Fashionholics Anonymous

Wardrobe malfunction would feel pretty shy in front of ‘market malfunction’ as dresses short enough to make a hooker blush is invading the youth psyche informs Jawed Khurshid

As the model Sucheta Sharma sashayed down the catwalk a couple of years ago, her left breast was accidentally exposed – although it was covered by a strapless, see-through silicon bra. Wardrobe malfunction?

The peril that is even greater than this is crouching and ready to pounce and get you. Wardrobe malfunction would feel pretty shy in front of ‘market malfunction’. Beware!  Jolly Roger is fluttering and casting ominous signal. Dresses short enough to make a hooker blush, pants that would make most women’s legs look like they’re packed in sausage casing, and bubble skirts that Dorothy could use to fly home from the Emerald City. Cool, there are many more to be presented on the platter.

Fashionista croon lullabies to more traditional attires, while the lunatic fringe has taken on the aggressive hue, established a jungle raj on the ramp. Few types of attire are so transparent that one thinks twice while using it off the ramp. Similarly, dresses bejeweled with precious stones, embellished elegantly with moti-studded (pearl-studded) frills at hems and aggressive dominance of zari on every single available patch and niche on the glittering attires like ever expanding creepers may stultify the audience flanking the catwalk but fails to take up the market by storm.

Here, it is a different ballgame altogether. Once it reaches the shelves it functions simply as decorative pieces with almost negligible selling potential. Or it simply adorns mannequins standing tall behind glass panes. Here, on the ‘ramp’ of chic shop hunters - Shopper’s Stop, Akbar Ali’s and many more it is the vibrant violet and groovy green that seduces the eye. That’s because designers pepper their shows with pieces they have no intention of ever manufacturing.

The looks are simply too labor-intensive and expensive to produce. Designers simply want their collections to echo their theories on the current direction of fashion. Style can be worn by the majority of women as long as they recognize what works for their figures. While the catwalks have long dictated the important colors, fabrics and silhouettes for a season, they also have intimidated women by showcasing styles only matchstick-thin models could consider wearing and only trust-fund trollops could fathom purchasing. Women have now become very vocal about the fact that they don’t want to be dictated to. They want to have options and they want the designers to meet their needs. 

AchalaSachdev out rightly rejected the notion that the couture marched on the ramp don’t sell. “All the clothes the designer showcase on the ramp are wearable. The designers are catering to a certain genre and not “aam junta.”

Gauhar Khan, Model says of the idea behind high profile designer clothes gathering dust, “that’s not true anymore. Earlier it was a lot about making an impact. Now it has become more consumer-oriented. If you checked out this Lakme Fashion week, 99% of the dresses are very wearable. The designers want to sell more just take a name for themselves. These days any lady would prefer picking it up obviously for the wealthier lot.”

Ask the former super model MilindSoman about there so believed commercial “non-viability and you get him furious, “it’s just not true. Designers are not stupid. The collections they design are extremely expensive” is all he chooses to say.

A nightmare!

  

It’s a revolting tale of incest where a woman had been repeatedly raped for nearly about a decade by her sibling. It’s a ten-year-long ordeal – a harrowing saga of dread, deception, defiance and a pathogenic disrespect for women’s modesty. Alas! What a beastly tale of raw incest and sexual promiscuity!  

Reti Bunder Jhopadpatti – a sleazy shantytown perched in the heart of old Mumbai snuggling Darukhana locality in Mazagaon sobs and snivels at the extreme cruelty that a sibling has committed – raped her own sister. Aslam Wahid (name changed) is a slumlord and a ‘well-connected’ don who boasts of having cordial relation with the infamous bhais of Dubai . ‘This monster has allegedly raped Mumtaz forcibly at gunpoint,’ said an acquaintance on condition of anonymity.

The misfortune befalls Mumtaz after the demise of her hubby. Reeling under awful poverty this poor woman went to Dubai as housemaid, where she worked hard for almost a decade. Her toil bore fruit and after her return to her homeland she purchased a modest flat of two-bedroom-kitchen in a relatively upmarket locality of Mumbra-Kausa. The 30 something damsel had not even in her wildest dream thought that a man, who was supposed to protect her modesty from prying eyes and lascivious pretensions of urban predators, her brother, would rape her. In a cloistered enclosure of their ancestral house – a small claustrophobic cubicle there were no one to hear her moans and wails. Repeatedly the beast outraged her modesty and the fear of ‘dire repercussion’, warned by Wahid had kept her lips sealed to this very day – thereby keeping the justice at bay. ‘On a plethora of occasions we tried to contact her but either she altogether brushed us off as she was scared of some unforeseen eventuality,’ a friend of his father lamented.

