The recently concluded Cannes film festival gave me a short term diploma in long term fashion. so from a freshly-baked, straight out of the oven certificate; i can dare to blog about it.
firstly, where were the movies? was this a movie festival? oh damn! i seem to have missed that entire bus. poor guys who slogged their butts off filming; collecting funds; bothering with dressing up their leading ladies; bothering to undress their leading ladies in the name of 'Art cinema'. i have no clue who won, who lost. do people even win and loose during this festival. Ahh! Je ne sais pas! Bof! who cares! the leading ladies, ledas and the 'two-bit role' arty actors played a more important role on a piece of old carpet than they did on screen.
the 'poor' celebrities were getting publicly disrobed for what they took 4 hours to put on! i say, why bother putting it on. Every morning, we were witness to investigative journalism, that would put Sherlock Holmes to shame. "What did she wear!?! - a feather gown to hide her bulges or was it a fashion statement?" (the real reason was that the dress was soooo tight while putting on it ripped the seam, so that was the creativity of the poultry chef who was hanging around, ogling at her.) "Why was he dressed in silver?!?! looking like a stuffed turkey-in-foil??" Ahh! ma cherie, you are so passe!!! "Don't you know he was trying to melt his fat through all that insulation?!?!" now that's called dedication, work and work out together!
it also looked like a 'Kumbh mela' in foreign setting. i mean we actually got to see people who are lost on the radar in India. An actress who was last seen making out big time with a snake, decided to declare herself 'the first person to wear a bikineee in hindi movies'. she obviously forgot that far more sexier ladies, before she was even born sported the two piece with panache and set hearts fluttering in the 70s. for those reading this, Helen and Sharmila Tagore rocked the bikineee before this in-your-face-boob-job candidate. why was this twit even on the carpet?!!! who did she have to cavort with this time, to put on that expensive piece of fashion???
some of the celebrities/actors/directors/page 3 daughter-in-laws, don't bother to show themselves on Indian soil because they claim they are enjoying motherhood (another term for 'jobless'). all these noble people they are willing to leave their motherly inhibitions and fat behind to done ridiculous saris and gowns, just to have it all ripped to shreds by the fashion police. Ahh Dahling!! why bother?! go back to your hide out and let your work do the talking. then that crown will definitely suit that pretty face of yours. Then 'you will be worth it'.
so coming back to the movies.... what movies???!!???! Umm... let me pause and at least Google the results coz i for one have no clue! (obviously) OK, so here it is.... <5 later="" mins="">
the most prestigious award, the palm d'or, went to a chick flick called 'Blue is the warmest colour'. its a steamy rom-com about lesbian love!!!! Oh Mon Dieu!!! look what we almost missed!!! it has no-hold-barred 12 minute erotic sex scene between the two leading ladies (sorry leddas). Wow!!! the movies now seem more interesting than the fashion fuzzball.
going through the entire list i noticed that not a single indian movie even made a feathery flutter. so what was all that hulla gulla about?!?! the people who benefited most were the 'designers'! obviously their sales pitch was, 'we dont really design clothes like these - the star's body type was such that i had to hide those indian hips' (after all hips don't lie). the unsuspecting future client goes back home with a disaster round the corner. he can safely kiss his french fanny goodbye coz its getting publicly flogged next year.
as for me, i am shoving that freshly-baked certificate down the loo (no i am not chinese) and going to watch 'Blue is the warmest colour'. that is another blog, another time. Ciao!
now i know i have written an earlier post on "the great indian driver"... but i couldn't help writing one more post on traffic rules and behaviour, given my recent trip abroad. most of you are already living in foreign lands and other half of you all have traveled to foreign lands. so i am guessing you might have a lot of opinions. but this being my first trip outside my comfort zone, my country, it was an eye opener of sorts.
the first thing that hits you when you are travelling on the road, is the silence. now i spent all of 5 days in singapore but the silence was deafening. not a HONK! not even an 'excuse me but i am coming out of my lane' warning HONK! not even a 'WTf are you doing in my lane' HONK! and forget the 'take your bullock cart somewhere else' HONK! everyone was just.... cruising! you can feel the rush hour chaos, you can feel the urgency in the cars wanting to over take; but all this chaos and urgency was in an orderly and organised manner. in certain parts of india, people are 'trigger happy'. but in mumbai we are all 'horn happy'. don't like the face of the guy who overtook you, HONK. don't like the way some idiot showing off his drawing skills by going zig-zag, HONK. want to double park your car, HONK and tell the cabbie already double parked there to move.so for a person who rides a scooter in such a city, singapore was a cultural shock. i feel incomplete without honking in protest to the cabbie who decides to show off his manliness which is in direct proportion to his stupidity on the road. i mean how idiotic can you be to honk from behind when you can clearly see that there are ten cars lined up in front of me.
