A LOT OF MICE HIDING IN RISING INDIA

A Top Priority Business in India is Showing-off. Yes! That's the honest truth. And it has always been so. Those who have flaunt before those who don't have, without a heart or conscience. Even religious celebrations are proof of that compulsive desire. Now, of course, in globalizing India there are far more opportunities to flaunt - foreign brands, flashy clothes, bikes, cars and more. More people have more money.

But there are a lot more people who have nothing to flaunt. They are the mice - trying to manage, trying to survive. They may get a mobile and walk around talking into it. They're trying to compete. But often they the end up trying to hide their miceness, trying to go as unnoticed as possible.

In India's commercial capital, in the last two weeks alone, there were about 16 suicides of school or college kids. The media are coming up with all kinds of explanations. Surely, there would be multiple reasons. But none of the media - many of them are also busy flaunting - have mentioned the miceness in rising India, the growing numbers of mice who can't compete in the intense business of showing off.
(For more INSIGHT stories, see other blogs here and at www.myspace.com/india_realities i.e. india underscore realities.) My latest blog on Myspace is: THE FASTEST GROWING BUSINESS IN INDIA IS SHOWING-OFF.

IS BOLLYWOOD HEADING FOR A PERSONALITY CRISIS?

The biggest Bollywood hit of the year came in the very last week of 2009. The movie is called 3 Idiots.

And that sums up the story of Bollywood's developing psychological crisis. 3 Idiots is a Hindi movie. But the title is half in English, allowing that 3 is written similarly in the two languages.

And it's not only title writers who are confused whether Bollywood is in Bombay or Hollywood. Story writers can no longer set their routine dance-into-love-and marriage stories in India. Bollywood directors are no longer comfortable directing movies on location in India. Bollywood actors are no longer happy to hop and dance around with a crowd of supporters on Bombay streets. They all want to be in Zurich, London or L.A.

If this trend continues Bollywood writers, directors, actors and whole chorus lines may need to be hospitalized and treated. No! Certainly not in Bombay or Mumbai! In Zurich, London or L.A. Provisional Diagnosis: Identity Crisis or Splitting/Cracking-up Personality.
(For more INSIGHT stories see other blogs here and at my india_realities site www.myspace.com/india_realities) My latest blog on Myspace is: INDIA: RACING INTO A HAPPY 2010...AND AMNESIA.

MEMORIES OF OLD BOMBAY AND BOLLYWOOD - 2

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the three studios located on Dadar Main Road made the street Bombay's Bollywood in the old days. There was often a crowd at the gates, waiting to watch a glowing painted-up Meena Kumari arriving in the back seat of a car or a hopeful Dharmendra walking in.

In those days it was easy to travel in the city. From the time I was eight my parents had no hesitation allowing me to go to town (the Fort area), riding in a G.I.P. (Great Indian Peninsular Railway; now, the Central Railway) or by tram, which was just a one-anna ride anywhere up to Museum. Or, perhaps, Colaba - I'm not too sure. There was always place to sit in a tram or train.

There were more Irani restaurants (like Cafe Paris in front of the University and and Leoplold's in Colaba) those days than south Indian or Udipi. All the restaurants had radios blaring. You heard film songs all day - a Noor Jehan, a Punjabi full-voiced Shamshad Begum, a Saigal, or a softly sentimental young Lata Mangeshkar.
Later the Irani restaurants had beautiful juke-boxes and at the drop of a four-anna coin you could watch the records roll around to play Sail Along Silvery Moon or Tony Brent's Cindy, Oh Cindy - one of his earliest recordings after he left Bombay for America.
(For more INSIGHT STORIES see more blogs here or at www.myspace.com/india_realities ) My latest blog at Myspace is: BACK TO BANGALORE - TO SHOCK AND AWE.

Oh yeah! Bombay was then a cosmopolitan world city.

