Some deep words...

This was NascentWriter's status message a few weeks back. And the lines after that were the reply of her friend. Some profound things to ponder upon.

Let's not bother.Let's be fools.Let's just go for escape and abandon. A bit of thievery of lives. That's all we ask for.

the NUMBER of times i have wanted to do the afore-mentioned deed......and then backed out coz damned 'good-sense' prevailed ! i think good sense never makes us feel good..it just stops us from feeling bad :(

Plagiarism at its Worst

I love PurpleFoodie's blog. The amount of effort she puts into writing each post and the level of cooking involved is impressive. And its wonderful that she is so kind with noob queries related to cooking in her comment sections and on her Twitter page.

We all know that the plagiarism menace is very popular amongst mainstrem media. In fact a lot of websites can qualify as mainstream media and not blogs. Its easy and almost too convenient for writers to lift lines or stories off blogs. The worst is photographs. And no, the watermark doesnt help.

This particular blog has plagiarised a wonderful Onion Jam photograph taken by PurpleFoodie.Not only has the photograph been stolen, there is no credit link or credit mention. Add to that the user has removed the watermark. The original post is here. Whoever it is deserves to be reprimanded. This post of mine is my way to tell you all of the thieves in the cyber world. Take whatever action you feel is important in this case. Blog about it, email the guilty party or let PurpleFoodie know how you feel.

The Department Store Scam

One of the reasons we, as a family, love to shop at Inorbit Mall is that all the brands are under one roof and we dont have to head over to Phoenix just for a particular brand in question. Last night,what was meant to be a shopping experience, turned into an unnecessary nightmare.

This time, after we were done with a large part of our shopping mom decided to purchase some cosmetics from the Lifestyle store in Inorbit.

She ended up paying 4k for her entire purchase and decided to pay via debit card. Since she is a mobile banking customer of ICICI, she got a debit purchase sms on her cellphone, just seconds after the swipe. The debit message also contains the remaining balance in the account. A few seconds later she got a similar message with the same debit amount and a lesser balance. She spoke to the guy at the counter and enquired if he swiped the card twice. To which he said no.

On pressing for more information, we found out that they had some system error.

Post that, it was just a matter of sending an sms to ICICI bank to check the balance. We found that our balance had indeed reduced twice.

We got the store to give us an undertaking that what happened was indeed a system error, and that ICICI should credit the amount at the earliest.

What is important here :

1. If you are not registered for mobile banking, please do register. There may be a time when your bank might not send an sms due to technical issues. In that case, always check your balance before leaving the store.

2. There may be a lot of people getting duped in a similar fashion everyday. Best is to take a password protected Maestro card from your bank, so that after swiping its mandatory for you to enter a password to continue with the transaction.

3. I dont know if you know this, but make sure you always be there when swiping your card at a restaurant. Dont just give the card to the waiter. There is a lot of information on the debit card thats useful for fraud.

4. Cash is king! There is nothing wrong in stopping to carry some cash with you, just in case. And if Suze Orman were writing this post, she would ask you to carry a list with you too! :D

P.S.-- I was very angry last night with the service of Lifestyle. They kept us waiting for a really long time. But I know retailers who would not have taken any responsibility. Hence, I have kept the department store bashing at the bare minimum. However, most large retailers will not claim responsibility. Especially if you walk out of the store and come back the next day with a complaint. Its best to be alert. And yes, next morning, an online check revealed that the extra amount had been credited back to the account.

A School that gave Books instead of Trophies

I started participating in elocutions and other extra-curricular competitions at a very young age. There was a certain excitement to winning prizes and knowing that you were a kid with special talents. Thankfully I had friends who shared the same competitive temperament with me and never held it against my natural personality.

Our school used to give out books plus certificates instead of trophies to the winners of the competitions. The other schools in the country used to hand over trophies by the dozen to the winners. And whenever I went to my neighbour's house to play, the array of trophies in their wall unit used to amaze me. It was a row full of shiny silver trophies with 'Champion' or 'Winner' written on it. In my innocence I used to assume that they used to shine all the time.

