tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24084173256351154172024-03-17T00:23:11.122+05:30A-MusingA little sweet, a little tangy and very very spicy.Purbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06345755953291104000noreply@blogger.comBlogger45513tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2408417325635115417.post-10225045677677113702021-07-13T11:49:00.003+05:302021-07-13T11:49:27.901+05:30How To Do Revenge Travel Right During A Raging Pandemic<span id="docs-internal-guid-ee496849-7fff-855c-e892-2757e4be7f3d"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">If you think the universe is conspiring against your holiday spirit, you’re absolutely right. But does that mean you deprive yourself of the thrill of plotting and planning your travels! Of course not. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br style="text-align: left;" /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyCVxr-iaHLxt3kkpyv3JGfISdq0xoufLlj0tAU6NYBsH7X_fKmoIYYp4_kNe1yv6m-FcwXMvsD8D-_KhCfIzK3Dc_zh3yDE4Qum3vPvXF-uJk-YBUzkkVjuofgvtQrKWo1uGTc0KbuuE/s1125/IMG_5698.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyCVxr-iaHLxt3kkpyv3JGfISdq0xoufLlj0tAU6NYBsH7X_fKmoIYYp4_kNe1yv6m-FcwXMvsD8D-_KhCfIzK3Dc_zh3yDE4Qum3vPvXF-uJk-YBUzkkVjuofgvtQrKWo1uGTc0KbuuE/s320/IMG_5698.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><i>Image courtesy - Google </i></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Everyone’s ‘dying’ to go on a vacation. Why else would they land in Mussoorie in droves, pack themselves like Kumbh devotees at Kempty falls and harness their stupidity to turn a waterfall into a wave! Before you can choke on your nimboo paani and sputter in horror, the viral video has given anxiety pangs to all. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This is just a few weeks after your eyes popped out and fell on the ground when you saw frightening visuals of a traffic pileup of holiday makers rushing off to Himachal like diarrhoea within hours of the lockdown being eased. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">There’s this much trauma your anxiety ridden heart can take. The poor thing has just started limping back towards normalcy post a traumatic second wave. Your steadfast notion, that memories of SOS calls for oxygens beds and overflowing cremation grounds will be enough to keep people in rein, has drowned itself in Beas. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Of course you want to go on a vacation too but minus the dying part. Locking yourself at home to stay alive has been no fun especially when the weeks stretched into months and months stretched into an eternity. Your pre-Covid life from the last century along with the resident lizard that’s trying its best to come under your feet look at you mockingly. You are too bored to snarl at them as you float around aimlessly from one room to another in one of the many kaftans that you’ve bought online. They call it loungewear these days. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But try as you might, you just can’t muster enough recklessness to head off to the hills to mingle with maskless warriors impatient to usher in the third wave! </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Too bad you are not a locust. You could have munched your way through continents with swarms of your relatives, friends and boyfriends and laid eggs without a care in the world and a vaccine passport. Instead here you are laying on the bed and staring at the lizard that has now learnt to climb the walls. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Look, we know you’ve been bookmarking properties in the hills that keep showing up in your Facebook feed. It gets difficult to control your eye twitch when you look at your friends’ vacation pics on Instagram. Just the other day your husband caught you bawling loudly and wiping your nose on your kaftan sleeve. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Every time you doze off, that lovely property in Landour haunts your dreams. Your eyes glaze over when you fantasise about sitting on the balcony overlooking the misty mountains, sipping adrak chai that the caretaker has made. The bliss of doing nothing in the hills trumps over doing nothing in your apartment anyday.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">We get it, things are getting unbearable and you feel like a caged hyena in a zoo. You’ve often mulled over running off to a remote village tucked away in the Himalayas. But didn’t you just read about a friend’s ordeal who got stuck in their quaint cottage for weeks because of a landslide and had to survive on shoots, leaves and insects in their dirty underwear! </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">If you think the universe is conspiring against your holiday spirit, you’re absolutely right. But does that mean you deprive yourself of the thrill of plotting and planning your travels! Of course not. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">What if we tell you can still go on a vacation without risking RIP and a wonky WiFi! Sounds too good to be true, right! Here’s what you can do. Remember how you pile your shopping cart with expensive AF dresses and then abandon it? You can do the same with booking rentals at exotic locations. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">How about the beautiful cottage on stilts in the middle of the lake...May we suggest the 2 bedroom hammock in the lush forests that has no motorable roads? You can spend a few blissful days making a spreadsheet of dozens of properties. Then you can waste enough time reading reviews, watching vlogs to narrow them down to the final five. Just make sure they all have easy cancellation policies.