The King of Goof Times!

I have been doing some heavy reading on Kingfisher and the Mallya ‘dynasty’ though much of my information comes from magazines like GQ where the chiselled-chinned Mallya junior adorns the cover this month. If investors were to read that article, I don’t think it will bring in any bread to the business, let alone confidence in people who run it. I think to myself, a guy who talks about such issues as virginity and how he lost it at 17 just cannot be serious about running a business or activities like strategizing unless it is about yachts or throwing a party or who to be seen with in the next edition of IPL circus.

Now we come to his father, brand ambassador, party goer, wearer of gastly red couture- all rolled in one. He is also a patriot mind it! Mallya senior brought home Tipu Sultan's sword and Mahatma gandhi's letters. As a stakeholder in Deccan Aviation which is now Kingfisher, I want to know if tha cash he used was his own or the he dipped into the till. This colourful person has been fooling investors for years and leaching off his brewery business to fund his other ventures most notably among them- Kingfisher airlines. It is really a sad state of affairs and you only have to step into Kingfisher lounge (where you pay for what you consume) to gauge where it has fallen to. The waiters and bartenders are chatting with flies and I don’t want even talk about the quality of food; alas I must. The burger was chewy, the tikkas were just cooked pieces of meat with some seasoning on top. All in all, it was a shocker and of course a nice end to a lovely holiday that we had in a remote village in the Yorkshire Dales in England. Did I forget to mention (by the way) that I opted for a chicken meal on Kingfisher flight and was given a lamb/ mutton meal. I politely told the airhostess (I never show my authority to those who service us, the fear of a spit going ballistic is always present) that I do not eat mutton.
“ You don’t want it?” I stared at her incredulously. It was like asking a vegetarian to shut up and eat what he was given so what if it was beef!
“No please, I do not eat mutton, could I have the chicken mean or if you have run out of it, I can have a vegetarian meal.” She made a tch tch sound and walked away even as I could hear her feet stamping in a huff. She returned after making me wait a while and plonked a box on the tray. If the box were open the contents would be flying everywhere.
Today the Economic Times is carrying a front page article about an auditor questioning Kingfisher’s ability to keep flying. Of course they owe fuel companies money (and not to tune of 500 or 1000 rupees, we care talking probably a couple of thousand crore), they are suffering losses to the tune of 4K crore and to top it all they are defaulting on PF and TDS. As a citizen of India who pays her taxes and whose salary gets deducted for PF, I find this completely outrageous. Of all crimes, Provident Fund Chori is the worst chori of all. You are deducting amounts as employees’ contribution to provident fund and then withholding it from the government. This puts the Mallya business group at par with Jog tuition Classes of Pune.
Jog’s Classes were the premier tuition classes in Pune. Among the elite who attended their classes were those who topped the board exams and medical entrance exams. Jog Sir was quite a figure, effeminate in his mannerisms, he was anything but feminine in his dealings with the staff who he used to treat like his personal and bonded labour. I have never seen anybody being treated with such scant respect. I had a chance of teaching in his institute where at the end of the month the salary would be transferred to an account and his chief administrator (and his personal punching bag, who for years suffered silently all the insults meted out to her and now is the principal of Jog School. I admire her tenacity) passed out a big fat ledger for us to sign. It was a signature against the column titled PF. I asked her about it and she smiled apologetically and was quite open about it telling me that even though the amount for PF was deducted, it was never paid to the government. The guy was ripping us off our hard earned money. Later when I had to go to the PF office in Pune, he figured prominently in the PF defaulter’s list. So where’s the difference between Mallya who holidays with the other buffoon Branson and Mr. Jog who has an aviary which is nothing but a nuisance for the neighbours. There is absolute nothing that differentiates the two businessmen who don’t care two corn flakes about it. It’s just sad that his son who will inherit the empire (or what remains of it..hic) is talking about his progeny somewhere in the world (I know he is joking about it and also attributes it to his ‘British’ sense of humour) and how to avoid it always ‘don’t be a fool and wrap your tool’. Somehow I really find it hard to believe that a guy who spouts such premature wisdom can do better than to practise the fool and tool gem.
Ahoy there!

