Does anyone else out there find the "Fair & Lovely" ads ridiculously insulting to women? I mean, we're all supposed to buy that if a woman isn't possessed of a flawless, clear, peaches-n-cream, FAIR complexion, she is to be denied everything good in life, like a career and marriage and dates? On the other hand, if said woman is actually fair, of course she will bump into a famous movie director who will offer her the lead in his next movie. Or, well, the fair photographer will have to outshine the model at a shoot. It's the law, dahling. These ads work on the premise that unless a woman is fair, she is worth nothing - not worthy to be a wife, or a career woman, or an actress, or a model, or, hell, even a woman. I mean, the "Fair & Lovely" for men came out only recently...I guess up until now it's been acceptable if men are dark-skinned, swarthy brutes...the women simply must be angelically fair (and, if possible, light-eyed). I, for one, am rather glad that the men are facing that particular prejudice now!! Rather evens the scales...but here's the thing: why does that prejudice exist in the first place?

I think what most people in this country tend to forget is that we are from this country, and along with that we get all the trappings - for the women it's the child-bearing hips and the always-problematic love handles around the waist; for the men...well, men's greatest problem is that they are men! No, on a serious note - we’re Indians, and the majority of us are bound to be darker than the whiter-shade-of-pale that is considered beautiful. Sure you'll have your Kashmiris and Punjabis and Sindhis and the odd Bengali and Maharashtrian who's white-as-snow, but the majority of us range from cafe-au-lait to espresso on the colour scale. And from the time we're born, it seems, we're trying to rid ourselves of any trace of colour that will lead to us being remotely tagged as "dusky” or "tanned" or just plain "dark." Even "wheatish" is barely acceptable these days! Honestly, when did one start equating skin colour with beauty? And since when was beauty the only thing that mattered?

Every where we look now, we see more evidence of just how shallow our society is becoming. It's not fair to villify just the "Fair & Lovely" commercials...I've heard of a TV series on Zee TV called "Saat Phere" that deals with one woman's anxieties over whether or not she'll find marital bliss, simply because she's dark skinned. Is she good-natured? Is she fun? Is she a good human being? Who cares? She's dark! That cancels out any possible good in her, doesn't it? Look at all the other Indian soap operas...the women are primped, pancaked and pasted to look like blue/green/violet/hazel/grey-eyed vixens with fair skin, when in reality, they're at least seven shades darker. But hey, they're gorgeous as long as they're white on-screen. Stepping off the silver screen and a little closer to real life, I have friends (and sometimes I wonder about calling them "friends") who refuse to ask out women, no matter how attractive, if they're not fair. Dark women just aren't beautiful, according to them. Once, I innocently asked whether they were then saying that Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks were not beautiful, to which their prompt reply was that they'd be more beautiful if they were fair! There's no arguing with people who can't see beyond colour. While the situation isn't, of course, of the same magnitude as the racism and Apartheid in America and Africa was, the underlying prejudice is still the same - differentiating, discriminating and judging based on something that one is born with and cannot change. And, indeed, should not want to change. All the bleach and cream and wax and paint in the world isn't going to change the fact that underneath it all, you're still a human being with major issues, and a great deal of insecurity, if you need a fairness cream to get yourself a job and a spouse and a life!

All these commercials and billboards and TV serials do is capitalise on your insecurities. And, with 99% of the masses being tuned into the media the way they are, everyone seems to buy into the idea that fair skin is the way to a better world. Forget morals and decency and a sense of humour and education and ambition. Fair skin is the way to the future! No wonder India is entering the future with one of the highest crime rates in the world. In the future, we'll probably be housing the largest number of theives, rapists, dacoits, embezzlers and terrorists in the world. But I'm sure the ads will say it doesn't matter. Just as long as they have fair skin.

A while ago, I read a blog that delved into the nostalgia surrounding meetings with old friends. I've always loved using the word "bittersweet", and I think sometimes that it's the most apt word for such meetings. I met an old friend a few days ago, after two years , and heard about his plans to go abroad and his job and what he'd been up to in the two years since college ended. It was so hard to picture him in a suit and tie and dealing with clients, when I've seen him in ripped jeans and ultra-baggy t-shirts, knocking back tequila shot after tequila shot till he passed out on the bar. In my mind, at least, he'll be forever 18.

God, if only all of us could stay forever 18 and forever where we're happiest. For someone who's moved around as much as I have, I don't seem to deal too well with change...at least, change in the people I know. One of my best friends from my childhood, someone I've known since I was five and he was seven, got married six months ago. It was the most surreal experience in my life. You know you should be happy, you want to be happy; you have a smile on your face as you hear the news, but all you can remember is running in a three-legged race with him when you were six years old, both of you wearing matching red shorts and t-shirts. Bittersweet was the only thing that could come close to describing it. And he knew it too. Things, people, places, situations, even memories change irretrievably as we grow up and grow away. He still calls and we still talk a lot, but that niggling feeling of change is always there, that little curbing and adhering to propriety, which makes me sad, because God knows amongst friends we've never ever adhered to propriety! There's a different set of rules and boundaries that comes in, even if he's someone you always confided in, because he's a married man, and it's been years, and you're older, and everything grows and dissolves and changes and mutates till it makes your head hurt. And you look at this...this man, with stubble, and a leather briefcase, and a wife, and you can barely see a trace of the boy whom you made your queen when you wanted to be the king in games of make-believe. You know he's still there, but sometimes, it's hard to remember.

