Not On Assignment BY Raju Bist

Surprise dance on Finnair Flight to celebrate India’s Republic Day

Raju Bist — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:57:38 +0000

This what great PR is all about…

“Didi, what is porn?”

Raju Bist — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:05:50 +0000

The small Andheri family of four was having dinner when 11-year-old Kamlesh suddenly asked, “Didi, what is porn?”
Didi, 17, froze and quickly said, “Ask mama!”
Mama, embarrassed and not knowing how to handle this, said, “Ask Papa!”
Papa, a man of the world, cleared, as delicately as possible, little Kamlesh’s doubt.
Lesson over, he asked, “But beta, where did you hear this word?”
So the son replied, “Oh Papa, you have asked me to read the newspaper every day, isn’t it? Well, I was reading the Times of India in the evening and they had written about some porn star called Sunny Leone. I had heard of film star and cricket star but I did not know what a porn star was…”

On the first day of the New Year…

Raju Bist — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 10:10:42 +0000

On the first day of the New Year, a tale of greed and family honour.
Near our housing complex is a small village and in that village stays a barber.
The barber’s `shop’ is a ramshackle, cardboard-cloth-tin four wall structure under a small tree alongside our locality’s main road. With every passing month, the photographer in me observes the different colours of the leaves – and also their absence in winter, and later, as if by magic, their reappearance.
Sometimes, there is a customer on the solitary chair; most often it is the barber himself, sleeping away the hours, waiting for someone to turn up.
But this tale is partly about the barber. Its main protagonist is his daughter-in-law, a housemaid in some of the houses in our complex.
Over several weeks, the housewife in of one of the houses noticed things missing – money, jewellery and finally, her son’s cellphone. She reported this to her husband, who, by an amazing coincidence, happens to be a police officer. The cop asked around and his suspicions zeroed in on the housemaid.
He confronted her. “Tell us the truth. You should realise that if I take this up at an official level you could be behind bars.”
The housemaid admitted to all the thefts. She was immediately sacked.
When he heard this, the barber, in a fit of rage, picked up a huge stone from the roadside and rushed towards his daughter-in-law.
“I will kill her,” he screamed loudly. “She has destroyed my family’s reputation.”
But some villagers managed to stop the old man and cool down his anger.
His daughter-in-law now does not stir out from her home. Nobody is our complex – or anywhere else – is ready to employ her.

Shahana Nair Joshi’s blog post that created an online furore and a North-South divide

Raju Bist — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 09:58:53 +0000

A bit late in the day but still manages to hold reader interest.
On September 10, 2011, Delhi-based Shahana Nair Joshi, part south Indian, part Maharashtrian, posted a ‘Open letter to a Delhi’ boy on her blog Broken Morning.
The letter went immediately viral. It was trended on Twitter all day, resulted in a Facebook home page for the letter writer and to date has received 2,929 comments on her blog.
Here is the post that opened up a Pandora’s box:

