The girls and the women in Pune wrap their faces and look like terrorists not to cock a snook at the cops but so that they don’t get one shade darker than they absolutely have to. It’s an obsession and what’s amusing is that many men do it too – doubtless for the same reason!

To ask these well-wrapped up fair and lovelies to bare their skin to the sun – oh, the horror of it all! The masks that someone made millions out of during the swine flu scare have long since been relegated to the dustbins but the scarves that wrap a face have not. And if they do try and tear them away and prevent people from wearing them, what about the burkha, then? Will anyone dare to banish the burkha from the streets of Pune? Bomb blasts or terrorists, no one’s going to have the guts to bell the burkha. Like many of the rules that have come to Pune with fanfare and gone out with a whimper, this too, looks like its days are numbered!

~ Shalini Kagal

I always liked the other fairy in The Water Babies – you know – the sweet, smiling, kind Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby. And yet, when I heard about a certain someone whose face got blackened a few days ago, I couldn’t help thinking about Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. Last year’s pink chaddi controversy back to the fore with a difference. This time, before V-Day, the youngsters in the country are trying to pre-empt these spoilsports with preventive action.

The tragedy is, the very same people who try and bully others create a stink when the same thing is done to them. Double standards? Just can’t stand a taste of their own medicine, methinks. They’ve been so used to getting away with everything that the very fact that there can be a backlash stuns them.

One the eve of a day meant for love, I do hope this message goes out loud and clear. That India’s youth will not sit back and take it anymore. That they have a voice and a loud one at that. That they will be heard and they will not tolerate narrow-minded, bigoted edicts that are so out of tune with today. That if people who eye the high posts in the country want to win them over, they have to learn to ask, not order or threaten.

The youth of Bombay have stood up and showed the rest of the country the way yesterday by filling up the theatres that launched the Shah Rukh Khan film. It’s time to stand up and shake off the lethargy, the inaction, the turning away. It’s time to turn our faces to a new sun dawning. Maybe then, people will get the message and there won’t be any need for pink chaddis or blackened faces!

~ Shalini Kagal