Now that I’m in possession of an infant, I am constantly looking at things anew. One of them is how people engage with a baby at social outings and what it says about them. I was surprised to find that on an average, the men seem more eager to pick up the baby than the women. I wondered why.
A friend suggested that since parenting is more a thing of equal partnership among men and women — unlike another era, when men contributed the sperm and the women more or less did all the work — the men might seem to be more at ease in displaying prowess.
But that didn’t explain the single men who were all keen on their new arm candy. The last time we did a brunch, at least four single men were all rapt attention for the infant, chose to hover around him, pet him or carry him, and of course, pose for photos with him.
And then I realised what it did for them. It certainly pitched them higher in the eligibility gradient. It made them look good. It had the I-am-not-afraid-to-speak-my-feelings-or-show-that-I-am-vulnerable kind of vibe. It made women look at them differently.
In an era of Facebook profile pictures — usually chosen to reveal your current state of mind — a picture of a single man with a baby seems to say, “I am not afraid of commitment,” or simply, “I am ready.”
It seemed slightly trickier for women.
If she is single and looking, she could be thinking one of two things: The first is, “If I go all gooey on this baby thing, he might think I am putting pressure.” So she seems cool, nonchalant.
The second is, “If he still hasn’t seen my nurturing side, now is the chance to show it.” So she is effusive, all over, and very demonstrative.
On the other hand, if she is single and not looking, she doesn’t care what the men think, so she takes to the baby as she would a cat or dog (provided she is an animal person)
The rather large-hearted husband felt that since the men were more likely to get the picking up of the baby right and not the harder stuff, they would just do what comes easy. Also, it’s visually more documented, and the men are suckers for that. The women, he said, would not do the obvious, but could be trusted with the harder stuff.
I think if you are trying to get a grip on relationship status in a roomful of ambivalent men and women, just throw a baby in and watch the changing dynamic.
When a single man picks up a baby, the women are thinking, “Hmm.. this looks like a good sperm to invest in.”
The men are thinking, “Hmmm.... he’s got the female eyeballs now. Clever.”
As for me, I am thinking, the more people that offer to carry the infant, the less I have to carry him, so be my guest.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
To grey or not to grey
Yes, I have been greying, and have decided not to do anything about it. The mother is concerned, the aunts curious, the friends sceptical, the husband surprisingly cool. Most men and women seem to have an opinion about it, which they don’t express, but I can see it in their eyes. “She is ageing,” they seem to say. Of the two who did tell me they approved, the man said, “It does justice to you.” The woman said, “I am proud that you have let your greys be. It reflects your individuality.”
So whatever Aishwarya Rai may have to say, I’m not covering my greys, even though I’m “worth it.”
It’s not random, it’s not a statement. I actually did the math.
Today you’ll colour because you are just 30 and don’t have a boyfriend, and want to look good in photos.
Tomorrow you’ll colour because your boyfriend/husband shouldn’t start making eyes at other ‘younger’ women. Also, you want to look good with him in photos.
A few years from now, you’ll colour because you don’t want to be in PTA meetings where other mothers look younger than you.
And then, you’ll colour because you want your child to think you are hot.
Soon you’ll be 50 or 60 and still be colouring because now, you can’t stop. The transition is just too drastic and scary.
Okay, I know that when you are 70, it will make you look 65. Point is, how does it help?
When I was in this dilemma of “to colour or not to colour,” I performed a little experiment. I sent out a mail to 10 girlfriends, carefully picked as they represented a sample of women who held their own, who called a spade a spade, who were achievers in some way.
I got three replies: One said since she started greying in her twenties, she had no choice but to colour, and now it’s just a habit. Another said that somehow grey didn’t suit her complexion. The third said she didn’t want to announce her age yet to the world, but when she is finally okay with ageing, she will let the greys grow out. Till then, why not colour?
The seven who didn’t reply suggested to me that they were uncomfortable discussing this.
