Condom...Condom...Condom...Condom

In a novel effort to make condoms and condom use more socially acceptable in India, the BBC World Service Trust has created the Condom ring tone. The effort has also been funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Downloading and using this ring tone would kill the inhibitions and taboos that can be associated with condoms. In the process if your parents disown you, or you get sacked or your girlfriend / boyfriend understands your real intentions...its your problem my friend.

Download the condom ring tone here.

Now, the only Social Service I do is social commentary through my Blog. I thought that I need to contribute more than that and started looking for subjects where I can make a difference and came up with this one.

To tell the truth, as sex is on my mind most of the times and everyone is promoting Safe Sex (Not Sex per se) through Condom ads (and other suggestive ads most of which should be Axed), I thought why not support this cause. I mean, truthfully, Life begins with Sex and could end with unprotected sex.

Here are the Top 30 Brands and their Punch lines which I think will go a LONG (pun intended) way in promoting safe sex:

1. BIG B Condoms…For the “Asli Mard”
2. BIG B Condoms…Ye Diwaar Tutati Kyun Nahin!
3. Dev A Condoms… “De Ab Anand”
4. Dev A Condoms…Shake It Up!
5. Dev A Condoms…Chalta hi Jai!
6. Mithun Condoms…“Kasam Paida Karne Wale ki”
7. SRK K…K…K…Kondom. Yes...Yes...Yes...Boss!
8. SRK Condoms…For the Night Riders!
9. Kaka Condoms...for those who hate tears re!
10. Govinda Condoms…Really colorful!
11. Akshay Condoms…Unbutton without consequences!
12. Dilip Condoms…Na Munna…Na!
13. Jeetu Condoms…For the Himmatwala!
14. Sanjeev Condoms…No Hands. No Problem!
15. Shashi Condoms… Ma…Who?
16. Sanjay Condoms…Sheath Your Weapon!
17. Sunil Condoms…Let India be the only Mother!
18. Dharam Condoms…For the Hot Ones!
19. Manoj Condoms…Ye Desh hai Veer Jawano Ka!
20. Rishi Condoms…Ek hasina thi…Ek Diwana Tha!
21. Safe Condoms…Khulke Kare Na!
22. Aamir Condoms…No more Taare Zamin Par!
23. Guru Condoms…For the Pyaasa in you!
24. Shilpa Condoms…Be Warned!
25. Priyanka Condoms… Don Ko Pakadna Ab Mumkin Hai! Catch him on his way out!
26. Ranvir Condoms…Bachna Ae Haseeno!
27. Rajni Sir Condoms…Make the impossible happen!
28. Farhan Condoms…Rock on!
29. Deepika Condoms…No more shaanti…make some noise!

And…the big one…pun unintentional

30. Lilliput Condoms…Love has no limits!

A Big Fat Indian Wedding – How Big B got a BB!

Not since the coronation of Akbar as the Badshah of Hindustan or the Launch of Model T was an event as eagerly awaited as my Big B’s (Prateek to many, Pedro to few and Big B to us) wedding to his long standing (till they agreed to sit down!) girlfriend (Sangs, Sangeeta, Husmukh Singh).

From the bourgeois by lanes of Byculla (Huh!) to the Raucous Residents of Ranchi, from Birbhum to Birmingham, from New South Office Para to New South Wales, people waited, and hoped. In short, just about everyone who was anyone held their collective breath from the time they got to know about it – through Mails, SMS’s, Turmeric smeared card – till the time they both said I do (not really, it was a Hindu ceremony). The Great Indian General Elections, the Tata Nano and this, are arguably the top three events of 2009. Three cheers!

The Cultural complexity of India was unabashedly evident. A Gujju Dulhan without a tinge of Gujju accent, a sophisticated Bihari Dulha - where do you get one of those, someone asked – and a set of family and friends from both sides who reveled in their collective ignorance of each others traditions and nuances of rituals. A culture where every man is a Bhai and every woman, a Ben almost laughed its heart out on realizing that a measly set of three brothers can all have names starting with the letter “P”.