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">If this doesn’t entice you enough, how about inviting yourself to your friend’s apartment on the 52nd floor! When you step out on the balcony after the third bottle of wine, you will feel on top of Nanda Devi and the screeching traffic will sound like chirping of birds. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Or you could drive down to Delhi in rush hour and pretend you are stuck at a traffic snarl at Parwanoo. While you are at it, you can make calls to an imaginary hotel and tell them to keep soup ready because you won’t be able to make it by lunch. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Haul your suitcases that have been collecting dust in the loft. Stuff them with your vacation wardrobe. Pack a bigger snack bag. Get into the car with your family and squabble endlessly about which music to play for the long drive. Don’t do laundry for weeks and then whine about the endless wash cycles, the vacation weight, and the plants your maid didn’t water properly while you were away.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Remember the journey is more important than the destination and planning is even more exciting than the vacation itself. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Think like Nike. Just do it. </span></span></p><div><span style="font-family: Comfortaa, cursive; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Purbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06345755953291104000noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2408417325635115417.post-10762993080840595642021-06-21T17:33:00.001+05:302021-06-21T17:43:45.169+05:30Cancelling Enid Blyton Will not Make Racism Go Away<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> <i>The Cancel Culture Is Mostly Performative And Brings About No Real Change</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Britain, a nation best known for its shameful imperial past and then conveniently forgetting they colonised over 200 nations, stripped them of their wealth, enslaved its people, made them fight their wars, now wants to cancel Enid Blyton to cleanse its heritage. I had to spend a large amount of my time counselling irony from climbing the Tower Of London to jump off it. Sure, Blyton’s portrayal of black characters was problematic. They were depicted mostly as criminals. Sambo, the Little Black Doll, is hated because of his “ugly black face,” and doesn’t even have SRK and Fair and Handsome to come to his rescue! But I still couldn’t stop rolling my eyes at the ‘cancel culturists’ and wonder about the kind of glasses they are wearing that prevents them from seeing Enid Blyton was a product of her times that valorised Winston Churchill. This is the same man who referred to Indians as beastly people with a beastly religion. Described Palestinians as barbaric hordes who are little but camel dung without a hint of shame. I’m sure Enid Blyton chose to be blissfully unaware that Churchill was no better than Hitler, both having masterminded a carnage as brutal in the name of white supremacy. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">So why just stop at demanding the removal of blue plaques for Enid Blyton and Rudyard Kipling, commemorating their historical significance! Cancel blue plaques for the entire nation that has yet to return Kohinoor to us and left us with Victorian morals that deems almost all human desires as immoral and a stuffy bureaucracy that prides itself in red tapism. Though I still think their most unforgivable crime is plundering so many nations for their spices and still making shockingly bland food. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I feel terrible for Ms Blyton. Imagine having to battle the guilt of dying five decades too early and not being able to apologise for being so unkind to black dolls! I am now having to revisit all my childhood memories that’s still stuck in The Enchanted Woods, idolising Nancy Drew and getting cheap thrills from Amelia Jane’s antics and expunge the black parts from it. Though I am not sure if my well meaning aunties who never missed a chance to tcch tcch about my dark skin during my growing up years and then look soulfully at my hopeless future were influenced by Enid Blyton’s evil machinations against the coloured lot.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Since political correctness demands I cancel her as an author of any merit, I am now trying my best to be pissed off with her. I am so mad at her for instilling a deep desire in me to look for kind old men who looked like Mr Pink Whistle, whose only mission in life was to help children in distress but not before plying them with lemonade and other goodies. How dare she give us Moonface in The Magic Faraway tree who stuffed his mouth with big chunky toffees and was then unable to say anything but ‘ooble ooble ooble! My molars still haven’t forgiven me for plying them with half a dozen toffees and then trying to have an intelligent conversation with my creaky ceiling fan!!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">She really had no business giving wings to our imagination and making us look forward to the library period in school so that we could borrow some more books of hers and take flight from our dreary middle class upbringing. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjvfti9U2VprDHvi5lGXYQEWQLx-lYci17-NICwnACR2QvN8HYHtX2c5G4PgYc9wEzeHS4HXhuGFMzBXiWSsdPwgDc8652gZQ-FrWDk_dzWrq-eLY1_ct9o3fANO7-hJie9hRLMXMjIBU/s1536/357AD2D0-5A1F-4206-8C5F-0188BD7B984F.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="969" data-original-width="1536" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjvfti9U2VprDHvi5lGXYQEWQLx-lYci17-NICwnACR2QvN8HYHtX2c5G4PgYc9wEzeHS4HXhuGFMzBXiWSsdPwgDc8652gZQ-FrWDk_dzWrq-eLY1_ct9o3fANO7-hJie9hRLMXMjIBU/w320-h202/357AD2D0-5A1F-4206-8C5F-0188BD7B984F.