Girls versus Boys

When my cousin R walked in last evening, the first thing my maternal grandmother asked him was, "How's your baby boy?"

A pretty normal greeting, but get this- my cousin doesn't have a kid yet. His wife is just two months pregnant. And he doesn't know the sex of his child.

When I went travelling earlier this month, my grandmother gave me strict instructions- Get only blue clothes for R's unborn kid.

Every time someone in the family is pregnant, my grandmother talks about the unborn child being a boy. Almost like nothing else but a boy will do. And when a girl does come, she just shrugs. Like it is no big deal. And then she tells the new mother, "So what? Your next child will be a boy." Which means that unless you don't have a son, your life is not complete.

I don't know what irritates me more- the belief that talking of a boy and buying blue clothes will ensure a boy is born, or the overt preference for a boy. I think the latter is more hypocritical, because it is the samegrandmother who declares occassionally, "There's no difference between girls and boys."

If my grandmother really believes that there is no difference between girls and boys, why does she keeping talking about a boy?

Just last week, a dozen of us sat at the dining table, and the conversation veered to the "missing" baby girls in both urban and rural areas of North India. We agreed that it was a shame that girls were being killed mercilessly in Punjab and Haryana just because they were girls.

"Very sad," someone said.

We all nodded solmenly.

It was easy for us to say that, the stand we took seemed almost "natural".

But what was the point of discussing female foeticide? My grandmother's statements prove that she is inherently biased towards boys. So, here we are, in a modern, urban environment, criticising people who kill baby girls (born and unborn), and then we do nothing as our Head of Family displays her preference.

How can we expect the rural population to change their outlook, when we, the educated ones, are not able to shed our bias?

I tried to confront my grandmother yesterday on this issue.

"You think asking R about his baby boy and buying blue clothes will ensure that the child is a boy? What if it's a girl?"

"It will be a BOY," she said.

And that was that.

Dying for Love (Almost)

How far can the youth go to prove their love for their boy/girlfriend? A few months ago, a young girl plunged into a pool before Channel [V] TV cameras, her boyfriend and mother watching admirably. The girl couldn't swim. So why did she jump? To prove she could do anything for her boyfriend. The naive boyfriend just looked on, too dazed to tell her, "You don't need to risk your life for me, you silly girl."

And today, on MTV's Love ke liye another young girl stood before a bed of burning coals, with a crowd gathered around her. It was an agnipareeksha- a true test of love. For more than an hour, she stood at the edge of the coal bed. Several times she put her foot in, then quickly pulled it back, too scared to go further. But this time, the boyfriend finally told her she didn't need to do such a thing for him. He then doffed his shoes and socks, and walked through the hotbed himself.

The girl shed copious tears before her boyfriend came to her rescue. Why? Because she couldn't walk on the hot bed, and therefore she couldn't prove her love for the guy. Umm.... are we going backward or forward in time?

Once upon a time, a person needed to prove his/her love was to arange for a romantic meal, or to buy a diamond or some other obscenely expensive gift. Now people have to risk their lives to prove their love? All these trends have no doubt been promoted by the media. The diamond ads on air make a man feel he can't keep his wife happy until he buys her a diamond. And the current programmes on these only-for-name music channels are supposedly very popular among the youth.

If NGOs can protest against a Pepsi commercial which purportedly promotes child labour, can't they protest against programmes which overtly promote self-torture, bordering on suicide?

Nonsensical Ads

Designer Tommy Hilfiger has finally hit Mumbai. And guess what the hoarding ad at Marine Drive depicts? People dressed in warm, winter clothes. If it was Delhi, it would have been the most obvious choice for an ad this season. But in Mumbai?


And the new Star ONE ads with people having switches on their foreheads are extremely juvenile.


I know copywriting and creative team guys are under lot of pressure, and have extremely tough deadlines. Creativity does not flow easily. But this is lower than the pits.

Some More Outsourcing

Before British journalists could even figure out what Reuters was planning to do, they were informed that the world's best-known news agency is shifting its some of its journalism services to Bangalore.

Now, now, John O' Farrell has informed The Guardian readers about this, and he is one of the best topical comedy writers they have. To believe or not to believe?

Tabloids of the Time

India's most famous broadsheet daily (and presumably the one with the largest circulation) was already showing signs of becoming a tabloid, but today's headline confirmed it finally.


The headline screams out that Sourav Ganguly called the new BCCI President Ranvir Singh Mahendra a "shame" to Indian cricket. On reading the report, you realise he made that statement years ago.


Sure, it's a wonderfully and delightfully ironical situation for the Indian captain, according to the scandal-loving press. And it provides great trivia to the readers. But is it important enough to be the most important news story of the day?


And NDTV devoted the entire second part of its headlines summary to the BCCI circket controversy. (The headline summary is the text which appears on the red background every half-hour). Sure, cricket's a religion, some journalists believe, but again- important enough to neglect other news stories?