Extortion to Axetortion

You know, I often think of Facebook as a friendly neighbourhood. But that’s for another post, and I promise to link it here (I have finally figured out how to do it).

Today however, my aimless amble around my community turned into a hit and run when I was tagged in a picture for a gig this week at a club in the city.

The gig is called 'Axe-tortion' and indeed, it is promising to be night of face melting guitaring with four very prominent guitarists in the country! The montage of pictures of these four rocker men, were taken from various sources and put together in a line. Below the picture line-up was a list of their names. One of them is a friend of mine so I was able to immediately put the name to the face. That left me three more names and faces to match. However, something was amiss with the first two pictures and their names. The second name said Milind Deora. Milind Deora.. Deora, Milind.. And then my eyeballs began to grow unnaturally large as I took a closer look at the first guitarist. Was that a club dude waist coat, or I'll be damned, a neta suit? Or is that Mukesh Ambani? No fool, that's ridiculous!



Quick, give me Google!

So I googled his name. I had to be wrong, I'm sure I'm wrong, of course I'm wrong, I WILL BE WRONG!

I wasn't wrong.

Hello young India, guess what, your Member of Parliament from South Mumbai plays Jimi Hendrix.

My reaction to this news was violent to say the least.

So I YouTubed his name, and a long result of 'Milind Deora addresses parliament, Milind Deora on RTI' turned up… but then you hit the 'underound culture' that this side-parted MP also endorses. And you see his name in the same video title as 'Stevie Ray Vaughn', 'Freddie King' and so on.


You've heard of teenage girls turning starry eyed when they see their heroes haven't you?
Well it was like that for me (except that he's not my hero), only that my eyes were glazed and I suddenly received an image of a large tri-colour with a sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll button badge occupying the central position. Oh sorry, in these days of sedition, it is distasteful to talk of such things.


Anyway, this is not some pseudo guitaring that he does, or some sympathy gigs he is given along with some paid audiences. He's actually playing- no sheet music, no hangs. He's playing real riffs, not faff like the odd chords that I play. And he's playing hard stuff, by blues legends.


He is not much of a performer, and maintains a largely impassive face. But this in itself sent me into fits. If I played footsie with him under the table, would I find him tapping to some song? If I stole his iPod, would I find BB King? Does he sing in the shower?

Ugh.

So to greet his screaming fans, his one hand does the open-palm sign of the Congress at a political rally and his other does a sign of the horns at a gig? And then he brings both those palms together in a namaste?


If I swore, I'd swear now. And spit.


I have a feeling I am the only one who finds these things funny. Why am I flipping about this? Politicians can't play music?

No no, politicians can. Like when Bill Clinton played the sax, see now that was cool.

But our politicians are usually more beast than human. Just like our film and sports stars are more god than human. If Milind Deora was proficient in Hindustani music, I wouldn’t be this aghast. If he played chess, made a damn good chicken curry on Sunday or pursued taxidermy, it would still be passable. But this is music that is said to be from the devil, it's foren music! There is nothing remotely politically correct about Jimi Hendrix. This, is like a ball of wool falling out of Manmohan Singh's briefcase causing him to admit that he knits all the sweaters for his grandchildren. It is as random and ridiculous as that.


As a young person who loves her music like any other young person, and is trying to be a good citizen like any… never mind that, I'm being honest- I am not so sure any more.

Like my mum always told me that clubs were not safe, and my daddy told me to never trust a man with a drink. But Ma, Pa, Milind Deora plays on a stage with a large Tuborg sign behind him!
"Ma, Pa, I want to serve my country. Politics?"
"NO!"
"Ma, Pa, I want to be a musician!"
"NO!"
"Ma, Pa, but Milind.."
"Ma, Pa, I want to be a political musician.. " *pleased at the sound of that*
"Dear Child… " "I never did like Dylan."

So you can be a nine to fiver and a nine to twelver also? Hahaha just who says!


This is more than just a gig, at least for Bangalore, and I see this as quite significant. Bangalore currently frowns upon alcohol and music at the same place [Don't look at me like that, yes it's true, you go figure and we are not discussing this here].
"This is the police. We're breaking up this party."
"Good evening gentlemen, my name is Milind Deora."


When men of steel and women of iron become flesh and blood, when they are close enough to touch the hems of their robes, what do you do? Throw your panties on stage of course.

Everyone was hopeful last elections, when we realised there were so many young people- Sachin, Rahul, Varun, Priyanka, Omar and Milind. Sounds like my best friends at college. And now one of them sits in the general spectator stands at the CWG and the other, well, I wont start all over again.


Hey Milind, I presume I can be on first name basis with you, and that neta suit makes you look fat.

Ladies Seat

There's a reservation of seats in BMTC buses, at least in the non AC types, which presume that men still have not received the education necessary for them to give up their seats and women still haven’t acquired the strength to be equal. The reservation is for women, and it has the prestigious location of being in the very front of the bus, starting from behind the driver and ending just short of the middle door.

This reservation is usually indicated by the presence of the word 'Ladies' (correctly spelt) in English and Kannada, or by the motif of a regular savithri, emblazoned on the steel above the seats, for those who for no fault of theirs did not have the privilege of learning to read.