At my wedding, a few decidedly 60 plus uncles and aunts came with shocking black manes — wattles, eye-bags, wrinkles notwithstanding. Did it make them look younger? No. It sure made them look weird, though. So the problem is not whether to start, but in not being able to stop, I figured.
Recently I ran into a male anchor friend, reasonably good-looking in a George-Clooney-salt-and- pepper kind of way, and his mane was coloured too, (although the roots were showing, and that’s a bigger problem with men). His explanation: “It looks better on TV”
The thing with ageing is that unless you can control it at every level – botox, tummy tucks, colour, face lifts, hair transplant, you name it — it just doesn’t work. Because then you just look like unfinished business. It is cooler to just look your age.
So whatever Aishwarya Rai may have to say, I’m not covering my greys, even though I’m “worth it.”
It’s not random, it’s not a statement. I actually did the math.
Today you’ll colour because you are just 30 and don’t have a boyfriend, and want to look good in photos.
Tomorrow you’ll colour because your boyfriend/husband shouldn’t start making eyes at other ‘younger’ women. Also, you want to look good with him in photos.
A few years from now, you’ll colour because you don’t want to be in PTA meetings where other mothers look younger than you.
And then, you’ll colour because you want your child to think you are hot.
Soon you’ll be 50 or 60 and still be colouring because now, you can’t stop. The transition is just too drastic and scary.
Okay, I know that when you are 70, it will make you look 65. Point is, how does it help?
When I was in this dilemma of “to colour or not to colour,” I performed a little experiment. I sent out a mail to 10 girlfriends, carefully picked as they represented a sample of women who held their own, who called a spade a spade, who were achievers in some way.
I got three replies: One said since she started greying in her twenties, she had no choice but to colour, and now it’s just a habit. Another said that somehow grey didn’t suit her complexion. The third said she didn’t want to announce her age yet to the world, but when she is finally okay with ageing, she will let the greys grow out. Till then, why not colour?
The seven who didn’t reply suggested to me that they were uncomfortable discussing this.
At my wedding, a few decidedly 60 plus uncles and aunts came with shocking black manes — wattles, eye-bags, wrinkles notwithstanding. Did it make them look younger? No. It sure made them look weird, though. So the problem is not whether to start, but in not being able to stop, I figured.
Recently I ran into a male anchor friend, reasonably good-looking in a George-Clooney-salt-and- pepper kind of way, and his mane was coloured too, (although the roots were showing, and that’s a bigger problem with men). His explanation: “It looks better on TV”
The thing with ageing is that unless you can control it at every level – botox, tummy tucks, colour, face lifts, hair transplant, you name it — it just doesn’t work. Because then you just look like unfinished business. It is cooler to just look your age.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Comfort in numbers
Research is a weird thing. As long as you have numbers and statistics, you can practically report anything and get away with it. For instance, you can publish a study on the fact that 90% of the people who dig their noses begin from the right nostril and then move on to the left when they are satiated, unless, of course, they are left-handed.
I recently read that couples matched on the basics of DNA testing are likely to have better sex. And one which said that dogs who wag their tails on the left side are marginally happier than those that wag their tails to the right side. And believe me, such research is not cheap. Somebody somewhere got a grant sanctioned that allocated huge funds to the same, deployed robots and other hi-tech trappings, not to mention 500 dogs allotted for the study, and obviously, owners to document the learnings.
If I were a cat, I’d say, “Poor sods! Why wag at all? And how totally presumptuous of the human species to assume that the owners had anything to do with the dog’s behaviour.”
Another study says that the heavier your snores are, the more calories you burn. There goes any residual desire in the minds of the pot-bellied and the simply fat to hit the gym or go for that run. “Why work out when I can snore my fat away?”, the men are bound to say.
