salman rushdie is a hero!

the government of india has made it quite clear that it doesn’t want you or me to know who gibreel farishta and saladin chamcha are. the protagonists of salman rushdie’s fourth novel — you know the one, of course — have long been personae non gratae in the world’s largest democracy. it is interesting to wonder what farishta and chamcha would have to say about last month's developments in jaipur though.

rushdie was invited, asked not to come, allegedly threatened, cajoled into making an appearance via video conference and eventually told to stay away following protests by radical fundamentalists. according to reports, representatives of various organisations tried to enter the venue in protest against the video address. some of them alleged that the festival was trying to portray rushdie as a hero.

the thing is — farishta and chamcha would undoubtedly agree — salman rushdie is a hero. he can refer to himself as one primarily because he fulfils the criteria: he is a man of distinguished courage, because fighting fundamentalists for 24 years makes him one. he is a man who has performed a heroic act, because the asking of difficult questions is heroic when one lives in times that discourage questioning. he is regarded as a model or ideal, because his contribution to the arts outweighs that of many who choose to disrupt rather than debate. so, yes, salman rushdie is a hero.

this is what makes the government of rajasthan’s insistence on playing the role of mute spectator (in the presence of the world’s media, no less) such an embarrassment. it has failed on every count, kowtowing to groups of people who have arguably no idea what it is they dislike about rushdie in the first place.

in an open letter to then prime minister rajiv gandhi in 1988, rushdie wrote: ‘on october 5, the indian finance ministry announced the banning of my novel under section 11 of the indian customs act. many people around the world will find it strange that it is the finance ministry that gets to decide what indian readers may or may not read.’

the acts of cowardice we witnessed on television through the past month were the latest in a long line of absurd developments surrounding what is, in effect, a book that a shockingly small number of indians has actually read. these developments could, ironically, find a place in any rushdie novel quite nicely. much of his writing, which falls into the genre of magic or magical realism, relies upon placing a story in a real setting while enabling its protagonists to break the rules of that world. midnight’s children, his most acclaimed work, is a meta-narrative that incorporates multiple realities, making it a perfect tool for social criticism — something that would give any writer of a much-maligned novel much to think about.

here are other pieces of information that matter: gibreel farishta and saladin chamcha, both indian muslims, are actors. the former plays hindu deities on the big screen in india, while the latter earns a living doing voiceovers in england. everything about the novel they reside in — from the controversial dream sequences to the studies in disillusionment and schizophrenia — tries to make sense of what it is like to be an alien in a strange land. it examines the notion of identity, of trying to fit into a culture different from one’s own. that the book was attacked by some of those for whom the writer was actually writing makes for an ironic footnote in its dark and colourful history.

if the past is anything to go by, this issue may not find any sort of resolution soon. this means rushdie may not address us again. the loss is undoubtedly ours.

what i would like to know is whether or not the government of india allows its citizens to read a banned book. responses to that question are vague. until i do receive an answer though, i intend to read the satanic verses again. i intend to do this because i don’t see why any democracy should dictate what i can and cannot read. i have a mind of my own. if you have one too, i suggest you do the same.

these walls can speak

step back in time, if you will, to the year 1835, on what was then the island of bombay. picture an englishwoman — her name is of little importance — stepping out of her carriage into the bright noon sunshine of the place we now call kala ghoda. she walks slowly, parasol in gloved hand and lady-in-waiting similarly clad, a respectful step behind. town hall lies straight ahead of them, the mint to their right, while englishmen mill around customs house to the left.

representatives of the east india company, all familiar faces, tip their hats while the natives look on. on both sides of the relatively broad street, shops peep out of customary ground-plus-one storey structures, plastered stone masonry glinting dully, the monotony broken by occasional ‘chhajjas’ or ‘jhilmils’ — projecting eaves — in a few buildings. “at times,” one can imagine the lady mutter, “it almost feels like home.”

step now into bustling, present-day mumbai and walk in the footsteps of that woman. coming in from the chaotic hub that is churchgate, imagine moving past middle-aged men in formal wear, the occasional beggar, and hawkers selling everything from handkerchiefs to plastic toys. walk past the impressive university of bombay, where a massive clock on the face of rajabai tower counts down minutes to the matinee show. standing proudly in the distance is the broad art deco façade of regal cinema.


