RIP #Flipkart, for you no longer exist for us....

With an intension of getting the benefit and convenience of online shopping, we (myself and my wife) decided to order some stuff from #Flipkart and placed an order for a lamp on 7th July 2015. The lamp looked nice and beautiful in the pictures on their app but the thing that attracted us even more was the dimensions of the lamp. We have this empty space besides our TV table that we needed to fill and the dimensions displayed were fitting perfectly, and to add cherry on the cake the price was slashed to 50%. How in the world could we have let this offer go?

But only if we had known that ‘Flip’ in #flipkart stands for the middle finger that they use blatantly to flip off their customers and ‘Kart’ stands as a symbolic representation of the speed with which they service the orders and requests, we would have got a chance to escape. We weren’t that fortunate and got into the trap. The product that was delivered to us around 2 weeks later looked like a toy and measured less than 10 times the size we had ordered and were expecting. It was a complete disappointment as this was not the first product that we were thinking of returning, we had already bought and returned a couple of products in last 2 weeks due to them being of low and sub standard quality. The obvious and first thought that comes to mind in such a situation is that we should have returned this product as well, but we were frustrated and were feeling cheated. It no longer remained a matter of just monetary loss, it had gone beyond that, the loss of trust, the loss of patience and even more than that. Did we deserve this kind of service from an e-commerce giant of India. What we experienced was completely opposite of what their so called innovative TV adverts claim. So we decided to put out our thoughts in public through social media and we posted our comments on FB and twitter. 

What happened next was even pathetic, we were contacted by #flipkartsupport on twitter, soon we received a phone call from their customer support and they assured us that they have confirmed from the vendor and vendor has that larger dimension lamp that we ordered in stock and we shall receive that in a few days. Around 8 days later delivery guy came, again with a small hand held packet which in no case could have had the 40 inch lamp inside. To avoid the trouble of unpacking and repacking, we refused to accept the delivery. 

This time again we were contacted by #flipkartsupport team and they are still looking into the issue. They took order details from us yet another time to probably sit on that for a few more days before they #flip us off yet another time. 

I have lost hope of getting the right product and/or my money and compensation for the time and energy we lost, but my wife is still hopeful therefore I am writing this as this must be happening to a number of people and a little awareness could still save a good number of people from falling in such traps.

Margarita with a straw - my view

English Vinglish, Queen and now Margarita with a straw, though different and distinct in terms of storyline, characters and other aspects, yet all these movies had something similar at their intuitive core. It might not be a conscious decision by director to portray the central character struggling hard enough to achieve desired social stature amongst stereotypical Indian mindset and hence a western exposure proves to be a life altering event, but this is something which is common to all three movies and it is probably also emerging as a new cinematic trend.

So, is it really true that an Indian woman need to have her passport stamped in order to feel existent and empowered? If it is true, then does this mean that majority of Indian women population which does not have any chance of exploring west stand no chance at all to acquire deserved social importance?

While it might be true to an extent that people in developed countries like USA and UK are more tolerant, accepting and are able to see an individual beyond her limitations, but it can certainly not be drawn as a universal law. All societies of world have all sort of people, otherwise these first world nations would have been free from menaces like racism and crime against women. It could just be a happy co-incidence that protagonist of our cross culture films happen to have their respective encounters with only a mature lot of people among all. Having laid down the base for benefit of doubt to director Shonali Bose, it is now just a question of whether she has been able to tell this story of a differently abled girl in an entertaining and thought provoking manner or not.

Margarita with a straw is a bold film with an intent to emphasise the need of equality for differently abled and their desire to be looked upon as equals, recognised for their abilities rather being sympathised for their disabilities. The scene where Laila flips the rock show judge for announcing her band as winner just because the lyrics were penned down by a disabled girl was really impressive and could have set the tone for what's coming ahead, but unfortunately what started as a promising tale of making a mark despite all odds soon turned into a monotonous timeline of routine carnal accomplishments.

It would be cruel to say that we don't expect differently abled to feel the same human instincts as we do, but the fact that entire length of film was kind of dedicated to only this superficial aspect of human experience just let me down. One of the reasons for this disappointment could have arisen from all the hype created for the film. When legends like Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan praise a film, it is quite normal to expect something extra ordinary from the film.

