Save the Tiger!!! How???
I still remember the day I saw the “save the tiger initiative by aircel” advertisement first time on television; my heart went out for the little cub or stripey as he is referred to in the ad. I felt sad for the cub which was taken over by anger over the fools who decide to kill such beautiful creatures* (although I realize that on close encounter with stripey’s mother beauty would be the last thing that would come to one’s mind) which was overtaken by a zeal to do something for the national animal, so like a true emotional follower I logged on to the website which asked me to ROAR!!! I wondered what good that would do to any potential tiger a minimum of 100-200 kms from where I stay in Bangalore. Anyhow hopes still high I started digging deep into the website to find out how I could help. Being a forest officer’s son and being brought up very close to national parks I felt that belongingness and that emotional connect which further pushed me to contribute towards any help that I could offer only to find ROAR!! ROAR!! & some more ROAR!! on the website with my only favorite Indian footballer Bhai Chung Bhutia. So the website asks you to blog, write (read ROAR) on social networking sites, donate (the money to be used to distribute better equipments to forest guards) and nothing else.

A few days later it was all over internet with people pleading (including me) with each other to save the tigers, the only thing missing here was to suggest how?? You could hear the ROAR from every where, a couple of friends from Russia wanted to ROAR badly whom I had to stop thinking it would make the Siberian cousins of our tigers confused about their future. In a confused state of mind I decided to look at the ad more carefully and do a little dissection with my limited knowledge. Mahindra Singh Dhoni and a host of other celebrities claim there are only 1411 tigers left in India. There is no basis to validate this figure as:-

(1) 70% of the tiger belt in India is infected by Maoists.
(2) There are only two methods of Tiger counting
(a) Clay mould method where pug marks are molded in white cement and counted.
(b) Camera method where cameras are installed and counting done on spotting tigers.
Both these methods are not accurate enough to calculate the number of tigers and due to the Maoists people don’t venture into forests even if it is for counting tigers; so how did a US based WWF arrive at this figure unless off course they took a roll call and the tigers promptly replied “present sir”

I totally support the cause but have serious questions about the effect or reach of such initiatives other than providing a good brand association to a regional player with national dreams “Aircel”. ROARING is not going to help our stripey because unfortunately he would never be able to see it on face book or any other networking site, the only thing that would help stripey is stricter laws which are already in place and even stricter implementation of these laws against poachers, our law system which takes 15-20 years to sentence a criminal accused of killing humans would take a life time to punish someone whoz killed a tiger, as no body from the tiger’s family can hold a candle and protest neither would Arnab Goswami invite them on frankly speaking. The two fastest ways to get justice now-a day.

I think I got a bit heavy and emotional in the paragraph above..can’t help gave u guys a warning about my emotional connect with anything and everything related to jungles, so going ahead don’t you think India has suddenly transformed itself into a superman/ superwomen country ?? no Iam not going off topic just think every other day we are asked to save some thing I could hardly get over the stripey saving emotional outburst when I saw a few more celebrities asking us to save “Indian Hockey” another of my weak points. So as in retrospect when I now decide about how I could help Indian Hockey I still wonder if stripey’s mother came back?? Or would aircel send her a sms to get back!!!!

Meet the De-sarkars (my in-laws)

In my last post I had written about the arrival of my in-laws to Bangalore first time after marriage; now I would like to share the eventful week I spent with them. Actually being a love marriage I hardly got time to know my in-laws closely as (luckily) we (me & my wife) didn’t have the convincing part to be done before marriage; both our parents were cool about the idea and they literary rushed through the marriage as if they wanted to get it done before they could live peacefully ever after.

So on all the occasions (read three) that I met my in-laws it was in a very formal environment where you are surrounded by relatives who are placed strategically as per their relation ship status (close relative, distant relative etc etc) and one is so conscious about the strange looks the either side give you that you actually forget or fail to notice minute things about your would be in-laws. So this was the only opportunity that I was getting to spend “quality” time with them and couldn’t help but notice the behavioral patterns.

So let’s meet the de-sarkars:-

The day starts early for de-sarkars as they are up at 5.00 am; a tad too early for the lazy bum that Iam who still believes that it’s the sun which should be allowed to rise first and not the humans and by rising before the sun you commit a violation of the rules of nature, however I have no ill feelings about people who commit this violation as long as they don’t disturb or try to recruit me into their gang. But for de-sarkars every awake second is a celebration* (not the one which Mr. Vijay Mallya makes) and the first among the group to get up puts on the television at the highest decibel level your poor ears could handle. So your’s truly who was once used to wake up hearing Pink Floyd strumming “shine on you crazy diamond” now is shaken awake by a few hundred kemon achhos and bhalo acchis belted out by heavily made up women on nondescript channels. Iam sure I have noticed my television say “its gonna be a long and Bengali day Rahul” I mean think about my poor television guys, I run out of my home at 8.30 for work and I go back at 8.30 pm but the poor guy cant even protest he belts out serial after serial in Bengali right from 5.15 am to 1.00 am, I wouldn’t be shocked if the next time he greets me in Bengali rather than the customary English and occasional Hindi. Its been 10 days since I saw Arnab Goswami and I kind of miss him, my poor television so used to discovery, national geographic, MTV and Times now has had to make friends with zee bangla, star jholsha* (its jalsa but is pronounced jholsha, so I thought I would as well change the spelling) Sony aanth and a few more which are too miniscule to even mention.