much has changed in the tiny art district of kala ghoda, evolving as all things do through time. a walk down these narrow streets today belies the fact that this was once a nucleus around which the metropolis of bombay sprang into existence. as all residents know, the horse in question refers to a 12.75-feet bronze statue of king edward vii (then the prince of wales) on, well, a black horse. sculpted by sir edgar boehm, it was moved years ago, now standing guard at the city zoo. the name persists though.

there are a number of things that make kala ghoda interesting. for one, it is part of the city’s business district called, simply, fort. the throbbing heart of the city in the eighteenth century, the area received its name from a fort built by the british east india company. today, it extends from the docks in the east to azad maidan in the west, chhatrapati shivaji terminus to the north, and kala ghoda down south.

when envisaged by the british, fort was a trade centre. it wasn’t meant to be a large town, just a small zone that would help the english hold the reins of power firmly. like all such enterprises, a fixed master plan was never chalked out. instead, as power exchanged hands and the decades rolled on, the area metamorphosed, layer by painstaking layer, to create the rich cultural entity it is today. with the coming of each layer, distinct architectural areas were created, the shadows of which still peek out today if one cares to look behind the gaudy billboards shouting out bollywood gossip.

what remains beneath it all is a kind of duality, a two-faced aspect of the architecture that comes from an original division of the fort settlement into separate areas for the british and our native ancestors. the buildings still carry a few allusions to those areas, along with changes imposed by successive generations, their varying tastes and degrees of functionality.

although it now hosts a popular annual cultural festival promoting the arts, kala ghoda didn’t emerge as the city’s art district overnight. then again, it was here that india’s first film was screened one evening in 1896, setting in motion developments that would make us the world’s biggest film producing nation. putting aside history though, it is the area’s architectural diversity that is more rewarding. what you get is not just a unified entity comprising buildings set in an historical zone; rather, a juxtaposition of layers that have their own tales to tell at every street corner.

the physical form of the fort area is best described as an irregular trapezium. seven layers of development have been identified, chronologically, in the precinct. the kala ghoda crescent can be defined as the area stretching from regal chowk to the university of mumbai, with oval maidan to the west and lions gate to the east. like gems dotting this zone lie architectural and historical beauties like the prince of wales museum, national gallery of modern art, jehangir art gallery, max mueller bhavan, institute of science, bombay natural history society, elphinstone college and the david sassoon library.

one can recognise the influence of an early native population in the area now covered by bohra bazaar street, perin nariman street and mint street. the functional nature common with british residential and administrative architecture can be seen in the admiralty house, while buildings at master nagindas road still proclaim distinct colonial accents in flat brick arches and key stones.

italian facades show at the area around town hall; veer nariman road has predominantly european buildings; and the indo-saracenic style makes an appearance in the readymoney terrace building. from gothic spires to the quiet elegance of the renaissance, islamic to art deco, it’s hard not to be struck by this sort of architectural diversity. looked at as a whole, it can unanimously be judged the finest heritage spine of the city, with three distinct styles: the pre-1860s, victorian architecture from 1860 to the 1920s, and stark art deco of the post 20s.

moving to the structures themselves, why not start with the wellington fountain, erected by public subscription in 1865. opposite it stands the gothic façade of today’s maharashtra state police hq, once the royal alfred sailor’s home. noticeable from here is regal cinema, designed by charles stevens and built on the site of a saluting battery (and also, as some historians maintain, a cemetery for englishmen). on the other side of the street stands the department store known as sahakari bhandar, formerly the majestic hotel built in 1909. it was designed by w a chambers and company, who also designed the taj mahal hotel in 1903.


stepping along the crowded pavement, past small shops selling cigarettes, one runs into the indian mercantile building at a corner. built in the early 1900s and famous for its oldest occupant, phillips antiques, it overlooks the institute of science with its renaissance style. set in its spacious interiors is the mumbai branch of today’s national gallery of modern art.

across the street and past bus stops on the other side, the prince of wales museum (now the chhatrapati shivaji maharaj vastu sangrahalaya) demands more than a cursory glance. its indo-saracenic style, local yellow and blue basalt make it a common enough childhood memory for most students, with a dome strikingly reminiscent of the gol gumbuz at bijapur. what the building also has is a lot of traditional architecture and interesting cultural adaptations that include bulbous cupolas, jalees, rajput-style jharokas, brackets of hindu temples and semi-open verandas — all merging into one whole.

opposite popular record store rhythm house, a stone’s throw away, are the stark contours of jehangir art gallery. next, elphinstone college, named after governor mountstuart elphinstone and housing the maharashtra state archives with its rare government records, manuscripts and newspapers. then, the david sassoon mechanics institute and library, with its beautiful marble statue of sir sassoon and flooring of richly coloured minton tiles. from here, the ornate neo-classical style of the army and navy building peeps out, now occupied by several multi-national companies.

