I am the Unknown Indian Outsourcing Worker. And as I stare at the screen my over caffeinated mind drifts to whether I am better off than people who were born a generation earlier. It isn’t just a lazy thought. That’s the unsaid assumption on which all my life choices rest upon. And I am not sure if I know the answer.
Our parent’s generation always had a sense of community, and a sense of home that was as tangible as a dot on the map and a house they sometimes built brick by brick. We usually don’t have a sense of home that is so tangible. Instead, we have a series of cultural elements we are familiar with, want, or are made to want, sometimes with serious commercial persuasion - Facebook alumni pages, the willingness to spend a premium to be served in English, the familiar voice of a friend on the phone, endless series of updates on Orkut, the swoosh on a T-shirt, the iPhone, pasta, vegetables that look like what mom cooked but with exotic colours, the intro to a Pink Floyd song, that helps us recognise members of our tribe, and shun others. We go from city to city with little contact with the local culture, from one vessel of all of these things to another. We are tribal like humans always will be, however in supremely subtle and sometimes very expensive ways.
Our parents had people around they loved and cared for, or who were obligated to help them and visit them twice a year. We have friends who we went to college with, bur rarely see these days. We know that they have moved, or gotten married, became parents - through Orkut updates. We don’t meet them if it’s not convenient. At any given point in time our de-facto best friends are usually our current colleagues, a group that is promptly replaced when we get a new job and move.
Everything is subservient to work. The only thing that seems to be driving us is the belief that as long as we can buy more junk we will all be ok. Granted we are all buying security and undeniable comfort. Insurance wasn’t very common in the 60s and the 70s, and gated communities with swimming pools and gyms weren’t around. Now, I can understand that these things are important. But iPhone applications? – I am not sure. Cars with air bags? Sure, but cars that have additional speakers for 20K? I am not sure. Don’t get me wrong, I think cars are cool. But I don’t really know if I think they look cool because I am bombarded with images of leggy Russian models with these cars or because they are priced so high that I can’t buy them till I get my dream job. There is an infinitely complex path of associations between what every human likes (beauty, admiration, and power perhaps?) and a desirable thing that can be bought, and what I liked yesterday (like Mallika Sherawat) and a product that is launched today (like the label on a Jeans on her that I saw in a glossy at a bookstore). Perhaps the things we like, why we like things, and why we work hard for things will get even more abstract from here. Perhaps, as a generation we are condemned to work day and night to make enough money to buy our kids branded clothes in an alternative reality – like second life, or more ammunition in multi-player internet games. I don’t know, maybe I am just too old.
All of us work hard, and have seen periods of maniacal labor and stress. What are we getting for it? IMAX movies? Are they better than Rambo on video tapes? Reworked Chinese? Better than the humble road side vendors egg rolls? I am not sure again. High end sounds systems for over INR200, 000? How many of us have the aural hardware and education to appreciate the superior sound? How much of our lives and youth are we ready to give up just so that we could feel or appear cooler or be around larger than life images?
None of this is of course new and has happened a million times before in a million places. Perhaps the nostalgia for an imagined simpler time is universal, and could be found on rocks, frescos, and on papyrus. I am simply trying to chronicle the times I live in and the sense of loneliness that some of us face once in a while.
The nature of work has completely changed. A friend from North East once told me that his dad could point to power distribution plants while on long drives, and say – ‘I built this’. My friend and I make a living writing reports. My dad is in the business of taking production output from X to 2X at outfits that managed real widgets made of steel and other metals. Some of my earliest memories involve my dad walking with five storey high liquid oxygen plants and enormous liquid oxygen tanks in the background. I remember him telling me, “I run these things eight hours a day- they are extremely dangerous and could burn down this while area – by the way, they save lives”. I, on the other hand, talk to people, write reports, and then talk some more. Most of my friends do things that make text boxes and drop downs appear on the screen, or make credit card transactions a little safer, or do things that make bank customers or traders less pissed off about their lives, or make cell phones that do interesting things – like make a song play by giving it a little jerk.
