At 18, I was a shy girl. Extremely introvert, I was petrified of public speaking . It was she who insisted I go on the stage and give “Vote of Thanks” in one of the Rotract club event. “Not doing it is not an option” she admonished. That was the beginning and Sangita has been my friend and mentor ever since. Continue reading Sangita – आज फिर शुरू हुआ जीवन
Month: July 2009
Media – the Saviour!
I have stopped watching the entertainment channels on the TV. The news channel provides all the ingredients of a blockbuster – violence, corruption, scandal and sex. The only difference is that, unlike the Hindi films, in real life there seems to an absence of that idealistic hero who sets everything right by the end of the movie.
Today’s newscast was especially depressing. A sting operation on the junior telecom minister which confirmed what the whole of India already knows – that corruption exists in high places. Then we had Buta Singh’s son caught in a bribery case. Another sting operation at Sourav’s – a restaurant owned by Sourav Ganguly where bargirls were caught on camera, dancing to entice customers. And finally, we had Imraan Hashmi of serial kissing fame going public with a fact which again is well known – muslims are discouraged from owning a house in most societies.
(The rest of this article is lost – was originally hosted at http://nadeemsani.net/2009/07/31/the-fourth-estate/
Catharsis
A long time ago, there was a young girl, in love with a boy who said he loved her but can not marry her for reasons not known. The girl was sad, disappointed and angry at being rejected and knew she must learn to deal with it. It was one evening in the month of October she stood on the lakeside and wrote these words…
Review: Barah Anna – Worth every Anna.
Monday evening on my way back from the opthal, on an impulse we were browsing music when we came across the DVD of “Barah Aana” – Naseeruddin Shah as one of the lead actors definitely helped our decision to pick it up. We settled to watch the movie post dinner and quiet liked the turns the movie takes. That it had no songs was a big plus. Naseeruddin Shah as usual was superb but so were the other two actors, Arjun Mathur and Vijay Raaz.
Small plot, fast pace, a 97 minute movie – works well for a working day evening watch. Continue reading Review: Barah Anna – Worth every Anna.
Oxymoron and Moron
There are two primary stereotypes of armed forces officers created by Bollywood in the minds of the general populace. The first is that of the dashing hero who dances and sings in the Regimental Mess, gets the heroine, goes and lays down his life fighting the enemy leaving a grieving but proud widow behind. The second stereotype is that of an idiosyncratic retired officer who smokes a pipe, uses ‘Bloody Hell’ a trillion times and disciplines everyone around him to the merriment of the viewers. By creating these quintessentially extreme stereotypes, there is no room left in people’s mind for the real life flesh and blood officers who have taken an early retirement.
Personally, I find the larger than life Bollywood stereotype image extremely detrimental when dealing with the corporate HR interviewer. The general perception is that defence services officers are all spit and polish, magnificently endowed with brawn and deficient in brains. So when it comes to the extremely complex corporate world, HR concludes that we won’t be able to cope up and will end up antagonizing everyone by our idiosyncracies.
The truth is that an armed force officer is fairly intelligent and rational. By virtue of facing diverse and difficult situations, he is flexible and adaptable with an ability to innovate to achieve the desired goal. As the saying goes, we are trained for all situations ranging from the ballroom to the battlefront. And if I were to quote my more brash colleagues, from the bedroom to boardroom! After all, how many corporate CVs can boast of the capabilities and expertise to handle diverse tasks ranging from taking the lady of visiting foreign dignitary sari shopping, providing succour to populace during calamities, planning operations with umpteen variables and staring down enemy guns? All this and more, in extreme operating environment, 24X7!
“But Commander, you don’t have the corporate experience or domain knowledge” is an oft heard refrain. As a mid to senior level professional, I feel that “capability” rather than ‘domain knowledge’ is more important. But then, I have decided to quit the services and seek a career in the civvy street, so I need to play by the new rules.
However, I must confess that the new rules are not easy to play by. Self praise is frowned upon in the Services and I still blush when I have to assure the HR recruiter that I am good. HR folks don’t make it easy either. I recall an interview wherein I was trying to draw the analogy between HR as practiced in the Services and HR as advocated by Gary Dessler, author of the book on HRM followed worldwide. After listening to 10 minutes of my earnest explanation, the interviewer stopped me and queried “Who is Gary Dessler?”! Neither is it easy to dispel the mistaken notion that all faujis are dimwits. During the initial phase of my most recent interview I told the interviewer” I want to assure you that an intelligent naval officer is not an oxymoron”. The svelte lady flashed a brilliant smile, nodded understandingly and asked “ Oxy what?”. I had no choice but to reply “Moron!”, realising fully well that I couldn’t possibly crack this interview!.
Meanwhile, my search for a job continues…..