Believe it or not...!!!

By Jawed Khurshid

The world is littered with bizarre incidents odd enough to push us in nail-biting spree.  At times we find ourselves amidst strange riddles difficult to fathom. The real life tale which I’m narrating is extremely terrible and you are advised not to read this alone in your bedroom, else I would not be held responsible for any eventuality. Circa 1977: I was merely eleven year old then. I happened to visit Karachi, a happening port city of Pakistan along with my mother and siblings at the invitation of my maternal uncle who has now migrated to Canada after the hate mongers and religious zealots unleashed  pogrom against a minuscule peaceful minority, the Ahmadiyyas (they call us Qadyanis). There I heard a strange story which was hard to digest.

 A couple of hours away from Karachi, on a broad highway that links the port city with other major cities of Baluchistan province, such a terrifying incident occurred that had made our hair stand on end. On a chilly 11 December’s night, at 11 PM a cabbie was negotiating through the serpentine track amidst swathe of dense wood and hills in his yellow Toyota . He was mumbling some pushto song and was seemed to be in a pleasant mood. As he reached a U-turn, he was greatly surprised to find a gorgeous damsel draped in spotless white shalwar-jumper (clothes girls used to wear) standing erect at the middle of the road waving her hands desperately to stop the cab. As his eyes gingerly moved towards the girl’s forehead an unknown fear overwhelmed him. The fresh blood was oozing from her forehead as if she had met with an accident a couple of minutes back. Two thin rivulets of blood was formed which ran through her face all the way to her slender neck and ultimately merged with her satin across hercollar bone, making large crimson patch behind the left shoulder.

 Fear gripped him and various lacerating thoughts started haunting him time and again. Had she met with an accident? What was she doing here at this hour? As he drew closer his leg spontaneously pressed on the brake and with a sudden jerk the cab ceased to move a few feet away from the girl. She walked past the driver and opened the back-door and sat comfortably without mincing a word. Gathering his courage the cabbie asked, “Bibijiaapkokahanjanahai? And he wavered, “Is waqtaapyehankiyakarrahinhain? (Where would you like to go? and what are you doing here at this hour?)” She didn’t reply; simply waved her hand in a direction supposedly she would like to proceed. Now the driver was completely gripped with nervousness; broke out into a cold sweat and found that his movement was not under his control. After driving on the highway for a couple of minutes the girl waved her hands towards left and the cabbie was immensely frightened to find that the car turned sharply towards the left on a kachcha path (non-metallic road) strewn with grey pebbles inside the deep wood without his effort. He started shivering with trepidation. The cab moved on the jerky path and after few minutes reached before an old haveli (mansion) and stopped.

 The castle-like house seemed to be abandoned for years. She got down as silently as she had boarded the cab indicating with her hand asking him to stay there. He thought that she might have gone inside to bring fare. Initially he was hesitant to stay there even for a second but some unknown force paralyzed his movement. After half an hour when she failed to come out, he frighteningly came out from his cab and knocked one of the moth-eaten doors through which feeble light was coming out through the cracks that had developed in the door. A very old man holding lantern came out and asked him for the reason of his visit there and that too at that hour. He said that he was waiting to get his fare and narrated the entire event. Multiple lines of pain appeared on old man’s face and he brought the lantern towards the photograph of the same girl hanging on the dusty wall and asked, “Were you talking of the same girl? He nodded in approval. “She died years ago at the same spot in a road accident from where you were saying she boarded your taxi. And no other soul except me stays here.” His words fell like a ton and in a fit of nervousness he jumped inside his car and drove madly towards his house. After parking, he went inside his room, bolted the door and slept. The very next day he was found dead.

It is yet another strange but hair-raising incident that happened in a small town of Bihar – Bhagalpur , far back in forties. A student of a local college, on one unfortunate day, had left the movie theatre and was on his way on shank’s pony to his house in the dead of a night. As he was passing through the middle of the mango orchard he saw something glistening there. A mixed feeling of joy and fear overwhelmed him. But the joy for having discovered an abandoned treasure had overcome the fear of ghostly trap and he decided to get it before other could notice it.  Spontaneously, his body gave a jerk and he moved towards the shining object. An unknown feeling of joy had put him on cloud nine. As he drew closer and approached the place where it was lying he was astounded to find that the thing which was shining brightly was not gold but carcass of a human hand – all bones and no flesh. The fear-stricken boy screamed out in terror. He swiftly galloped away from the place and ran fast on the bushy lane to be fortunate enough to hear the tap-tap sound of a Tonga driven by a horse from the rear. As it came closer, the boy without thinking for a second jumped on it - shivering and profusely sweating with fear. The kochwan (driver) asked about the reason for his nervous state. He mumbled everything before him. When he reached his place and was about to pay the fare, the kochwan spread his hand out and asked, “Babu is terehkahaanththakya?” (Sir, was that hand resembled mine?). Lo! The boy saw the same skeletal hand being spread before him and an enigmatic smile spread acrosskochwan’s face which looked more ominous in the dim light. With a shriek the boy threw the coins at him and ran towards his house. Puffing and panting, any how he reached his house where he was staying with his old aunt. She showed concern and asked about his fear. The boy narrated everything before her. The aunt jocularly asked, “Beta, is the hand which you saw resembled mine? She said by moving her hand towards him. Behold! The boy experienced the same bony hand and without uttering a word died.