does kala ghoda eventually live up to its reputation as bombay’s art district? a short walk through it ought to prove that it does. like soho in new york, quartier latin in paris, and other art districts around the world, it manages that particular collation that has remained relatively untouched, apart from superficial changes imposed by an evolving urban landscape.

with its combined total of almost 1,10,000 square feet, it is a slice of culture that best represents what bombay is about. taking the city’s diversity, history, the artistic and commonplace, it somehow becomes a microcosm that gives visitors a taste of today as well as times past. what it does, in the process, is trace a story of survival and strength, about ourselves and what we are. that is what strikes a chord in every heart that beats through its crowded streets.

in conversation with imogen heap

samantha hale says she is not a filmmaker. she admits to never having been to film school. and yet, her admissions form part of a voiceover at the beginning of her documentary titled map the music. part road trip, part soul search, it is an hour-long film that took hale a little over four years to create in the wake of her father’s death. devastated by her loss, she believed it was a love of music that helped her heal, and set about trying to examine if others felt the same way.

the film (currently available at insound) follows fans of musicians like rachael yamagata, kate havnevik, zoe keating and jim bianco. these aren’t ordinary fans though; they are followers who, like hale, walk in the shadows of their icons, trudging to as many live performances as they can in the hope of salvation. what hale manages to tap into and draw, in the process, is an interesting parallel between music and faith: a belief system of sorts that helps keep millions sane.

at the centre of all this footage lies the force that is imogen heap — the essex-born, grammy award-winning singer-songwriter, twitter-star and recent collaborator on acclaimed musical television series the dewarists. it is to heap’s live performances that hale, other fans, even other musicians, turn to time and again, citing the hold she has on her audience.

those lucky enough to have seen heap live will testify to her manic energy that drives every performance. surrounded by all manner of musical instruments, she flits across stage using what can only be described as microphones attached to her wrists, pulling and discarding samples at will.

when not on stage, heap comes across as calm, measured and — as i found out when i met her at a surprisingly quiet hotel in juhu, mumbai — completely at ease with the status she has long enjoyed. she helpfully fiddled around with my mobile phone’s audio recorder, coaxing it to life whenever it stopped (which was every five minutes). after a discussion that included everything from emerging technologies online to forthcoming projects in china, i was left with the sense that heap is an artiste more comfortable than most with pushing boundaries. it was easy to see why fans adored her. that she intends to play here again is testament to the fact that there are enough of us interested. for that, we ought to be thankful.

excerpts from our conversation:

map the music tracks a number of hardcore fans who clearly seem to immerse themselves in the music you create. do smaller concerts, like your recent ones in india, come as a relief? are you free to play the music you want to, as opposed to what your fans demand?

i do actually have a set of songs i have to do, because i ask fans to vote in advance. the reason is i have so many songs and often go to a city where people like a particular one. there’s no way of knowing what they like in advance. this is my way of doing my best to democratise the choice of set-list and also to take the pressure off me in case they get it wrong.

why is your music not available in india? as an artiste, is there something you can do to persuade the music industry to take emerging markets like ours more seriously?

i have a major label representative in india, but i imagine one of the main reasons they don’t put the record out is they can’t guarantee a certain amount of sales. if it’s a big act, you know a certain percentage of people have probably heard it and will buy it. i have my own label and license the music, so i understand the difficulties. the amount it costs to put out a record, to manufacture a cd and market it, is immense — and i’m not trying to stick up for record labels here, but the proportion of illegal downloads to sales is so high here that it almost doesn’t give an incentive to a record label to produce anything.

i’m upset that people can’t go out and buy it legally, but i think we are in a transitional phase. the technology to download music exists, but we haven’t caught up with it yet. the industry hasn’t set a viable alternative to buying a physical cd. we can buy the download, but people are so used to not paying for music anymore that it almost seems like it should be free to a lot of people. we need to figure out a mechanism, a structure that makes sense for both artists and music lovers.

people don’t think about the person at the end of the chain. they feel that because the record industry has taken so much money in the past and made cds so expensive, the musicians don’t need it; but, actually, we do. i think places like india, china and indonesia, where people are enjoying so much music, is where money will be for musicians. it’s almost like the new frontier. if a structure did work out, where artists get paid micro-transactions for each sharing or downloading, you are no longer criminalising your fans.

