Know Your Customer

So the mutual fund guys, after taking all my money over the last few years, suddenly want to know who I am, and whether I exist. Every day, I get these ominous email reminders from my accountant and the mutual fund people that I have to ‘comply’ with a KYC (Know Your Customer) verification process, else my transaction will suffer the risk of being rejected.

The email said:

“We wish to bring it to your kind attention that effective 01st January' 2011, Know Your Customer (KYC) is mandatory for all investors who wish to invest in mutual fund.


KYC stands for "Know your Customer", a term commonly used for Customer Identification Process.


All investors in mutual fund schemes are mandatorily required to complete the KYC process as per the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 ("PMLA"). This one-time verification is valid for transactions across all mutual funds. In order to avoid any transaction rejection due to Non-Compliance of KYC, we request you to kindly update your KYC at the earliest.....blah blah blah..."

This was followed by two pages of documents required.


Nice. You didn’t have to know me when you took my money, did you? And now that you have all of it sitting nicely, you want to know me better.

So I have to prove that I was born, that I exist, that I have a valid address, that I have a bank account, a passport, a PAN card, that I have enough money (acquired by legal means) to invest in your company, that I pay my bills, that I will continue to do so forever and ever.

It’s easy for me. All I have to do is rummage through my files, and produce the necessary documents, get them attested, and there! My investments are safe. After two days of tearing my hair out, that is.

So this has been a month of paperwork. Not. Very. Nice. The poor husband is on another formidable journey. That of getting his passport renewed. He was shocked to realise that as per the mandates of the passport authority, he doesn’t even exist, forget being eligible to apply for a new passport. First, he has no document to prove that he lives in Bombay. Our lease agreement just makes us poorer every month, but does not hold water in any court of law, we were told. His old passport has a Delhi address. He doesn’t own property in Bombay. Bank statements, utility bills, credit card bills are no good, we were told. He doesn’t have a birth certificate or a school leaving certificate. Dubious, I thought, but it is too late. I have already married him

The only proof that he exists is me. Me who has a valid ration card and a permanent address in Bombay. Me who is on paper (and otherwise) married to him. Me who was proactive enough to get our marriage registered so that his highness would have some proof of existence. Me who was also proactive enough to apply for an MTNL connection which, in case you didn’t know, is proof of residence that far surpasses your bank statement, your lease agreement, your various wallet-ripping bills. So he exists because I do, I gently reminded him. He quickly agreed that I was his best investment.

So off he goes into the big, bad world, armed with a marriage certificate, ready to renew his passport. At least in this case, the famous Hindi dialogue should read as, “Mere paas biwi hai!”

PAUSE. START. PAUSE. START

The husband and I live our life vicariously through Tata Sky Plus. Now, this is not a plug and I am not a brand ambassador and no one is paying me to write this, but metaphorically, it comes closest to describing our different temperaments.

I like live pause. He likes record. His philosophy is, when in doubt, record. When not in doubt, record. Even in real time, record, because what if something happens? Dammit, just record everything that allows you to record.

He doesn’t know what real time is anymore. Not that he ever did, but since he is a hoarder, he is in a phase of hoarding real time programming. Our hard disk is full of Tonight Shows, Burn Notices, CSIs, Policewomen of Broward County and Hotel Babylons he will never watch. Just as his shelves are full of clothes he will never wear, games he will never play, music he will never listen to, books he will never read.

I on the other hand, am about here and now. I make real time wait for me. I have no patience for collectables. So Vidya Balan and Rani Mukherji can wait, while I heap up my plate with more dill, tomato and lettuce salad. And Karan Johar can stay frozen forever, for all I care. All I know is, when I come back (usually from the kitchen, or warding off a pest at the door), everything will be as is. It is truly empowering.

The more gentle and politically correct husband takes the less harsh way out, and goes into his bank. Now, I hate the fact that I am watching leftovers; it makes me feel marginalised. It’s like watching a movie that you missed on screen on satellite television with all the moronic ads. Yes, you can fast forward the ads, but who has the time? When I was in advertising, I made it clear that TV ads were not my scene, and there was no point telling a story in 30 seconds when I could write 300 words. I guess I was prophetic, because who in their right mind spends crores on ads that can be fast-forwarded?  And no, it's not the same as turning the page.

