Wednesday, March 19, 2008

What's in a day?

It was International Women’s Day on the 8th of March, like this there is an occasion for almost everyday. There is environment day, world water day, even a day for lovers etc etc, its almost like the Christian calendar where each day is dedicated to either the beatification, birth or death of a saint or the Good Lord. The Hindu calendar/almanac is however devoted to more planetary matters – the waxing and waning of the moon, the position of the planets etc etc.

The Hindu calendar is more about finding the most appropriate/auspicious day for the devout, while the Christian calendar is about dedications and remembrances so that the faithful can find occasion to sup in the reinvigorating spring of dead sainthood, and also invoke the blessed trio in the words of that dead saint.

Now the Hindu calendar and the Christian – ok Gregorian- calendar are quite different and the world unfortunately follows the Gregorian calendar. It would seem that the dedicating each day to a saint has inspired the world to dedicate days to various issues that are worldly pertinent, therefore occasions such as World Women’s Day on the 8th of March.

Now with a more vocal section of a section of a particular community against western influences and Christian evangelism it is strange that the likes of VHP, Shiv Sena and other sentinels of Indian culture have not seen such occasions as another example of the sullying of ancient traditions.

It is indeed surprising that these undertakers have not seen this day as another example of the west’s nasty tentacles surreptitiously engulfing India in a perpetual embrace. For Christ’s sake what is the difference between a Valentines Day and Women’s day – there can’t be one without the other (no offence to the gay community). These are both occasions created by the west, worse still one had semi-religious connotations while the other celebrates womanhood which should appear strange to this vocal section used to eating first at home. Furthermore, Valentine’s Day would not be possible without women so therefore logically these custodians of Indian mores should be up in arms against anything that celebrates women.

Is it that they want to conserve their energies for a yearly concerted blitzkrieg? It does take a Goebble like deviousness and an Eichmann like efficiency to trash a few book stores selling cards, ransack hotels celebrating and slap a few lovers. Or is it that these clay modelers adept at making a mountain of a molehill have not yet got enough putty.

Such days are all about communicating; it’s about messages being transmitted through various mediums. The idea is about finding better methods of packing everything into 24 hours. This is what the ideologues of this ‘bandar sena’ have taken home and have come up with their own versions of such ‘days’ – for example the ‘ghar vapsi divas’ celebrates the return of the animistic tribal, ‘bought’ into Christianity, to the Hindu fold. This is also supposed to be a not-to-subtle kick in the teeth to the tribe of fisher-of-men.

Such nominated days, like these, are also used by governments and ministries to spend pots of money on advertisements on what they have done and are doing. So full page advertisements are printed in every daily with mug shots of the PM, the Chairman of the UPA and the head of the ministry, while rarefied conference rooms are booked for intellectuals debate.

The occasions have also become opportunities to get people to spend, so the Leela Galleria in Bangalore markets this day as one to get in touch with ones self through some yoga maestro and his beautiful socialite wife, while lounges plan to have welcome drinks and some jewellery shops promising discounts on gold.

One gets the feeling that these are used to make up for the lost 365 (depending on a leap year or not). Why should the world wake up, on the 8th of March, to the importance of women (yes women are included in ‘world’). This is not an open invitation for the ‘you know who’ to go around slapping people and destroying property all the year round, Ram knows that they have found enough excuses in their version of Indian history to do so. These occasions are milestones, points to take stock and move forward – continuing, no bettering what was done in the last years.

* I have just been told that articles have been written about this - but I would like to add my two bits.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Loneliness is - - - - -


A full moon in an empty sky

Monday, March 3, 2008

Fat and the climate

The UK has recently decreed that the fat will have to pay more tax. This may seem pretty draconian what with everyone being politically correct and weight issues being linked to a variety of factors. The law conjures up the image of a tax man coming with a weighing scale. However, such a tax could not be more opportune.

But first on a more personal note – Like the Europeans of yore I am now in an expansionist mode. As I move from ‘ship-shape’ to ‘ship shaped’, my clothes live in constant fear that they will be down graded to hand-me-downs ‘cos there is a limit to how much I can tuck in my girth.

Clothes getting ‘bangalored’ has lead to a new form of humanitarian service, while making economic sense to others. Such clothes from the US are reaching the distant shores of Africa where they are destroying local textile industries. The question is how come there are so many clothes to give away – one reason could be that that Americans are hording copious amounts of fat. So they send these non-fitting clothes down south where it becomes an aspirational commodity no not to buy them but to fit into them. The subconscious message that percolates is that the ‘south’ can become the ‘north’ when and only when they fit into XL sizes.

This leads me to link current economic growth to girth and finally to grime/guano. Well looking at things around me I see a very visible relation. Take the SUV for example – it is huge, guzzles huge amounts of fuel like a perpetually thirsty camel and belches out copious amounts of smoke. Now to clothe such a machine requires large quantities of many materials – rexene/leather for the upholstery and so on and so forth. Going further the most polluting country in the world the US of A also has one of the highest numbers of fat people. The other countries ahead of it are from the south pacific -Samoa and others - who are going to sink not because of the number of fat people on it but because the US is doing more than enough to damage the climate (which would lead to sea level rise for one) along with other wannbe’s like India and China.

Now why did the UK propose such a tax? It’s not because more cloth is required to clothe the fat, nor is it that more food has to be put on a plate, or because they occupy more space. It is because in the long run they are going to cost the community a lot in medical expenses. So now we have a situation where the government is making it clear in no-uncertain terms that the fat should become fit or pay per Kg.

This logic is also quite applicable to industries and countries. Industries and countries that generate more carbon (and therefore use more carbon producing stuff) should be asked to change their ways or start coughing up more big bucks (not the best thing to do). The US and other climate killers should get their act together because their current size and growth patterns are already costing their citizens and the world community a lot and this cost is going to increase in the coming years.

The author understands that there are a variety of causes of obesity and one major cause is lack of access to good nutrition and easy access to cheap unhealthy packaged and fast foods, dietary choices and lack of exercise. Not forgetting the right to be fat .