In the end, I would like to congratulate Kalki Koechlin for such a heart felt portrayal of the character Laila, though the minor hand gestures and physical limitations were not carried on consistently throughout the film, but Kalki did a fabulous job. The only other character that managed to equate Kalki was Revathi as Laila's mother. Indian cinema is finally seeing a paradigm shift towards experimental avenues, and hopefully Margarita with a straw is just a step forward.

5 things we might be doing wrong to our kids

No matter how exhilarating the feeling of becoming a parent might be, being a parent is not as easy as it looks. As the famous phrase goes ‘dealing with a baby is like dealing with a drunk person, all the time’ and despite there being innumerable books and internet material claiming to be guides to good parenting, probably none provides the exact solution for exceptional problems. Based on my personal experiences, I have tried to list down a few pointers about what we might be doing wrong, may be sub consciously, unintentionally, but if we somehow manage to overcome these trivial loopholes in our strategy to raise kids, it might make a lot of difference to their lives.

1. Play by their rules: Play by their rules, or no rules to be specific. Babies and toddlers often enjoy and celebrate simple and modest games like peek-a-boo, or make funny faces, or throw the ball but in our attempt to keep them amused, we end up thinking that kids are like adults and hence have a mature thought process and may get bored, just like we get bored doing any activity again and again. Thus, we try and change the game and offer variety. They might not be as neophiliac as we might think and are pretty much rudimentary in their approach to have fun, thus they can continue for hours playing the same game, repeating same things again and again. This is just based on observation though, and there is no fixed formula, they could be quite adventurous as well. The attention span of kids is very short, therefore it is best to continue providing them what they want unless they themselves move out and demand something else. Doing same activity for longer duration only helps enhance their focus and ability to concentrate.

2. Don’t scare them even if you need to: Babies and toddlers might get into tricky and troublesome physical situations. It could be putting their hands or head on or in the toilet bowl, or sitting or moving just around the edge of the table, getting hold of some dangerous tool or any other such situation. Where at first hand we should always avoid them getting into such a situation, but nevertheless even if they get into one and we happen to observe them from a distance, we generally shout out loud in the fit of the moment and scare them. Giving them a shock from a distance would never help, on the contrary it could make things worse like make them fall, make them hurt themselves or at the least make them cry of fear. This might also have implications at their subconscious minds which we might never come to know about. It sounds difficult, but why should we practice something which can do no good, but has potential of doing much worse to our kids? I don’t know the ideal way to deal with this, but probably a more composed approach is required. In one of the episodes of Koffee with Karan, Shahrukh Khan once said some really meaningful words related to this, he said “If I see a speeding car coming towards my friend, I might shout and warn him, if I see a car coming towards my family member, I might run and push them out of the way, but if at all I see a car coming towards my kids, I won’t shout, I won’t push them, instead I would stand in front of car and make sure it doesn’t gets pass through”. No matter how idealistic this might sound, but our children deserve this level of attention and pampering from us.

3. Don’t make promises you can’t keep: We Indians are habitual of creating unnecessary hoaxes to keep our kids away from certain things or activities, or simply to pacify them on certain occasions. We often make fake promises to them just to keep them content, and very conveniently forget about those promises. The problem here is not visible with an immediate effect, but it certainly keep on piling up and might result in long term breach of trust. Our words might keep on loosing the credibility as our kids grow up and in the process we might end up creating an unbridgeable gap between ourselves and our kids. Well, making promises is not difficult, but keeping those is, so ideally we should only promise what we could fulfil. It doesn’t matter to kids whether we are promising taking them to Disneyland or getting an ice cream for them, as long as we stick to what we promise. We all have busy lives and owing to continuing imbalanced working life styles, we find it easy to get away from demanding situations and keep on postponing promises. It really breaks kids’ heart when they don’t get that promised remote controlled car after having so many imaginations of playing with it.

4. Be flexible with what and how they eat: It is commonly observed that babies and toddlers tend to play with food and try to eat everything else. Like anyone else, kids are inquisitive too and for them this experience called life and the perception of universe all around has just begun. It is normal for them to explore everything including their food, and exploring comes best through the sense of touch for them, and hence all the mess. Don't be too much worried about how they eat, whether they spoil their clothes, or they spill the food. It is also normal for them to develop a liking for certain kind of food eaten in some particular peripheral arrangement, like having only potatoes while watching cartoon. This could be improved by disguising other food forms in the form they prefer and by engaging them in something more interesting than cartoon while they eat. Associate their food with little stories and actions, like my son reacts very positively when I give him a bite while making helicopter sound and making a round hand movement. This is time consuming and requires patience and probably that's the reason we normally choose to take a short cut and offer kids quick and junk food thinking that they will eventually start enjoying all kind of foods but we forget that this actually results in kids getting finicky about their food choices. So, even if it's cumbersome to feed the kids the right way, it shouldn't be avoided because all of it seems worthy enough when we see a smiling healthy kid not dependent on junk food and having the same variety as we do.