you’ve popularised vokle and are working with technologies that change the way artistes play live. is there anything on that front that has got you excited?

i think one of the things made pretty apparent, even in the past year, is how much i can output creatively in such a short period of time, because the mechanisms are more in place. everyone is on vimeo, youtube and twitter, so one can connect with many people really quickly. for the first time, i am making films, compiling art with amateur photographers and paying them for their work. to combine all of this is exciting. it’s become more dynamic and immersive for me. even if everyone is sharing the creative process, i feel as if i have the reins. i feel almost overwhelmed by the possibilities.

how is your project involving ‘sound seeds’ coming along?

each song has its own eco-system. it usually has a project attached to it. i had a song recently out called neglected space, which i am most proud of because it’s not a song, poem or film. it has this middle ground that i feel i haven’t experienced before. this process of doing a song every three months has given me great confidence. i feel like i’m verging on things that are truly original, like nothing else on the planet. i wish i could do that every time.

connecting different worlds is leading me to be hyper-creative. with neglected space, i combined it with thomas, my partner in love and crime, where we got a load of friends from all over (they paid for their flights) and brought this old-world garden to life, with members of my local community. i’m excited by that physical manifestation of something along with the music. it opened my horizons massively.

i am now doing something ridiculously complicated — something i never thought i’d be able to do — in china, where i’m taking over hangzhou (capital city of the zhejiang province) for a day. i am curating 24 different events across the city over a 24-hour period. part of them will be musical accompaniments to everyday happenings. i want to connect local people with their own art. it’s a day in the life of the city. we’re making a 50-minute film out of it.

minds without fear has been doing really well in india. how do you prepare for a project like the dewarists, where everything is open-ended? how did the collaboration with vishal dadlani come about, considering the music he puts out is so different from your own?

i met vishal in singapore and instantly liked him. that is number one for me with any collaboration. i wanted to come to india to write some music, but didn’t want to go with the usual suspects like a r rahman, who is massively famous all over the world. i like the idea that, each time i do a collaboration, it’s a real random card. if i were to work with people who were similar, it wouldn’t push me creatively.

we had just four days to write and record this song, and i was nervous. what i think we ended up with is a total mesh of our work that shows give and take. he came with the idea of a poem by tagore. it worked very well because, on my flight over, i was watching something about the ‘arrow of time’ — the phenomenon of how entropy increases as time continues and things fall apart, disassemble and become smaller parts. i loved that and it connected with his idea wonderfully. there was no argument, it just felt right.

what are you currently listening to?

i don’t listen to music, strangely. i never listen to my own music unless i’m mixing it. when i have time i like listening to what’s around me. when someone’s around the house, i tend to put on an album called solo piano by this guy called gonzales. if i’m djing, i like things like dizzy rascal, john hopkins (one of my favourite artists) and people who exist in many worlds like ryuichi sakamoto, who can exist in classical contemporary as well as j-pop. i have a lot of friends who make music and i’ve met them along the way and listen to their work because it reminds me of friendship and touring.

on women in a man’s world

unlike the ladies of our glorious capital, who presumably come to realize this at around the same time they learn to walk, i had no idea how difficult life for india’s fairer sex could be until i turned 17.

it was a wild time. doordarshan — our public service broadcaster, for those born after 1990 — was suddenly made redundant by the arrival of satellite television. to cut a long story short, i was introduced to channels that played rock music instead of hum log, and the notion that men need not have short hair. and so, i ‘dared to think beyond’ the recommended middle-class length of ten centimetres.

my family didn’t react with horror; not at first. by the time my hair reached the small of my back though, our relatives had split into two distinct groups that (a) questioned my sexuality in a subtle manner or (b) urged me to turn to god. pointing out that images of jesus christ depicted him with long hair only encouraged both groups to pray for my soul.

but, i digress. it is only after my hair reached my waist that i realized india was not the same country for men and women. the epiphany arrived, as they usually do in mumbai, on a local train. struggling to step into a churchgate-bound fast one morning, i suddenly felt a pair of hands squeezing my buttocks. this wasn’t supportive squeezing, the kind given to shoulders of those in need of comforting. this was rough stuff, reminiscent of mating rituals on animal planet.

turning around was impossible, obviously, because no one can turn around on a mumbai local. once inside, one is pointed in a particular direction and forced to stay there. and so, until i managed to put some distance between what i can only refer to as my buttock-squeezer, i had to bear it.