Leader of Opposition and the lady who rules India

.........is currently in US undergoing surgery.
Well, I must say that the person who rules the country (in TOI's words not mine) does certainly not have confidence in the country’s medical capability. I must say that this more than anything else should trigger the stock market collapse more than anything else. It’s a not so gentle push on the rudder for a country who admires Sonia Gandhi for her stoicism but what a chicken she is when it comes to submitting herself to the hands of our doctors.

And to top it all, she lives in Delhi. It’s not like she has to make a journey of a hundred hours by bullock cart, state transport bus and tractor and rickshaw combined with hundreds others to reach the capital. And after having made the journey, it’s not as if the travails have ended. Those hundreds of hours are compounded by another hundred in the queue not knowing when your turn will come to examined by the best doctor in the country. I am sure one call from her majesty’s office is enough for the doctor to return from his first night post the wedding to pick up his scalpel and knife instead of cupping his bride’s or groom’s face lovingly.

If you ask me, I will not relocate to another city, forget country for medical convalescence. In fact I want the hospital to be right round the corner where I know the doctors. I think being in famililar surroundings and believing that the doctors sympathise with your illness and know you acts as that pill that affects you positively even though it’s just medicinal candy. I do not want to go to another country where medical culture is so diametrically different that where our point of inquiry begins, theirs does not even touch. For example, my doctor always asks me what I ate and if I am sure its not something to do with the tummy (and he is quite sure of it) the doctor in the US might just ask me to see a shrink.

Sorry, but I just do not want to go to the US of all places to recuperate.
Now as a person with reasonable accountability (at least I hope Sonia thinks she is accountable to the people of our country) to the masses, I thought she would think twice. I would have understood if she went to Italy (her mother’s place) for some rest and relaxation. However dirty, small, undesirable, inconvenient your parental place is compared to your home, you will always feel at home. But I guess she knows Italy like the back of your hand and refrained from going there.

So what’s wrong with India and India’s medical facilities which anyway are geared for the rich and the powerful? We have the best of the best right here. We have Telangs, Devi Shettys, Trehans, not to mention Ayurved doctors who are the best in the world. Unlike practitioners of Allopathy, they do not ask you for symptoms and ailment but find out for themselves since the illness sings to them in an esoteric tone. So Sonia why not India, why not a lovely Ayurved Spa, why not an Indian doctor who has earned his spurs here? You could have come to Chennai which is a veritable medical supermarket in itself. I am sure Jaya would have opened her newly found generous arms and looked after you.
It’s breaking my heart Sonia that you chose US over India.

On second thoughts is Hillary Clinton hosting you?

Of budgets and naked woman

The budget is out and I dont know where to look! No, the budget is not an embarassment. It has ceased to be one for sure. But how many finance ministers can claim that their decisions have resulted directly in The Times of India resembling the centrefold of Playboy and also fulfilling the fantasies of the stronger sex by reading about numbers, percentages, taxes, rebates and pie charts. But I digress.

I read about the budget in the papers but I was severely distracted not by inflationary numbers but inflationary figures of the weaker and fairer sex. The Times of India outdid it’s obsession with taking puns literally and therefore fulfilled all teenage/ pre-teenage boyish fantasies and also by hammering the gender stereotype down impressionable minds. Thank you TOI. You are doing us a great service here.