If life was perfect, we'd still all be in the college canteen, eating the best chinese food in Bombay and figuring out if we had enough money to go shoot a game of pool. None of this MBA, work, marriage and kids nonsense. There'd be this time warp, or a time loop, that would keep us there, over and over again, so we'd never age and never leave. Our own little Neverland, and we'd all be Peter Pan. Realistically, of course, life has to go on, and we have to make time and make way for more people and more memories and more nostalgia. It's never- ending. You keep giving your heart away, piece by piece, to the ones who leave an impact on you, and on some days, it's hard to remember which city you're in, who your friends-in-close-geographical-proximity are and who it is you miss with an ache.

The best thing, maybe, about all of this, is that they're still there. You meet or you don't, you talk or you don't, you keep in touch or you don't....but somewhere, 2 or 5 or 10 years down the line there's an impromptu meeting. And then there's the hugging and the laughing and the crying and the "Oh my God it's so good to see you!" and the little tugging at your heartstrings as you see and feel the changes, and you know that life actually is perfect, because time didn't stop, it went on and it brought you, somehow, to those people again, and you had the opportunity to use words like "nostalgia" and "bittersweet" when you looked at them and saw how they had changed so much, but not so much that you couldn't still love them.

I am, it must be confessed, a great source of shame in my circle of friends. Why, you ask? Well, said circle of friends includes six men who routinely create a new definition for the words "Maximum Speed Limit" (including one mad Parsi who insists on performing ridiculously dangerous stunts on a bike) and a woman who takes great pleasure in sticking her head out the car window to scream obscenities at police officers, before she zooms smartly away while they scratch their heads in consternation. These friends of mine can look at a car and rattle off the make, year, top speed and other details that I'm told aren't at all impressive, but Greek and Latin always sounded impressive to me. And they regularly spend their time drooling over Porsches and Lamborghinis and the latest BMW Z-something-or- the-other. Me? I think most cars look like a variation of the Esteem (I'll pause now for the gasps of shock and outrage). The most I can tell you about a car at one glance is its colour (apparently, when someone says "Check out that sweet ride", they do NOT appreciate a response like "Um, Yes. Nice shade of red."). Oh, and I can't drive.

Well, alright, that's not entirely true. i mean, I do have a license. Somewhere. And I went for driving lessons.

And almost had a nervous breakdown in the process.

No, really. At the ripe old age of 19, I decided, what the hell. it's about time I learned to be mobile. And I'm sure the confidence will come once I've motored around a bit with a licensed driver in the front passenger seat. Hence the signing on the dotted line at 'Good Luck Driving Lessons.' The name should've been a sign. Now, do keep in mind, this is good old Bombay. There were no brochures on road rules, no instructors in classrooms; just a yellow-toothed, vaguely-decomposing-smelling old man with bloodshot eyes who steered me towards a beat-up old Santro (that's a Hyundai, right? Or a Honda? I always get those two mixed up) and said "Drive." To which my response was a very eloquent "Huh?" Evidently, they followed the rule of thumb: where there's a will, there's a way. In this case, my will to live causing me to get out of the way as a double-decker bus bore down on me. And thence it began: my life-long (for the past 4 years, anyway) fear of driving. From various incidents including buses and trucks zooming by at unnatural speeds and me shrieking inside the car, to a taxi (miserable buggers) ramming into me, my driving lessons were a nightmare. In fact, even though I don't drive, I still cringe when a bus gets too close to the car. As for taxis, I nurture torrid fantasies of having every last one of them taken to a high-tech dump and put into the crusher, one by one, till they're nothing but a glorious heap of scrap.

The moment I was declared legally able to terrorize the streets (I'm still a little foggy on how that happened...might've been a liiiiittle hopped up on painkillers from the cab accident...guess it improved my driving skills), I vowed never to drive again. Only to find that I had to drive home. Of course, since nothing in my life can go right, I managed to stall the car at a busy intersection, causing a sweet-grandmotherly-looking old lady to roll down her window, show me the middle finger and scream something that suspiciously rhymed with "bucking fitch." Needless to say, my license has forevermore remained in some forgotten drawer.

So while my friends are jetting around at what I honestly feel are insane speeds (I mean, just because it's the highway, do you HAVE to go at 120??), I am more often to be found snugly buckled and cringing in the passenger seat, or dozing in the backseat (even during a ten-minute drive. Must get checked up for narcolepsy). And when the discussion turns to dream cars and sunroofs and canvas-top convertibles and awesome tyres and customized rides, I stick to what I know and say "I like that shade of red."

Really, it's a wonder they're still my friends.

Science has long expostulated that the human brain is a complex and wonderful machine, and I agree, though probably not for the same reasons science has put forth. I think the way the brain reacts to the five senses....now that's what is wonderful.