it was not a rare occurrence either. i would try entering a crowded train, crowded bus, or crowded store — most places in mumbai involve crowds — and an obnoxious pair of hands would try and get close to me. the experience of being felt up would end only after i turned around, at which point my faint moustache-beard combo would dispel the myth of my being a nubile 17-year-old girl with underdeveloped breasts.

apart from a great deal of staring, the question ‘aati hai kya?’ was also asked often, and never politely. some men would snicker, while others pretended to be eunuchs and clapped their hands before laughing uproariously. men on motorbikes would whistle as they went past, and continue until they noticed the beard. they would then slow down and abuse me for leading them to believe i was a woman.

eventually, six years on, i went back to a respectable ten centimetres. as my relatives praised god for showing me the light, i began to shave again. i wasn’t exactly the same person though. at 23, i was armed with the knowledge that a large number of my countrymen were nothing but desperate, insecure folk who had no idea how to treat a woman. i also struggled to understand how india’s women went grocery shopping, managed careers and became fabulous mothers, wives or managing directors in the face of behaviour that often bordered on hostility.

there were normal men too, of course, but what struck me was how one abnormal, sex-starved lunatic could ruin a good day simply by assuming it was alright to make a pass at someone he thought was female. if this could happen in a metropolis, how did repressed men in smaller towns behave?

as i write this, television channels are airing footage of policemen in bihar assaulting women with bamboo sticks. if, as many have pointed out, ‘any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members,’ don’t you wonder what sort of india her women live in?

what we have lost

when i was younger, i knew who my neighbours were. they knew my parents and siblings. we greeted each other at the entrance to our building, exchanged portions of food our mothers had prepared, and fell asleep safe in the knowledge that we could count on each other in the event of an emergency.

but, that was then — a time when few societies had watchmen, fewer still had stringent rules about who could and couldn’t live on their premises, and the letters ‘cctv’ looked like gibberish.

i no longer know my neighbours. i recognise some of them vaguely, and acknowledge their presence with a nod every other month or so. i have never been invited to their homes, and haven’t invited any of them to mine. in the event of an emergency, i intend to call family or hope for the kindness of strangers.

friends of mine who come to bombay from other cities speak of the horrifying experience that house-hunting has become. entire localities have been cut off and reserved for groups on the basis of religion or, bizarrely, food preferences. single men are frowned upon; single women labelled loose. credentials and recommendations are demanded, rounds of interviews initiated. in some societies, families with children aren’t welcome because of the potential noise their offspring may make. in other societies, families without children aren’t welcome because their relationships do not come across as stable.

builders now advertise security measures the way they once discussed views from balconies. balconies are, incidentally, on the verge of becoming extinct. new homes come with guards, intercom systems, and video cameras prominently positioned outside doors. the idea of surprising someone is no longer feasible.

the saddest effect of the manner in which our city has changed will reveal itself in the way our children learn to live. they will grow up to be adults unable to trust the people they share their living spaces with; adults who will frown suspiciously in the presence of out-of-towners; adults who will perpetuate the newly-emerging myth that bombay is an unfriendly city where the language you speak determines what you can and cannot have access to.

when i was younger, my schoolmates spoke a dozen languages. their homes, and my own, were unguarded. i was never asked where my family came from or how long i had lived here. i had no idea what a domicile certificate was. i was born in bombay. now, when i make my way home to a building populated by strangers, i miss what my city used to be.

from ad to worse

the dark-skinned girl will never get the moderately good-looking boy. she won’t get the job she deserves either. she will be ignored by peers and forgotten by friends. she may dream of becoming a doctor, but will lack the required confidence to walk into the nearest medical school. naturally, all of this will change soon after she begins to apply a fairness cream. things will start to look up even more after she purchases a fairness moisturiser. her life will then turn around. her friends will adore her. men will stop to stare; women to glare in envy. and, if she doesn’t believe the manufacturer’s claims, the endorsement from an a-list bollywood star will seal the deal.

to look for ethics in the advertising industry is a lot like trying to avoid a politician on a tour of tihar these days. anything that can be twisted to misrepresent reality, in any shape or form, can and will be twisted. despite decades of exposure to this sort of unadulterated garbage however, the sheer abundance of it spouted in fairness cream ads continues to surprise me. these are blatant untruths — for that is what they usually are — packaged and served up for our collective consumption every 15 minutes or so, yet no one feels the need to sit up and complain.