So when my eyes roam the newspaper trying to glean some relevant information, I spot what I was looking for. Thanks to TOI again, I find that Aussie lap-dancers, prostitutes and strippers can claim deduction on accessories and tools that aid them in their profession aka whips, handcuffs, lubricants, oils, gels etc. I can pass this info onto my non-imbibing, vegetarian marwadi chartered accountant. He might be able to save me some crisps. This saucy news was accompanied with an illustration of woman on her stomach with her bare bums cleaved with a thong and lips holding a black whip. Webcam strippers will also be taxed but for now let’s enjoy the pic that accompanied it- a similarly bare woman with blood red stilettoes. No wonder then India’s ‘largest circulating newspaper’ engenders misogyny and encourages objectification of women based even on a drab and dull subject like India’s annual budget. One picture is called virginity VAT. What? Vat of virginity? Virginity in VAT? VATican Virginity? What is it?? I mean what are we supposed to infer here? That TOI thinks it comes up with some amazing puns? Now the pictures ain’t even clever darling, they are well….just pictures.

This newspaper can take something a subject as innocuous as increased broadband speed or a housewife’s worth simply transform an activity that is as far from sexuality as an amoeba to something that you would instantly associate with post coital imagery or at least something that leads to it. It indulges every man’s (and by man I mean man as opposed to person) fantasy and imagination by showing women in various states of undress indulging in a range of activities that includes washing cars, holding a steaming iron, lounging on bed with a laptop or simply eating salads.

All these photographs deal with small (thank god) pointless articles that deal with a housewife’s worth, increased broadband speeds and healthy eating habits.
I want to know if TOI has a very deliberate policy of sexualizing any and every theme/ subject by using pictures that barely represent the words that are printed. When I read that my efforts as a housewife are worth 37,000$ annually, it made me feel good about myself. I mean these are tax-free dollars after all. But one look at the picture and my self- worth evaporated. A woman was shown wearing lingerie with an iron in one hand and wisps of clothing in the other and she was looking at then with a strange expression that I could not decipher.

How come for an article on management colleges, TOI doesn’t use pictures of buff beach bums or handsome hunks wearing swimming trunks that are worn way below the belt or simply put male species in various states of undress that are provocative and extremely vulgar. Take a hunk, put him on a beach and thrust a netbook or a laptop in his hand. If it’s about the budget just show a naked man in bed wearing a thong, with a cigarette in his hand and bills and more bills covering every inch of his glorious, gym-toned muscles.

If picture speaks a thousand words, then I am dumb indeed. .

You have to learn to be like the turtle

Oh no I am not thinking of 'slow and steady wins the race' although that too but not today, not now.
I set out at 5.45 in the morning for my game of tennis on ECR thinking it will be wonderful to just cruise along at 60kmph and breathe in the as yet unpolluted air....than a tanker overtook me, I had to brake my thoughts and my car. Next I before I knew it, I was sandwiched between a TNST bus (those double buses chained to each other. Ok I thought to myself this is war! Sigh, out went the leisurely thoughts and early morning calm to be replaced by a battle-ready mind. I rolled down the windows (I like open windows as I can then peek out, make rude gestures and roll out abuses, but worry not, I never get into a fracas or fights) The bus finally decided to take pity on my and veered to the left to let me pass. Now the road was truly empty, and no sooner had I settled down than I heard raucous Tamil songs being hammered out of 4 giant speakers placed one on top of the other (these would put even the best concert equipment to shame). The songs I guesses were either paens to MGR/ Vijay/ Captain or Murugan, Gauriamman or Karthick. Same difference!
So its times like these I wish I knew the tricks of Yoga and meditation and withdraw within myself, to put my head down in the my own oasis of calm and not let these external factors agitate me. Believe the abuse that we put up with is phenomenal- noise pollution, air pollution, traffice violators, civic disruptions like Mandaps for some political meeting right in the middle of the road.
Folks, maybe its time to take sme lessons from the ostrich and the turtle and even the snail, I say. Anything that normalises your blood pressure and gives you time to catch your breath and return to sanity.