5. Don't feel embarrassed: There might be a scenario where our young ones don't behave appropriately in public places like malls, cinema halls, restaurants, and no matter how hard we try to control their behaviour they just seem to be unstoppable, and among all the public admiration that it attracts, we just feel like melting down out of sheer embarrassment. Well, there is no reason to be embarrassed at all, firstly because people around really don't care and at the max they might just be sympathising with us, and secondly because our actions resulting from our embarrassment might have even more severe impact on our kids than we might imagine. It must be understood that kids don't cry or create a scene for no reason, they mostly do so to exhibit their discomfort, and in this process if they are made to feel as the source of shame and shouted at then it won't solve any purpose rather it will bring more discomfort to them and the scene would just escalate. There is no routine remedy for such situations and such situations require different treatment every time, but feeling ashamed and blaming kids is certainly not one of those. We must remember, kids learn from us, we are their biggest role models, so we should always treat them the way we want them to treat us. 

Keep experimenting....

Insult comedy is not our cup of tea. People who must have followed the recent AIB roast and it's after effects must be knowing this already. The event and people's reaction to it seem to have blown out of proportions, but if analysed at root cause level, the problem is not that complicated after all.

Roast and insult comedy have been prevalent in USA for quite long now, but so are number of other things as well such as nudity in films, smoking scenes in films without disclaimer, easy arms access, free political satirical humour to name a few. We never advocate bringing other things to Indian platforms, then why is this sudden emergence of advocacy for acceptance of adult comedy?

This has to be understood first that social acceptance in any society comes directly from people and not from governing bodies, probably thats the reason why India has always struggled to accept any unconventional concept, because of it's vast and diversified population, no matter how many people are in favour, there will always be a few against it, and thats when terms like democracy and majority elected representatives comes in play. We can't simply shove anything down the throats of people and expect them to digest, it is rather a complex and time extensive process that sometimes might take even decades to prevail.

Western countries like USA are more open not because their government forces people to be open minded, it's more because the people them selves have grown more mature, tolerant and open minded, that is why they can abuse their governments, they can show their flags burnt, they can mock Jesus and they can laugh out loud at insults, all this because they have learned to react to these kind of unconventional scenarios and they have also grown enough to understand the difference between fiction and reality. 

Indian audience on the other hand is quite diversified and divided in terms of what they can and what they can not digest, and despite there being bodies like censor board to take care of such issues, creators of content often already take appropriate measures to avoid unnecessary ripples. 

AIB did exactly that, they held the event in closed doors to a consenting audience who had great fun, when uploaded on youtube, they still made sure to start with proper warnings and disclaimers but despite all this people who got hurt went ahead and watched the show and reacted, a few reacted without actually watching it in the first place, who should be blamed here? Creators took each effort to avoid getting unnecessary attention, but we have kind of inherited this curiosity to go for the forbidden apple, specially when it looks enticing and might give us a reason to exhibit our intellect. 

We might be on the verge of a change, can't say though if the change is for good or not, and can't even say if the change is inevitable or not, but one thing is for sure and that is it won't happen over night.

With so much already there for people to deal with, people are as it is less tolerant and pre occupied, and with this recent extensive availability of social platforms, people are ready to react more than ever and on almost any and everything. Be it films, politics, sports, religion or any other topic, people will express their opinions on everything executing their freedom of speech and freedom of expression. The question is where is the fine line of demarcation? Probably no one knows that, there are groups like AIB ready to take a plunge and experiment, and there are film makers like Raju Hirani ready to contribute in tolerance evolution by coming up with films like PK, but no new idea comes without the baggage of it's own. This is the world where people have been disgraced for unleashing the most evident of truths like earth revolves round the sun, what and why should we expect from people?

On final note, I believe that people need to evolve, not only biologically, but also socially, mentally, logically, rationally and like every evolution, this evolution will also take it's own time. It might have taken years for our ancestors to get rid of the tails, cutting down the tails instantly would have only created panic and disruption in societies of those times, so it is best to just wait and ........ Keep experimenting.