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image courtesy- Google </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a children’ writer who primarily wrote for white kids, had she educated them on racism and xenophobia along with English values, we wouldn’t have to put up with generations of racists who think it's perfectly okay to turn brown skinned people away from their restaurants. We wouldn’t have to wonder if the museum staff was especially rude to us because of our skin colour or bad manners. But be perfectly okay addressing men and women from the North East as chinkis! And laugh loudly at Sardar jee jokes. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe it’s time we all accepted that oppressed can be oppressors. The victim can also be a perpetrator. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many of the former colonies of the British empire like the white settlers in New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, America slaughtered the indigenous to take over their lands. Indian society still thrives on oppression of its marginalised. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, change is how we evolve as a society. Adulting is about discovering your favourite kaku is an insufferable sexist and that your childhood idols were flawed. But this growing culture of cancelling anyone who doesn’t ascribe to your worldviews and pouncing on them in droves and shaming them is doing more harm than good. People have forgotten how to be authentic and are now focussed more on saying the right things. And when their true personas emerge, their actions seldom match with their politically correct bytes. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some of the greatest minds of this century were flawed. Their contradictions were shocking and difficult to come to terms with. But does that mean we negate the influence they’ve had on shaping our present and popular culture? Of course not! </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cancelling Enid Blyton and her likes is mostly performative - a modern version of Gladiator games. It pretends a few blue plaques revoked can make racism go away, though in reality it is still thriving. It manifests in news headlines, rich countries refusing to share vaccine technology with poor brown nations. It exists in the white savior complex, a popular trope. Focus on that instead. Recognise you are no better and leave the dead alone.</span></p>Purbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06345755953291104000noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2408417325635115417.post-35374224024337020052020-10-26T12:08:00.000+05:302020-10-26T12:08:09.903+05:30A RATIONED CHILDHOOD<p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Now that frugality is back courtesy a pandemic, </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">it's time to acknowledge that our middle class upbringing was our saviour.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">My childhood resided in the pre-liberalisation era when everything from television hours to material pleasures was rationed. Romantic intimacy on screen was left to the imagination of the audience while flowers were made to violently collide with each other. Kwality had yet to merge with Walls and was served in paper cups and plastic balls with a lid. Eating out was reserved for special occasions. For us it was always at the same restaurant and we ordered the same dishes every single time - chicken sweetcorn soup and tandoori chicken that came on a sizzler tray. My brother and I would leave the restaurant with fistfuls of mishri and saunf and savour one mishri at a time on our drive back home. </span></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Q4DqaAoR-HmmV2IUxngYPzcDlvvZc_HYbQyc7NocUP_ViiWPZVdvYO8vd5RezpPbsb7BjPYiw92Uf78a-mtRBh1Z8RoI4LKIJeMT-jqLN5LpnJDSiyiuE9niJwMG8AdCzfW_XiljU98/s1016/1EADEC76-A93F-4A1E-88CB-A61CEC94AFF7.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1004" data-original-width="1016" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Q4DqaAoR-HmmV2IUxngYPzcDlvvZc_HYbQyc7NocUP_ViiWPZVdvYO8vd5RezpPbsb7BjPYiw92Uf78a-mtRBh1Z8RoI4LKIJeMT-jqLN5LpnJDSiyiuE9niJwMG8AdCzfW_XiljU98/w200-h198/1EADEC76-A93F-4A1E-88CB-A61CEC94AFF7.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image courtesy Google</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="background-color: transparent; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With both my parents working we were blessed to have never faced any financial hardship. Yet my parents, especially my Mom, were terrified that I’d immediately transform into a wastrel with a future as dark as our neighbourhood during load-shedding if she allowed me to go on a school-arranged overnight excursion with my classmates. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I kind of understood where she was coming from after having heard countless stories of their austere childhood where new clothes were handed over like good news in 2020. Her growing up years were devoid of colours like the movies of her time. It was every vamp’s moral duty to smoke, drink and wear western clothes. I doubt if she had ever set foot inside a movie theatre. Maybe my Dadu thought exposure to censorious content would turn her into a rebel and she’ll throw her chappals in the air screaming ‘down with tyranny!’