Such is research. The weirder it is, the better. So it doesn’t really surprise me why not enough research is reported on things that are more relevant, more every day? Like what goes through the minds of people who drive SUVs in the city of Bombay? Or wait till 1 am and seven times the permissible alcohol content in their blood streams so that they can finally drive them at speeds that make them look good, killing a few cops or passersby on the way, if need be?
Because if there had been such research, the likes of “US-returned beautician” Nooria Haveliwala or Puru Raj Kumar or Manu Sharma or our very own Salman Khan could have read it and not spent nights in jail with unpleasant cell-mates, two tubelights, one fan and no mosquito repellants.
Poor Nooria. Had she done this in the US, she would have at least spent the night in a better smelling cell, there would have been a bigger window perhaps, may be even air-conditioning, and definitely no mosquitoes. But then, would her daddy be able to bail her out? I doubt it.
But then, may be no one volunteered to do research on such trivial offences, and may be dogs and cats and moustaches and snores are keeping scientists really busy. Also, ridiculous research is safe, it doesn’t ruffle any feathers and more importantly, makes good copy. Evidently, we all read them and chuckle from time to time. It’s a win-win. Someone is paying for them. Someone gets paid to do them. Others, like us are paying to read them.
I recently read that couples matched on the basics of DNA testing are likely to have better sex. And one which said that dogs who wag their tails on the left side are marginally happier than those that wag their tails to the right side. And believe me, such research is not cheap. Somebody somewhere got a grant sanctioned that allocated huge funds to the same, deployed robots and other hi-tech trappings, not to mention 500 dogs allotted for the study, and obviously, owners to document the learnings.
If I were a cat, I’d say, “Poor sods! Why wag at all? And how totally presumptuous of the human species to assume that the owners had anything to do with the dog’s behaviour.”
Another study says that the heavier your snores are, the more calories you burn. There goes any residual desire in the minds of the pot-bellied and the simply fat to hit the gym or go for that run. “Why work out when I can snore my fat away?”, the men are bound to say.
Such is research. The weirder it is, the better. So it doesn’t really surprise me why not enough research is reported on things that are more relevant, more every day? Like what goes through the minds of people who drive SUVs in the city of Bombay? Or wait till 1 am and seven times the permissible alcohol content in their blood streams so that they can finally drive them at speeds that make them look good, killing a few cops or passersby on the way, if need be?
Because if there had been such research, the likes of “US-returned beautician” Nooria Haveliwala or Puru Raj Kumar or Manu Sharma or our very own Salman Khan could have read it and not spent nights in jail with unpleasant cell-mates, two tubelights, one fan and no mosquito repellants.
Poor Nooria. Had she done this in the US, she would have at least spent the night in a better smelling cell, there would have been a bigger window perhaps, may be even air-conditioning, and definitely no mosquitoes. But then, would her daddy be able to bail her out? I doubt it.
But then, may be no one volunteered to do research on such trivial offences, and may be dogs and cats and moustaches and snores are keeping scientists really busy. Also, ridiculous research is safe, it doesn’t ruffle any feathers and more importantly, makes good copy. Evidently, we all read them and chuckle from time to time. It’s a win-win. Someone is paying for them. Someone gets paid to do them. Others, like us are paying to read them.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Eat, dream, love
I am deeply suspicious of women who don’t ‘do’ food. It’s not about whether you cook or not, but about how much food gets you going. What I mean is that if I don’t see a gleam in a woman’s eye when food is mentioned, I know she can never be my friend. I have tested this out, and can say with much confidence that each and every one of my friends is into food. Show me a woman who can eat and I’ll show you integrity. And if she can eat like a man, she will never let you down. (Men, take note)
Also, food makes me happy — thinking about it, cooking it, eating it, planning it, remembering it — there are so many emotions that ride on food, that one lifetime is just not enough. So women who don’t do food bypass all these, and turn out, well, pretty shallow in my opinion.