Now, I don’t know enough about economics, the trajectory of progress, the shifting frontiers of value generation, intellectual property (or just about anything) to attempt a comment on whether my friend’s dad (the power distribution centers guy) was adding more value to the economy than we are- let alone philosophical questions related to which is more worthwhile. Of course, it could be argued that his dad wasn’t actually building it, but really orchestrating a complex chain of tasks and events – and that lighting a fire five generations ago was the last time somebody did something real. But to ordinary human instincts, building those majestic Christmas tree like structures with beautiful copper and silver, and gigantic arched foundations, seem a little more worthwhile than doing bar graphs and pie charts that might help a life as confused as mine in a little cubicle somewhere.
Again, I am not arguing in favour of one versus the other – I am just amazed and spreading the amazement (and the occasional misery) around.
And then, some of us have developed certain very funny habits. As question of tribal identity has gotten more complex, people don’t really know where they belong or should belong or claim to belong. Decades back, people from Punjab and Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal migrated to Delhi and formed clubs and friendships based on linguistic identity. Chances are my grandfather and my college buddy’s grandfather (the buddy is a Jat from Meerut and Ranchi) had never met. Their identities and lives involved cultural artefacts and practices that could be neatly linked to two regions in the map. They were proud of what their place represented. Now, these regional cultural artefacts are associated with certain aspects of our past we don’t always like. For example, a lot of things overtly bong reminds of the poverty associated with what Rajiv Gandhi called a dying city, and of my home town in the 80s and 90s which represents a life that is less prosperous than the one I have now. I know plenty of people who would be mortified if a stranger in a party identified them as Oriyas, or Telugu, or Tamils, or bongs, or Biharis (depending on where the are actually from. Strangely, a misidentification isn’t so gruesome). The alternative isn’t very clear to any of them (universities are probably taking their place) – but their own linguistic identities aren’t cool any more.
Meanwhile, I will go back to work, think of ways to earn more money, call Mom, and be paranoid about the possibility of burning the mid night oil someday to buy my kid (when I have one, someday) some more video game ammunition.
Come Friday, I no longer wait for what Bollywood has to display. I know, it will be something utterly insipid, foolish and totally worthless. I know what Bollywood's a) art house classics are, I know what b) wholesome entertaining films are, I know what c) romantic comedies are, and I of course know what d) not-trying-to-fit-in films are.
And I am so done. So done with Bollywood and its promises. Week after week after week, Bollywood has failed us. No, I am no great movie buff, nor do I always appreciate and recognize cinematic brilliance, yet looking forward to good, watchable movies aren't much to ask for.
A little repeat is no biggie, I admit. But, you can't give me love, betrayal, adultery, period dramas and the underworld, again and again and again. You just can not. Why can't there be a movie on the Mumbai during rains, the political scene, the Nandigram episode, the 26/11, gay rights, the IPL, the North – South divide (just having an Ayyo Swami and an Oye Puttar in the script doesn't count), the state of north-east students in Delhi, etcetera.
Hollywood has its good share of absolute trash too, I agree. But at least they have some variety in that trash. They try, they fail. That's respectable. What Bollywood does, isn't.
Is it a case of they don't know better? Unlikely, given the stuff they talk about in interviews. They come across as intelligent, witty people, deeply influenced by the best in their craft, and trying to get better. Hell, even Fardeen Khan talked sense. In one of his earlier interviews, he spoke at length about Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas and Roman Polanski's Chinatown and how he is greatly influenced by that sort of a storytelling. Then why a Prem Agan? I know, I know it's like saying if I can go on and on about the Marlboro Man, I can create one. No, I can not. But wouldn't I try... Prem Agan isn't a try.