Camera is a vile word

My sister in law asked me..
“Did you go on this holiday under duress? Were you held for ransom?
“No”
At gun point?
“No”
Was there any pressure?”
“Oh absolutely none. I went willingly.”
“Then why are you looking so grim under this beautiful, blue, azure sky?”
That’s because my husband is holding the camera and he is as competent as a child with a gun who might have the wrong end pointed toward his quarry and he couldn’t care less!!!!
The eternal suffering of a person who is camera-happy is to be surrounded with equally camera-unhappy people, people who don’t care for 20MP happiness in all its digital, vivid colour grandeur.
“Will you take a picture please? Will you? Please take a picture? Picture please? Me and him (here I point frantically at him and me)? This is what I request perfect strangers to make up for my decidedly camera-cold family. My husband actually has the gall to say- well let’s go on a vacation- me, the kids and your camera. I worship my camera, It’s my third baby- youngest, cutest and what’s more it does my bidding and all it asks for is batteries- I am perennially beset by battery anxiety and memory card inadequacy. So when the family is in a 7/11 shop and the kids are going berserk filling up the shopping cart , I am moving along the aisles like a lunatic trying to stock up on Duracell, triple As. Once my better half had to literally wrangle me away from the camera, you see I had tightly wound the camera on my right wrist. He said that he will have to cut my arm loose to get me away from the little rascal with just one eye. I asked him if he will take a picture of my camera lying in my own blood. He just sighed but looked at me like he married a closet camchopath!
Well I am not so bad either. I can go for long periods on our holiday without the click click sound..like when I am in the washroom………..