Whenever I find myself with a woman who I am not even mildly curious about or at a loss for what to say to her, I find that she is not into food. Try it yourself and you’ll see what I mean. Women whose vocabulary does not meander into food or food-like substances are seldom worth knowing. And women who pick at their food should never be trusted.
Naturally, off my list are women who go to fancy restaurants, but never really eat, or women who think having a sandwich counts for food, or women who always decline anything that is offered to them, either because they are not hungry (What is that? Where has eating for taste gone?) or because they don’t ‘feel like it’.
On the other hand, a woman who holds forth on the roasted brownness of her baby potatoes in thyme or the desired crunchiness of green chillies in a mustard gravy pickle, or the texture of a perfect tsi-tsi-ki, or the gooeyness of a brownie made in heaven (or at Rebecca Vaz’s Baking Tray) – is a woman worth knowing.
For those of you who have to live on a diet of coffee and cigarettes simply because that is the only way you can look like stick insects and walk the ramp, or pose for a swimsuit calendar or whatever you contract requires you to do, my apologies. I know that even reading this article would be a taboo, as it will make you think about food, and that is so not cool.
I recently found myself at a dinner party with a TV actress, who kept pondering aloud over every item on display — whether she should be eating it at all, as she had to display her navel in her next shoot, whether a cheese cake had fewer calories than a trifle pudding, and such insignificant details. I thought to myself, I am so glad I don’t have her job and wondered when would she stop worrying and start living?
So if you eat to live, you are not my kinda girl. Size zero notwithstanding.
Also, food makes me happy — thinking about it, cooking it, eating it, planning it, remembering it — there are so many emotions that ride on food, that one lifetime is just not enough. So women who don’t do food bypass all these, and turn out, well, pretty shallow in my opinion.
Whenever I find myself with a woman who I am not even mildly curious about or at a loss for what to say to her, I find that she is not into food. Try it yourself and you’ll see what I mean. Women whose vocabulary does not meander into food or food-like substances are seldom worth knowing. And women who pick at their food should never be trusted.
Naturally, off my list are women who go to fancy restaurants, but never really eat, or women who think having a sandwich counts for food, or women who always decline anything that is offered to them, either because they are not hungry (What is that? Where has eating for taste gone?) or because they don’t ‘feel like it’.
On the other hand, a woman who holds forth on the roasted brownness of her baby potatoes in thyme or the desired crunchiness of green chillies in a mustard gravy pickle, or the texture of a perfect tsi-tsi-ki, or the gooeyness of a brownie made in heaven (or at Rebecca Vaz’s Baking Tray) – is a woman worth knowing.
For those of you who have to live on a diet of coffee and cigarettes simply because that is the only way you can look like stick insects and walk the ramp, or pose for a swimsuit calendar or whatever you contract requires you to do, my apologies. I know that even reading this article would be a taboo, as it will make you think about food, and that is so not cool.
I recently found myself at a dinner party with a TV actress, who kept pondering aloud over every item on display — whether she should be eating it at all, as she had to display her navel in her next shoot, whether a cheese cake had fewer calories than a trifle pudding, and such insignificant details. I thought to myself, I am so glad I don’t have her job and wondered when would she stop worrying and start living?
So if you eat to live, you are not my kinda girl. Size zero notwithstanding.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Are you dating a shampoo or a conditioner?
The weirdest thought came to me when I was in the midst of my hair-grooming ritual for a Sunday brunch this week. At the bottom of it all, there are only two types of men in this world. There are the shampoos and there are the conditioners.
The shampoo man pokes your existential dilemmas and all the scabs you are dying to hide, digs out your rough bits, makes you cry, gets all the muck out of you, cleanses you of ‘issues’ and extraneous stuff, and eventually leaves you to be your free, uncluttered self. The conditioner man smoothes your rough edges, soothes, tames the frizz, nurtures and nourishes you, and stays on to help you... well, sort of, bounce and shine.
