A voice in the darkness

I dislike shopping. The charms of window displays are lost on me and discounts fail to get my blood pumping. The prospect of haggling, however, unnerves me. “How much did you pay for it?” and “Did you strike a bargain?” are questions I have dreaded since the time I was first tasked with grocery shopping back home in Goa. My answer sparks amusement, disappointment, and occasionally rage, depending upon the age of my interrogator. Sometimes I even get a ‘haggling for dummies’ tutorial. A tour of the Ajanta and Ellora caves, world heritage sites in India, last month convinced me that haggling is an essential life skill one needs to master, especially when visiting India as a tourist. It serves as a potent weapon against the swarm of touts who descend on you, determined to play havoc with your holiday budget. These touts were upon my wife and me the moment we stepped out of our car. One pressed a small quartz stone in my hand, saying it was a “gift”, and asking me to visit “shop numb...

In an article titled ‘We shouldn’t be blaming the Indian tourist alone for Goa’s troubles’ published in the  Wire  — an Indian news portal — on August 6, writer Samir Nazareth accuses Goans of “playing the victim card”, arguing that the tourism quagmire that Goans find themselves in is of their own making. He advises Goans to stop blaming the domestic tourist for their problems. I grew up in my mother’s ancestral house in Curtorim — a verdant village in south Goa — and am quite sure that the average Goan, especially us villagers, has no axe to grind or fish to fry as far as tourism is concerned. We are only concerned with preserving our  goenkarponn  (the Goan way of life), which is steeped in tradition but open to new ideas. Let me make it clear that the only kind of tourist that is unwelcome is one who believes that Goa is a place to indulge in debauchery fuelled by cheap alcohol. How is a Goan supposed to react to groups of tourists who drive in from neighbo...

It’s the Al Pacino syndrome. The other day I had a bad day at work and wanted to run around screaming expletives, with a gun for good measure. Just like Tony Montana in Scarface (1983). Being interrogated in a meeting, I long for the cockiness of Montana “the political prisoner from Cuba” demanding his “human right, now” in the opening scene of Scarface. Yes, I admit that I have watched Scarface far too many times for my own good. I’m a child of the early 80’s and Pacino was a star long before I arrived on the scene. I can’t claim to have watched all his films or know everything there is to know about the man, but whatever I have seen has me star-struck. For want of space, let me restrict my thoughts to just two of his films that influenced me -- Scarface and Scent of a Woman (1992) -- although his portrayal of the brooding Michael Corleone in Godfather (1972), his third film, was the one that got him noticed. It also earned him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporti...

Seven years of living an uneventful life in the UAE and two fines in the space of three months -- for eating on the Metro and jaywalking. Of course, it was embarrassing and money wasted, but as the MasterCard commercial goes, the knowledge gained was ‘priceless’. Incidentally, the fines included a ‘knowledge fee’ component. How did becoming poorer by Dh300 contribute to my enlightenment? Well, for one it has dawned on me that I roll my tongue in my mouth when I am deep in thought. If procrastination is not a good idea in this era of instant gratification, giving the impression of chewing something in the Gold Class of the Dubai Metro is unforgivable. It’s ‘show ID, get out and pay up’. And don’t dare try playing the pseudo-intellectual who needs to think on the move, rolling tongue and all that jazz. Nevertheless, given the fact that my wife believes that I dress like a tramp (no offence to tramps) and my discomfort with all things that glitter, I proceeded to ask the ticket c...

What I’m going to say could get me lynched by a mob of Indian housewives (or stay-at-home moms, to be politically correct), but I’ll say it anyway. These family dramas on Indian television get on my nerves. And I only encounter them when surfing channels. Just can’t stand these never-ending over-the-top saas-bahu (mother-in-law, daughter-in-law) sagas, but I imagine I’ll be whacked on the head with a saucepan if I say this to any woman who plans her household chores around when they are aired. Excuse my ignorance, but I had to google the names of the soaps ruling the roost at present since I have not progressed beyond Kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi. The protagonist Smriti Irani has, however, made admirable progress. As a vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, she now takes on Times Now’s Arnab Goswami on the Newshour every now and then. Given that Goswami has the propensity to act like a tyrannical mother-in-law on occasion, Irani has the experience to handle the situation...

I recently had the misfortune of watching Grand Masti, a Hindi movie touted as India’s first adult comedy. Having suffered through the film, I was not amused to learn that it has entered the hallowed Rs100-crore club (a crore works out to 10 million) in terms of its performance at the box office. Clearly, this movie was made for the single-screen theatre era, where the frontbenchers (the cheapest seats) trooped in to get some cheap thrills. That a film like this should do so well in the multiplex era where the audience -- I would like to believe -- is educated and discerning, came as a shock to me. But then there are still plenty of single-screen theatres in India and perhaps it made its money there. Let’s be clear, Grand Masti is not funny unless fantasizing about skimpily-clad women every waking moment is your idea of comedy. To me, this film was made for lechers, who enjoyed it so much that they catapulted it to box office stardom. Yes, I realize a little bit of my money cont...