The Fifteen Commandments

There is something about Indians. One can smell out an Indian by a mile. Nothing derogatory in it though. Hello, even I’m an Indian (never mind the title of my last post)! But there are a few ways in which one can recognize an Indian. Seen the other way round, there are a few commandments every Indian must follow, for easy recognition:

# The First Commandment: Thy house shall always smell of Masala Curry. The smell of thy Masala Curry shall cling to the curtains, sofas and every piece of furniture and furnishing available in thy house. And it does not matter which room freshener thou shall use, thy room freshener shall always carry an underlying smell of the Great Indian Masala Curry.

# The Second Commandment: Thou shall not shy away from peeing away to glory in public. From railway stations to street corners, bus-stops to road-side trees, thy sole motive in life shall be to irrigate the land thou shall walk on.

# The Third Commandment: (For men-folk only) When using public toilets (which in compliance with the previous commandment shall be a rare occasion), thou shall never get thy aim right. Reminiscences of thy last business shall always remain.

# The Fourth Commandment: Thou shall believe in sharing, even if it means sharing thy diseases and infections, because of which thou shall never ever cover your mouth while sneezing and/ or coughing in public.

# The Fifth Commandment: Thou shall always hang your laundry to dry on your window. It does not matter which article of clothing needs drying, from holey undergarments and petticoats to shirts and dog-clothes, everything shall be hung on your window for the world to catch a glimpse of.

# The Sixth Commandment: Thou shall always be more interested in knowing the nitty-gritty’s of thy neighbour’s house than thy own. Thou shall always be ready to dig dirt on thy neighbour. Common issues that thou shall always be interested in shall include: thy neighbour’s sex life, thy neighbour’s food habits, the number of holes in thy neighbour’s undergarments and the treatment meted out to the omnipresent ‘bai’ by thy neighbour.

# The Seventh Commandment: (For women-folk only) No matter how wide thy friend circle be, thy best friend shall always be thy ‘bai’. Without the presence of the latter, the chances of the former commandment getting actualized seem dim.

# The Eighth Commandment: Thou shall always consider half the animals as magic and/ or sacred, but yet, thou shall never shy away from eating the magical and/ or sacred animal at the first opportunity thou shall get.

# The Ninth Commandment: When talking on thy mobile phone, thou shall be loud enough to stir the souls of the bodies resting in their graves in the nearest grave yard. When in office, thy voice shall be loud enough to scare the daylights out of thy colleagues.

# The Tenth Commandment: Thou shall take pride in breaking all existing traffic rules. Thou shall take great pride in creating your own traffic rules. Thou shall take greater pride in giving the traffic cop a royal ignore. And, thou shall take the greatest pride in running over the poor traffic cop!

# The Eleventh Commandment: It does not matter what time of the day it be; thou shall always be ready for food. Gol gappas/ Puchkaas/ Paani batashas, Chaat, Samosas, Kachori etc, do not require any specific time to be consumed. Thou shall fill yourself with them any time you like, and still be ready for more. Bring it on!

# The Twelfth Commandment: Thou shall be obsessed with films and cricket. Thou shall treat Sachin and Rajnikant as Gods. And thou shall not shy away from performing a cremation ceremony of thy cricket team if it fails to perform in an International match. Yet, thou shall not know any rule of the mentioned game beyond a four, a six and an out.

# The Thirteenth Commandment: The first name thy kid(s) learn shall be of Shah Rukh Khan and Sachin Tendulkar. Father’s name and mother’s name can be learnt later.

# The Fourteenth Commandment: Thou shall celebrate any event or any occasion where India gets even remotely mentioned. It does not matter how good or how bad the mention be; the country still got mentioned. Hence, thou shall rejoice if thou catches a fleeting glimpse of Aamir Khan’s sherwani at the Academy Awards; thou shall feel proud if Angelina Jolie wishes to adopt an Indian child (because guess what, India can’t feed her poor); thou shall give a standing ovation to Slumdog Millionaire (even if it depicts India in a poor light); thou shall hold your head high if an Indian gets to play the role of a lift-boy in a Hollywood film; thou shall be elated if India ranks number 1 in the list of the most populous nations (So what? Oye, number 1 rank, oye, balle balle!) and thou shall treat Shilpa Shetty as a goddess because she lived in a comfortable five-star kind of house in London and faced some racial discrimination (but thou shall never bother to look back home and react against the regional discrimination).

# The Fifteenth Commandment: Thou shall forever be a gnawing cow. Thou shall always have either of the following in thy mouth: paan, paan masala, tobacco, betel nut, chewing gum (the last one shall be found only in the mouths of really classy audience, like the readers of this blog!).

And after following all these commandments, if someone sneers at thee, thou shall always be ready to take offence and burn effigies of the person who dared to sneer at thee.

My Name is Anshul Raj. And I’m Not an Indian.

