Exchange - Part I

Today I went to Crosswords and happened to notice the ‘Lonely Planet – Europe on a shoestring’ and well, it’s high time…

So here I begin my saga - a tale of well over 40 cities…

It all started with a certain ritual – which involved one’s first semester grades, a SOP and that curious thing we call - a black box. What came out of the black box was one document which had an ‘Exchange Rank’ - this would determine which university one would go to and more importantly – with whom…

Now, nothing in my life ever happens without some honest-to-goodness roadblocks – so the university we chose, or rather the one that chose us – decided to cancel the program and we were left rudderless. Fortunately, we acquired the number of one certain Mallu gentleman (more on him later) – the head of the MBA Exchange program in one of our partner institutes, who happened to be visiting India at that time. The rest, as they say, was history.

So, we were going to this school called - ESC Bretagne Brest!!

Wait a minute, BREST? Is that how you pronounced it? Where was this godforsaken place? Western tip of France? Near Normandy? D-Day bombings? Whatever – everyone shut their traps – we were finally getting exchanged…

A motley bunch of people we were – five of us – from different walks of life – getting together for three months – four guys and me – one of them being an erstwhile friend; things had been rocky with him off-late – with such an amazing line-up, interesting things were bound to happen…

Well, I will try to have as less of that as possible, more of my personal life in my autobiography, releasing, let’s see…at least forty years from now.

Circus of life - cliched but true

Three months after coming back from Exchange – I should write something about it. It’s not like I have nothing to write – it’s that I have so much to write – a writer’s stampede. And don’t go about visualizing a mass of sleepy looking blokes in khadi kurtas doing the 100 meters sprint over some poor hapless publisher; instead, visualize a jumble of angry looking alphabets (or any other random abstract thing you associate with an ‘idea’) inside a poor hapless guy’s head.

Too abstract – well, that’s my imagination and I increasingly believe that I am less left-brained than the average left-brained genius – the number-crunching, statistic-toting, excel-worshipping genius that I have around me at IIM B. N this is not sour-speak for – I didn’t do well at Quant – I really mean it. I can never remember numbers and I am so much better with words. I am great with abstract thoughts and arbitness and also artistic enough to get resemblances between people real quick – and that last one proves it my friend – it’s an open and shut case! N yet, I am better, much better with numbers than the average man on the street – I did crack the CAT – which is a whole lot of Quant. So, while I cannot say I am right-brained out and out, I am less left-brained than most people I have had the fortune of interacting with over the past two years.

Hmm…so getting on with it - I will write about exchange soon. For right now, let me talk about some current issues that are simply hilarious – to say the least. It gives me great pleasure to follow up on these news-items and laugh my head-off at times, simply titter in amusement at times, and plain stare goggle-eyed into empty space at times.

First of all, what’s with governors in the US? Why are they perpetually owning up to their garish sexcapades – humiliating themselves and their spouses (who, btw, are always around to support the dumb bastards)? Take the case of Gov’nor Spitzer of New York (how come I always think of Rudy Giuliani whenever a mention is made of the governance of New York? When did Spitzer come in?) And the unceremonious way in which he has been forced to resign – apparently he belonged to some ‘Emperor’s Club VIP’ and was visiting call-girls and was stupid enough to get caught. And immediately after, the new governor comes in and starts by ‘disclosing’ to all his one-time affair, along with details like the location of his love-nest and of course, the essential ‘support from the spouse’ – a desperate bid to ensure that all the skeletons in his closet tumble out into public view. And there is a third case of some gay governor in some other state (it’s really difficult to keep track of all this adultery) trying to get out of allegations of being involved in some sort of a three-some. Rather, his wife (a party to the ménage-trios) is trying to get out of it. Phew! Though, I’ll say this – it’s heartening that there is reason for political heads there to quake in their boots at the mention of a scandal seeing light of day, as opposed to here – where nothing really matters.

Then there is the French winemaker in Bordeaux who has got his nose insured by Lloyds for $8 Billion!! He says he can identify a million scents and his nose is his bread and butter along with being his caviar and champagne! That led me to think – if given a chance, what would I insure? Ahem…

And have you heard about the one where the I&B ministry in India has decided to ban all those surrogate advertisements where a pack of cards, a bottle of soda, a hulk in a vest saving a damsel in distress etc, is supposed to remind you of booze and cigarettes? But what about products that actually do exist? Like Bagpiper Soda and Wills Lifestyle Apparel and Kingfisher Airlines??? Where to draw the line? Which is genuine, which is surrogate? Well, can not the I&B ministry have a list of products that actually do exist and ban ads for the remaining? What’s the big deal? I suppose the I&B ministry has other more important things to do – like sit-around-on-ass-and-waste-exchequer’s-money.

It’s a mad mad world.

To end it - like I have often thought and it’s high time I unleashed it upon unsuspecting junta – the world is a circus and we are all just clowns – somebody in Stratford-upon-Avon just did the cartwheels in his grave.

Fire

Today, I saw the movie – Fire. It was weird watching Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das making out. I can only imagine how odd they must have themselves felt while filming it. Or perhaps not. For them, it’s a job like any other. But I could not get into the skin of the characters – I kept thinking how odd it was. And it’s not like I am anti-lesbianism or something. I completely understand how lesbianism can be a turn-on and all that. This movie was, however, about rights and notions.

Too many people in our country think that desire is wrong. I don’t understand why people want to torture themselves in order to prove a point – vows of celibacy in order to show how pious they are, fasting two days a week for eternity to again show their devotion to God, walking barefoot to Siddhivinayak to pledge utter subservience - we are a nation of people who like self-abnegation.

The movie has this family in Delhi – who make their ends meet by operating a take-away and a video-parlor. The elder middle-aged son is desirous of ending all desire in himself, under the patronage of a swamiji he has been visiting since many years – the swami thinks that the sole purpose of sex is to sire sons who can take forward the family name. Since his wife is unable to have children, sex has no meaning for him and he has taken a vow of celibacy. To test himself, he uses his wife – he asks her to lie next to him so that he can prove his supreme control of himself - to himself. This has been going on since the past thirteen years. The younger brother gets married under pressure from the family, but is besotted by a Chinese girl and is unapologetic about the fact that he will continue to have that woman in his life – married or not and his wife will have to accept it. These two wives find compassion and love with each other. So, this movie is not so much about lesbianism as it is about choices. One does not have to sit and take atrocities – in the name of religion, in the name of illegitimate love, in the name of righteousness; one has the right to take steps to improve one’s life.

In the end, the two women leave to chart out their own paths.

On a lighter note – women are born a little bit lesbian. A man is either gay or not. Not the case for a woman. Varying amounts of alcohol or much-needed kindness/warmth may kindle it off. Yes, women are warm and sympathetic to other women – and that helps. But then, sex is not just physical for a woman, more than it is not just physical for a man - More on that later.