this absence of anguish can be traced to the obsession with skin tone that large numbers of us continue to nurture. black is unbearable. brown will simply not do. wheatish is a euphemism. only the magical ‘fair’ can make life bearable. according to recent figures posted at a site for advertising and marketing professionals — who, incidentally, refer to this as the snow white syndrome — the men’s fairness cream category alone is currently a rs 200 crore market. a year ago, the bbc pointed out that the indian whitening cream market was expanding at close to 18 percent annually.

the cost of it all is conveniently swept under the rug. most fairness creams can be differentiated from each other primarily on the basis of how much bleach they contain. they whiten the skin to a certain degree, but have the potential to cause irreversible damage with overuse. and yet, advertising continues to perpetuate the long-established cultural belief that fairness equals success. it’s why brides and grooms across the country, or their parents, continue to hawk or demand fair spouses.

now, even dark underarms are a problem; there is a fairness cream for that particular area. creams for fairer pelvic cavities no longer seem far-fetched.

a case for baby girls

if history has taught us one thing, it is that numbers are ineffectual. they are to be bandied about at will, or used to initiate conversations at dinner tables. this may be why census reports or occasional bomb blasts fail to shake us. our eyes simply run over figures before moving on to the next sensational item of interest.

let me try, nonetheless, to resurrect a few recently buried numbers. between 1991 and 2001, india reported 927 girls aged 0 and 6 for every 1,000 boys. this dropped to 914 between 2001 and 2011, a period known in some deluded circles as the india shining decade. according to a recent study by the lancet, one of the world’s most respected weekly medical journals, the number of sex-selective abortions of girls rose from approximately 2 million in the 1980s to a staggering 6 million by 2010. this corresponds, roughly, to the number of european jews murdered during world war ii.

our census 2011 has revealed that, among 28 states, kerala has 1,084 females per 1,000 males on the sex ratio front. at the other end of that spectrum, haryana reports 877 girls. maharashtra reports 883 girls for every 1,000 boys. a decade ago, it had reported 913.

let me now draw your attention away from these large figures to the minuscule 6 — the percentage of convictions among cases filed against doctors in states with the most skewed sex ratio. of 805 cases filed under the pre-conception and pre-natal diagnostic techniques act (pcpndt), 55 were awarded convictions. media reports suggest there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue the rest.

also consider 2,382 — the number of compact portable ultrasound kits in maharashtra, according to a report prepared by the state health department. priced between rs 2 and rs 4 lakh, some of these are as compact as the average cell phone. and there is no way of monitoring their sale.

the government amended the pcpndt in 2003 to prohibit sex determination. anyone who seeks a prenatal diagnostic test to determine the sex of a foetus is allegedly liable to imprisonment for three years and a fine of up to rs 50,000. medical practitioners found guilty face the same term and a fine of up to rs 10,000. does this sound like a deterrent?

i have two questions for the ‘guardians of our culture.’ if it is as rich as they claim it to be, what happened to our much touted belief in ahimsa, or non-violence? why do girls continue to die?

the dating ‘bio-hazard’

to describe women as picky is a lot like saying muammar gaddafi isn’t having the best month of his life. they have been picky since the time god, in his infinite wisdom, looked at one of adam’s ribs and thought, ‘i could do something with that!’ do keep in mind, of course, that the thought came to him much after he was done with the big stuff, like oceans and mountains, darkness and light. to bring eve into the picture earlier could have initiated a drastic change in planet earth’s many colour schemes.

men on the other hand are, well, accepting. take my friend sudhir, for instance. what the women in his life — and by this i mean his mother, grandmother and six aunts — do when he’s not around is of no interest to him. since 2005, he has also applied this non fastidious approach to the dating game. what a woman reads, what she likes to watch on television, what her political leaning are, who she looks up to, what she wants her ideal man to be like — all of this pales in comparison to the inordinate amount of interest he attaches to the thumbnail photograph on her profile page.

if the image in question is suitably becoming (i.e. if it bears a vague resemblance to any extra on any soap opera), she captures the attention of the aforementioned non fastidious sudhir almost instantly. he then proceeds to bombard the becoming female with that pithy question now inordinately popular in large parts of india: ‘will you be my friend?’

as the smarter sex, it falls to women to protect themselves from people like sudhir. thankfully, his complete inability to find a date in six years is solid proof of how well they are doing for themselves on this front.