AN OPEN LETTER TO A DELHI BOY
Dear Delhi boy,
Namaskaram from the South of India, or as you may like to believe, the countries south of the Vindhyas. I came to your city 2 years ago with a brand new job and a bucketload of expectations. My friends and family here thought I was completely insane to choose Delhi over more female conducive cities like Bangalore or even Bombay. I am very sad to report that your reputation of being an ignorant, chauvinistic oaf with the intelligence levels of an autistic 3 year old on crack precedes you and it hurts me even more to admit to this rather accurate description.
Your reputation has travelled far and wide, to countries outside South India as well. And believe me man, it is not a pretty situation. I understand that your stone faded, ripped jeans, your V-neck cleavage showing t-shirts that reveal to the world that you have infact inherited your mother’s voluptuous shaved Punjabi bosom, are what you think maketh a man, but it does not. It only maketh for a man who gets a pity license to share his girlfriend’s bra. I write to you as a woman who has been brought up in a society free of any discrimination towards women so thanks to you, my living in Delhi is as safe as Hugh Hefner’s playmate of the year living in Jeddah.
You meet me at a friend’s birthday, talk to me about nightclubs and your new SUV and when I look like I’m in desperate need of a barf bag, you think I have an attitude problem. I understand this completely. But let me remind you that I am from SOUTH INDIA and not SOUTH DELHI, so no ,I am not scrawny, I am not fair, I don’t have straight hair and my topics of conversation go beyond the Fendi I saw in last month’s Vogue. I am olive-skinned, have lower –back-length lustrous cascading tresses that sometimes make me look like I fell out Jim Morrison’s tour bus. Got a problem with that? Well just suck it up coz I was born into a society where a woman can whoop your Punjabi patoutie to pulp. While your mother pretends to be very progressive but still cows down to the whims of her husband every single time, mine on the other hand was born into a matriarchal home where every single possession is in the rightful name of the girl child. Could you ever, my hunky handsome, cash throwing pig, imagine this kind of power in your society? So stop telling me that women are not treated like trash where you come from. Just shut up and admit to it. It’s just easier that way. And lest we forget that we’ve managed to curtail the number of rape cases despite not having a female Chief Minister. Amma ‘s body composition generates way too much heat for her get out of her AC room anyway, so don’t even bring that up.
And your English. Good Lord, what in the world is up with that? I don’t want you to ‘explain me’ anything. It’s like you need to go to primary school all over again. And call them your parents, not your ‘peerents’ or what your cooler, more happening brethren call them—‘mere mom-dad’. Like what are they? Conjoined twins? Are they joined at the hip? Your South India counterparts may not have your looks, but are way more mentally stimulating, a quality that eludes you obviously, but has been the single most sexy factor for us Southie chicks since the age of five. I mean once again, who can blame you? You were brought up on Gurdas Mann and the heroic deeds of Devinder Singh Bhullar and the ever so fair concepts such as elections in Phugwada while we mere ‘black-colour waale’ mortals had to make do with Bharatnatyam classes, M.S Subhalakshmi and chess. Shame no? And yes, if by a slight chance, you do find my big dancer eyes attractive enough for you to prolong our conversations and meetings and if by an even slighter chance you fall in love with me and decide to marry me, you will have to wear a mundu and you will have to lie prostrate shirtless at the Guruvayurappan temple. A small price to pay for all the genuine independence I am giving up for you. And that’s the real thing, not what you see the Delhi girls at LSR and Stephen’s doing during their fake as hell protest marches coz ultimately they’re going home to a family who’re putting together money for Bobby beta’s bail coz he just ran over his girlfriend’s ex, by mistake of course.
I understand that I come from the land of ugly. I mean obviously Hema Malini, Sri Devi and Aishwarya Rai with their natural banal looks don’t even hold a candle to Priyanka Chopra after her two nose jobs and one lip reconstruction surgery. Not a chance in hell. But when you do come to ask for my hand, remember I am part Maharashtrian and part South Indian and NO, they are not the same thing. So please tell your family, not to drop racist bombs like “Arey woh sab toh ‘Sawth’ ke hi hote hai na?” And YOU—don’t walk up to mother in an attempt to make flattering conversation and say shit like “Aunty you don’t look like a South Indian You are so fair” In return she will verbally Texas chainsaw massacre your face so badly, your dead Dadi will haunt you the very same night, telling you how fleeing Pakistan was less traumatic. So don’t. Better still just don’t speak. Just glean and flex your muscles a little and keep smiling. Just whatever you do, don’t talk.
You may not like our food, but then we don’t like you, which is worse. We may not be even that into food, but then that’s coz we have other things to do with our lives, like crack IIT or become writers, journalists, activists and do things that we are very passionate about. The South Indian woman has a voice and boy can she yell. So if you want to Sambhar ‘Chawl’ your way into my life, then you got to toe the line. Be way more aware than what your are. Remember Delhi is not a country and we are not Black. If I ever hear you utter that name of that colour, I will Kalaripayattu your tongue out of your rear. Yes , that is the secret behind our awesome sex ratio. Just so you know.
For someone who is so confident of his physical abilities you really suck at luring an intelligent woman. Don’t send me text messages that say ‘happy guru purab’, you freakshow and if you want to be cute with your ever so charming (not) Punjabi advances, then don’t send texts that say “Dil laye gayee kudi Madrraaas di”! NO. It’s just not cool man. I may have have missed on a lot in this letter, but that’s ok because you’ll forget to read it and even if you do , you’ll get your cousin Jassi from Defence Callonny to translate it for you. And this letter can’t go on forever like the Punjabi male ego.
So long my love, and here’s two steps of gidda just for you, just to show that I can be traditional and will not accidently kick your sister while doing so.
Love, hugs, kisses aka ‘muah’ (only I shall ‘muah’, you please don’t do anything coz you tend to forget that these are my lips and not a piece of Tandoori Chicken from Kakke- Da- Dhabba)

Yours
Madrasan
(Only I can call myself that. If you EVER call me by this name, I will shove so many coconuts down your system that your little saver pack versions will begin to sprout coir.)