Every man wants to be a conditioner, but whether they like it or not, quite a few men have to do the dirty work of being the shampoo. Ideally, what is recommended by experts is a combination of shampoo and conditioner, the sequence in which they appear being of prime importance. Women usually graduate from shampoos to conditioners in men, but sometimes they could end up with a shampoo man, and never know what a conditioner man could have done for them.
The jury is still out on whether one man can be both. For the moment, at least trichologists or hair-care experts will tell you, “Shampoos are supposed to leave and conditioners are supposed to stay. How can they be together?”
By that logic, the shampoo-cum-conditioner concept, in men or hair-care products, is at best, an oxymoron.
Most women have been through more shampoos than conditioners in men and it takes quite a few rinses to know if either of them is doing a good job. But then they say, it’s never too late to discover a good hair product. In my experience, the twenties are about shampoos and the thirties are about conditioners. If you are well into your thirties and still haven’t graduated from shampoos, you need to take note and figure out why.
On the face of it, they could look the same, so there’s no telling the difference really. The difference is in texture, in how your hair (metaphorically, you) feels after they’ve left.
It’s easy to forget the shampoos once we reach our good hair days, and are basking in conditioners, but we must all remember that it’s they who made us what we are. So here’s a quick thank you to all the shampoos of my life.
Now, why didn’t I talk to L’oreal or Garnier before I wrote this? Beats me.
The shampoo man pokes your existential dilemmas and all the scabs you are dying to hide, digs out your rough bits, makes you cry, gets all the muck out of you, cleanses you of ‘issues’ and extraneous stuff, and eventually leaves you to be your free, uncluttered self. The conditioner man smoothes your rough edges, soothes, tames the frizz, nurtures and nourishes you, and stays on to help you... well, sort of, bounce and shine.
Every man wants to be a conditioner, but whether they like it or not, quite a few men have to do the dirty work of being the shampoo. Ideally, what is recommended by experts is a combination of shampoo and conditioner, the sequence in which they appear being of prime importance. Women usually graduate from shampoos to conditioners in men, but sometimes they could end up with a shampoo man, and never know what a conditioner man could have done for them.
The jury is still out on whether one man can be both. For the moment, at least trichologists or hair-care experts will tell you, “Shampoos are supposed to leave and conditioners are supposed to stay. How can they be together?”
By that logic, the shampoo-cum-conditioner concept, in men or hair-care products, is at best, an oxymoron.
Most women have been through more shampoos than conditioners in men and it takes quite a few rinses to know if either of them is doing a good job. But then they say, it’s never too late to discover a good hair product. In my experience, the twenties are about shampoos and the thirties are about conditioners. If you are well into your thirties and still haven’t graduated from shampoos, you need to take note and figure out why.
On the face of it, they could look the same, so there’s no telling the difference really. The difference is in texture, in how your hair (metaphorically, you) feels after they’ve left.
It’s easy to forget the shampoos once we reach our good hair days, and are basking in conditioners, but we must all remember that it’s they who made us what we are. So here’s a quick thank you to all the shampoos of my life.
Now, why didn’t I talk to L’oreal or Garnier before I wrote this? Beats me.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Size matters
Men measure their virility by the size of their television screens. Okay, this is not ‘that kind of blog’ but you know what I mean. Given a choice, men would buy an extra-large of everything, from cars to refrigerators to tooth-pastes to mobile-phones (bigger has become better in that arena too). Shrinking the size of any of the above makes them feel... well, sort of emasculated.
What is this size fixation? I think it comes from a place of conquest (“Owning bigger things makes me more powerful”). Or competitiveness (“How can my car/television/whatever be smaller than his?”) Or a place of smugness (“Owning bigger things means I have to talk less”). Or even a place of self-compensation (“Since I am not big, let me at least own big things”).
I think the feeling is perhaps more exaggerated in cities like Bombay when space is at a premium, so men seldom have a cabin/desk as big as they want it to be, or a parking space that they can engage into without wreaking havoc with the ecosystem around. So what do they do? They have small flats, but large dogs, small bathrooms, but large showers, small parking spaces, but large cars.