Shah Rukh Khan's interviews are pure magic. His films aren't. The point is why doesn't he try, he could, with that kind of money, he could try anything. But he chooses not to. No, don't you blame them. They are just out there, doing their job, making great money while they are at it. You and I are to be blamed. I am guilty of watching Om Shanti Om and Swariyaan on a single day, for the lack of something better to do. I feel terrible about having watched Bachna e Hasino. What was I thinking? After which, I swore to never watch a Chopra or a Johar again. It's been almost a year, I've managed to stay off it. I should have watched Dilli 6 though, reviews weren't too good, but what the heck, the guy is getting out of the clutter. I will watch most of Anurag Kashyap too. And guess Imtyaz Ali too, we don't have anything against love do we... it's about how you show us love.
We are so used to this mall-movie-eat out weekends, that we are ready to settle for just about anything. Any movie would do. And that's exactly why they get away with churning out any kind and any amount of trash. This has to stop.
While there are countless so much more serious issues to think about, we could do our part. Perhaps, all it would take is to find something 'else' to do during the weekends.
Let us do something about it. Because you and I are responsible for the art we put in the world and in that multiplex too.
To start mornings with The Telegraph, Darjeeling tea and a piece of slightly burnt toast.
To realize that I can live without Facebook and dailymail for a week.
To enjoy the terrace on balmy evenings.
To understand that I am not indispensable at work.
To realize the importance of three major meals.
To get to eat those three major meals at times, they are supposed to be had.
To realize that spending 150 bucks on a sandwich is obscene; olives, pickled cucumber, exotic meats notwithstanding.
To take things for granted.
To not worry about the Outlook Express.
To not worry about what to wear, each morning.
To worry about calories though.
To find the refrigerator well stocked, at all times.
To understand the importance of a photocopier.
To be reminded that the last date to file the taxes is just round the corner.
To forget protocols.
To be happy.
To yearn for work.
I am the Unknown Indian Outsourcing Worker.The year was 1989, and every second Wednesday was a treat. Every fortnight, Anondomela, a bong magazine for kids would arrive at the doorstep of my three bed room house in our steel and dust industrial town. That magazine was my link to the world. Anodomela would have cover stories about snow leopards, action heroes, the Beatles, blue whales, Disneyland, Maradona’s childhood, and sometimes pictures of Steffi Graff. There weren’t a million magazines around then, there was no cable TV – hell, I didn’t even have a TV set in 1989. From my balcony I could watch chimney spouting fumes and flames on the horizon – there was blank space for kilometres, with nothing but a thick forest of shrubs and a railway line between my place and the chimneys. It was a different time.
So one day, in May 1989, Anondomela arrived with Michael Jackson on the cover. An androgynous black dude looking a bit like a FTV model, with a smile and a jacket and a belt with a guitar shaped buckle. Intrigued, I flipped the pages. Michael Jackson apparently has been a star since he was five – was born in Gary Indiana, had an ape as a pet and also a big yellow and back striped snake, had won eight Grammies in a single year, was unpredictable and a good Samaritan, wore a white glove, had rhinoplasty, thought the Beatles were ‘pure’, wrote the Moonwalk, did the Moonwalk, toured Japan, had something called Vitiligo, and finally a sentence my young brain didn’t quite comprehend – Diana Ross – ‘she is my mother, lover, and friend’. I was still some time away from puberty. I was hooked, this guy was bizarre.
Michael Jackson had of course won eight Grammies in 1984. Poorly paid bong children’s magazine journalists had a five year phase lag with the rest of the world. But God bless them, they were my only connect with the world. My DD one childhood had nothing in the way of music beyond what my parents listened to, and the standard Anu Malik fare of the late eighties and the early 90s – with dholaks and words drawn out of a total corpus of about 200 words. I had to wait a few months to spot MJ on the TV.