one of many things sudhir manages to get wrong all the time is his profile page at the 22834 dating sites that currently claim him as a member. each of these sites asks users to fill in a questionnaire about themselves, with queries on physical attributes, likes and dislikes. sudhir ignores them all, and opts instead for a large photograph of himself astride a bright red motorcycle. with one hand on the handlebar, and the other waving in what he assumes is a coy fashion, he smiles hard. it’s the kind of photograph that would compel most of us to assault the photographer. sudhir, however, usually asks if he can get a larger size, in a glossy format.

i have pointed out to him, gently, that a photograph does matter, but not as much as men like to think it does. as far as attractiveness goes, most women rate men poorly in that department, but tend to be more kind when it comes to a man’s willingness to communicate. ergo, profile trumps photo.

the thing is, questions at dating sites exist for a reason. they are there because women have always wanted a lot of answers. they want to know how tall you are, what you think of romantic comedies, who your favourite feminist is, how you like to spend saturday afternoons, what your idea of a great book is and, in short, whether or not you’re a pompous arse with the iq of a non-flowering plant.

for men unable to find a woman without the help of a dating site, ignoring a profile questionnaire is unforgivable. to not pay much attention to her own profile is worse. let’s say pooja from delhi has made it clear she wants to settle down, for instance. why in the world must she then have to fend off messages from 19-year-olds in orissa offering themselves up as potential friends? if 22-year-old dhwani from bombay specifically mentions wanting to hang out with someone her own age, why must 47-year-old jeetendra from delhi feel the need to tell her how beautiful he thinks she is, three times a day? according to a female friend, some guys simply send her the same email every week or so. they can’t avoid it because they aren’t really looking at who they are sending it to.

too much information doesn’t work either, because the average single woman at a dating site has approximately 17,000 profiles to browse through. if you need 1,000 words to describe why your mother thinks of you as a demi-god, chances are most women will move to the next profile after your first 10 words. it makes more sense to share a few important details about yourself, then stop. saying you like dogs and the matrix is fine; adding ‘beige is my favourite colour’ and ‘i love the smell of earth after the rain’ is pointless. when was the last time you met someone who chose to marry a man because they both shared a love of petrichor anyway? another thing profiles ought to be is positive, so avoid beginning every paragraph with the sentence ‘i know this makes me look desperate, but…’ or ‘i’ve tried dating the regular way for years and failed, so...’

lastly, as arthur c. clarke pointed out in between writing sci-fi classics, the best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return, it’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

sudhir continues to ignore my advice. he uses the word ‘curvy’ to describe himself, even though all his friends would opt for ‘obese’ instead. his argument is no woman will decide whether or not a relationship is going to work based on reading a profile, irrespective of how well or badly it is written. he may be right. then again, women are picky.

technology and the single man

‘i’m writing a term paper on the finer things in life, and i was wondering if i could interview you.’ this line, guaranteed to do the opposite of what it promises, comes to single men like my friend sudhir with iphones via an app called pickup lines. one assumes it is called what it is, in order to avoid confusing those who spend much of their time looking for it. after all, if you can’t come up with a decent pick up line on your own (sudhir can’t), chances are most things in life are confusing to you. an app by any other name would, therefore, mystify.

it costs a dollar to download, and also offers you a taste of the pithy. for instance: ‘if beauty could kill, you would be a weapon of mass destruction.’ sudhir continues to paint the town a pale shade of pink on his own, proving that some women continue to play fairly hard to get. this gives the rest of us hope. that the app exists, however, is solid proof of what assorted historians and chief minister mayawati have been trying to convince us for years now: things simply aren’t what they used to be.

look at how dating has changed. who would have thought the once celebrated practice of a single man venturing forth to capture a woman would give way to the tentative poke on facebook?

a couple of centuries ago, when mark zuckerberg’s great-great-grandfather was just a twinkle in the eye of some fairly winsome lass, courtship was a carefully planned ritual. it involved young women ‘entertaining’ gentlemen callers at home, under the beady eyes of chaperones. in her book from front porch to back seat: courtship in twentieth-century america, the writer beth bailey described how courtship gave way to dating at the turn of the twentieth century, because the poor simply didn’t have homes suitable for dating. it stands to reason, then, that with real estate prices being what they are, teenagers high on testosterone must now rely on smaller spaces — like gadgets they can hold in their palms, perhaps — to initiate what passes for wooing these days.

the saddest thing about this state of affairs (pun intended) is the absence of old-fashioned romance. in norway, way back when, single women would advertise their availability for marriage by wearing empty sheathes on their belts. interested suitors would then place their knives in these sheaths — one could never accuse them of being subtle — signifying the betrothal of the girls in question. in england, gentlemen would send gloves to the women they desired. acceptance of these proposals was signified by the ladies wearing the gloves to church on sunday.