I am now raising the bar. Earlier, all I did was to pause live television. Now I am cheeky and disrespectful enough to rewind. So if I am late, and Frasier has started without me, back he goes to the start of the program. Aha. That feels good. I am in control. At least of the inanimate objects in my house. It perhaps is some respite, especially in times when my cat is stealing my quilt, and I am left quivering in the middle of the night.

A friend of mine recently forwarded me a quote, which seems to fit in nicely here:

"Life would be perfect if: Some girls had mute buttons, some guys had edit buttons; hard times had fast forward buttons and good times had pause buttons."

I don’t know about good times and hard times, but yes, there are some men I’d like to fast-forward and some I’d like to mute.

Which brings me to: If there are campaigns for ‘no television’ day and ‘no honking’ day and ‘no auto’ day, how about a ‘no talking’ day? Imagine a day when you wouldn’t have to talk to anyone? And no one would talk to you? Or is it that we have to go all the way to Igatpuri to do that?

Reunion is a biaatch

Okay, sorry for that gap. I just figured people might still be recovering from new year excesses, resolutions made and broken or on the verge of being made (technically, you can do it till the end of the month).

Well, yes, I could have written about my quiet new year’s eve, the idiocies of last year, my Christmas tree (which still looms large, despite the cat eating a part of it), my birthday (which doesn’t fall in December) or my trip to Goa. Really now! How much reality TV can one do? Even if you are a loyal reader, do you really care?

But that’s not it. My silence had to do with my resolution to be Zen about life. That is, to not treat everyone as a moron unless proven otherwise. Which means to assume everyone is super intelligent and super cool unless proven otherwise. And to say nice things whenever I can, and hold back on the not-so-nice.

Suddenly nothing Chickwitty was happening, as I pledged not to view the world with those eyes. This was self-defeating, I figured. I was better off being mean and judgemental. I missed my fangs.

It took a reunion invite to change it all in just seven days.

I know I have talked about this before, but you are always in touch with people you really want to be in touch with. Even if you meet them once every few years. The rest of them get weeded out from your life by desire or circumstance anyway. Unless it’s family where you can laugh at your genetic connectedness to absolute imbeciles and their offspring, I don’t find reunions very cool. In fact they are the opposite of cool. It’s like everyone is trying to be what they were 10-15-20 years ago, and thinking it’s cool. I also abhor people who say, “Oh, you haven’t changed one bit.” Of course I have, you twit. I don’t have to be nice to you anymore.

So the said reunion was a “50 years of.... (place I worked at)” thing. It reminded me of a phase of my career I wanted to erase (including the people who featured in it). Given a chance, all I’d like to do at such reunions is rearrange a few faces. Now that I no longer work for them or with them, I am free to do anything, am I not? Then I figured, some of them would have been botoxed and rearranged anyway, so why go through the bother?

I quickly realised such thoughts and desires would tamper with my resolved Zen-ness. I declined.

But there are some reunions I really dig. Those with old girlfriends. There is something about a biaatch from yore. I met a dear one last week, and it was as though everything else in our life had been obliterated for those few hours and we were back to what we were 15 years ago. It was therapeutic as we tore people we mutually hated to shreds (all over again), gloated over our coolness, took stock of our vanities, drank ourselves silly, whined about all the men we didn’t introduce each other to, completely ignored our status change (she: married for ten years, me: married with child) and pitied all those who didn’t get us.

Evidently, Zen went out the window.

Paradigm shift

I was recently hanging out with one of my favourite twenty-somethings (yes I do have a few friends who were born in the eighties) at a birthday do. She is 24, hot (and mean cool-hot, not hot-hot, which I find uni-dimensional), great at her job, super-popular with the boys and quite an achiever. Unlike other girls her age whose chief preoccupation is what to wear this Friday, or what colour should they get their tints done or lenses changed to (yes, I know I am being mean, but there is a point to make), she gives the impression of not labouring too much about her look, yet rocking it. On most days.

I was more intrigued about her when I found out she was dating a fly on the wall till a friend told me the classic rule. Hot girl never dates hot guys. Anyway, she is not dating him any more, but from what I saw of the new guy from Facebook, he ain’t no Adonis either.

Anyway, this is not about him. Here was her dilemma: most of her peers were getting married or were on the verge and planning babies and all of that. So she wondered: if she didn’t take the whole relationship thing seriously, would she get left behind? Should she really stop serial dating and finding that one guy to marry and have babies with? She did say that she didn’t really need a guy to feel complete at this point, but what if she got left behind? She didn’t want to be single at 30!

