To be or not to be…

The other day I had been to the restaurant Blue Fox with my friend. While looking for a table, the manager asked us whether we prefer a smoking zone or a non-smoking one. The recent trend, thanks to Indian Government’s ban on public smoking, is whichever public place you go, the question that most asked is “Smoking or non-smoking?” An airport or a restaurant, and even some malls too, have begun separating customers who smoke from those who don’t. Good. The passive smokers have suffered all along. Let us give them a respite. Oscar Wilde once asked: 'Do you mind if I smoke?' Sarah Bernhardt, the famous French Actress, replied: 'I don't care even if you burn'.

I read sometime back that there is a village in Tamilnadu called Puttulur (or some such name), that is tobacco and alcohol free. No dweller in the village is allowed to drink or smoke. But I am not sure whether one should be forced by society to do such renunciations. As someone said, "If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don't actually live longer; it just seems longer."

So determined are we in this classification of smoking and non-smoking spaces, that tomorrow I won’t be surprised even if we have cities or states segregated on the basis of smoking and non-smoking. The smokers, for instance, could go and live in cities like Mumbai and Chennai where the air already is so polluted, that no further damage can happen to their lungs. Non-smokers could stay in villages like Puttulur where the only pollution problem could be smelly people because of poor personal hygiene!

Mark Twain said, "It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times.” These days, I have quit smoking (for the last 7 months) and hence I am an advocate of this segregation. I am now with an uppity group having clean lungs that is also into jogging and health foods.

I was just wondering why not take this concept of segmentation or segragation a little further. Why not make this classification when it comes to other annoying habits?

Food slurping and non-food slurping... (sometimes the slurping sound is so crude and annoying, I would rather sit next to somebody from Puttulur who smells)

Loud-talking and not-loud-talking... (you’re there to eat, not to deliver Swami Vivekananda’s Chicago speech or Gettysburg address)

Throat-clearing zone and non-throat-clearing…

Unfortunately I am in the first segment. I always have that ‘Kichu Kichu’ in my throat. Inadvertently I keep clearing my throat often, I have been nick-named ‘Kichu Kichu Murali.’ Initially I thought I earned the title because of my sense of humour (since Kichu Kichu in Tamil means ‘Tickling’).


'Pan' spitting and non-pan spitting... (I hate people painting the walls in an apartment with the sprinkling of their saliva mixed with 'pan' thinking they are the Hussains and Picassos of this world)

Peeing-in-public and non-peeing-in-public... (sometime back when the controversy of Shilpa Shetty being smooched in public by Richard Gere was there, someone said “In India you can piss in public but not kiss”)

Gum chewing and non-gum chewing... (the other day while I was jogging in the park I stepped on the spit gum. I was trying hard to get it off from my sneakers and someone asked me whether I am trying some new form of dance!)

There is one segregation that I hate always. Old and the Young. The other segmentations are based on some activity. In this case one bases it on the age. That too the physical age. At least if it is on the mental age I can accept. More than anything as I keep saying, "Old age is 15 years older than I am". So let us all agree to have only one group - the young - so that I can always belong there!

Grunt… Groan… Breathe Hard

These days, magazines are loaded with a lot of crap under the guise of research. While I was waiting in the hotel lounge for my client, I breezed thru’ one of the magazines – the name I don’t recall now. In a shameless ploy to sell its issue the cover page highlighted ‘Through Sex You Can Know Your Partner.’ Inside the article said that if a man grunts during sex, he’s an introvert, if he’s quiet or breathing hard, he’s got worries, and if he’s talkative, he’s stupid and probably shallow. I was trying to see where I fit in. Interestingly I realized that I do most of those things mentioned at the same time during the act. I grunt or groan or breathe hard because I am +50 and I am vocal because that’s the only way I can keep the partner engaged!

I am reminded of a joke that I saw in TOI recently in Kushwant Singh’s column.

A man boards a Jet Airways airplane Delhi to Mumbai and takes his seat. As he settles in, he looks around and sees a very beautiful woman taking the seat right beside his. Eager to strike up a conversation, he asks "Business trip or vacation?"

She turns, smiles, and says, "Business. I'm going to the annual Sexologists Convention."

He swallows hard. Here is the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen, sitting next to him, and she's a sexologist!

Struggling to contain his excitement and maintain his composure, he calmly asks, "What's your business role at this convention?"

"Lecturer," she says, "I use my experience to debunk some of the popular myths about sexuality."

"Really?" he says, swallowing hard. "What m-m-m-myths are those?"

Well," she explains, "one popular myth is that Negro men are the best endowed when, in fact, it's the Tamilian who is most likely to possess that trait. Another popular myth is that French men are the best lovers, when actually it is the Bengali. However, we have found that the best potential lover in all categories is the Sardarji."

Suddenly, the woman becomes a little uncomfortable and blushes. "I'm sorry," she says, "I shouldn't be discussing this with you. I don't even know your name!"

"Venkatraman!" the man blurts. "Venkatraman Mukherjee ! .. But my friends call me Santa Singh !"

So that’s what probably I am… an amalgamation!

Now coming back to the magazine crap…

One of the funniest and most ridiculous thing it was selling is the idea that one can do anything if they’re outfitted with the designer clothing, shoes, and accessories - like the newest shoes will allow men to run 20 miles even if he is obese, or that the ultralight, super-underwired designer sports bra will turn the ugliest girl into a star just by efficiently cupping her assets. You must have seen a recent TV commercial for bra showing a woman wondering why the man is staring at her breasts when travelling on the escalator, while in reality he is charmed by another woman coming behind her wearing the apt bra for the T Shirt she is wearing. So a bra for the T-shirt, another exclusive one for the kurti, and another one for shirt... so on and so forth!

The magazine also insisted thru’ another article that drinking green tea once a day or 15 minutes of yoga will make you look 10 years young, take 10 kgs. off your physique, and lead to a healthy sex life… yup.. everything is connected to sex someway! So you have a panacea in a cup of tea and some happy thoughts. The most ridiculous thing about this isn’t that they were ascribing impossibly positive outcomes to such miniscule effort, but that they inspire millions of people, like my wife, to act like they’re some sort of zen master because they stood on one leg for a minute and a half.