Then I finally saw MJ on TV. This guy was barely touching the floor, leaning at impossible angles, making a half dozen movements at any given second, was walking towards the camera like an action heroes do in the final scene with a ball of fire in the background, with microphone in hand – he didn’t look like anything I had seen before. I didn’t know a human body could have so many degrees of freedom. Visual medium celebrities come in predictable types – beautiful, sexy, funny, suave, macho, of superhuman physicality, tears and empathy inducing – like Oprah (and unintentionally, the Johars and Chopras). But this guy was completely different. The voice wasn’t like a man’s, the music made you want to get up and do something, the moans, the screeches, the movement were all so synchronised, and the words were simple enough for a ten year old. It was like a jungle cat completely coiling up before a 70 kmph dash towards a loner wildebeest in the Savannah. He encapsulated rapture and abandon. That’s how I was introduced to MJ.
Two years later it was 1991. My school was celebrating its centenary and celebrations planned were at a scale out little town hadn’t seen before. Every class was to perform a complex drill on a football field, and everybody was on the field under the 45 degree sun everyday, six hours a day, for three months. My batch, standard six, were to do a ‘break dance’ routine to a MJ medley – ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’, ‘Man in the Mirror’, and probably ‘Billie Jean’. We practiced helicopter spins, jerky hand movements, moonwalks on the grass. Imagine this – 150 kids doing helicopter spins on a full sized football field with the mind pounding intro to ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’. For months, that’s all we ever though about, exchanging tips on how to perfect the moves.
I had to wait for another two years before I could buy the first Michael Jackson album, but I did catch him on TV. Once I clapped so hard while watching him receive a lifetime achievement award (at age 34) my mom had to rap me on the knuckles to shut me up. It was 1993 when I bought ‘Dangerous’. The album cover had Michael Jackson’s eyes looking over a canvas of angels, Hans Christian Andersen creatures, and a dystopian Sci-Fi like picture of industrial machinery at the center. I turned the album on an archaic piece of ‘tape’. ‘Who is it’ was haunting and paranoid, and finally ‘Will you be there’
Hold Me
Like The River Jordan
And I Will Then Say To Thee
You Are My Friend
Carry Me
Like You Are My Brother
Love Me Like A Mother
Will You Be There?
Weary
Tell Me Will You Hold Me
When Wrong, Will You Skold Me
When Lost Will You Find Me?
Man, the pictures it paints for a teenager with intellectual pretensions and the kind of scowl Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes use to practice. And, I can’t even get started on ‘In the Closet’ –
One Thing in Life
You Must Understand
The Truth of Lust
Woman to Man
So Open the Door
And You Will See
There Are No Secrets
Make Your Move
Set Me Free
This was in the Princess Stephanie of Monaco’s voice. Such words hit you hard when testosterone is flooding every cell on your body on a daily basis. There was plenty of ‘back’ing and ‘fast forwarding’ and lyrics scrawled on geometry text books and Shakespeare.
I earned my first ‘paycheck’ two years later through a book fair quiz – the princely sum of 50 bucks, and promptly bought ‘Thriller’. By that time I knew there was a perennially sad guy called Kurt Cobain who had shot himself, and I had bought my first rock album (Rolling Stones) but MJ had a red bull effect on you that no pointless introspection inducing and gloom celebrating rock anthem could replace.
Then MJ arrived. His concert was on1st November 1996 in Bombay. Sad that us poor small town kids couldn’t even dream of seeing Him in flesh and blood, my school best buddy and I gave ourselves a substitute treat – we cleared the school walls to watch a Silk Smitha movie, in a run down theater called of all things – ‘Durand Institute’!
Soon came college, with its own codes of what constitutes coolness (Pink Floyd) and what constitutes reverse coolness (retro Hindi songs), and MJ didn’t feature anywhere. But he was always there, whenever I needed a bit of red bull.
Years later in June 2005, I was down with fever and watching news updates of MJ’s second major brush with the law. The one time most popular dude on the planet (that’s the finding of an actual survey, MJ was an international language, like Football) had degenerated into the biggest freak show on the planet.