New status symbol

Raju Bist — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:06:13 +0000

This one will leave all those travelling first class in Bombay locals with a smile on their faces.
Three young men from north India, apparent newcomers to the city, got all set to board a Churchgate Slow as it pulled into the platform.
Agile as a leopard, one of them jumped into a first class compartment but froze when his friends realised the mistake and shouted: “Abey nichey utar, yeh to VIP dabba hain!”
“Kya, yeh VIP dabba hain?” shot back the first and promptly jumped off as the train started.
The passengers in the first class compartment grinned at the trio.

The young show the way

Raju Bist — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:51:38 +0000

This Diwali, the young show the way.
In Vasant Vihar, a 9th standard student and his bunch of friends have decided to observe Green Diwali this year… no crackers for them.
Similarly, in a building near my residence, a group of high school and college girls have decided to enjoy only the Festival of Lights and shun the Festival of Noise.

Mrs Mathkar goes trekking

Raju Bist — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 08:08:07 +0000

When other women of her age are taking morning walks or participating in laughter sessions in parks, Mrs Mathkar is trekking to some difficult destination in Maharashtra with boys and girls half her age. Those who have been with her on treks talk of the Dombivali resident’s enthusiasm and her knowledge of nature. Not for this grandmother any paraphernalia associated with regular walkers. True, she wears walking shoes but is always dressed in a colourful saree. Her son Bhupendra is also a skilled trekker. But when his mom is trekking all eyes are on her as people exclaim: “Wow! If you have the zeal, then age knows no bar!”
Photos: Ajit Satam

In which what matters is the circumference of the eye

Raju Bist — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 17:41:59 +0000

One male friend to another:
“The office party got over and she tagged along with me. She was very drunk.
`Where would you like to go? Would you like me to drop you home?’ I asked her.
`No, let’s catch an auto and drive around for some time,’ she replied.
In the auto I asked her, `It’s very late. Don’t you want to go home?’
She smiled that sweet smile of hers and asked me a question in return: `If you were married and had a 20-year-old daughter and if she came home drunk, how would you feel?’
We sat in silence for some time.
Suddenly she told me, `The auto driver is staring at me in the mirror.’
I didn’t know what to say so I started laughing.
After some time I asked her, `Why did you agree to come with me?’
`Because you are safe.’
`And how did you arrive at that conclusion?’
Her answer stumped me.
`That’s because you have very large eyes.’ ”

Superman On Wheels

Raju Bist — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 06:46:33 +0000

The best thing about Bombay is that you never know when or where you may bump into one more quirky character.
Yesterday the city was lashed by the first big showers and as HT aptly headlined it `100 mm rain, 100% misery’. The roads were flooded, the train services went for a toss and flights were delayed by more than two hours.
Friend and colleague SI, who brings the car to office every day, wisely took an autorickshaw – only to find himself in the middle of a massive traffic jam. But his enterprising auto driver assured him, “Don’t worry sahab, I will make sure that you reach office on time!”
He took one shortcut after another and zipped his three-wheeler through narrow bylanes, all the while keeping up a stream of non-stop pitter-patter: “Arey sahab, so what if the Rain Gods have no mercy on us Mumbaikars? You have started off from home for work. I will make sure that you reach office safe and sound.”
And Superman On Wheels was true to his word.
SI reached office – in lesser time than if he had come by car.

Mr. Ponytail makes news – again!

Raju Bist — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 06:45:23 +0000

Caravan, the recently revived magazine from Delhi Press has been sued (along with Penguin and Google) by Arindam `Ponytail’ Chaudhuri, the man behind the controversial IIPM. The magazine recently ran a piece called “Sweet Smell of Success: How Arindam Chaudhuri Made a Fortune Off the Aspirations—and Insecurities—of India’s Middle Classes”, an extract from Penguin’s new book The Beautiful and the Damned: Life in the New India by Siddhartha Deb.
Following court orders, the article has been removed from Caravan’s website.
Here is the article in full
There are more damning articles on Chaudhuri in cyberapace:
* Outrage at the press, Mint.
* Dissecting (the) IIPM: “Fraud toh hona hee tha !!” (On a now-defunct blog).
* When the chickens come home… The curious case of Arindam Chaudhuri, the Indian Institute of Planning & Management and Planman Consulting (From a Yahoo Group)
* IIPM – Best only in claims?, Careers 360
There’s also a brilliant spoof about called Ayodhya Verdict Leaked: Land To Go To IIPM
There are three more articles which you should check out. Unfortunately I could not get the links to both of them. The first one (by Rashmi Bansal) had to be removed following another court order.
1) The Truth Behind IIPM’s Tall Claims, Rashmi Bansal, JAM
2) When the chickens come home to roost, Businessworld
3) The fraud that is IIPM, Gaurav Sabnis, former IBM salesman