I find it fascinating the way a particular melody can play around in your head for days and days, making a smile spread across your face when that song comes on the radio. And how your mind can create a special significance for that song....linking it to a time, a place, a person, a gesture, a thought. A song, five minutes at the most, so tiny and inane and ordinary, that can still make you laugh and leap out of your chair and twirl like a maniac when it starts playing.

I think it's thrilling the way your eyes will watch people as you sit in the dark corner of the cafe (or bar, or restaurant, or club, or salon, or even the train).... the young mother with the gurgling child, the old woman looking at pictures of her grandchildren, the slimy man SO obviously having an affair with his secretary (hmm,yes, it's that shifty look),the world-weary teenagers three feet away who think the problems of the universe weigh down their shoulders. It's so enthralling to watch them all come and go, see their stories and their lives...and, when you can't hear what they're saying, imagine their stories - that lovely old woman in the corner may have been a cabaret dancer in her youth....and that little boy may grow up to be the president.....Your eyes will pick up on clothes and hairstyles and smiles and heartaches till the world around you becomes smaller, cozier, because everyone is your own.

Mmm, and taste....remembering the rich melting sensation of chocolate on your tongue, even when you haven't touched any in weeks.....anticipating the first bite of your favourite meal at your favourite restaurant...the first sip of cool tart lemonade when you come in from the sun... the icy trail that mint leaves down your throat ....savouring every new flavour and holding it in your mouth and your mind till you can sample it again. And old tastes dredging up equally old memories... pasta reminding you of the first ever meal someone special cooked for you. Vodka making you think back to the first time you got sloshed (and made a huuuuge fool of yourself). Lemon cheesecake making you think back to girls'-nights-out, pigging out on everything sinful and forgetting all about men (except to bitch about them, of course). Chocolate sauce taking you back to... um, nevermind.

Now, touch....that brings to mind a wealth of images. Sensations of soft silk against your skin, the scratch of wool, the pleasant (slightly sweaty from nervousness) warmth the first time you held hands with a person of the opposite sex, the encompassing feeling of a bear hug, your best friend's arm slung across your shoulder, the days when your mom would make it a point to kiss every scrape and bruise to make it better. There's magic in touch, like holding a baby and feeling a tiny, precious life in your hands. Tracing the velvet-softness of the first lily you were ever given (because your secret admirer knew you hated roses). Guiding your little brother when he first learned to walk. Grabbing your oldest friend in a tight hug before you sent him off to get married. It's said that blind people see with their hands. Maybe the rest of us could stand to learn a thing or two from them.

What's most amazing to me is how evocative smells are....a whiff of cologne can take you back to your first kiss, your favourite perfume can bring you out of a sullen mood, a dab of an exotic scent can make you feel mysterious and alluring. The smell of the sea can make you close your eyes and think of days spent with friends sitting on the promenade and watching tiny crabs scuttle on the rocks below. The rich,loamy scent of the ground after it rains can take you to another time when you and your cousins would dart in and out of the sheltering porch in your ancestral home, trying to catch the first raindrop on your tongue. And the peachy-new smell that babies always seem to carry when you smell their hair....it makes you think of every tired, over-used happy cliche in the world, like sunshine and rainbows and puppies. Favourite smells are stored away in this one tiny corner of the brain, and you're hardly aware of them until you're walking down the street and you pass the bakery. That's when you close your eyes and blissfully inhale the scent of fresh-baked bread and apple pie with cinnamon. And then, instantly, your day is perfect.

Each sense is like an intangible journal...sending sights and sounds and smells and sensations to your brain, storing a memory to correspond with each one. And, in the end, what you have is your life, neatly bound into exquisite memories that you can clearly define, and which clearly define you.

Wheeee!! I have a blog! So, I've always wondered...how does one start these things? 'Cuz in my mind, it's a little like being a new student and standing in front of 40-odd judgemental teenagers and stammering and stuttering your way through: "Hi, my name is..., and I'm from..., and..." yada yada yada. Or going out with a new group of people, and there's that slightly awkward getting-to-know-you phase where you politely ask a zillion people "And what do you do? Oh, really, how interesting." At least, till everyone gets drunk...then you're instantly best friends! Sigh. If only I could ensure that everyone reading this would be a little tipsy....why is there no setting for that??

Anyway, having caved in to the strong-arming of all my friends who are enamoured of my writing (all 1 of them), I decided it's time to carve my own minuscule niche in cyberland.Do I do the intro thing now? Rank and serial number and all that? Let's see...female, 20-something, lived in all the major metropolises in India and desperately in love with Mumbai (hellooo, how can you not be??), definitely in the wrong line of work (banking vs being Paris Hilton and partying for a living), addicted to Coke and anything chocolate. Fell out of love with the real world a decade ago, so I prefer the one in my mind (you know, where I have Antonio Banderas and George Clooney in my all-male harem. Yes, it's Utopia.). Am probably not as nice as I could be, but not as bitchy as I'd like to be. Will draw on any available surface (sometimes without consent). Write about books, music, poetry, fiction, my own opinions (a LOT about my own opinions).

And that's all folks. Tune in next post for something at least remotely interesting... after all, we're past the getting-to-know-you phase now!