WHERE ANCIENT ALIENATIONS EXPLODE TODAY

India. Globalizing India.
- Where millennia-old caste is a daily cruelty in many parts of the country, sparking intermittently into violence.
- Where religious extremism continues to trigger futile provocation and retaliation.
- Where divisiveness based on language and ethnicity sputters on, turning people into 'insiders' and 'outsiders' in their own country...and leading to bursts of violence, either to break away from India or to create smaller states with narrower and narrower identities.
- Where age-old oppressions lead the no-hopers to call themselves Maoists or Naxalites and perpetrate indiscriminate violence that doesn't in any way bring them hope.
India needs -
Economic progress.
Population control.
Universal education.
Universal health care.
Decisive action against corruption.
And innumerable other basics, like pavements which people can climb and walk on without risk of requiring orthopaedic attention.
BUT AS A BASIS FOR ALL THIS INDIA'S PEOPLE NEED AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE REAL SPIRIT OF NATIONHOOD.
(For more INSIGHT stories see other blogs here and www.myspace.com/india_realities) My latest blog at Myspace is: THE BEAUTIFYING EFFECT OF GLOBALIZATION.

MEMORIES OF OLD BOMBAY AND BOLLYWOOD

I hope to make this a series. So I'll begin with some description of time and place.

My earliest memories are of the 40's. British days. We lived on a street in Bombay - Dadar Main Road - which can be called the Bollywood of that time. There were three film studios on that road - Ranjit, Shree Sound and Ranjit Movietone. Stars and lower denizens of the film world went by all day. The view from the third floor verandah of Sakina Building was interesting. Across the road was a south Indian restaurant - a vishranti griha - where, outside, they would be twirling yellow jalebis into hot oil or deep-frying bhajias. At the street corner a stone's throw away was an Irani restaurant which wafted out the scents of pastries and bread pudding.

The restaurant radios (when radios were scarce) would competitively blare out film music. And then suddenly they would be outdone by the air raid siren. It was war time. The busy street would go quiet. People would vanish indoors and black curtains would be drawn across windows in all buildings. The only people on the street would be men of the air raid patrol - with red ARP bands on their arms.

Yes! It seems a totally different time. It was! Another century!
(For more INSIGHT stories see other blogs here and at www.myspace.com/india_realities) My latest Myspace blog is: DO WELL-OFF INDIANS LIVE IN AMERICA IN INDIA?

UNASKED QUESTION: IS GLOBALIZATION SINKING?

Can globalization go bust like those giant companies and banks?
Can the kind of globalization where the successful go into excesses of greed and celebrations - ignoring the hundreds of millions who have nothing - last?
The answer is obvious.
Surely, economics needs heart to sustain globalization.
(For more INDIA REALITIES and other INSIGHTS, see the blogs here and at www.myspace.com/india_realities) My latest blog in Myspace is: OBAMA: THE TRUE COLOUR OF HUMANITY.

PRETENTIOUSNESS AND FAKERY - INDIAN STYLE

In 'rising' India pretentiousness and fakery form the great divide between those who have something and those who have little or nothing .

Pretentiousness escalates up several levels.
The lowest involves flaunting mobiles, T-shirts and jeans...and, yes, hanging out in new cafes, sipping expensive coffees with names unheard of here ten years ago.
Add a new mobike and it's owner is ready to travel to the next level.
A shiny new car - the bigger the better. The owner's strut changes. He leans back - and, whatever little walking he does after that, he walks like he is lord and master of India.
The next level is attending fashion shows and going for holidays abroad. And the biggest fun for this layer of society is coming back and describing all the wonders they have experienced to listeners who have never even visited Delhi.
The next level is more exclusive. Big businesses. Success makes them tipsy. They step out to acquire foreign companies and compete with the giants of the world - with no thought of doing anything for the millions in India who are unsure of their next meal. These big businesses totally miss the point that the poverty level in India is 365 dollars a year, whereas in the U.S. it is 22,000 dollars.
Perhaps, to this height of bliss and pretentiousness, we can add Bollywood movies. They have reached a delirious state where it is virually impossible for an Indian boy and girl to meet and fall in love anywhere in India. They can meet only in the Swiss Alps, in Central Park, New York....etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! There's no limit to fooling oneself.
(For more INDIA REALITIES stories, see other blogs here and at www.myspace.com/india_realities) My latest blog at Myspace is WRITING TRUTH: FAILURES OF THE HEART UNRAVEL GLOBALIZATION - KEY EXAMPLE, INDIA.