31 - COMEDY NIGHTS AND MORE

I enjoy watching 'comedy nights bachao' on the TV, especially since Mr. Krishna entertains us so.  Celebrities are roped in and they bear the jokes that are cracked at their expense, so so very sportingly.  Usha Uthup, singer Altaf Raja, cricketeer Shrishant were the participants today.  All of them very sportingly bore the jokes at their expense.   It is so redeeming at watch famous people be comfortable with comedy.  My connection with Usha Uthup is since my childhood,  when she was the classmate to my cousins at St. Agnes High School, Clare Road, Byculla, Mumbai.    And that was one more incentive for me to enroll my daughter at this school.  I have very carefully preserved a notebook page with the song, Bom Bom Bom Bom Bombay meri hai,  which was written by Ms Usha Uthup herself, when she was studying at St. Agnes.

So, TV programmes sometimes become nostalgic for personal reasons.  Other times, advertisements that are shown, make me very angry and I feel so ineffective,  because although I want to do something about it, and I have tried in the past,  efforts to oppose them have proved futile.  It is very important that what is portrayed in TV ads, should be correct and harmless, if imitated by the viewers, especially children. 

Vivo oil for diabetics, show the wife frying purees in the hot oil and the 'diabetic' husband is singing praises for the new oil, and he is seated on the cooking platform, just next to the cooking range with the hot oil.  A very dangerous situation has been shown.  The other ad that is not in good taste, is the Colgate toothbrush ad, showing a teacher speaking to parents on open day at school, and the junior student tells the teacher that she had spinach for dinner, the previous night, because it is still stuck between her teeth. Naturo Sugarfree saccharine drops are advertised, where the husband wants nimboo paani after his jogging, and the wife and a very minor daughter remind him that the sugar will nullify his exercise with sugar calories, and that sugarfree is better.  The minor also agrees wisely.  Millions of kids who watch this ad, will empathise with the advise and resort to sugarfree.   The ad does not advise that it is advisable only for adults with diabeties or obesity problems, and is not good for growing children.

Indian roads are so badly maintained and yet there are so many car and bike ads. Easy loans and gifts are promised to buyers.  Families and lovers and even children recommend expensive vehicles.  Very misleading, because it is not as if buying a vehicle will solve your problems and make your family sublime with happiness.  Very often, bank loans are taken for vehicles and it is a cause of tension for so many families, that could have been happier without the burden.

Then the option for entertainment are the hindi soaps for most families.  Ekta Kapoor tends to hone into serials that build a rapport with the audience and let her laugh all the way to the bank.  As a teacher, I have realized that even very small children, example standard one students, are watching  TV  programmes, upto ten pm and very aware of the various characters depicted in the serials and can imitate and even repeat dialogues of many of the shows.  It was very tough, penalising students for the phrase 'babaji ka thulloo' and the accompanying hand action, that was so popular because of  'the Kapil Sharma Show'.

The typical 'saas bahu'  TV dramas, immortalise mean attitude, poisoning food, materialistic habits and emotional blackmail, as the done thing.  These shows also propogate heavy make-up, expensive jewellery and outfits and elaborate hairdos.  Very very phony.

I prefer watching news programmes.



 

30 - FITBIT TO THE RESCUE

An elephant has to be a weighty animal, while a deer is lithe and slim.   Can you say that a crow is overweight or that  a monkey is?  Of course, pets like dogs and cats can be categorised as obese, but that is because they are under human influence.   But humans can be labelled as overweight, and then that person is classified as lazy or greedy or sick in some glandular deficiency,  the thyroid is dysfunctional probably..........

An overweight baby is 'soooo cute'.    An overweight child is classified as its just  'baby fat,  it will wear out'.   But an obese teenager is  a mortified human being, because of the snide remarks and the behind-the-back ridicule.  And then the teenager grows into an eligible young person who is mostly lonely, because fat people are not deemed as good partners,   and so these unfortunate society dropouts take refuge in food and  magnify their problem.  The emotional turmoil becomes a physical suffering, as these fatties resort to any and every solution to a slimmer self.

Gyms advertise 'weight loss' programmes and gain lots of members,  but results are few and not everyone who joins a gym manages to lose weight.  Ads vouching for guaranteed 'weight loss or money back' are plastered inside the local trains and along the railway line walls.  Newspaper ads of ayurvedic products, promise quick weight loss if only you will eat the magical potion that they vend.  And magical weight loss is assured by TV ads showcasing  a 'hot' under belt type of garment of  three layers of  -- -- --,  that only needs to be worn next to the skin to ensure excessive sweating, resulting in weight loss.   One free liposuction for booking three sittings, is plastered all over newspapers and TV ads, showing before and after images, with a dramatic change.

  Bariatric surgery is also resorted to  to achieve the desired reduction.  But there have been too many tragedies associated with this option, unless you can afford 24x7 medical supervision like Neeta Ambani or Nitin Gadkari of the BJP,  did .    Although the patient's stomach is reduced by surgery, their appetite is uncontrolled and then it leads to death.  Many fashion models resort to regurgitation or vomiting, to maintain their zero figure,  leading to death through bulemia.  Princess Diana suffered from this disease and one of its causes is emotional blackmailing by others,  to lose weight.

Usually the male gender gets away with being out of shape.  So many men sport a potbelly and yet portray themselves as macho men.  But women suffer emotionally and tend to go into depression.  And when the wife bears children and looks out of shape,  the wayward husband bandies around with younger and prettier, size zero females.  With modern marvels at their doorstep, many women opt out of motherhood and let their egg be fertilised in a test tube and be implanted into a surrogate mother,  all in a quest to maintain their figure.