Believe it or not but the people here believe this as the real incident which had forced the then collector to put ban on the night shows in the town. The ban continued for many years even after independence and was lifted only in mid-sixties.

NOSTALGIA

Dev’s journey to eternity

The Romeo of fifties, sixties and seventies who burnt silver screen and captivated audiences with his seductive performances - throwing them into trance-like-state, is no more amidst us, leaving a big void …   

DevAnand, the sensation of Indian cine-goers, heartthrob of teens and bleary-eyed girls whose eternal charm hypnotized audiences with his ceaseless hit numbers, Jayegakahan, kaunhaiteramusafirjayegakahan… (Guide, 1965), Mai zindagikasaathnibhatachalagaya, harghamkodhooainmeinudatachalagaya… and gripped audiences cutting across three generations, a feat that none of the present breed of actors have able to accomplished, till date, had left for heavenly abode.

Anand, a thespian par excellence, stood tall amongst multitudes of actors of his time andpart of iconic triumvirate – Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and he himself, had led the fashion industry to a new high, much ahead of the reigning craze then. A style icon, the Churchill cap and cigar image of the legend still captivate us.

‘Romancing with Life’ was his narration of a chequered career that spilt over into more than five decades. On the occasion of its release in 2006 at his residence, a scribe asked whether the thespian had mentioned the flirtatious side of his life too, the much incensed Dev reminding the young girl of her age said that his grandfather must had been one among his fans. Such was the demeanor, the debonair Dev used to elicit off-screen.  

Born in September 26, 1923 as DharamDevPishorimalAnand in Gurdaspur district of the then undivided Punjab, the youthful love bird left the temporal abode at 88, after a coronary arrest, far away in London on Dec 3.

If Dilip Kumar enjoyed the image of a jilted lover in many of his movies with dropped jaw and drooping eyes, Raj had relished a carefree desi socialist image; unlike his two equally charismatic contemporaries, Dev was unaffected by any stereotype. He played forlorn lover in Guide, his masterpiece, ambiguous gambler in Baazi (1951) and a cop in CID (1956), thus proving his immense comfort-level for any role which he was asked to essay. This reflected the versatility of the youth icon.

The Gregary Peck of Indian Cinema, on whom he modeled himself, catapulted many to stardom. ZeenatAman, Tina Munim, Jackie Shroff and Tabu are the prominent faces that reminisce of the veteran artist’s talent-hunt skills.

The demigod, too, hogged limelight for his certain ‘unsavory’ acts that affects most in this light and action world. Dev, too, was no exception to this. His proximity with ZeenatAman and few other lass had still remained a clandestine affair - unexplored and undiscovered.

Married to KalpanaKartik, the thespian’s son failed to make any headway into Bollywood, a setback that the departed actor never mentioned in any press meet as well as in his much acclaimed autobiography.

His dream project, a sequel to his seventies hit, ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’, had failed to take off as the neo—Zeenat was nowhere to be found. 

Promises are made to break…

Dear Reader,

Our nation is at the threshold of fractured verdict; with none of the political formations seem to be bagging 270 plus magic number: A number require catapulting them to the coveted PM post. Yet they pledge to alleviate voters’ sorrows and pull them out from the life full of drudgery and hardships; to bring smiles to the billions of faces if people vote them to power in the 16^th Lok Sabha.

The granny of all the political parties under the sun, the Congress, promises to bail out voters from the spasm of economic burden by triggering 8 per cent growth and keeping this figure intact till the next 20 years. FDI, 10% growth in manufacturing sector and decimating unemployment through 10 crore jobs is their poll-mantra.

It also boasts of creating industrial corridors, introducing Goods and Services Tax within a year and a new Direct Tax Code Bill. It had promised that subsidies will be limited to the absolutely deserving, financial sector reforms and a new model of governance for cities.