This was new. In my days, 30 was when the alarm bells rang, the biological clock went ding dong, the parents went chop chop and the friends started dropping dead (read getting married and leaving you) like flies. So somewhere in the next few years, you eventually wound up getting married.

But 24? Seriously? I feel so out of touch.

Aren’t the young people supposed to raise the bar? Change the rules? Shift the paradigm?

In my time, 24 was about career angst and how to communicate with the parental units and how to find a way to make money doing something you borderline like. These days, young people don’t seem to be wasting time pursuing degrees that are so not them (I mastered in Pharmacy, but wanted to write, at 23). So career paths are clearer, less murky and at least you are not on the wrong road. But marriage? Babies? That was nowhere on the radar at 24 even in my time.

So are we regressing or what? Will the next generation actually have babies at 20 and be grandparents at 50?

That, to me, was the revelation of the decade.

As Good(man) as it gets

This is an old post. But I am juggling too much this week, and you can never go wrong with Linda Goodman, can you? So this is hoping that Santa brings that special someone to your life, or if there is a special someone, keeps him/her, or if there is an unspecial someone, kicks him/her out of the chimney.

JAN 10, 2009

The husband recently pointed out that according to Linda Goodman, I was the bad guy and he was the good guy in our relationship. Hmmm.. Geminis have always been presented as bright, creative and communicative, but also fickle, breezy, too easily distracted and flighty, in the era when I used to read these books. Intrigued, I googled (yes, officially a verb) the Gemini woman-Cancer man compatibility and this what I found:


A Cancerian man needs lots of love, care and attention, which is definitely not her cup of tea. She has too many interests and distractions to do this.


Gemini will bring light-heartedness and banter in the life of the emotional Cancer. The Crab is much more emotional than the Gemini and tends to be more deeply attached. Gemini, on the other hand, likes to keep everything superficial and on the outer surface.

I was going to give up when I found something positive.

He is the most loving of the sun signs and she, the most driven by her mind. If it works, it’s the ideal heart-mind combination.

It's funny how one goes through an entire phase of dating well researched, well-documented men, and finally, when you meet ‘the one’, all theory goes out of the window. Prior to the husband, most men I dated were Linda Goodman-proofed. So much so, that one dismissed the lack of enterprise of someone by attributing it to ‘being more attuned to things that were spiritual and mind-driven’, another’s phone clinginess was discounted to ‘excellent communicative skills’, a third’s self-obsession was camouflaged as ‘confidence and zest’, someone’s lack of commitment was merely ‘the-boy-who-never-grows-up’, and so on.

Life was all about making boyfriends look good on paper. Interestingly, some of these men were, according to Ms Goodman, perfect soul mates for me. I think she recommended Librans, Sagittarians and Ariens for me and asked me to stay away from Cancerian, Virgo and Scorpio men.

But here I am, with my so-called ‘moody crab’, enjoying every bit of my marriage. Especially the fact that we are as different as chalk and cheese. He likes order, I like flinging stuff around. I look at a cow and think of the mechanics of rumination. He looks at a cow and thinks of dinner. I am spontaneous, he likes planning. I dig paperwork, he runs a mile from it. I am a backpacker, he is an armchair traveller. I like fruit at room temperature, he likes it chilled. I like the corner shop, he likes malls. I am a yes and no person, he finds it hard to say no. I am organic, he is processed.

I guess what works is that we both love what we become when we are with each other. And we both love a good scrabble game. And we are still learning how to be good losers.

Talking that face away

I am still trying to make sense of three random incidents that occurred in the last two weeks


1. Went for a stand-up comedy gig where three men and a woman did their thing. I couldn’t see the woman from where I was. She was as vertically challenged as me, and I still haven’t graduated to comedy on audio mode. So will only talk about the men.

Of the three men, one was cute and the other two were.. well, ugly. If I were to be politically correct I would say their face was not their fortune, but I am not, so there, I have said it. Ugly.

There were all equally competent and funny, although one had a mike control issue, but I will discount that to men and their limited success at multitasking. But while I found myself choking with laughter at the first two, I was harder on the cute guy. It was as though he had to work twice as hard to convince me he was funny. He had to talk his face away. Eventually, I gave in. I laughed just as hard.

