Train-quiliser

I'm a copywriter by day and a copywriter by night, but I only suffer from foot-in-mouth every alternate Sunday. So while I'm mentally preparing a list of future apologies for gems that will leave my tongue during the course of the following week, I indulge in one of my favorite activities noticing the fliers and ads pasted on the compartment walls of the trains in the city.
Yeah trains!, it's a real treat to read those ads, If you don't catch me eavesdropping on someone else's conversation, struggling to read the newspaper in the hands of the person sitting next to me, pretending to send an sms on my cell, or wondering which of the women in the compartment need a facial hair intervention, you'll find me looking heaven words to the ceiling of the compartment. Yes I do get the stares for doing that, but then my flaming red naxalite jhola(bag) catches their eye and diverts the attention.

These wonderfully worded and illustrated ads are proof that Indians are entrepreneurs like no others. If there is a problem there will be a dozen odd clinics to fix it. And we are not talking about the mundane Gout, or the embarrassing hernia, we're talking real problems here. Dr. Mane's (no I'm not making this up) clinic will help you grow taller, so that you can stop blaming your parents and move on with your life.

Of course there are those who've been around since I was considered a half ticket, like the Kaya Sex clinic, there used to be this one sketched ad where a man who wore a black underwear could not fight gravity. I wonder why no mahila mandal samiti ever objected to that ad considering it was right in your face when you were pressed against the compartment wall during rush hour.

Leaving those aside you have Tortoise mosquito repellent, advertising faithfully over the years, maybe they should start putting one under the seat to prove the effectiveness of their product.

Then are those ads that try and lure job seekers and college kids, Earn Rs. 10,000 a month call Rahul at 98something number. somebody ought to tell Rahul that if you can pay your employees 10k a month maybe you can increase your ad-spend and graduate from a hand written photo- copied flier ??? I mean is that to much to ask!

But the truly classic ads, the ones which should force Cannes festival to start a separate category of awards for ingenuity - the English training institutes. It's no secret that we suffer from the colonial hangover and love the Queen's language, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to speak the language fluently. It's just that these institutes with their wonderful ads leave me in splits. So while travelling on the harbor line you will comes across a florescent flier that screams "learn British spoken English, learn hi-fi English within a month, or full payback, highly qualified teachers (who I'm praying did not proof read this ad) But you've got to give them credit, at least there were no spelling mistakes.

Before you accuse me of being an Anglicized racist, until there are LCD television sets installed in each compartment that show NDTV imagine's Mahabharat 24X7 I will continue to look heavenwards and spot the not……

(Article and Pictures Courtesy: KR, Edited by Bombay Diva)

Evil Genius Thy Name Is BMC!!!

For the out of towners, the BMC is the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which collects taxes and uses it to provide infrastructure and other stuff for the general betterment of Bombay (the latter part of its job description is highly debated and rarely fulfilled).

Of late though, since the BMC refuses to clear garbage and just lets it rot, the citizens have taken it upon themselves to clean up the place (hey don't flame us, its a self-preservation tactic). The BMC has instituted "awards" for the cleanest society/locality.

Let's back up a bit and recap:
- I pay the BMC money to keep the city clean and provide basic services
- The BMC doesn't do its job
- The citizens are forced to do the job
- They use a fraction of the money to "reward" the citizens
- We still pay the money!!!
Does this seem a little off to you???

If we as a city pay taxes which constitute more than the rest of the country put together, the least we can expect is garbage free streets and roads that don't look like the surface of the moon. It's time we raised our expectations and make sure the BMC gets paid only for the work it does.

Chalti Ka Naam Gadi

People in Bombay are lateral thinkers and it shows in their driving. They don't seem to understand that if they follow certain rules, it might seem inconvenient at the moment, but it is all in the interest of getting everyone forward and onward. Setting aside the noxious level of pollution and the crappy roads, getting from point A to point B in Bombay is becoming a Darwinian undertaking.