All the Masala of a typical big fat Indian wedding was there – Women smartly dressed in their best of silks and jewelry – unmindful of the sweltering Mumbai afternoon, the only saving grace the large cutouts from the back of the blouse, men as usual mostly turning up in their safe suits.

A set of foreigners were busy clicking pictures of their potentially first exposure to an Indian Wedding – don’t be surprised if some of those photos find their ways into the National Geographic! - People dancing away in the middle of summer, most of the dance in Indian weddings involves just arms and arm pits with hardly any legs been shaken, and definitely none of the steps being in tune with the really loud music, I was actually surprised that the band forgot to play all time favorite songs like “Raja ki aayegi baraat, rangili hogi raat”, “Dulhe raja aayenge, saheli ko le jaayenge”. Thankfully they managed to play the very telling "Ye Desh hai veer jawanon ka, albelon ka mastanon ka." Unfortunately, there was not a single baraati who did the omnipresent Snake Dance. In fact I was so disappointed that but for my recently acquired pot belly which makes me look like a very pregnant snake, I would have done it myself just to keep the tradition alive!

I had read somewhere that technology bridges gaps – I saw this bit in action – my dearest brother and my equally dear Bhabhi chatting away on their cell phones from across the room! It was so obviously not about the IPL scores!

My daughter was busy collecting kisses from Pretty Young Things from across the LoC – I wish it was me – while my parents were busy feeling important about the whole thing!

My little brother, Small B was too busy getting flack for everyone else’s mistakes – there is a price to be paid for being the youngest bro – that I guess he would have maybe enjoyed about the first fifteen minutes of the entire song and dance routine!

The youngest Bahu of the family, Deepa basically danced her worries away – no one can really dance when they know a third dictator is about to be coroneted.

Rashmi, my wife, who lost her unethically, unabashedly and uselessly acquired position of the eldest Bahu by virtue of my getting married first, looked relieved.

All our family who had taken the trouble to come all the way to Mumbai, were slightly overwhelmed at the whole thing, especially on seeing a Bride kissing men friends. Our Bua, who was always considered ages ahead of the times, was slightly worried that she might also get a kiss! Thankfully tradition survived the onslaught of modern ways and they all – God bless their simplicity – got their toes touched!

A bit of drama, typical of Bihari Baraat, was created due to a communication failure during the reception. My father, not without reason, got an opportunity to play the all important, hot-tempered father of the groom, not easily pacified, and everyone had an opinion about what went wrong. Actually nothing did, or maybe just a little bit did go wrong, it was mainly a scene seen in almost all Indian weddings, I wish I was carrying some pacifiers in my pocket; things would have been prevented from getting unnecessarily escalated.

A bigger drama unfolded two days later when we tried to return to Ranchi and realized that most of the train tickets were still waitlisted – an early morning rush to the airport ensued and Big B lost a fortune on 15 Flight tickets! Last we spoke on the subject the following plans were in place to recoup the loss:

Plan A: Bed Tea without milk – recover in about a couple of hundred years – plan unrealistic, drop.

Plan B: No Home theatre system for the Guest Bedroom – recover in a day – plan unrealistic as there was no plan for a guest room home theatre – drop.

Plan C: Lick your wounds and get on with life – knowing Big B and Husmukh Singh I guess that’s what they would do.

P.S.: For the sake of national unity and integrity, I have decided that all my knowledge of other parallel events like bitching sessions, bickering, unfair comparisons between the three Bahu’s will not be published in this Blog. Thankfully I do not fall under the Right to Information Act!

P.P.S: Please wait for Volume II – Ranchi Reception – coming soon….

ABCD: A Life in the Day of a Human Person

A day begins like any other,
Begins on a promise and a song
Could not have been any better
Does not need to go wrong.