The funny thing is, the number of seats reserved for women is far lesser than the non reserved seats, that are by right of way, occupied by the gentler folk in our society, the men. Funnier still, is that men are always sitting in these ladies-seats, even in the presence of standing women, who are usually clutching on for dear life to their various appendages, including hand bags, hair dos, groceries and children. Greedy little gents I say, which probably explains why they are often called 'pigs', accompanied by the expected presence of 'chauvinist'. The funniest thing for me, is that in our patriarchal society, men never consider women equal until it comes to bus-seats.

Strength and Equality Advocates send out the clarion call, for women to occupy the un-reserved seats. But this cannot happen. Even in the presence of their being an equal number of men and women in a certain bus at a given time, it means that if men have reached the un-reserved seat before a woman, they just sit there. Women are allowed to stand in the man’s very line of sight. If a man leaves at a certain stop, his place is replaced by another standing man. And women do not foray in to the un-reserved compartment such that they can slip into the seat of the departing man. They do so only in the designated front, because which woman wants to be rocking back and forth pressed up against men in a non AC bus?

If this is how our social system in BMTC buses is to work, then it would probably make sense for more seats to be reserved for women, because men can occupy them anyway, in the absence of women. Or there needs to be a section called “For Ladies and Gents”, because as much as we may pooh-pooh the idea of an unwritten rule, there certainly exists one if you don’t want your bottom pinched. While the male gaze still considers a man as another human being who paid for a ticket and wants a seat, a woman is looked at as just a woman and cannot occupy the un-reserved seats. So is the idea of a reservation of seats a regressive one in the progress of women in society? To the educated middle class gaze, it is. But to the practical Indian woman, who is still ogled at and treated badly, she pleas for protection and concession.

In today’s society of disparity, the one who is weak is asked for an un-reasonable amount of personal strength from the one who is strong, and in this demand, some will perish while others will compromise and definitely nobody will be equal.

Usually by the last stop, most people who were standing would have found seats. But if there is anybody who is still standing, it will be a woman. Even though she is in the front of the bus, plain for all to see, such that ignorance is not bliss for all the forward facing and backward thinking men, she receives no seat.

This phenomenon is seen in other areas of life as well. Little boys can accompany their mothers to the ladies's toilet until he can make susu on his own. Little girls cannot be caught dead in the gents' toilet. This could work brilliantly, if it was like the check-out counter at super markets, where those who have 3 or fewer items to bill can stand in the regular line but not vice versa.

Strength and Equality Advocates would like to tell you women today, to suck it up.

I am glad I know how to compromise today. I'm actually selfishly glad when I enter a bus and see men sitting in the seats reserved for women. Because I'm strong all right- "Ladies seat," I say with a no-nonsense scowl, to those pigs. And settle down with my breakfast and newspaper.

The Irony At Sunfeast

Bangalore

I went as a volunteer from the IYCN, with Saahas (a Bangalore based NGO, that deals with waste management and reduction), for the Sunfeast World 10k Run, held in Bangalore, on the 31st of May, 2009. No, we didn’t go to run the race. We went instead, with the common aim of ensuring that the event was a zero-waste event.

The event was highly publicized, with The Times of India being the print media partner and Kingfisher being the ‘good times partner’. Procam was the organizer of the event. The event was held to raise money for some 60 odd NGOs in India. There were 23,000 registered participants, apart from a stifling crowd of onlookers who had come to pass their Sunday afternoon.

While everybody in Bangalore is celebrating the success of the event, allow me to enlighten you on the excuse for a waste disposal system, that the event had.

There were about four hired young boys as cleaners for the entire stadium. I was able to find only about five dustbins, after much searching.

Kingfisher water was flowing through the Kanteerva Stadium- the water, packed in handy little pocket sized bottles, was free and uninhibited. If my mother was at the event, I know she would have stuffed as many bottles as would fit in my pockets, so that she can carry the cute things in her handbag when she goes shopping. There were several people like my mother at the event, hoarding up as many of the Pet bottles as possible. If they weren’t hoarding, they were taking a sip of water or pouring it on themselves to beat the heat… and then tossing the bottles all over the place.

The volunteers from Saahas, IYCN and the MS Ramaiah Institute here, were the only ones responsible for trying to keep the event clean, and having waste recycled. The twenty of us brought about thirty of our own bins. We ensured that waste was segregated and all the Kingfisher water bottles were sent for recycling. Our collection of Pet bottles amounted to around 800 kgs (80,000 bottles). Other waste contributed 400 kgs.

With all its social motivations, a clean Bangalore, was just not on the agenda of the event’s namma Bengaluru plan. I've been told that the situation was even worse last year. We were the last to leave the stadium that day, and if not for us volunteers who cleaned up the place, the organizers of the next event to be held at the stadium, would have probably had to do so.

One may think this is a municipal issue, or an issue of the organizers of the event. One may even argue that we deprived the rag pickers who would definitely have come scavenging for waste, once the stadium had quietened down. Yes, the stadium would have been cleaned up, some how, before the next event. We didn’t need to leave our homes at 5am, to be there by 6am and finally leave the stadium only by 12pm.

But we did it, in the hopes of being able to educate this highly developed Bangalore, on the value of reducing and recycling our waste. I can promise you one thing- climate change will be a priority of the Sunfeast World 10k Run organizers (and Kingfisher, if you want to pick a bone), next year.