My name is Anshul Raj. And I’m not an Indian. Though the people who framed the Constitution of my country, insist that I am one, but the people who are supposed to be upholding the dignity of the same and be exemplary practitioners of it today, are hell bent on proving otherwise.
I’m a North Indian, they say, as if I’m from a particular neighbouring country which everyone loves to hate, very comfortably forgetting the word that succeeds ‘North’. Is it my fault that I belong to a state that believes that being the most populous state in India is an achievement to boast of? (Seriously, it remained the most populous state even after a new state was carved out of it in 2000; and trust me, divide it further into two more states and the chances are both of them would be competing for the top spot in this particular category.) Or is it my fault that all that the political leaders of my state care about is self-glorification (ah, at least there’s one similarity between the Senas’ state and my native one) and are busy erecting their own statues, even though they are hale and hearty (statues would normally be erected once you’ve left for your, hopefully, heavenly abode) and have all intentions of being alive and kicking for the next God-knows how many years? (Visit the state capital. It is indeed a ‘Maya’nagri.) Or is it my fault that the Constitution bestows upon me the right to move about freely and settle in any part of the country that I like? (The Senas would know that if they cared to read it.) Do the Senas have an answer to these? I guess not. On being questioned on the issue, I have seen their leaders fumble and grapple for words on T.V. on more occasions than one.
Apart from the previously mentioned so-called Constitutional right, I guess, I also misinterpreted the Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression, which political parties across states feel is like a bone that can be thrown and withdrawn at their own will. I guess, you already know, which recent issue I’m referring to. All right, so ‘he’ feels that it’s okay if Pakistani players come and play in the IPL. My response: Big Deal! Their response: Blasphemy! Profanity! Irreverence at its peak! Sena Supremo’s feelings hurt! (Yawn!) Burn effigies! Tear posters! Attack cinema halls! Behave as if suffering from some unknown mental ailment! (Kangana Ranaut excels in that, on-screen, of course! Kangana Ranautism of politics, eh?) Send threat letters asking for ‘co-operation’ (Whatever that means!) Take vandalism to an all together new height! (I really suspect if the people attacking theatres knew why they were doing so. Or were they just hired to do so? Or, may be all of them missed a motion and were taking out the frustration of their constipation on the cinema halls.) Public response: Screw the Sena! Screw! Screw! Screw! (Applause! Applause!) My advice to the Supremo: Don’t take people for granted. I know you’re incorrigible. You’ll repeat the act again. But, MNIK was just the tip of the iceberg. Next time, could be an even more shameful defeat. After which there might not be another ‘next time’.
While one Sena excels in vandalising and the other one believes in playing soccer on the streets of Mumbai, only that the ‘Bhaiyyas’ are used instead of footballs; a third one, thriving in the state of Karnataka takes pride in molesting women for going to pubs and being ‘immoral’. Result: This particular Sena chief, Mutalik, recently had his face blackened by a daring young man. (To the daring young man: whoever you are, please take a bow!) The video footage was hilarious and Mutalik’s statement that followed was even more so. ‘It’s a slap on the face of democracy’, he said. (Someone needs to clear this poor fellow’s head! Wasn’t it a slap on his face and a big win for democracy?) My advice to Mutalik: A garland of shoes and a donkey ride awaits you next! I dare you to repeat your previous act!
We take great pride in saying that we’re a democracy. The World’s largest one for that matter. But are we? Or is democracy a myth that exists just on paper? Anyone who’d visited a multiplex in Mumbai over the last weekend to watch a particular movie (which by the way, is fabulous) and be branded as ‘unpatriotic’ by you-know-who, would agree that multiplexes looked nothing less than heavily guarded fortresses. What kind of democracy is this where it takes a Police Force of 45,000 to release a film? And trust me, if it can happen to the people I already mentioned, it could happen to any one of us as well, making us feel that, perhaps, we’re not Indian enough by being denied what is rightfully ours. At least, making me feel that, perhaps, I’m not Indian enough. May be then, I’m right when I say, ‘My Name is Anshul Raj. And I’m not an Indian.’ Though, I’d be proud to be one.

Welcome to My Abode!

Finally, now even I have a blog! Okay, you can keep the ‘Big Deal!’ to yourself. I know I’m a late entrant, but nevertheless, better late than never.
I shifted to Mumbai from Lucknow eight months ago and became one among the many on the hit-list of the ‘Senas’ (Not that I care about what they say, though, they do manage to evoke the feeling of hatred towards them in me). The point is, I left my home to adopt a completely new city as my new home, thus, starting a new chapter in my life, and it has been a decent one till now. My faithful companions in this journey, so far, have been my thoughts…thoughts about the city, its people, my (new) friends, local trains, the rains, Marine Drive, Xavier’s and all those things which are, by default, a part and parcel of my new life in Mumbai…oh yes, even the ‘Senas’! It is these thoughts which accompany me whenever I unlock the door and enter my minimally furnished apartment in Vashi. And it is these thoughts which will now adorn ‘My Abode’!