Who gives a rat's ass?

The elevators at our office have these small screens in them which keep flashing news items, stock quotes, commercials etc. So I was in the elevator yesterday and read this headline on the small screen – “India court orders the arrest of Richard Gere for kissing bollywood actress on cheek”. Of course I have read and seen the video last week but to read this headline….ugh! I think this is lame. Public obscenity? You walk thro the streets in India and you will notice the movie posters of soft porn movies with semi-nude women in suggestive poses. So that’s fine? Bollywood movies are full of “masala items” and it is not like they are R rated. I don’t give a damn about Richard Gere but I do hate the perception the world would have about India after reading such a news item. It is so hardliner-ish…argh! It is something you can expect to hear from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Pakistan… We got real problems people!! Richard Gere kissing Shilpa Shetty…WTF! The court was so fast to move on this like their life depended on it…what a load of crap.

Shiva Sena activists chase away couples on valentines day…real mature! They are worried about public obscenity? Give me a freaking break. Ever ride the buses and trains? Women are sexually harassed/molested every minute. Ask a girl/woman in India about it and they will all have their horrid experiences to share. The same activists will ride the train back and molest school girls. No, you cannot handpick places you want to show respect to women. You show it to them in all places. Richard Gere is a stupid idiot to think this will not cause a problem but to make it such a big issue only shows we are a bunch of hypocrites.

but really...who gives a rat's ass about this anyway?

How bored are we?

There is this radio morning show my wife listens to. Eric and Kathy morning show on WTMX 101.9 Chicago. So I have to listen to it in the 8-10 minute ride to/from the train station. They mostly ask questions and people call in to give their ideas/experience/suggestions. It is amusing sometimes but mostly it is very lame. So for the past two they talked about a “social experiment” they were doing. Two strangers and a wedding. They match-make two strangers let them talk over the phone (monitored) for couple weeks and then do the whole wedding thing and in the end they have the option of saying “I don’t” at the altar. Is love blind? – That was the question they were trying to answer. And apparently they don’t even know what the other person looks like. Of course being an Indian I listened to this and went “ok so what is the experiment? We do this all the time in India”. They filled 2 weeks of radio waves with this load of crap and I had to listen 10 minutes of it every weekday! Well, finally it ended yesterday when both the bride and groom showed up and said NO, we don’t want to get married. Thanks for all the free parties, Hawaii vacation, free tux, limo service though. They realized that marriage is too important to be decided in 2 weeks. Really? And you didn’t know that before you got into this becaussssssee? And this is amusing to us? Are we really that bored?

Ever read rediff.com articles? In plain simple words – they suck big time! But I read rediff all the time. It is for the comments. So funny! There is so much built-up anger inside people and they let it lose on strangers on the discussion board. I think rediff has realized this is more amusing that articles that they are trying to put as many sucky articles as they can. Oh and they have this new section called Spotted – where you post pictures you took with some celebrity. Spotted – Sania Mirza in dubai. So in the picture Sania Mirza has just lost a 3 setter, is terribly pissed, upset, exhausted, fatigued and waiting to get the hell out there; standing in the middle of these two desi dudes with such huge smiles. Hilarious!

Can we be more desperate for news?

Read comments on this article and you will know what I am talking about - http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/apr/12sikh.htm

I just realized that most of the funny comments have been removed from the page. Ah sucks! Well, I am sure there are plenty more there and a lot more to come.

Can we be more indian?

So last weekend we went to an Indian restaurant in the very-merry-indian street Devon Ave, Chicago along with another couple. It wasn’t very busy inside but the tables were put so close to each other than you are literally a hand’s length from the next table (if you are really hungry it would be hard to resist the samosa sitting right next to you in the other table). Sitting side-by-side, back-to-back will make you feel you are riding Mumbai commuter trains. So anyway, we enter and are seated in this very cramped table. People on both sides and so close they are already uncomfortable we are going to sit there. So we ask to be seated in the totally open section where nobody is sitting. The guy says the section is closed. Oh well, that is fine, we will just sit with our back against some stranger who is the middle of what looked like a delicious meal. So we sit and in couple minutes a white couple gets up from the seat next to us and asks if they can be seated in the open section. And what do you know – the section just became available. For obvious reasons my friend and I looked at each other and he goes “you still want to eat here?” Well, I was thinking about it. But we stayed and finish our meal which was served with breaks and intermissions. Such awful service. Anywayz…

The reason I didn’t want to leave the restaurant was that I was not surprised by the double standards we Indians show in everything. I am sure every Indian has noticed how service is different to a non-indian (has to be non-Indian looking too) in an Indian restaurant. I have seen so many restaurants do that. I have worked in an Indian restaurant and have witnessed first hand how waiters don’t care if an Indian doesn’t get good service. What I was told when I started was “take it easy with the desis, they don’t tip well anyway”. Which is true, we don’t. You can treat them like the queen of England but when it comes to tipping, Indians will round it off to the nearest multiple of 5.

Anywayz…

This double standard is not limited to Indian restaurants, grocery stores and gas stations. Ever flown Air India? Well? Yeah, it doesn’t get worse than that. Absolutely bad service. I have flown Air India on 3 occasions mostly because it is cheaper than Emirates which is the only other option to get to my city without checking out baggage in Mumbai or Chennai. So anyway, people ask me why I fly Air India. Well, I do because it is cheaper than emirates and it is like spending an extra day in India. I have seen lot of bad service in Air India but in the last trip something just ticked me off. My wife and I were sitting two rows from the door. People are still getting into the plane so the hostess is at the door “welcoming” everyone with the traditional Namaste. Ah, how nice! We feel so close to home already! Yeah right! The thing is she was giving a full fledged Namaste to any non-indian (again, has to be non-indian looking too) and to Indians it was more like a “get-ur-brown-ass-in” welcome. Why do we do that? I have seen eastern Europeans flock together and take great pride in it. Italians of course would have dinner with entire Italy if given a chance. Chinese and Japanese look very comfortable with each other but I don’t know for sure. It can’t be worse than Indians. We don’t smile at each other in malls, grocery stores, trains, buses, streets. Oh and if you do find an Indian stranger all smiling and happy to meet you, odds are he/she is with quickstar, amway or whatever marketing-pyramid-cult that is going on now. Because of our attitude, somebody who genuinely wants to be with nice with other Indians will be misunderstood as a cult member, uh er I mean, marketing executive.

We boast of great advances in everything. When we going to learn to be more courteous to another Indian?

Oh and I smiled to another Indian guy in the train earlier today. He looked the other way. Maybe he thought I was trying to get him into quickstar. C'est la vie!