Untable this please

TV, amplifier, VCD player and tata sky cable, laptop power cord, Lan cable, my MP 3 earphones, the list just goes on and on.
Wires and cables are the bane of my life; it prevents me from looking..how do you say in teenage parlance…. cool!
I have admired the cool quotient of people listening to music over earphones. Actually I admire the cool quotient of people who have this amazing ability to deal with wires, cables, cords, keep them hidden with such nonchalance that it’s as if the content is streaming through thin air.
The MP3 is discreetly tucked away in the pockets and it’s as if the music appears from nowhere. They drive cars, lift weights in the gym, hang out in cafes and malls, use the escalator with such ease, board trains and buses, drive cars, cross roads and eat too. Ditto with the people who speak on cell phones with the hands-free gadget. I have tried this too (I admit my singular failure).
I swore to join the wireless cool legion when I bought a new cell phone. I hunted down the box in which the accessories that came with my phone were packed. I extracted the bluetooth with some reverence imagining all those people who had the thing attached to their ears and spoke without a worry in the world. Well here I come! I managed to fix it to my ear after several attempts as it refused to hang in there and as soon as I would punch in a number it would fall off. After some time came my bg moment. A friend called and I answered, I could move freely without carrying my phone, I walked to the balcony
'Hello XYZ'
'Hey I cant hear you'
'Hello' at this point I pressed the bluetooth device in my ear with my index finger the way I had seen smart secret service men do in movies. To no avail. My friends just hung up.
My husband was the next to call. I excitedly answered finally here was a man who would patiently bear with my efforts.
'Ketaki...'
'Hello'
'I cant hear you, what is it? Are you wearing your bluetooth?
'Yes can you hear me?'
'Please take it off, I can’t hear a word you are saying'
Sigh! Looks like my attempt to be cool was failing fast. Never mind, I still had the MP3 player.
I pulled the earphones, hooked it to my Transcend (don't give me the- "aint you cheap look").
Time to go to the gym. With the player in my hand, I picked up my pair of shoes I had to bend to tie the lace and the MP3 fell from my lap, the head phone wire got entagled around my thigh like it was the sexiest thing on earth! Disaster again. I packed it away.
Now I moved to the laptop at work. I got my machine out of the bag, set it on the table, connected it to the LAN cable. Good! Now for the power cord. As I tried to bring it out, I realized something else came out along with it too- the mouse. The mouse decided that maybe it was time for some fun at my expense. It consorted with my comb and it in turn had hooked up with my set of keys. I just pulled at at all in anger and everything came tumbeling down like it was strung in a giant garland- wallet, keys, mouse, power cord, a sanitary napkin...I am sure I must have looked like a mad woman.
I came back home in the evening to see my husband calmly working on his laptop on the dining table, I stepped around gingerly to avoid tripping on the numerous cables (power, LAN, modem, etc etc…) and he looked at me like I am crazy. Why are you walking on your toes, said the king of cool, for a second I thought I was hallucinating. Was I? Where are the snaking, black cables? Where is that zillion point extension board? Where is it? I asked almost violently. Where is what? Trust him to be calm when I feel like my insides are churning to lava. Aha the cables is it? Well I am using Reliance air card or some such thing…just push it in the USB port and be connected. Lovely, while I was trying to part cables like Moses, my husband had already figured it out.
I have seen living rooms with an impressive flat screen TV…and that’s it. Apparently the TV is connected to Tata Sky, but hey where are the cables that connect the set top box to the TV set? Where is the power cord? Where is the cable that connects the amplifier to the TV (the sound is just delicious). It is somehow hidden somewhere just like the magic in Harry Potter.
But people who come out tops in their ‘fight’ (I am assuming it’s a fight because for me it certainly is) with the numerous cables and wires are those that listen to music with the earphones stylishly tucked in their ears and the MP3 player discreetly in the pockets. That is cool. I have tried to do that and for me the battle started with untangling the earphones. The left head phone is entwined with the right and the right has mysteriously curled itself around itself. I try desperately to unknot but it gets even more entangled. I have untangled it many times and neatly tied it around the phone like a thread. But when the phone rings and I want to talk with the ear phones on, they fail me every time…and I mistakenly press the end button. Even in the gym, when I see 10 other people listening serenely to their players, I wonder how they get it right.
My earphones have a life of their own. They somehow manage to creep around the treadmill handle and still remain entangled. Finally as I am about to start and hit the play button, the right head phone falls out of my ear. In sheer frustration I give it up to listen to the hopeless music playing outside. Just then I get a ‘you are so pathetic’ look from this young ‘dude’ who is as usual ‘headphoned’ . I wonder how they manage to do chin-dips and crunches without breaking sweat over the earphones…..I am alas totally defeated.
Then I tried to connect the earphones to my phone so when it rings while I am driving, I can talk without having to take my eyes off the road and the hands of the steering wheel and gears. Ok, so far so good. I arrived at work, parked, and then I needed to get the ID out from around my neck. But then it somehow got entangled in the earphones. I tried to take the two apart with force, but the two cords appeared like they had joined together for eternity. I got out, and struggled with the ID, somehow got it free but then my shades that I stuck on my head came off along with ID and were hurled on the road. I can only imagine how I looked- the other end of the earphones cord was on my right shoulder, the ID was in my left hand and my precious glasses on the road. This wasn’t working and it hasn’t till now but I haven’t stopped trying.

When you know your are going to die

Aai- mee atta Germany la yeoo shakat nahee, pun mala tuzhi kaljee vattey
Mulga- aai aga asa kahee nahee aahey, thoda kanatala yeto hospital madhe. Kiti magazines vaachnaar and kiti TV pahanaar?
Aai- mee October madhe yenyacha prayatna kartey
Mulga- aga aai ghai karoo nakos, savkash zamel tevha ye
Aai- arey tuzhya hospital la sang na tula laptop dyayla, thoda virangula
mulga- aai tey fakta terminal stage madhlya lokaan laptop detaat.
aai- hey bagh kaljee ghe, aaraam kar ani mi phone karat raheen

after a month the son calls
aai- kasa ahes? vel kasa zaatoy tuzha? Gym la zaato na roz?
mulga- aai mala Laptop milala.

I cried after my mom narrated this story about her friend's son. Was restless for days afterwards. I coundnt bring myself to translate this into English