</span></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Compared to that, I had a Disney-world like childhood. I had the joy of looking forward to annual family vacations even though it was a painful exercise in how to save money. I was exposed to stellar cinema-making of Basu Chatterjee, Sai Paranjpye, Satyajit Ray and Basu Bhattacharya, but an ice-cream coupled with a movie day was frowned upon vehemently. </span></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sometimes I end up blaming this forced austerity as a child for my penchant for overindulgence as an adult. Buying that flowy ensemble in teal that I absolutely don’t need with a pair of heels that will be impossible to fit in my shoe closet. The elation is as short-lived as clean air in Delhi NCR though. My middle class upbringing makes sure I always test guilt positive till I feel I have done enough to earn my moments of short-lived highs. Worked myself to a frenzy, sprouted brand new stress lines on the forehead and shed half my hair. It also makes me stop, think, evaluate and then discard the idea of buying that insanely expensive watch as wasteful.</span></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For many of us the first few weeks of the lockdown was the toughest. While we were bursting our capillaries scrubbing the house clean, cooking meals and washing stacks of dishes, there were no rewards or self-pampering in sight. It was a constant emotional yo-yo of patting our own backs for living like saints, our credit cards lying forgotten in some dark corner and bracing ourselves for an unhappily ever after in our frayed pyjamas and having aloo gobhi for lunch. </span></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The uncertainty brought many of us at the precipice but also taught us the importance of savings and living within our means. Over optimistic businesses surviving on over-borrowings collapsed. YOLO died a quiet death.</span></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Interestingly our parents were cool as cucumbers through this forced imprisonment in their nightie and pyjamas, treating it as just another weekday. Unlike us they were not fancy meal addicts, didn’t take off for a vacation every few months, didn’t land up at a pub every weekend! Their frugality was their children’s saviour as well. Many went rushing back to their parents at the first hint of financial and emotional distress. </span></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It'a not as if the older generation was spared of anxious moments. They had to deal with agony of being told again and again they were the most vulnerable to Covid... That it will be really long till they get to see us again.... What if there’s a medical emergency and then feeling terribly lonely....</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe our obsession with indulgence goes back to our childhood when every good job done was rewarded with a gift. It felt hard-earned and well-deserved. </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: line-through; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Though I made sure I denied my parents the opportunity by being lazy and unyielding by choice.</span></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We carried this tradition to our adulthood and made sure we rewarded ourselves amply for even the most minimal of efforts. Couple it with constantly seeking the thrill of new and voila - we have created a culture of excess. Your favourite pret brands get this. Which is why they come up with a new collection every few weeks and we end up buying more and more even though we know fast fashion is killing our planet.</span></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">An all you can eat buffet with 65 mains, 120 varieties of starters, and a separate hall for desserts, where diners waste more than they eat. Weddings with 15 ceremonies, a guest list bigger than the population of Helsinki because this is how weddings are meant to be celebrated- like public events!</span></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We’ll cry for the dry, depleted, stressed ecosystem we are leaving for our kids but will do zilch to change our lifestyles. And when we are forced to thanks to a pandemic, we grieve endlessly.</span></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It’s been 8 months since I have traveled with my family. We don’t eat out as much. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t in extreme distress especially in peak summer when memories of my past vacations would appear unannounced on my Instagram feed. Reluctantly I learnt to adapt. I discovered new interests like looking at other’s travel pics with lust, making travel plans and then cancelling them. Explored the beauty of Aravalis, the city we tend to take for granted, looked for monuments to visit during weekends - just like my parents did when we were young. It also made me wonder why our cities had so many malls and pubs and so few parks, botanical gardens, running and cycling tracks! </span></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Perhaps it’s time we rationed our many wants. What if we try an intermittent fasting of our indulgences? The first few days will be awful, angsty, restless. We may end up with fewer hair on our scalp but eventually we’ll calm down. Soon it’ll start feeling perfectly normal (not the bald part). <i>Wheee, I survived 2 weeks without trawling the net for yet another useless thing to acquire!</i> And when the cravings gradually dissipate, it’ll feel as special as vanquishing the invincible Ravana. It will also help us figure out what is really important and what is unnecessary. Most of them are manufactured anyway by our favourite social media platforms.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I just hope my mum doesn't read this because when she does I know exactly what she’ll say - See, I was right all along! </span></span></p>Purbahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06345755953291104000noreply@blogger.com5