This dude was distributing autographs at age five and was home tutored most of his life. All of us learn the rules of the barely held together installation of balls and wire called civilization by being kicked around in the playground. We learn how much is too much, the games, the careful dance of words and insinuations, by continuously getting beaten up, rapped on the knuckles, being cheated on, and doing all of the above to others. MJ was in a bubble all his life, and didn’t have such a playground. In many ways, he was like a feral child – the ones that are raised by wolves or are locked up in a dungeon - most of them never pick up any human language and rules of society. MJ was such a feral child and we judged him by our rules, while he was in his dungeon creating his own little world.
I am a card holding atheist and I wish I could believe in heaven. But goodbye old friend – RIP in your Neverland.
[for the lack of a more suitable image, apparently this is by Bill Watterson]
For the record, I was never one of those starry-eyed, infatuated with the teacher or the professor kind of girl. But, a cool prof is always better than the uncool ones that we are so used to. Wouldn't you agree? The kind that are pleasant to talk to, listen to, and I am not even getting into the looks bit.
This morning, with my colleagues, I went to a college to get briefed on some branding that they want us to do. This was the first time I was visiting one, after I left college, which was a long time ago. So, needless to say, I got all nostalgic. The corridors, the water cooler, the messy canteen, the chalk, the hurrying footsteps, the green board, the roll nos., the notice board, the staff room, the seminar hall full of professors and KAPUT. Bam! Bam!
After a three hour long briefing session with the professors, couple of HODs, I wanted to run away. They could be the most uncool lot anywhere. And no, calling me beta doesn't help. Not at all. Rather, work on your loud voices and bored expressions.
Those three hours just wouldn't pass. Too many things reminded me of my college, which wasn't Riverdale High by the way. I wanted to run away. Which I did, three hours and many, many eerie memories later.
I am happy in my cubicle. Monday mornings, I can live with; Long work hours, I don't mind. The boss, that's alright I say, really.
n.b.
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This happened when I searched for 'good looking professor' and 'cool professor' in corbis
:D :D told ya.
Iron woman, iron woman,
Does whatever Madonna can
Leg presses, like a pro,
Squats and lunges to and fro.
Look out!
Here comes the iron woman.
:D
.............. cut to gym, zoom on a woman lifting weights, (dull blue, pretty, rebook weights mind you, but weights nonetheless.)
I have come to like lifting weights. Yeah, like really into it. After years of cardio, and years of shying away from weights, I can now say, pass me the 12.5 Pounds, will ya. I did shoulders yesterday, let's do back today. Nice.
I like the sound of it. And yeah, I prefer calling weight training, strength training. Somehow, it gets the 'bodybuilding/ weight lifting' picture out of the mind, you build your core strength, that makes sense.
The transition, however wasn't easy, every time I lifted any weight images of Olympic medal winning women weight lifters flooded my mind. It took me more than 4 years to understand that a) lifting weights is very important, b) lifting weights will not make me muscular c) cardio alone doesn't do much d) it's impossible to get a body like say Shakira, without lifting weights e) muscle doesn't turn into fat once I stop working out, they are two different body tissues (hee hee talking technical, ain't I?). f) weight loss obsession ceases to matter, toned and taut is what I become.
While I have the deepest regard for Surya Namaskar, power/artistic/heat yoga, kick-boxing, Pilates, aerobics, taichi and the likes, I've learnt that a little bit of iron goes a long, long way. And yes, going to an incredibly good looking gym, with wonderful trainers and great mirrors certainly help.
I don't yet get that rush after weight training, the kind I do after a 20 minute run. But that's okay, I just got started.
I dream of a slower life, the life with more square feet, the life with a little garden, a dog house and a dog, the life closer to parents and friends, the life with lazy breakfasts and long showers and quick meetings.
The life without rude auto drivers, crazy tele-callers and husband having to work weird hours. The life without limited leaves and obscene airfares.
I dream of that life you know. Yeah that life.
I am the Unknown Indian Outsourcing Worker. And as I stare at the screen my over caffeinated mind drifts to whether I am better off than people who were born a generation earlier. It isn’t just a lazy thought. That’s the unsaid assumption on which all my life choices rest upon. And I am not sure if I know the answer.