Effortlessly it starts to roll across
Fun way to get the job done
Greatness begets greatness, it does
Hope you notice before the day is gone.

In a flash it passes by
Just when you start to enjoy it
Kind Sun moves through the sky
Laughing like an activist.

Moonlight rests on its haunches
Night spreads its slow cheer,
One, two, three, come out in bunches
Pub-ward bound for a Pint of Beer.

Quiet descends as spirits soar
Restless hearts, trancelike state
Some are happy, some are sore
Twice the singles, half with date.

Unless you live the day
Very little chance you stand
Whether a prince or on daily pay
Xenomorphic day, try and understand.

Your day is not over, no Sir
Zariba day, Zariba enclosure.

O Sexy Sexy Mama - A Futile Debate

O Sexy Sexy Mama - A Futile Debate

This is not really a Traffic Signal Tale except that it happened while I was waiting for the signal to turn green at the traffic signal and heard the following song on radio O Sexy mama let us do the Sa Re Ga Ma, O! Sexy, Sexy Mama It’s quite a fun song actually and you do feel like Head-banging to the tune.Now, my daughter (who is two years old) is really good with songs. She can already sing but Pappu can’t dance Saba – thank God for small mercies – and was picking up this one quite nicely before the Censor board intervened and said that while the song can continue as it is in theatres and Radio, the word Sexy has to be replaced by the word Crazy for TV. There goes my chance to, through the nice offices of my daughter, proclaim that my wife is Sexy, now, if I am to believe my daughter, My wife is quite crazy. ओ मेरी पागल माँ, according to the censors is a better way to address your mom rather than ओ मेरी सेक्सी माँ!
Incidentally this is a Baba Sehgal Song, the same Baba Sehgal who sang रुकमनी, रुकमनी, शादी के बाद क्या क्या हुआ to the tunes of A. R. Rehman and got away with singing words like खटिया भी धीरे धीरे खट खट करने लगी, आगे पीछे हुआ तो छट पट होने लगी …In the early 90s, I had to run the distant between the commode and the living room in less than 3 seconds at the same time buttoning my shorts when this song, on a cassette borrowed from a friend first played on the record player at my home, my father had a nice laugh at my discomfort, of course. Both of us realized soon enough that I knew exactly why Khatiyas do खट खट!
Twenty years hence another generation of Indian’s is now growing up being fed cheap horror shows, cheap advertisements, loads of violence, cheap cartoons, grow up thinking it ultra cool to drink Cola from morning to evening, watch unaesthetic condom ads, think its all right for Mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws to plot revenge through most of their living lives, for fathers and mothers to have multiple partners, and still believe that it’s wrong to have a mom who can be considered sexy! I think that’s unfair. Cultures were not meant to be static. They are by nature of definition supposed to be transient. So while I believe my mother will take offense if I called her anything but “माँ”, I am sure my daughter, if the censors allow her, can get away by calling her mom “ओ मेरी सेक्सी माँ.” I am equally sure, that she will get a proper spanking if she calls her “ओ मेरी पागल माँ.”I remember my Childhood days, Raj Kapoor and Nargis were not my favorite actors, hence I never realized that प्यार हुआ इकरार हुआ फिर भी प्यार से क्यूँ डरता है दिल could possibly have any other next line but डीलक्स निरोध सबसे ज्यादा बिकने वाला कंडोम! And believe me; I have my own pervert habits, but it in no way made a worse man out of me than I would have otherwise been, if I did not know the word condom as a child!As far as film songs go, I have my own reservations about what some of them dish out in the name of lyrics – and I do not see a chronological sequence of degeneration, they were good or bad across the entire length of Indian Cinema – nevertheless, I think most kids know चोली के पीछे क्या है, they after all spent most of their first six months trying to figure that one out!I am trying to figure out whether it’s a sexy debate or a crazy debate! A futile debate, anyone?

O! Futile Futile Mama.