no one in singapore felt the need to roll down their windows and yell..."alibaug se aaya kya!!!!???" not one sole dreamed of overtaking the guy in front even if he had a more powerful car which could easily put schumacher to the test. so why then cant we adopt this road decency?! the answer is simple, we dont know how. as much as i want to keep my mouth shut while riding my scooter, i cant. as much as i want to stick to my lane, i cant. i mean what is the sense of waiting at a signal at 7.30 in the morning when clearly there is no vehicle in sight from the other side. i am guilty as charged. i dont know if i will survive driving on foreign soil. but i know this much, in Rome do as the romans do and in alibaug drive like the people in alibaug do. that is the law of the traffic jungle. and if you dont like it you are free to HONK in protest.
this past week i have been gathering frequent flyer miles. i was doing the mumbai darshan tour of a national bank... like a bird being shooed off from one branch to another branch to another branch. now the thing is, we are supposed to be a country which takes pride in people like narayan murty and ratan tata. the former is a man who used the power of genius to carry india into the 21 century; the latter is a hardworking home-boy who dint carry any airs about being the head of a huge conglomeration. so then how come the middle class gentry don't get motivated by these great but simple people to do their jobs efficiently?
i found myself dealing with two such people. one was a lady in the public provident fund department. all she had to do was switch on her computer and tell me if my work was done or not. switch on the computer she did, but she failed to mention that my demand draft was ready. she very nonchalantly told me to go back home and wait for the money to be transferred into the relevant account. i, being the trusting dumbo, went back home. jump to two days later... money still not reached. i go back to her, she recognises me tells me to wait for 10 minutes which in indian language means half an hour. i do so patiently. when i show her my face again, she very nonchalantly (once again) tells me... "ask the other lady. i am not dealing with this case." then i beg to know why in the first case did she answer me?!?!?! i mean did she just make up stuff from the top off her empty but well oiled skull?!?! this 'other lady' was the only one handling a long line of claimants. so it was back to face booking and whatsapping while waiting for my turn. only this time i was fuming.. like a pressure cooker about to let off all the pent up steam! and all this while i was under the impression that women were far more efficient than men.
once this fiasco was sorted out, came the true officer category 'babu'. a tall stately man in suit-boot, but looking like Alfred - the butler. i waited and waited for him to come to his seat, but Big Alf insisted on exercising his long limbs and was going round and round the department, checking on the smaller minnows below him. once he saw me drumming my fingers on his desk, he graced me with his glorious self. i explain my predicament to him. i am completely armed with all necessary documents. he looks over them, he looks over my application (impeccably typed) he fidgets with his computer screen then looks back at my letter, which i started to believe was in greek since he had a puzzled look on his face. this is a man who has the authority to sign off millions of rupees. this is a man whose signature can make or break someones hard earned investment. this is a man who wastes 2 hours over a 20 minute job. hence justifying his big fat salary. at first he was suspicious and was reluctant to do what i was asking him to do. so i also used my feminine charms and acted like a damsel in mourning. Oh! never under estimate the power of moist eyes! abracadabra!!! he agreed to do everything, provided i came back with my father as proof of his consent to adding my name in his account. then the Jhansi ki rani in me took over!!! my nostrils were flaring! he could have told me this the previous day too when i met him! i gathered my things without saying a word to him. gave him one more look which told him exactly which body part of his would shrivel and fall off and i walked away. the next day i came with my father, who is from the old school and gets intimidated by these babu-types. there he was being courteous to a man who dint know the spelling of 'courteous'! nevertheless, all work got done and i walked out, promising on my mother's dedication that i will not deal with them again.
the thing is not everyone is a poor worker... in my entire dealings with this bank, i must say that there have been people; namely clerical staff who are super efficient, who do their job while apologizing for the short-comings of their boss. maybe this class of people value the money they earn hence the loyalty and efficiency kicks in. my mother being one such employee was always before time and constantly on her seat, her fingers flying off the key board. i have come across people who have solved issues in minutes while their bosses have worried over them for days.
but in all this i noticed that this officer babu, might be super slow and super cautious for a reason. the entire branch is under him. being a national bank, people bunk work like we swat flies in monsoon. so apart from haughty women like me he also has to ensure that his staff are present behind the counters designated to them. while i was waiting at his desk, he was trying to call up all the absentee staff. most of them dint answer him, others were 'ill', others were 'ill-in-mysore' i mean really... if labour unions were not so strong, these people would have been fired since when.
to cut a long story short, banking work is like a gladiator fight. all your men have to be on the arena or the lion (the customer) will eat you up. occasionally the lion scores and occasionally the gladiator. the only difference is you don't have to kill the lion to survive, you just have to be alert and quick in your reflexes and the lion will back off out of respect.