compare these noble gestures with ‘skout’, a mobile application that uses your phone’s built-in global positioning system (now you know what gps stands for) to find and connect with singles in your area. this may be one of the reasons why asha bhosle doesn’t sing songs like ‘do nain mile do phool khile’ anymore. her smartphone probably depresses her.

before facebook, single women would wonder about whether or not a man proclaiming interest was genuine. now, they simply track the number of times he posts something on their wall. sadly, the once solid line between potential boyfriend and online stalker has also blurred considerably. why sit at the bus stop opposite her building for hours in the hope of seeing her for a minute, when you can go through her photo albums on picasa while pretending to be at work instead?

there are no more secrets among friends either. no more guessing games. your first meeting, first kiss, first tentative roll in the hay and other assorted milestones are now documented for public consumption. worse, her friends can now be critical of her choice by tagging you as ‘big loser’ in all of her photographs. other friends can then post a number of lols in the comment slots, steadily depleting your reserves of self-esteem.

another thing technology does is steal social skills from large numbers of young men. it makes it okay for sloppily-dressed boys to ask their ladyloves to a movie via twitter for ipad, forego face-to-face conversations for pointless exchanges on blackberries, or amuse with the help of googled one-liners. all a far cry from how our parents went about this business.

not that there aren’t stories that end happily, of course. newspapers love retelling stories of a girl falling for her idea of prince charming on the basis of his witty tweets, or the one who would never have found the ‘love of her life’ if it weren’t for orkut. and yet, these come to our attention precisely because they are exceptions. fairytales are for two or three in a million, at best.

the saddest thing about being part of a generation that is so ‘sms-reliant’ (you can replace that with mms if you happen to live in delhi), is that single folk no longer feel the need to call each other. some of my friends text introductions, compliments, jokes, even comments about the weather. what they miss, in the bargain, is the gamut of emotions their parents experienced. the heady rush of emotion that surfaces after a woman you think you love giggles at something you said.

at what point do technology and relationships fail to go hand in hand? i can think of one example. the ‘period tracker companion for men’. another app for a dollar, this is allegedly the perfect thing ‘for anyone who would love to know exactly what time of month you want to be a little extra nice and special to your partner.’

maybe it all just comes with the territory. what we need to do, perhaps, is take the advice of journalist griff niblack: if you are yearning for the good old days, just turn off the air conditioning. better still, switch off your iphone. i’ve asked sudhir to consider it.

a day in the life

there must be something valuable hidden under the streets of bombay. how else am i to explain the regularity with which the bmc’s minions arrive for impromptu digs on the narrow stretch i live on, every second week? they come without preamble, in groups of three or more, and shoddily proceed to tear up what earlier groups have unevenly smoothed out a few days before.

piles of rubble on either side of the lane swell and dwindle every month. during the monsoon, the pits turn into makeshift homes for small animals. the digging and filling is of such abysmal quality that i sometimes wonder if incompetence is one of the prerequisites for employment at the bmc. efficient workers must stick out like sore thumbs at that august institution.

forced into the role of amateur trapeze artists, my neighbours weave in and out of gutters and potholes. like them, i avoid hillocks of mud and head to the main road every morning. once there, i wait until nine rickshaws refuse to take me to the railway station, before opting for a bus. the kilometre-long trip takes 35 minutes, on account of work involving the soon-to-be-open-in-2014-or-so bombay metro. i am informed, via a badly painted signboard, that the maharashtra state road development corporation regrets the inconvenience.

at the station, the train is late; as it has been for the past 11 months. the western railway plays a recorded message, in three languages, informing me and 26,000 others on the platform that it regrets the inconvenience. most residents of bombay can repeat the message fluently, in three languages.

when it does arrive, i wear my knapsack up front to avoid being pulled back by fellow travellers. i then jump in minutes before the train rolls to a stop. 16 minutes after the scheduled departure time, it pulls out at the speed of 2 kilometres per hour. i shuffle through the crowd, avoiding armpits and pushing heads of shorter men away from my own. i do this for 40 minutes before arriving at the station i am compelled to get off at, in order to make a living.

there is just one foot overbridge at my destination, part of which looks as if it has been made by welding together sheets of iron. i avoid looking down as i cross it. approximately 100 minutes after leaving home, i walk into my office. it is 11 am, in what is referred to as india’s financial capital. here, any inconvenience caused is regretted.