The most credible weight loss programme is a controlled diet and a regular exercise regime, and I think Fitbit has got it right.  You just wear the wrist band and it reminds you what not to eat, how many calories you have lost through your daily schedule of exercise or walking or cycling etc,  And it also allows you to compete with your friends online, anywhere in the world, wow!  It is the real weight loss genius of the twenty first century.

You may be overweight and be perfectly healthy,  and comfortable with your image, just like Bharati of Comedy Nights, or Hardy of Laurel and Hardy fame.  Then, let us hope that you stay that way.





 

29 - LONG LOCKS

In Mumbai, school starts after the summer vacation of almost one month,  with the  typical setbacks that a teacher faces, at such times.  In a co-ed or an only boys' school,  it is the long locks that boys sport.  Or some outlandish hair style, like a mushroom cut or the designer stripes.  The girls will have nail polish or mehndi on their palms, or hair cut in steps, which cannot be tied neatly at all.  And each class teacher has to then advise and cajole the students to please keep the school rules in mind and follow them.

But  students follow their role models that they watch on the TV and print ads.  Children who act in hindi TV soaps, always have long hair.  Boys then want a Reitesh Deshmukh style  aka Housefull 3.  Since schools are reopening after the long vacation,  advertisements are aimed at students.  A double page newspaper ad of D Mart, showing boys and girls in school uniforms, jumping with joy for new stationery and snacks and snack boxes and bottles and bags.   But all the boys have quite long hair, and the girls have shoulder length hair, tied untidily in pony tails.  Another ad of 'mindseed' shows a girl in school uniform with untied, shoulder length hair. 

School rules demand that boys should have a very short haircut and girls' hair should be very short or tied up or plaited, because that helps to maintain a well groomed self.  Besides it also keeps hair,  lice free.  Why do advertisers feel that boys with longish hair look good?  They do not.  It looks unkempt and untidy.

Very often, it is the parents that are to blame for this state of affairs.  A father who is balding,  cannot allow his son to get short haircuts.  A stylish mom wants her school going daughter to look cute with a fringe and curls.  As a teacher, I have to pull up the kids who have untidy hair, and end up as the villain, with the students and parents.

 

28 - KUDOS TO AIB'S GOVERNMENT OFFICES/THE BOSSTURDS.

Today I had a routine bad experience at a government office, and I searched the AIB videos to find one on government offices, and it was so true.

Any official papers that need to be sanctioned or formatted through a government office, take repeated visits and the papers are usually fraught with misdemeanours, which in turn need corrections, although the fault may have been committed by the government agents who processed the papers.  Where can one complain?  If you are foolish enough to do so, then you have jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

Opposite Central Plaza, at Opera House,  voter IDs are prepared, and verified and then handed over , a process across 6 months or more.  As expected,  there was some bungling and repeated visits were warranted.  The officials think that they are doing a great favour to the public and that everyone should pay obeisance to them.  The impression given, is that, no matter what your condition or job requirements, you are expected to wait and wait and wait, in silence, and suffer your turn.  These officials are rude and mostly intolerant, and condescending.

It seems there is no fixed timing for the office staff to report,  So, having waited for almost 2 hours, I needed to use the loo.   I requested to use the ladies' washroom and they could not find the key for the first floor WC.  The ground floor ladies' WC was in disrepair and so locked.  I was instructed to climb to the third floor, and try my luck, whether that one would be unlocked.  This episode was embarrassing because I had to request multiple persons for the toilet keys,  from one room, to the other, with lots of people waitng in lines, all witness to my suffering.  I spent about 20 minutes of this and then I used the gents' loo.  It was a gateway to hell.  Stinking, full of red spit splashes in the basins and the open gents' loos. The closet had broken window slats and nothing to hang my bag.  I was so demoralised.  Before leaving the office, I spoke my mind to the 'adhikari of all adhikaris' that I would buy a lock and lock up the gents' loo too.

As I walked towards the bus stop at Opera House, I read the ad of a bakery, at Blue Diamond, which sold cakes, one being a PLUMP CAKE.  So I could smile for a while.  And then near Cafe Darayush,  I witnessed the most incredible sight,  of intermingled wires between buildings, and entirely covered with years and years of cobwebs.....ouch.

The next sight to catch my eye, was all shapes and sizes of males, spitting  randomly, while they walked along the road.  It was more irritating than otherwise, because the road is narrow, and to avoid the traffic, you have to walk in close proximity to these spitters and be in extra danger of getting yourself in their range.  On the left side of the road, there is a narrow footpath, but  shopkeepers have displayed signboards and encroached onto the walking space.  So if you decide to use the footpath, you are expected to dodge the drips from overhead A Cs, avoid dashing into oncoming males, who walk without a thought for others in the range of their swinging arms and bruising satchels, or their protruding elbows, as they hold their mobiles to their ears and chatter away as they walk.

Then I reached the turn, under the railway overbridge.  The footpath which begins on the right, is a mess of broken tiles and accumulated gutter water.  The rest of the path is blocked by a family of squatters, whose naked kids are enjoying the squalor by making a mud tower.  And add to this the incessant honking.  It should be a silence zone for Saifee Hospital, in the vicinity, but who cares. 

And so, I was grateful when I came across the AIB spoof on government offices, at least.  All government staff should have workshops and be made to watch the "AIB government office/ the bossturds".  Maybe then things will improve.