10 Reasons why Matrimonial Sites Don't Work

I was browsing through a matrimonial site and came across these hilarious profiles. No. Don't get me wrong, I have no intention of marrying any of these men! Its just that I was actually scouting for masala for my Blog.

1. 35 Year old Divorcee father of two is looking for a 26 year old virgin girl.

Experience should carry youth along if this country is to develop!

2. A Charcoal Black guy (Michael Jackson wasn't fair to begin with people!) is looking for very fair, milky white girl.

You want dalmatians as offsprings.

3. A well settled software engineer is looking for a beautiful, homely, working (well settled, software? does not seem to matter) girl.

An unsettled cook-cum-maid will bring more spice to life.

4. A short and plump highly successful professional is looking for a slim and health conscious girl.

You the Brand Manager for Kelloggs K Challenge?

5. A Milky White, spiritual, ambivert (Where's the fucking dictionary guys?) from a close knit family is looking for a tall, working, fashion consciuos very fair girl.

You looking for a MTV VJ? Sheetal Malhar matches your partner profile to 6Sigma levels but does not qualify.

6. A very handsome (His parents did a Gallup Poll it seems) family oriented guy is looking for a sasural oriented girl.

Too many families spoil the equation.

7. A Guy who has visisted Europe and USA several times and whose parents are well settled in Mumbai and whose ancestral roots are in Mugalsarai is looking for a homely girl.

The girl should not have ventured beyond champaran.

8. A 38 year old straight forward guy is looking for a girl with substance and youthfulness.

Looking for an underage drug addict dude?

9. Someone is looking for a tall, fair, jovial, homely, accomodative, traditional and custom oriented working girl who can also cook, iron, and darn.

You obviously wants to have multiple partners. Naughty you!

10. A personal with wit, charm, energy, 6 figure salary and six pack abs, is looking for just about any girl from any background.

He is obviuosly gay and is doing this just to get his parents to shut up.

IN"SENE"TY INSTEAD OF INSANIYAT

Shobhaa De: Sita Sena. Join now. Speak up!!

All I can say is that there is a lot of inSENEty all around. Let us not create more. If I must support a cause, it will be one which supports the Girl Childs right to Life and to Education and to a Wholesome Meal. Killing her at Birth or Denying her education or making her eat after "Bhaiyya ne kha liya" is infinitely more dangerous today than protecting someone's right to eat-drink-and-be-merry or dress-as-they-please.

While I believe that all rights are absolute and there is no relativeness about them and hence you should not prioritise your defense of one against another, because Society's resources are finite, I would like to use them where they matter most.

Slumdog Millionaire - Basking in Reflected Glories!

Anyone who has an issue with my previous post – and I respect that - is requested to listen to the following song or any other from RDB.

aye saala abhi abhi huaa yaqeen ki aag hai mujh mein kahi

hui subaah main chal gaya

suraj ko main nigal gaya

ruu-ba-ruu roshni heyy - 2

jo gumshuda-sa khwaab tha voh mil gaya voh khil gaya

woh loha tha pighal gaya

kichhaa kichhaa machal gaya

sitaar mein badal gaya

ruu-ba-ruu roshni heyy - 2

(dhuaan chhataa khula gagan mera nayi dagar naya safar mera jo ban sake tu hamsafar mera nazar mila zara) - 2

aandhiyon se jaghad rahi hai lau meri ab mashaalon si bhad rahi hai lau meri

naamo nishaan rahe na raheye kaaravaan rahe na rahe

ujaale mein pee gaya roshan huaa jee gaya

kyon sehte rahe ruu-ba-ruu roshni heyy - 2

dhuaan chhataa khula gagan mera nayi dagar naya safar mera

jo ban sake tu hamsafar mera nazar mila zara

ruu-ba-ruu roshni heyy - 2aye saala - 4

Now tell me they are not Oscar worthy (Both A.R. Rehman compositions. The Lyrics are by Prasoon Joshi). Better still tell me that before Rang De Basanti happened to this country, there would have been Candlelight Vigils in support of Jessica Lall, or against 26/11 or Pink Chaddi Campaign against the Mangalore Attacks?

