Thrashing Taboo

In the world's oldest civilization, customs and practices are bound to undergo significant changes as time tides over. 

An ancient nation with the most prolific community of scientists, medical practitioners, astrologers, mathematicians, philosophers carried within itself a large jar of abominations.

Taboos. 

The golden age of Indian civilization witnessed the celebration of free thoughts, free speech and liberal actions where subjects that would invite cold stares & shocking glares in today's modern India, were freely discussed in large public forums and places where large scale public gathering took place. 

In today's ultra modern India, where it is alright for a girl from an 'upper' caste to dress less conservatively so as to be more in vogue with the trending fashion, it is not so for the same 'upper' caste girl to be caught talking to a member of another community or worse someone belonging to a 'lower' caste! This is a taboo. 

While it is alright for one's own daughter to climb up the academic and the corporate ladder, it is not so for the daughter in law to do so. This is a taboo. 

I could go on with a very lengthy list of mundane issues that are considered normal for some and taboo for the others. 

While India is the second most populous nation on the face of earth it is a taboo to freely discuss about the Original Sin. It is something that has to be spoken about in hushed tones in the constrains of four walls of the house or between two individuals who have the legal right to consummate their marriage. Anything remotely linked with the basic instinct of all men & women is considered taboo to speak about. It is something guarded fiercely as very private and confidential. 

These are precisely stuff that kindles the wild curiosities of the yet unaware. The more one tries to cover it up under the guise of taboo, the more one's mind fights to remove the sheath. 

Another taboo issue that is becoming more and more prevalent in modern India is infertility. The trauma that surrounds the unfortunate couple who yearn for a child of their own is quite immense whose depth can be explained only by the ones who are undergoing it. 

Though the medical field has taken huge strides in this area and offers various means and methods to conceive, the process itself is under the shadow of taboo and the fear of humiliation and rejection. 

I enjoyed watching John Abraham's maiden production venture 'Vicky Donor' yesterday in the comforts of a plush multiplex in the National Capital Region. This is truly a coming of the age movie that breaks the shackles of taboo associated with sperm donation. 

Indian men have egos larger than.. U know what! I have heard of marriages seeing a premature end because of the man's refusal to accept the possibility of a deficiency in his system. It is always easier to blame the meek and our society is such that it readily accepts if the woman is accused of being barren without even questioning the man. It is taboo. 

Vicky Donor is one of the boldest movies churned out by Bollywood till date and they say what they want to say in a brazen - unabashed manner that hits the ball to the park. The thought of a guy making a career out of sperm donation in itself is novel and it therefore deserves a round of applause. There is nothing sublime about the message in the movie. It is there; right in front of you; there is no way you can ignore it!

Congratulations to the cast & crew of this amazing new movie that comes as a breath of fresh air in the stale stinking formula melee that Bollywood was slowing turning out to be. 

The Anatomy of Gully Cricket

India's unofficial national sport is unarguably, Cricket. This game of batsmen, bowlers and fielders needs no introduction as this is a way of life, a religion and a passion for the whole of India. 

Ever since Kapil Dev led his pack of underdogs to an amazing victory over the invincible West Indies in the 1983 Prudential World cup, India has taken to cricket like a bear takes to honey. There is so much of it these days, but there was so much of it ever since the first world cup win. A waning hockey era and utter lack of focus on other sports, made cricket grow like a weed. The Indian people had accepted this Englishman's game as their own and played it with feverish fervor. 

Fame, Success and  lots of money were baits for scores of youngsters who plunged into the rat race for selection into the national team. Cricket was no longer a game for the elite and the affluent. Boys from all strata of society pulled all stops to get hold of a cricket kit and to be coached by an ex state or a national level player. Brands hooked up with star cricketers for endorsing their products at sums previously unheard of in the world of Indian sports. Affiliations with Bollywood stars, regular appraisals of performances in the media and sometimes even interviews in glossies had made Cricket a very glamorous career option indeed. 

This post is not any success story of how a boy from a middle class neighborhood worked hard and made it big on the international scene. It is about my experiences a boy during my acclimatization with the game of cricket. 