The husband for one has been so obsessed with the size of the dream TV screen that it even shows up in his status message. If he could, he would even wear it on his unnecessarily extra-large T-shirt (he is a medium but would like to believe otherwise). So we have this negotiation every other day:
“50.”
“No, 32.”
“Okay, 42.”
“No, 32.”
“42.”
“No, 32, and this discussion is over.”
“42.”
“Okay, but when we have a 20 ftX20 ft room.”
Silence.
When he and I were dating, he had an extra-large fridge with nothing in it except beers, a television that took up a fourth of his room, a microwave with functions that are yet to be unravelled, a coffee maker for a battalion, no gas and several menus.
He now has an extra-large fridge reasonably justified for the five occupants of the house (us, the infant and two cats), and since modern kitchens more or less pre-slot the fridge, which means it can’t get any bigger, his attention has shifted elsewhere.
Recently, when a single friend of mine moved to Bombay and rented an apartment, he did three things. Bought an extra-large TV, an extra-large fridge and an extra-large couch. I guess this just absolved him of having to go anywhere, do anything, meet anyone.
I think the words ‘extra’, ‘mega’, ‘super’, ‘jumbo’, ‘giant’, ‘power-packed’ were invented for men. Take alcohol for example. I don’t even want to get started on the man who claims he can stand still after having downed 24 tequila shots or some such absurdity. I think TGIF really got their audience right when they introduced their ‘Ultimates’. They must have figured, the men are making morons of themselves by out-drinking one another anyway, so why not raise the bar?
What is this size fixation? I think it comes from a place of conquest (“Owning bigger things makes me more powerful”). Or competitiveness (“How can my car/television/whatever be smaller than his?”) Or a place of smugness (“Owning bigger things means I have to talk less”). Or even a place of self-compensation (“Since I am not big, let me at least own big things”).
I think the feeling is perhaps more exaggerated in cities like Bombay when space is at a premium, so men seldom have a cabin/desk as big as they want it to be, or a parking space that they can engage into without wreaking havoc with the ecosystem around. So what do they do? They have small flats, but large dogs, small bathrooms, but large showers, small parking spaces, but large cars.
The husband for one has been so obsessed with the size of the dream TV screen that it even shows up in his status message. If he could, he would even wear it on his unnecessarily extra-large T-shirt (he is a medium but would like to believe otherwise). So we have this negotiation every other day:
“50.”
“No, 32.”
“Okay, 42.”
“No, 32.”
“42.”
“No, 32, and this discussion is over.”
“42.”
“Okay, but when we have a 20 ftX20 ft room.”
Silence.
When he and I were dating, he had an extra-large fridge with nothing in it except beers, a television that took up a fourth of his room, a microwave with functions that are yet to be unravelled, a coffee maker for a battalion, no gas and several menus.
He now has an extra-large fridge reasonably justified for the five occupants of the house (us, the infant and two cats), and since modern kitchens more or less pre-slot the fridge, which means it can’t get any bigger, his attention has shifted elsewhere.
Recently, when a single friend of mine moved to Bombay and rented an apartment, he did three things. Bought an extra-large TV, an extra-large fridge and an extra-large couch. I guess this just absolved him of having to go anywhere, do anything, meet anyone.
I think the words ‘extra’, ‘mega’, ‘super’, ‘jumbo’, ‘giant’, ‘power-packed’ were invented for men. Take alcohol for example. I don’t even want to get started on the man who claims he can stand still after having downed 24 tequila shots or some such absurdity. I think TGIF really got their audience right when they introduced their ‘Ultimates’. They must have figured, the men are making morons of themselves by out-drinking one another anyway, so why not raise the bar?