And till my 12th grade, my school kept dishing out one novel after the other. I used to wonder what it would be like to have shiny trophies in my hall. But the only things that came my way, were Dickens, Keats, Wordsworth, Maupassant and the occasional autobiography.

Today, as I look back, I realize that a random decision by the school's management or by the activities incharge, changed my life forever. It instilled in me a love for reading. And reading like there is no tomorrow. It gave my docile mind the sense of confidence, that maybe a shiny trophy could not. Today, all those prizes, right from Grumple the Red Dragon to The Water Babies, adorn my bookshelf. At times I turn pages to return to nostalgia. At times, I turn pages to laugh with the characters.

I doubt if shiny trophies would be able to do that.

The Dignity of the 'Gori' Woman

In a rather brilliant review, one of my favourite reviewers talked about the value of the woman from the West in an Indian context. He was referring to the recent Bollywood movie, Love Aaj Kal, and the treatment of the 'gori' girl. Clearly, the writer and the director's main purpose was to showcase the Western woman as some kind of tissue paper girl. In fact when the guy does show confusion to commitment, she simply asks him to clear his head about love and get back to her. To my knowledge no girl, Western or otherwise gives such an laidback leeway to someone she calls her 'boyfriend'. This underlying ploy of degrading the Western woman, was part of 2009's biggest hits. I dont even want to go to movies that dont qualify as hits.

And yet in its chracteristic format, Indian movies have constantly played the Western girl card, deeming them unfit to be married to any Indian. Even the characters that play immigrant roles are shown to be uncultured confused brat. When a character goes to Western countries to study, the inevitable question is about the way women are in that particular country. There will be sidekicks who will discuss with the main lead, the methods of taking a girl home. I wonder, where are the pseudo-preservers of Indian culture when apna desi boy is banging foreign girls in foreign lands. So its ok to assume that a foreign girl is of low morale, but where does that put our glorious male lead? And what about the female lead who accepts him in the "end"? Would the reverse ever be made into a successful movie? Can a Samantha Jones-like character ever end up with a goody-two-shoes boy in the "end" ?

Let's just move out of the cinematic universe. In reality, how many men who go to the West actually date a Western woman. Not for any other reason, but the fact that they simply like a girl and want to be romantically involved with her. A lot of people that I speak to, have some mish-mash of culture dung in their brains. They clearly find that a Western woman will not be able to handle an Indian home. Ok so apparently the only thing a guy is worried about is the parents' situation? Everything else is immaterial ? And how about the girl's culture being adapted to. Just like we pride on our culture of rituals and pseudo-diversity, an American prides on an evening with friends, beer and hamburgers. How is an American culture 'less' if its dominated by beer and burgers? And how is our culture more 'respected' if its dominated by garish polluting festivals. And why wont parents or their kids take a stand on an inter-cultural marriage?

Consider the TISS rape case, where a foreign student was raped by her six friends. When the case was brought to light, a lot of 'educated' men saw the entire case from the point of view of the 'foreign' girl. Many quipped that the girl had waited for a day to go to the police station. There were many women who said that they didnt expect much from a girl who partied with six guys. The fact that she was raped was of no concern! I doubt if the victim would have been an Indian girl, the response would be similar. Or take the case in Goa where a girl was raped and murdered. The media and the general public were more interested in the history of the mother (who had multiple marriages and divorces) than in the rape case.

Have you ever heard the Indian man discuss Western women with his friends? There is always a talk of how easily they get laid, or if there were any escapades. And if an Indian woman lives the lifestyle of a typical Sex and the City character, she is termed as a woman that cant be taken home to your parents? At what point do you become liberal and where do you become conservative? Is everything determined by a person'a culture?

Considering that we keep looking at phrases that determine whether India will shape the world or not, are we ready for a truly globalised view? We may have big ticket acquisitions that make us proud, but are we really respectful of change of skin?

How many of you will take search for the homely, well read life partner on foreign shores?