The traditional games and sports of India took a back seat when kids of all ages who were able to stand and speak were out on the streets with bats & balls. Ingenuity was clearly visible when the boys made bats out of whatever material available, their passion fueled their inventor instincts and thus exam pads, wooden planks from the carpenter shops and sometimes even just hands, tennis balls were conveniently adapted for use in cricket and then local entrepreneurs started manufacturing 'rubber balls' & 'sponge balls' to cater to the huge demand for cricket equipment. Arrangements for the wickets were the most ingenious of all. A neighbor's concrete compound wall would act as the canvas when an image of 3 wickets with bails were drawn using charcoal or by etching the outlines with stones.

This was the advent of 'Gully Cricket'. Gully is the transliteration of the Hindi 'Gali' which means lane.  Cricket was now being played across every nook and corner of the country and all that was needed was a lane, no matter how narrow or wide, a bat - make shift or real, a ball - preferably tennis (Cosco!) and some bricks or a neighbor's compound wall for the wickets. 

Of course, the boundaries would be marked by the electric pole at the corner or the intersection (cross). Wild bushes and fences would also act as permanent fielders. Gully cricket consists of 'players' of all age groups and the seniors obviously have the lion's share. They always bat first, keep the wickets (this involves less running around) and even bowl first. The younger members of the team have to 'earn' their right to hold the bat. Fielding, however is a domain left to the smaller kids who act as mere ball boys to retrieve the ball from inside a neighbor's house or the rainwater drain or to tread down a small precipice. 

There are no umpires in this form of the game and a majority vote decides the fate of the batsman. Usually, the senior members who own the stuff i.e. the bat, the ball and sometimes the wickets carry a lot of clout and do not let go of their position easily. Tempers run sky high and there ensues very heated arguments on the legitimacy of the delivery, the readiness of the batsman and a very cricket text book observation of the field placement. 

If a junior member of a team is having a particularly fine day and is coming down heavily on the more experienced senior bowlers of the opposite team, then such an over, normally to consist of 6 deliveries, goes on till the batsman gets out and may sometimes extend to even 18 deliveries for a single over. The senior rests only when he scalps the wicket of the 'in form' junior. 

The team selection is all the more interesting. The 2 senior most are natural choice for the skipper position. Then they start selecting their mates from the crowd by method of elimination. Thus a team is formed. Sometimes when the teams are unevenly balanced, then one of the player would be appointed as the 'joker' - the chose one who would bat, bowl and field for both sides! On a few lucky days I have had the privilege of becoming the Joker and how I enjoyed wielding the bat twice!

In gully cricket, the normal choice of both sides was to bat first irrespective of any situation. We all love to bat. Bowling is only for losers. However, a formality of selection through a toss is done. Kids in India usually do not carry any money on them when they come out to play (well at least we did not when we used to play). The toss was a more crude form of guessing the hand. A kid would be entrusted the task of picking a small pebble and hide it in one of his palms. The captains then had to guess the clenched fist that possessed the pebble. The one that made the right guess got to bat first! 

Depending on the number of players one had on either teams, the game would have a single batsman or two batsmen as per the original game format. A severe shortage of bats would mean the 2 batsmen sharing one bat which would in fact be used by the other team as well on their turn. A small internal fight of sorts would ensue as to who would bat first. It was an unsaid rule that the one who owned the bat would also do the honors. 

For the cricket illiterates, a brief intro on the field areas - straight, onside and offside. Gully cricket was necessarily onside friendly since it involved smashing the ball into oblivion.  Left handed players were unheard of & very rarely gully cricket witnesses left handed batsmen. Offside play required more skill and gully cricket is not about the display of one's knowledge on cricketing shots. Secondly, shortage of players would mean members of both teams would keep the field while 2 batted and one bowled. In cases where the batsman had to be ruled out on the basis of a light nick to the bat, the decision would be in favor of the person who was more loud and assertive. Indiscretion is common and in fact no one feels slighted at such appeals. 

A bad over would yield the bowler a mouthful of choicest rebukes from each and every member of the team. Childish behavior at its best. Kids are very sore losers and try all means to avoid the situation. Protests against blatant cheating, over counting the scores, under counting the number of deliveries bowled etc would charge up the atmosphere in the neighborhood and sometimes even the adults join in the melee to support their kids' teams. 

