India's Most Desirable, really?

Okay, so this one's a rant.

India's Most Desirable...I want to know who the audience for this show is? (I tried ignoring this show for the past few weeks, but they keep playing repeats and getting in my face!)

The line-up of the "desirables" is made up of fluff bollywood stars who are as green at their job as a toddler at playschool. The host is a yester-year glam doll, who has hitherto been known only for her radical roles in two Rishi Kapoor movies, purrfect diction, flawless whites and uncomfortable, formal tone and style which makes Karan Johar seem endearing in comparison. Yet, she has had a successful run of Rendezvous with some of the biggies of Indian pop culture. So she's not really green. Which is why I expect better from her. The studio audience is filled with teenagers who probably were wetting their nappies when Simiji was hosting that "bare-all" talk show. And it's hosted on a channel that I thought was meant for my kind of entertainment.

Now for the amazing format - a star comes on the show, and Simiji asks our Most Desirable one some well-rehearsed questions. The script has been rehearsed so many times, you can almost hear the pages for the next question turning in their heads. The questions will urge the star to spill some beans on their life - romantic being of foremost importance. The screen behind the two of them will carry loving messages from friends and family, the tarot card reader will appear from behind a turning side-screen and so will a cooktop and oven! So it's not just a chat show you see. Random people from the audience (random, my arse! they all looked like her bodyguards) will show up to sample the cookies baked by out lovely star, or ask embarrassing questions (do they know what embarrassing means?). Of course, our host thinks it's super cool to plug in her show's website as often as possible and an auto rickshaw's horn and a gong are the only way in which the star can answer some really "funny" questions!

It's lame how at every opportunity either the star or the host try to make it seem like they know each other intimately (am sure Simiji knows a lot of these guys intimately, but really, I did expect something better from her than flaunt it on her show). Again, am not sure who will vibe with this since everyone in the studio audience isn't truly aware of Simiji's heydays.

For someone who has seen the Rendezvous series in it's first couple of seasons, I feel really embarrassed by this show. Yes, I am very upset that Star World would want to cater to the MTV generation - don't they already have enough channels dedicated to their whims and fancies? And if you really are competing with the content on those channels, Star World, you're clearly a fish out of water.

The Star World audience is a savvy, urbane lot, they don't care for patched together shows that try to be a little bit of everything. Yes, we love our cinema, but we also pick our cinema. And look at how that has evolved. Why can't TV content rise above the ordinary, take existing formats to the next level or even try to touch a genuine chord? If you can't produce original content that can engage audiences, stick to the tried and tested method - bring us great content from the developed markets. But whatever you do, please, be true to your audience.

Unless you're actually abandoning us and chasing the haloed "youth of India"!

Of new journeys

The lottery ticket stall, the fruit seller and the medicine man with his strange bottles of Ayurveda cures - are they just the backdrop to my story? Am new here, and I can get away with just observing. I tell myself am soaking in the atmosphere. A stranger speaks near me, to me in a foreign tongue. A friendly hardware store owner who speaks Hindi points us to the shops that will hold the knick-knacks we're looking for. We're setting up house - again!

Moving from Mumbai to Goa was the easy one. Goa has always been my favourite place to be ever since I first stumbled onto it. Well, yes, I dint discover it, I know. But I went there at a time when I was discovering a lot of new things about myself. When I was just growing into this person I have become. It was in the third term of my post-graduate studies and it was a difficult time. Goa just took me in, and was warm and welcoming. I was with old friends, exploring a whole new way of life. So yeah, Goa was like coming home after being at sea for a long long time.

Moving to Kerala has been different, as we drove past Karnataka into Kerala, the signboards began to read a language that I knew not. And that's when it hit me, I was really far away from home after a really long time. Well the last time was way back in the summer of 2007 when I made my first trip out of the country, to France. That was exciting, I knew I had only 9 days to enjoy all the new experiences. Here, am staying for a year at least.

It's a beautiful place, peaceful and relaxing - God's Own Country.

I adore the shops here with their wooden boxes of fresh produce on display and the feel of a world where technology is not going to dull the feeling of being alive. The backwaters of rivers spring up when you least expect them and the sound and smell of nature fills up your senses. Am looking forward to picking up some Malayalam, learning to cook a few authentic recipes and cruising along the backwaters. Am a little intimidated, but am looking forward to soon becoming a part of this quaint little town where I live.

Until it's time to pack up and move again. To a new place, to new people.

Of a new life.

Wife. Small word, big meaning. One syllable. Seems so much longer, heavier, deeper.

Am new to this world. Of wives I mean. And am just being slowly led in. Does a husband's world seem as daunting? Wives as mothers, daughters, daughter-in-laws, wives and friends. Wife as a chef, housekeeper, manager, teacher, lover, counselor and laundromat. Working wives as employees and bosses, leaders and followers, the doers and the ones getting it done.

Wives living up to expectations - familial, social, personal.

And amongst all this, the recurring question - who am I?
Does taking on this new identity make me lose mine so far? Or does it just alter it slightly? Does it add a texture or a nuance? Or does it take over my life?

The seemingly small change of a name, don't in-laws get how it takes away all that is mine and fills the hole with all that am supposed to be? A sort of a blueprint for a house no one asked me if I wanted to build.

Wives move homes, change cities, wake up in a strange new bed with a strange new way of welcoming the day. They give up living with people they have loved all their lives and embrace new ones. New ones who claim they're parents and we're daughters, but when push comes to shove, how come the husbands don't get asked the same questions? How come their words carry more weight than ours? How come everything else being equal, they still get the bigger piece of the pie? You know what I mean.

And it's all supposed to be what we are supposed to expect. If my new parents treat me better than an average Indian girl's am supposed to be grateful for that. Thanking the Gods for giving me better than the rest. But really, why can't it be the norm?

Why do mums of boys still ask us if we can cook? Why do we have to recognise their underwear on a stand? Why do we have to keep track of how many rotis they prefer? And why do we have to toe the line?

Is that why after years of living together, families split up? Is that why women lose their sense of what's reasonable and what's absurd? Is that why I keep striving to remind myself, of me?