कभी न सोचा था प्यार बाँटा तो दर्द पाऊँगी
कभी न सोचा था प्यार बाँटा
तो दर्द पाऊँगी
कभी न सोचा था कि दर्द होगा तो इतना
कि उसे न बाँट पाऊँगी
वक्त लगता है संभलने में मगर
यकीं है मुझे कि संभल जाऊँगी
Who killed Prof Sabherwal?- Nadeem Sani
As a human being, I hold multiple identities simultaneously. I am a retired naval officer, an out-of-work executive, a henpecked husband, and a doting father. I am from X course of NDA, Y Squadron and belong to Nagpur etc. I can think of numerous affiliations to derive my specific identity BUT all my roles and identities are subservient to a core, basic, irrefutable one – I am an INDIAN – foremost and always. And it pains me to see fellow countrymen squabble over and parade their narrower identities for personal or political interests.
Prof Sabherwal was murdered on Sep 06 in the city of Ujjain. The country was shocked into witnessing the sordid crime live on their TV sets home. After a lot of hue and cry, the assailants were arrested and charged with murder. Today, they walk free after the Nagpur High Court acquitted them for want of proper evidence and poor case preparation by the prosecution.
As an Indian and a rational human being, killing is an anathema to me. The killing of a professor over narrow political causes is thus an even more distasteful, dastardly, and blasphemous act. On a national TV debate regarding the issue, we had a strident defender of the accused stating that the Professor was not killed but died of natural causes, spewing venom and espousing her parochial view of politics. Despite the prophecy of kalyug , I still regard teaching as a noble profession and a Guru as a demigod. The fact that this defender of the killers was a woman Professor shows the abysmal state of our quest for narrow personal and political gains. And we have the Chief Minister of the state where this heinous crime was committed lauding the release of the accused in media!
The Professor’s case for some reason has not sparked the furor and debate akin to say, Jessica Lal. Neither has the media taken up the case with the same fervor. Is it because espousing this cause will not increase the TRP anymore? Perhaps the Jessica Lal case was about the privileged vs the non-privileged whereas this case is against the workers of the ruling party in the state! Are we to assume that the “Indian- ness” of the people of the state is subservient to their narrow political views?
Whatever may be the case, it seems that no one killed Prof Sabherwal after all. Or is it that each one of us is guilty of his murder by accepting a system that condones it?
(Written by Nadeem Sani)
कुछ आँसूं कुछ मोती
Sangita is a friend who shares my love for poetry and was one of the very few readers of my early writings. When she visited my site yesterday, she wanted to know as to why have I not published any of my new Hindi poetry here – I promised her I will and here it is –
अपने रिसते हुए घावों की तरफ मत देखो
उनके बहते हुए मोती समेटो पहले
वो टपके तो ये जख्म तारी होंगे
वो डूबे तो ले डूबेंगे सब कुछ
दर्द की तराशी हुइ है यह जिन्दगी
कुछ और दुख से न बिखर जाएगी
उनका दर्द कर सको तो कम कर लो
उनकी मुस्कुराहटों से ये जीस्त बहल जाएगी
Straight
Bought the “Straight” DVD for Sunday afternoon viewing as the cast looked promising . I did not have any expectations from the movie but it surprised me with some real good editing and direction techniques. One technique I particularly liked was dropping of a truck in front of the moving car to show the transition between London to India…
The movie is not really racy, but its a light flick -so it serves the purpose. Subject of the move is bold/controversial/taboo which speaks for the A certificate from censor board..
Vinay Pathak as Pinu, the protagonist has done some good work – but then he is a fine actor and nothing less can be expected of him. Gul Panag looks ravishing, the dimples on her cheeks particularly cute, has done a great job of her somewhat limited role. She has lovely husky voice that sounds very sincere as she delivers her dialogues.
Pinu Patel (Vinay Pathak) is a London based restaurateur and owns Gaylord, which serves Indian cuisine. A simple man with tiny complexities in life such as being a virgin and his to be wife running away from the marriage pendal (he goes to India to get married) makes him doubt his self worth. An introvert, he has a nagging aunt, an uncle and a cousin (Rajat) who is a friend. He returns from India and lies about his marital status and tells everyone that his wife will join him later. Continue reading Straight
Friends forever
I have not heard from her since ages, last time I called her she was busy shifting back to India from another country and we could hardly talk.
Cute and petite, she was the life of our group. Her anecdotes with smatterings of “uno bola, to fir main boli” in typical Hyderabadi style kept the conversation alive. We called h er “Hauli” a slang for cutely silly. She loved the road side chinese and I would very often gatecrash on her road side dining dates which she went with her “Quack”. Her boyfriend “Quack” was a friend of mine studying to be a doctor. I still don’t know if I was an intrusion, but I was close enough to both of them to be allowed to do that. Continue reading Friends forever