At the end of the evening's game, the victorious team would break into an impromptu jig much to the dismay of the losers who would exchange cold stares, may be insinuating a harder comeback the next time they meet to play. Loyalties keep changing in gully cricket and kids take sides of the winning captains. At the end, it is all good as it is a game of cricket between friends and the results of the game are immediately forgotten and the kids go home looking forward to the next day when they get to enjoy their most favorite pastime. 

My past few posts is an attempt at keeping my nostalgic journey alive and in turn I intend to rekindle the child hood memories in all of my adult friends who are so engrossed in making money and risk forgetting these amazing moments of their lives. 

There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago

- J Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist, quoted in Pearls of Wisdom. 

The Water Cooler & Vending Machine Dialogues

Grape vine : A person to person method of spreading information, rumors & gossips by unofficial or informal means mainly through conversations. 


Nearly 6 years into corporate life has made me realize that this is not an urban legend and grapevines do exist and its seeds are in fact sown and then cultivated by the organisation itself. Grape vines are the best and lowest cost means of creating a speculation. These are unofficial snap polls usually sponsored by the management to get raw unedited opinions of its employees. They work two ways, release and retrieve. 

This has been the oldest means of internal espionage and brings about a great deal of 'earnest' opinions about senior managers and the big man and the organisation as a whole. The grapevines are of course members of the management's carefully chosen inner circle and they are most active at the time of periodic performance appraisal systems or when there has been a major departmental reshuffle. 


It is plainly impossible for the untrained eye to identify the grapevine, since the conversations are very cunningly camouflaged in harmless banter. 


Now since we have warmed up to the idea of this novel management concept, let us now move on to our personal experiences with the 'Grapevine'!! The 10 minute breaks that we get in the pre and post lunch sessions are those periods of the day when we all go out in quite large groups depending on your age in the organisation, towards that corner space where 'they' have installed the water cooler and the coffee vending machine. It is a time to relax and to let your hair and your guard down. It is the time to provide your peers a descriptive feedback and an honest opinion about your meeting with the boss in the morning. 

Well, it is one's birth given right to ridicule one's boss. No matter how well or bad the meeting would have gone in the morning, the poor chap is in for a royal spanking. What is a good banter without getting your friends to laugh about your boss jokes? Call it peer pressure or a conformist attitude, but your wicked creativity goes into overdrive and you start describing your boss and paint a picture of him with a pointed tail, a pitchfork and goat horns growing from either sides of the head. Maybe the caffeine in the cappuccino cup you are holding eggs you to go on further and take deep digs at the boss. You are the 'It' guy and you are easily welcomed into the 'gang'. Imagine you are the grapevine and this is the most easiest way in. You unload a lot of crap on the boss and you are a cool guy. Your peers slowly start opening up about things that even the boss did not know about himself. This is true 360 degree feedback - 100% raw and uncut. 


One also talks about the management policies and how uncomfortable they make it for the employees to work. Some of the feedback are to be taken and improved upon and some are just to be thrown in the can. Generally the majority are unsatisfied and have a lot of complaints about almost everything. Some people do not like the taste of the coffee, some do not like the faucet in the restrooms, some do not like the acute absence of pretty ladies in the office and some do not like the attitudes of their seniors. Very rarely do we come across group discussions near the water cooler where the majority have very good words for the organisation or the boss. It is the 'Grass is greener on the other side of the fence' syndrome that is very clearly visible during water cooler conversations. 


Water cooler conversations are not restricted to complaints about the management and the boss, they extend to complaints about the traffic situation, the national cricket team's present form, the state of affairs of the country's politics, incredible tax structures and a bad plot of a much anticipated Bollywood film. During such conversations, you observe that your colleagues who are usually stressed out and deeply engrossed in their work, have a life out of the office. You are enlightened about the ongoing infrastructure projects across the city, the statistics on the last 6 matches of the Indian cricket team and a very neat expert analysis on the top batsmen and bowlers' current form and what they must be doing to improve and put the team on a winning track again. It is just amazing to find out that the national selectors know very little about cricket when compared to your next - cubicle - neighbor. 