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Why Chetan Bhagat affects my life
I worry for the infant. I have caught him staring at the TV screen, playing with (and eating) the remote on more occasions than I can count on his tiny toes. I have watched him watch his dad as he goes on about vanquishing the populace of strange lands with his PS3 controller(with headphones on of course; he claims he doesn’t want his son to ‘hear violence’).
And so, I worry. I worry that, if the infant continues at this rate, one day he will grow up and read Chetan Bhagat’s novels and think they are literature. Who knows, by the time he goes to school, a few of them might also make it to his syllabus (you never know).
So I am going to do what might seem pushy or ambitious. Get him to read before he even begins to sit up. Introduce him to the world of Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, CS Lewis, JD Salinger and all my childhood favourites, so that, at the very least, he is equipped to tell the difference between good writing and bad writing. So that the only reason he buys a book is not because it is priced at Rs 65 (or whatever is the current discounted price of Bhagat’s books ), but because it stimulates his mind, because it makes him want to look at things in a different way, because it is written in a way that makes him fall in love with writing (again, I am not skewing him, but you get my point).
Yes, I know I am fast-forwarding his babydom here, but if I don’t do it now, it might have dire consequences.
I don’t know Chetan Bhagat and have no intentions of knowing him. I haven’t read his books and have no intentions of reading them (although I did read a few pages of one of his books, pages so eminently forgettable that I don’t even remember the title of the book). Even the fracas over 3 Idiots doesn’t make me mildly curious about Five Point Someone.
What I do have a problem with is Bhagat comparing himself to Tolkien. I have a problem with the bigness of his head taking precedence over the bigness of his writing, and (in his own words) him saying, “They don’t know how big I am amongst my fans,”...
That, to me is a writer’s greatest undoing. I have a problem with a writer putting his mouth before his craft.
But there is still a lesson here. What I would like my infant to learn from Mr Braggart (sorry, couldn’t resist) is the art of positioning. The art of creating an audience before creating a product. The art of brand extension and regurgitation. The art of mixing, matching, recycling, and starting all over again. The art of creating readers in a generation where there were none.
Never mind if they are readers whose childhood completely bypassed reading. They are still readers, right? So who am I to judge?
And so, I worry. I worry that, if the infant continues at this rate, one day he will grow up and read Chetan Bhagat’s novels and think they are literature. Who knows, by the time he goes to school, a few of them might also make it to his syllabus (you never know).
So I am going to do what might seem pushy or ambitious. Get him to read before he even begins to sit up. Introduce him to the world of Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, CS Lewis, JD Salinger and all my childhood favourites, so that, at the very least, he is equipped to tell the difference between good writing and bad writing. So that the only reason he buys a book is not because it is priced at Rs 65 (or whatever is the current discounted price of Bhagat’s books ), but because it stimulates his mind, because it makes him want to look at things in a different way, because it is written in a way that makes him fall in love with writing (again, I am not skewing him, but you get my point).
Yes, I know I am fast-forwarding his babydom here, but if I don’t do it now, it might have dire consequences.
I don’t know Chetan Bhagat and have no intentions of knowing him. I haven’t read his books and have no intentions of reading them (although I did read a few pages of one of his books, pages so eminently forgettable that I don’t even remember the title of the book). Even the fracas over 3 Idiots doesn’t make me mildly curious about Five Point Someone.
What I do have a problem with is Bhagat comparing himself to Tolkien. I have a problem with the bigness of his head taking precedence over the bigness of his writing, and (in his own words) him saying, “They don’t know how big I am amongst my fans,”...
That, to me is a writer’s greatest undoing. I have a problem with a writer putting his mouth before his craft.
But there is still a lesson here. What I would like my infant to learn from Mr Braggart (sorry, couldn’t resist) is the art of positioning. The art of creating an audience before creating a product. The art of brand extension and regurgitation. The art of mixing, matching, recycling, and starting all over again. The art of creating readers in a generation where there were none.
Never mind if they are readers whose childhood completely bypassed reading. They are still readers, right? So who am I to judge?
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