First of all the road seems to be filled with idiots who insist on driving 3 inches away from my rear bumper and 3 inches from my front bumper, all the while blaring some God forsaken Himesh Reshamiyya song (which just has one word repeated over and over as nauseum) and acting like their Maruti 800 is a Jag or such other. Trust me chumps, you're not impressing ANYONE!!!

Don't even get me started on the guys who drive trucks, who feel the need to assert their masculinity by driving like a**holes

Indians are known to take their wedding and their funerals, their festivals and their processions out into the street, but when you write some sort of slogan/name/what have you on the back of your car, could you try NOT to spell like you failed third grade English?? The gratuitous typos make you look like an idiot.

Strangely, I don't really fault roadside hawkers. I'm not saying I'm encouraging them, but they are just trying to eke out a living. I've already ranted and raved about the state of the roads, but I think after today, I'd rather see the BMC channel the road improvement money to free driving etiquette classes for the public.

Being a diva/lady who lunches is getting harder by the day, especially when I have to leave for a lunch date before breakfast!!!! :P

In Esteemed Company.

The CET results were out last week and my friends have done really well. I'm extremely proud of them and am glad to be in the company of such brilliant people!!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Primark Misses Its Mark.

So by now all of you (all of you who read newspapers that is) must've heard about the whole BBC expose/Primark fiasco. The BBC did this expose on how Primark's (a UK based garment retailer) outsourcing arm in India sublets to minors. This caused Primark to act "responsibly" and immediately withdraw all work outsourced to India.

I take great umbrage at the word "responsible".

Firstly there is nothing responsible or logical about depriving a whole lot of people from their daily bread. Secondly, taking back the work will not automatically solve the problem of child labour, it will only force the children to work in less regulated sectors, making them more susceptible to abuse. And finally, Primark missed turning this blot on their reputation into a superlative oppurtunity to not only recover, but emerge winners.

Granted that sub-contracting is not exactly legal, but like many things in India, it cannot be classified as black or white. It falls in this vague "grey" void that most things in India fall it, which means it is neither completely right nor completely wrong.

In India the child labour situation is extremely comlex. Definately there is a small percentage of whom have been forced into it, but most child labourers are working because the supposed "adults" of the family who are supposed to be earning are afflicted with some sort of addiction/illness or just couldn't be bothered. They are their family's only hope and take their responsibility seriously. A lot of them are runaways who have escaped sexual, physical or other abuse and are just looking to make their way in life. Being able to afford to go to school is as preposterous an idea for these children, as not working is!!!

A more sensible solution to this problem would be if Primark could provide a few hours of informal "schooling" for the children and then pay them some sort of stipend. In this way, they not only get their job done for a lot less but can also count it as one of their corporate governance initiatives. Infact, a whole business model could be built around this idea which can be mutually beneficial as well as extremely cost efficient.

But this can only happen if we (in general) stop running away from the problem or stop pretending that the problem doesn't exist. Child labour in India isn't going to be eradicated anytime soon and the only hope that we can have is to make it more regulated and lessen any damaging impact is has on the victims who remain voiceless in these situations - the children themselves!!!

I'm Back......

.......after a long hiatus (of one week), caused by un-co-operative internet maintenance guys, I'm back and raring to go. Before I get into the thick of things though, I would really like to thank CJ for keeping my blog up and running, even though he has to juggle his own blog and college stuff at the same time. :D

So much has happened in this one week, I can't wait to start rambling (hopefully not incoherently). And now that I've learnt to post pictures on the blog, I'm a force to reckon with!! :P lol.

I remain,
Bombay Diva

36 Hours in Bombay

The New York Times has a weekly spotlight feature called “36 Hours In….” where they feature different cities in different parts of the world.

This week they feature good ol' Bombay !

It’s the Jazz Age again in Mumbai. The populous metropolis is bursting with stock-market money, a shimmering art scene has a growing global presence, and young people are exploiting their newfound freedoms in dim bars until the wee hours. Indeed, in the city’s more rarefied circles, Champagne is sipped every night and everyone knows everyone, darling. But large swaths of Mumbai, the former Bombay, remain immune to the homogeneity of global glamour.

Be sure to check it out here.

[Source]

-The infamous Cj