I wouldn't name him, but I had this colleague of mine who, as far as I go, is the greatest staunchest follower of the common wealth game of cricket. This guy is a near fanatic and his interest in the gentleman's game is so intense that he had the audacity to follow even the much ignored first class cricket played at the domestic circuit. This knowledge trove of his came to light during many of our water cooler conversations and I still fondly recall the twinkle in his eyes whenever there was a victory for the Indian side. 


Water cooler conversations are equivalent to the best shrinks where you can offload your frustration and stress. Sometimes you even get useful advises and suggestions to come out of your situation. Discussing the problems with a close group of friends who understand your work and your environment is a great deal to beat stress and come out trumps. 


How often have we not come across a situation when we are going through a particularly rough patch at work and have felt victimized. Our vending machine interactions with colleagues reveal that we are not alone in feeling so low and many have already passed and are passing through the same patch. This sense of belonging to a group gives you great peace of mind. I sincerely hope I am being able to put across this point to you all. 


Coffee vending machines are a great place to socialize with seniors too as they also need a place to unwind & to recharge. 'Inside' information such as the probable date of starting the much awaited performance appraisal process along with additional info on the list of probable promotees are extracted from routine friendly conversations with senior members who are necessarily part of the grapevine. 


It is a great misnomer that only ladies gossip. Men are known to gossip as much and sometimes even more. The term curious George has a broad perspective. Water cooler conversations are all about men - grown up men gossiping about the most innocuous of issues. A colleague's new car or the new wife, the boss's daughter and even sharing a joke you received over SMS which you cannot discuss anywhere else. 


Work is an extension of our college days and these precious 2 x 10 minute breaks provide valuable time to get nostalgic and reconstruct the great fun we had with our friends. Human Resource Development is a function in most of the organisations that focus on holistic growth of the employees and team building is one of the responsibilities of HR. Organisations spend hundreds of thousands on team building exercises at out of office locations, usually in the wilderness and river side camps. However, water cooler & vending machine corners provide a low cost team building opportunity. 


Friendships are fostered and pent up stresses are released at these pristine places of uninhibited conversation. A buzzing water cooler corner makes any office, truly a great place to work in. 

Celluloid Centennial

The Indian film industry is now a centurion. This anniversary of the sparkling Indian silver screen coincides with the maiden voyage of RMS Titanic from Southampton port in the UK to New York in the USA. While the vessel sank into the cold Atlantic waters, the Indian film Industry has moved on strength to strength to finally make a profound footprint in the world of Cinema. 

Dadasaheb Phalke, the doyen of Indian cinema first forayed into this domain of art by bringing out the silent film Raja Harishchandra in 1913. For twenty odd years the silent movies ruled over people's hearts before the advent of talkies. 

1931 saw Indian Cinema's first talkie - Alam Ara being released. There was no looking back. Drawing inspiration to a large extent from Hollywood musicals, Indian cinema produced musical after musical based on mythology, history and social drama. Tamil and Telugu film makers hopped on to the wagon producing movies in vernacular languages screened in cinema houses flocked in great numbers by afficianados. 

It wasn't late before the craze for Cinema spread across the nation like a pandemic. Pre Independence cinema saw the illustrious Kapoor clan grace the industry with their Greco - Roman features and superior form of acting. It also witnessed Indian greats Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar taking toddler steps. Indian Cinema has always been centered around the male protagonist as a result of which lead male actors became household names and were immortalised on the silver space. 

Post Independence Indian Cinema enjoyed the adulation and attention of major production houses run by successful business families. Movies on the independence struggle and subsequent ouster of colonial forces were being produced in large numbers to capitalise on the patriotic wave running high in the country. 

In India, movies played a very vital role of bringing people of all caste and creed under one roof to together enjoy 3 hours of drama unfold on the 70 mm screen (purists may forgive for me using the 70 mm nomenclature this early). 