Rang De Basanti was instrumental in awakening the Public Consciousness of the Country and it’s music - Which is also what India’s contribution at Oscars for Slumdog essentially is - was a key part of that Bugle call.

My point is essentially this – Why all the Hoopla about a movie by essentially Non-Indians made for a Non-Indian audience winning a Non-Indian Award? I can still understand a bit of chest thumping for A.R.Rehman or Gulzar or Resul Pookutty but why the entire chest thumping about 8 Oscars for Slumdog. What has India (On Indian Brilliance) got to do with that? Ben Hur, Titanic and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King each has won 11 Oscars but India does not seem to care.

Stop Basking in Reflected Glories People!

Now I hear the Maharashtra Government is providing Houses to Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Ismail. Great. I am happy for them. I wonder what happens to thousands of other Children living in Slums of Mumbai. What is going to be done for those who still study sitting next to Kerosene Lamps, breathing noxious fumes because there is no electricity; or those who beg on traffic signals and have no hope for the future? Do they wait for a Danny Boyle to “discover” them and make “celebrities” out of them, before we bother to discover the plight of our own?

When will Pinki Smile because we wanted her to smile and made an effort to make her smile, not because she ended up at the Oscars?

A Small Town Boy Lives on...

Before I begin farting about my life on this post, let me first post my tribute to another small town boy - the one that every screwed-up news anchor worth his salt, never mind his limited knowledge of how the Oscars, or the Film Industry work - has been farting about. A.R.Rehman. Yes Sir, the same guy who gave us memorable music for Roja, or Bombay or Dil Se (Chaiya, Chaiya to my mind is decidedly better than Jai Ho, unfortunately Dil Se is not a Hollywood movie!)

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, Jai Ho is my current Caller Tune-maybe its because of Sukhwinders rustic charm, I love A.R. Rehman (despite sometimes finding his music too geeky, as in Computer Perfected, missing the human touch) and I am happy that a Indian Music Composer has won not one but two Oscars! Kudos!.

But that's about it guys, period. Everything else about the Movie's technical side is decidedly as un-Indian as it can get. It's a Hollywood Movie and like many other Brilliant Hollywood movies before it, has won multiple Oscars. Big Deal. Move On. In fact, look within yourself to figure out why an Indian Producer, and an Indian Director, could not figure out a good way to make the same movie in India - after all it was an Indian Story! (Sorry Madhur Bhandarkar, you make nice movies, want an Oscar - Move to Hollywood Man! the Media will go mad about you, not that its not already quite mad!)

I for one, would have been more satisfied, if such a movie would have (1) Been appreciated by most often than not, an Indian Audience with Quite Shallow Taste (2) Won 10 Filmfare awards instead!

So, here I repeat myself. Kudos A.R. Rehman for winning an Oscar. Don't forget however, that you have given better music earlier as well, do cherish your other awards, despite all the media hype about this one.

Screw everything else about Slumdog Millionaire!

My Life will have to wait, its not Oscar worthy! Do I care dog shit!

A small Town Boy

I grew up in a place where it cost me 75 bucks to get a e-mail ID created! and the Cyber Cafe guy did not even let me touch the keyboard. To top it all, despite the relative uniqueness of my firstname last name combination, he got me an id which was like prabhashn@yahoo.com, I mean who get's you prabhashn@yahoo.com (thankfully abandoned now) when you can get prabhashnirbhay@yahoo.com (don't try sending me a love note on that one - its available but I have not got it yet!), why not simply get plainstupid@yahoo.com (Now wouldn't that be nice!).

What I was trying to say is that Ranchi was real small, come to think of it, it still is, despite half a dozen Reliance Fresh's and a Big Bazaar, and a Cafe Coffee Day sharing it like a dormitory. It happens to be the capital of Jharkhand, never mind that a part of the population still relieves itself behind "jhars"!