2. Sunday. Just back from Goa and wondering what to do with my hair that had turned to this strange thing between straw, rope, and dreadlocks. So I do the old mommy thing and slather it with oil and tie it into a plait. Bell rings. Maid mentions the name of the husband’s BFF and I am like WTF?? How can anyone come unannounced like this? That too, on my bad hair and sloppy skirt day?

Turns out he is a namesake of the said BFF. He starts off in his suave, “Is this a good time to talk to you?” and within ten seconds I know I have to sign a cheque or part with whatever money is left from the vacation (which is not much anyway). I am poised to be my usual rude self and say, “No, it is not!” when I notice he is cute. Aaaarrrgh! This is going to be tough. I find myself awkward and fumbling, and just in time, the boy walks into my arms, and I get my exit route. “I have to give the baby a bath,” I mumble. Cutie is resilient and gets into secondary suave mode, starts pulling out papers, a brochure...and asking me for an appointment.

Thankfully, the husband walks in to my rescue, notices cute boy, says, “We don’t want to be disturbed on a Sunday" and slams the door.

3. Aaron, my hot fix in Masterchef Australia is eliminated. I am devastated. Husband is nonplussed. “Ha, just because he wears a beret!”. I am like, no, he is so flamboyant, really takes chances, has great flair, and hair, a crooked smile and oooh, those glasses are so becoming.

Am I a sucker or what?

Catty with Karan

Okay, quick confession. I am hooked to Koffee with Karan. and I love the way he makes people talk about their exes (when convenient, of course. I did notice he didn’t cross the line with icy Ash)

It’s just that I find it totally reassuring when divas and celebrities display their insecurities about their exes. It makes one feel not-so-sheepish having made references to one’s own. Although it is a tad embarrassing to find that my gender is not too poised about it, whether she is Kareena Kapoor or Aishwarya Rai. Unlike print, where people get away with saying that they have been ‘misquoted,’ it’s hard to camouflage the tightening of the shoulders, the pasty-faced expression (Ash, on mention of Sallu) or the bewilderment on Bebo’s face when not-so-flattering things were aired about her from previous seasons, and the only retort she had was, “Everyone is looking so fat and flabby.”

(I did notice that Ms Size Zero (?) has hugely flabby underarms and was so not toned for her black bustier. But I am no size or fashion expert, so will let that go.)

Coming to Saifeena (yuck!), let’s face it. They are no Brangelina, yet they make each other look good. She has the looks, flamboyance, success, but lacks refinement, cerebral power, sense of humour. He has wit, pedigree, is erudite, but lacks larger than life stardom, masculinity and bravado.

So depending on which way you look at it, they are good for each other. He has given her a vocabulary (by their own admission, Bebo thought quintessential was ‘quintestinal’) she has given him the aplomb of stardom and the equivalent of size zero in a man (if there is something like that).

I guess talking about your ex on national television is one thing. It becomes harder talking about your ex’s current when she is clearly hot (I cannot imagine what Jennifer Aniston must have gone through). So Kareena chose to pick on the banal while talking about her ex and his current (like “Where does Priyanka Chopra get her accent?”). Or Deepika’s curiosity about Kat’s age/place of origin/lineage was more than evident in her desire to see her passport.

(p.s: I don’t know if it’s a conspiracy that all the stars on the show so far have rated PC lowest on sex appeal when it is in fact, the biggest thing in her favour.)

I can’t wait to see what PC’s retort to Bebo’s barbs will be. They will be clever, for sure, and unlike Bebo, PC has wit and vocabulary, even though she may not have the Heroine Number One tag (whatever that means). Her comeback to her accent bit has already been aired on promos. I like!

***

Now that most of this post has been filmi, let me outdo myself by adding my two bits on the whole Sheila vs Munni thing. Now, it might be a good  thing that that Kat is finally out of the (Khan) family bag, else, it might be awkward being pitted with prospective sister-in-law in this manner. But in my mind, the whole debate is like asking what do you prefer, cute or sexy?

Now some girls are cute, and some are just sexy. And moving from one category to another (even if one loses eight kilos, works on one’s hip bone and the toning thereabouts) is a tough one. Malaika is sexy from the word MR Coffee and Kat has always been the Barbie doll – good arm candy, but dubious on sex appeal (I know men like them dumb and preferably fair and lovely, but give them some credit). Of course, a lot has to do with styling and Farah Khan knows her angles as much as she knows her jhatkas. But in my mind, Sheila’s glitziness cannot compete with Munni’s raunchiness, so the whole polling is a non-issue.

I rest my case.