I usually don’t get an opportunity much on weekdays it’s the weekends which suddenly have become longer, lets experience the weekend that I spend with them:-





Breakfast:-

The breakfast hour is at 11.00 am and in between anything and everything related to food is greeted with a loud cheering and some compliments. The entire clan gets together for breakfast and some how has to speak on the top of their voices while the food is still in their mouths which makes me concentrate hard to avoid any stray food flying off their mouth than to eat my breakfast. I was brought up with a lot of stress on table manners and this certainly is off my limits. However post breakfast is when the clan automatically divides itself into two groups:-

(1) Watch Television
(2) Watch a movie on the computer
Both the groups have a couple of scores to settle with each other as they try to outdo each other by increasing their volumes it went to crazy levels till the Einstein in me prompted the importance of the invention of head phones to the group watching a movies which was again not a very good advice since headphones are not designed to be used by two curious people (read:-de-sarkars) at the same time.

The communication between the group is robust and loud enough for my security guard to understand four floors below despite the distance between the groups being only 10 meters; My neighbors Iam sure can recall most of the conversations if asked to, In the midst of this mayhem one of the clan members can break into an impromptu song sequence which sounds familiar to non-Bengali ears and then you are reminded that the great large jewellery wearing Bappi da lives in Bengal and would have copied all the Hindi tunes. While watching television with the de-sarkars I could suddenly see the women folk go up in air with joy and the man of the family giving jealous smile which I realized a bit later was to the man on the screen heartthrob of millions of Bengali girls “proshonjeet”* (*actually prasanjeet pronounced proshonjeet) had made his appearance dressed in colours which would put our Govinda to shame dancing on the road on a popular bangla gaan.

Lunch:-

Lunch is at 4.00. I stared helplessly at the five different mini mountains of vegetables and fishes at my plate. The great bangla food festival had started while the clan decided to cheer every spoonful that was added to their plates I quietly said hello to five kinds of pumpkins, three kinds of fish and a daal soup (which I was later told was actually the daal) the entire clan dissected the fish to its mere bones while I was still getting introduced to the mixed vegetable and luchis (puris) If ever I have felt that regional discrimination exists its only when I got the looks from the clan on my inability to eat fish; I scrapped through the lunch for which I was to be reprimanded by my wife later for not appreciating my mom-in-law’s cooking (a non-pardonable sin I must add).

After the lunch the entire clan decides to take an afternoon nap (the quietest 2 hours in my house) after which the clan is back together doing what they are best at singing, dancing and talking to each other in the loudest possible voice.

Dinner:-

Dinner was at 12.30 am and all the characters which played on my plate had decided to change costumes and re-appear it was like watching a bad play with a low budget play group where same set of actors appear and re-appear in different roles to save on the cost of having more actors. After which I was subjected to the customary after dinner “gulpo” (family talk where u discuss all useless things) and the subject of discussion was the summary of all the serials and movies watched during the day and the critical feedback (read rape) on everything right from the women’s make-up to the dialogue delivery and the camera angles used. Art & Movies runs in the Bengali blood and you better not mess with it, so before sleep could engulf me into the waiting Sunday my sister-in-law broke into a Lata Mangeshkar Hindi number in Bengali accent which asks the boatman to flow with the flow of the river; not sure about the boatman in Bangalore but my sleep did take the song seriously and flew away from me and I ended up staring at the ceiling waiting for the weekend to get over….

The Week That Wasn't!!!

It was one of those Monday mornings when you get up and curse yourself for the Sunday night’s drink, I fail to understand wether it’s the drink or the thought of the work week lying ahead that makes the hangover worse especially on Monday mornings….so going back to the hangover of mine I was greeted with the breaking news of the day by my wife..” MAA BAA AASCHE, ANNIVERSARY JONNU”; my wife when excited chooses to forget that Bengali is not on my resume as one of the languages known; well first it seemed like part of my dream, but little later when I looked at my wife carefully with her eyes popped out behind her specs and ear to ear grin I realized this was true well that partly explained the loud shrills which broke my sleep in the first place, it was my excited wife speaking on the phone to my in-laws. A couple of splashes of water on the face and I got the English subtitles saying my in-laws would be here for my first marriage anniversary; for the record:-“I LOVE MY IN-LAWS” they are one of the coolest in-laws to have* {*-conditions apply} but there was a hitch the only problem I have with their presence is the cuisine and the atmosphere, they are tad too loud for peace loving your’s truly and the cuisine is one of the most talked about in food circles but somehow I have not been able to make peace with it, probably my limited taste buds and some pre-determined notions about what to eat and what not to eat were to blame. So along with the joy of spending quality time with them came the fear of food.

Well I showed enough joy to make sure my wife doesn’t feel otherwise and started counting days, I wasted a week of quality time buying stuff for the home which would make my in-laws feel Iam “settled”* {*-polite way of investigating wether the useless fellow you married your daughter to is good enough to take care of your daughter}

So after me trying to make maximum out of my only left weekend, the big arrival happened on 10th February when after a hard days work I headed to the airport to receive them with a bouquet in hand like a good son-in-law. After meeting at the airport and a few hundred kisses and Bengali compliments later {I still believe they are compliments even though I some times don’t understand what the words actually mean, so I take it on face value since it’s coupled with a smile}we headed towards the taxi bay, well there is some good news awaiting; the cabs in Bangalore have not been designed to accommodate the luggage of a happy Bengali couple coming to meet to their daughter’s house first time after marriage… so that means a few of the bags had to kept in the front seat of the cab so that meant I was to travel sand witched between my pa-in-law and ma-in-law in the cab, well the cab left airport and 5 kms later my in-laws decided to have their customary argument about something in…..u guessed it right Bengali or bangla as I was enlightened later by my wife and I acted like watching a tennis match looking at alternatively at who ever was talking and trying to look as if I completely understood their plights.
We entered our peace loving apartment at around 11.30 and the loud shrieks and kemon aacho’s did make a few neighbors turn in their beds. And now its time to wake up early to go receive my sister-in-law in who would e arriving in the morning. Looking forward to my first marriage anniversary which Iam sure would be eventful………