A scene from Shri 420

Noted filmmakers of the times made socially relevant movies that talked about issues considered very bold and mature for those times. Movies on romance before marriage, social plagues such as poverty, red tapism, corruption were the story writers' favorite topics. The Kapoor clan which can be considered as modern Indian film industry's founding family that took its name beyond frontiers is credited with creating an entirely new genre of film making. Musicals based on Socio - economic situations with heady doses of melodrama and emotions mixed to target the Indian families. Raj Kapoor's 1955 block buster Shri 420 is a film portraying the vicious nature of con men in the garb of gentlemen squeezing dry the poor. 

The movie made forays into the international movie scene and Raj Kapoor became synonymous with Indian cinema and was as popular as Panditji himself in the erstwhile USSR. 

Satyajit Ray

The late 40s also saw the rise of the mercurial Dev Anand who produced and starred in the Guru Dutt directed urban crime thriller Baazi in 1951 which led to a spate of similar plotted films being done in the following few years. This can easily be called as Indian Cinema's golden era as it saw the rise and rise of behemoths in the domains of music, direction, play back singing and acting. It was a time of experimentation and exploration of virgin areas which were earlier considered taboo even for discussion on public forums in the adolescent Indian society. S D Burman, Madan Mohan, Md. Rafi, Guru Dutt, the Bengali brother duo of Ashok and Kishore kumar took Indian cinema to dizzying heights with Original plots, compositions and exemplary acting prowess. It also saw India's most illustrious creative czar, Bengali film maker Dr. Satyajit Ray who burst into the national & international scene like a supernova with his awesome first part of a legendary & critically acclaimed trilogy. 1955 witnessed him unleashing his creative genius in the form of Pather Panchali which apparently took him 3 long years to complete. 

The movie marked the arrival of India's undisputed greatest film maker on the international scene as this movie had an unprecedentedly long screening in the United States. Apu is the trilogy's protagonist and movies portray his journey from adolescence to maturity ending with his marriage and married life. 

He received an honorary Oscar in 1992 for lifetime achievement just a few days before his death at his rented home in Kolkata. He was also the distinguished recipient of India's highest civilian honour - The Bharat Ratna. 

1957 saw India's official entry to the oscars - Mother India, a tearjerker & a nationalism heavy movie. The movie created box office records previously unheard of. The 60s decade witnessed another wave of patriotic movies ruling the roost with Manoj Kumar's Upkaar & Purab Aur Paschim which were both runaway hits. 

The 60s heralded movies with pure romance. Rajesh Khanna was the industry's first 'phenomenon' and 'superstar' with megahits such as Dushman & Aaradhana. People enjoyed the on screen antiques of yet another Kapoor clan member Shammi Kapoor with his scintillating performances and awe inspiring pelvic thrusts in hit movies Junglee, Prince, Singapore, Brahmachari et all

The 70s announced with great fanfare the explosive arrival of Indian cinema's greatest star and BBC's millennium superstar -  Amitabh Bacchan. His Zanjeer scorched the silver screen and carved a niche in the genre of action movies with his passionate portrayal of the angry young man. Indian cinema, now being called 'Bollywood' taking a leaf out of its rich & distant cousin Hollywood, took a departure of sorts from Rom - Coms and took a leap of faith in the action genre. He went on to make several action & melodrama packed block busters which fetched him superstardom and he was crowned the emperor of Indian film industry without a worthy adversary in sight. The Koh-i- noor of his crown is ostensibly the 1975 block buster, Sholay. 

The 80s welcomed star kids and new stars on the block with open arms. Film making was a lucrative industry and people from all walks of life were hooked on to the industry's each and every move. The 80s infused freshness in the hardened action oriented industry and brought back the much missed pure romance. Youth phenomenons Aamir Khan & Juhi Chawla were introduced in the romantic saga Quayamat Se Quayamat Tak. 

This was a decade that ushered in new faces on the marquee who gave the established actors a run for their money. Music in this decade also chronicled arrival of new talents and so did film direction. Mukesh Bhatt & Subhash Ghai discovered new ground by producing path breaking movies such as Sadak, Saudagar, Khalnayak etc in the late 80s. 

The 90s saw a decline in the standard of film making and was also mired in controversies of involvement with the mafia and developing liaisons with the criminal underworld. Allegations of rampant plagiarism in the form of blatantly making movies which were copy cats of popular Hollywood hits were rife and critics had a field day panning the pale plots and lack of originality. The clandestine affair of Bollywood with the underworld came to the fore with the ghastly day light murder of music czar Gulshan Kumar in Mumbai by alleged henchmen of a notorious underworld don. 