There was once a time when VCR was the main source of entertainment, and movie tickets were 15 Bucks! and it was impossible to explain Y2K to anyone. I hear there's a Multiplex there now!

I remember when I started working for Arvind Brands - a Garment Manufacturer and Retailer - people could not, and still can't fathom as to why I would sqaunder a hard earned MBA by working in a Tailor's! That was after they understood - taking their time at it - that MBA was respectable enough, even if I was not smart enough to be a Doctor, on an Engineer, or better still an IAS. I have not done these same people proud by moving from one unlikely employment to another, even now, my parents think it unwise to let people know that I work for a "Daaru Kumpani", people won't believe them, if the word multinational was uttered. Why in fuck's name did I not get into something safe like IT, even BPO. Satyam hasn't dented the enthusiam for IT.

But then again, my parents have been a little unwise in letting all three kids get into unlikely professions. Big B, thats the eldest, has been working in Events Management for almost a decade now, in the first half of that decade, it was difficult to explain what event management was, in the second half of that decade, post the enlightment of Dubey in "Monsoon Wedding," it was difficult to find a remote location to runaway to. My Brother was called Dubey for quite sometime after that! Small B, the youngest, decided to follow in my footsteps - he works for the same tailor now, the turnover is in hundreds of crore, does not matter. Once a tailor, always a tailor. And I, unmodestly called Tall B - for my height, in case you hadn't guessed already - I keep shying away from IT, and have ignored my last chance - before I turn 30 - to appear fro the IAS!

My poor parents!

Hey! got to rush before the Bangalore Traffic translates rush into crawl...this post will continue...promise.

There's still more to life than High5s

My sincere apologies to all my fans out there -Gotcha! You thought for a moment I had loads of those, didn’t ya – nevertheless, my sincere apologies to the friends and family who indulge me by reading my Blog. I admit, I have been lazy, worse still, I have rationalized my inaction by blaming it on my busy (read that as mundane) schedule.

Forgive me, forgive me, and forgive me. Better still, bludgeon me to death and ask me for forgiveness instead! There is no excuse for inaction. Any action is better than that.

I have been busy trying to reach intellectual orgasm these last few months – rationalizing, thinking, Obamargasming, etc. Basically – fuck all those who have issues with the use of this word – I was failing miserably in trying to get an intellectual erection, do they make Viagra for the brain I wonder. Do they make brains?

Barack Obama captured public sentiments – so much so that my daughter recognizes SRK, Aamir Khan and Barack Hussein Obama – in fact she thinks the world has Obama and the world has “other bamas”! Talk about denting our collective conscience.

Kasab also captured public sentiments – for the wrong reasons – although Pakistan still thinks that he is a figment of the imagination of over 1billion people!

While public sentiments was busy getting captured, some “mut-alike” fellow was busy curbing private sentiments, putting “loose” women in their rightful place. He got truck loads of Pink Chaddis, G-string and all, to stuff in his mouth!

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and so are the moral police, take your pick. Roses are going to cost INR50 a stick, otherwise sensible women are going to swoon at the sight of pink teddy bears, and honest single men are going to feel like jerks, and will prowl the college and work campuses in search of a date! Add the “culture” factor – never mind we are in the “Devadasi Backyard and voila, you have the making of front page stories. Men who there own mothers don’t know exist would suddenly be made into instant celebrities because they beat up young boys and molested young women in the name of safeguarding Indian culture!

What irony that a country whose Prime Minister is called “Man Mohan” aka “Chitchor” aka stealer of hearts has no heart!

I bet the two women who will get the most roses will be “Behen ji” and “Sonya ji”.

While people were discussing about their rights to get into a pub and drink till they drop dead – good luck to them – I suddenly realized that there are more Pubs and Bars in Bangalore than schools!

Are we fighting for the right cause folks?