The silver lining around the cloud was unarguably the larger than life fairy tale family - first movies brought out by Rajshri productions scion Suraj Bartajya. The movies were all goody goody and families were back in the theaters in great numbers to watch his rich North Indian family dramas unfold. Maine Pyaar Kiya and  Hum Aapke Hai Kaun made Salmaan Khan an instant star and movies of this genre were being churned out for some time till the interest faded. 

In my praise for mainstream cinema, one may have felt I have completely neglected parallel cinema or the movies of the 'arty' kind which were specifically designed to suit the palates of the uber intellectual who found it creatively satisfying to discuss about the inherent messages one derives by watching such movies. No doubt Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal and Amol Palekar did create some works which were artistic masterpieces, some of them also tasted commercial success. It offered acting greats such as Om puri, Shabana Aazmi, Smita Patil to the Indian Industry who later on were easily welcomed to the mainstream 'commercial' cinema and became stars in their own right. I appreciate good cinema and I do not go into the nuances of classifying them into commercial and art. One needs to enjoy cinema without the tag of stereotyping attached to it. 

The late 90s at the turn of the millennium saw a deluge of movies being made by hundreds of filmmakers and the Indian film industry was officially declared as the largest in the world in terms of the number of movies made every year. However it also saw some great works of creativity that were also successful commercially and it broke the strangle hold of families over the industry. New comers without Godfathers were accepted wholeheartedly by the film viewing public and affiliations shifted. The Khan trinity was at the helm of things in the industry and became the most bankable artistes. Movies garnered international attention and foreign locales which were just part of a song or two became desired destinations of movie makers where entire movies were shot. Actors became demi gods and were and still being paid astronomical sums of money. The period from the late 90s till date saw large corporate houses venture out into the movie production business with UTV, Reliance, Sahara and even Hollywood production houses taking keen interest in making Indian movies when Sony, 20th Century Fox, WB, Disney and Universal produced Indian movies with Indian cast and crew.

There was a shift in paradigm and a new modern way of making cinema spawned an entirely new domain. Filmmakers adapted popular novels into their screen plays and often gave the original authors due credit. Well made movies with sizeable investments from large production houses started giving Hollywood sci fi(s) and action / adventure flicks a run for their money in India. The story was advertised as the main 'star' of the movie and films with excellent plots ran into packed houses having lesser known artistes. The era of Silver and Golden Jubilees were long over and producers focused on mega opening weeks / weekends through a blitzkrieg of pre-release promotional activities involving innovative methods that also flirted with the idea of creating controversies for want of publicity. As they say in showbiz - any publicity is good publicity. 

Movie stars are raking in 10 - 12 times higher remuneration than a middle aged CEO from an ivy league management college. Some of the members of this 'fraternity' are the highest individual tax payers in India which is living proof of the Indian film industry's success saga. 

Actors have turned producers / directors and even distributors. Movie telecast rights on the idiot box are sold at exorbitantly high rates to channels much before the first movie poster is even printed. Some producers are lucky to sell their movie telecast rights much before they have even completed their post production. Film makers are shifting from the stale formula of boy - meet - girl and investing heavily in superhero mega flicks and even sci fi boy - meets - alien plot lines. 

Today's film maker is an entrepreneur who has the guts and gumption to create cinema to satisfy his cravings for the materialization of his dreams. He is brave enough to ignore the likes and dislikes of the public at large and smart enough to capture on celluloid film moments that will be evidence for his imminent glory. The multiplex culture has bombarded Indian cities, both small and big and film makers now have the chance to experiment with their creativity with the confidence of finding an audience for their product of labor and love. 

Indian Cinema has witnessed a coming of age moment and it is a great day for Indians to be part of such a magnificent era. A hundred glorious years are behind us and we look forward to a thousand more. 

- "Picture Abhi Baaki Hai Mere Dost" 

- Om, the character played by Bollywood Superstar Shah Rukh Khan in Om Shanti Om.