The party also promises to tame the thorny financial issue of fiscal deficit but put the onus of combating inflation on the RBI. It promises foreign investment, 10% growth in the manufacturing sector.

If our voters bring them to power they pledge to earmark 3% of the GDP on health sector through their right to health agenda.

The party which is accused of policy paralysis will provide state-of-the-art mobile health care vans in every district (at least five in each district) and strengthen primary health care infrastructure. It will ensure universal coverage of routine immunisation after the successful anti-polio drive, a focussed intervention to improve the child sex ratio, improve competencies of services provided through the National Health Mission and create 60 lakh new jobs in the health sector.

Women, SCs and STs are a significant voting bloc none of our political parties afford to ignore. So keeping in tune with their earlier pledges this time too they repeated the same old rhetoric: Citizen’s Charter for women’s safety and security, fast-track courts with in-camera proceedings at regional levels and rapid conclusion of cases start “one-stop crisis centres” in all public hospitals for survivors of rape and domestic violence, ensure women are 25% of police force and provide land rights.

SCs and STs, as usual, promised reservation in education and employment for economically weaker sections, affirmative action in the private sector, easy credit and tax rebates for entrepreneurs, and skill development vouchers.

The party who led the coalition national government since past one decade and failed on several fronts once again swears to trigger radical changes in infrastructure and energy fronts by spending $1 trillion, or approximately ` 60,00,000 crore, to upgrade India’s infrastructure in 10 years and create a National Investment Facilitation with none other than the prime minister chairing the proposed agency.

Similarly the party penned a road map for lofty future for Indian republic in its elections manifesto through infrastructure modernization; promising high-speed rail connectivity to all million-plus cities, upgrade airports, and have dedicated freight corridors, to establish a clear policy for fair, transparent and time-bound development of natural resources, and setting up a Special Purpose Vehicle and a regulator to provide 90%  households with power, augmenting access to LPG and kerosene, increase It will cover all the thrust to renewable energy forms.

Besides this the party also vows to remove incongruities in our urban development, housing and environment sectors through landmark legislations.

The newest political outfit: the Aam Admi Party or popularly known through its acronym, AAP too charted out its promises to bring in its flagship janlokpal bill to cover everyone from the prime minister to the peon, a charter for time-bound delivery of services where officers will have to pay a penalty for delay.

The will employ technology to simplify procedures to reduce corruption. It would ensure MPs and MLAs disqualification those charged with violence against women.

The party wants to de-centralise the system and transfer power to the gram sabha in the village and mohalla sabha in the city. It will empower the gram sabha to decide most subjects such as the use and sale of land through proper legislation.

It promises to fortify mohalla sabhas to decide the agenda of work in its area.

The party wants reservation for the disadvantaged to continue but would limit them to socially and economically weaker sections. It would like to upgrade all government schools to the standard of good private schools and provide free higher education.

On Maoism, the party promises a comprehensive socio-economic approach and development of the marginalised communities. It promises to bring in legislation to reduce the eligibility to contest an election from 25 to 21 years.

The right wing BJP is banking on its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s 5 Ts: — talent, tradition, tourism, trade and technology. Like its bitter political adversary, AAP, its principal plank too is combating corruption and moots multi pronged strategy to eradicate it.

The party manifesto focuses on the economy, with measures aimed at creating jobs, promoting growth. Federalism, or the sharing of powers and resources between the Centre and the states are theanother focus area.

The party plans e-governance to minimise corruption at the lower levels of the bureaucracy, which deals the most with the public; a law to check malpractices in the private sector; and steps to bring back money stashed abroad illegally. There will resort to issuing floating warrants, which will bind countries under the United Nations Convention against Corruption, to divulge information.

The saffron party under Modi is hell bent on removing unemployment – a tactical move to target India’s 65% voters who are under the age of 35.

There are plans to introduce financial literacy and entrepreneurship modules in schools, to modify the curriculum in technical institutions, and programmes to train the trainers.

The party firmly believes to link education with jobs.

If comes to power, the party will revive the manufacturing sector and ease levies and taxes – a strategy to lure corporate.

The most important clause here is that the party would allow the private players into the defence production sector.

Fiscal reforms, rationalization and simplification of tax structures are on their wish-list too. Small and medium enterprises can also expect excise levy concessions. Stamp duty concessions likely. It plans to enforce accountability in revenue-collecting agencies and departments.

Disinvestment and transparency in allocation of non-renewable natural resources such as coal and oil are in their agenda too.

If the party comes to power it pledges to simplify the rules for land acquisition and use. It also vows to eliminate middlemen in agriculture sector. The rightist party will incentivize the private sector for setting up supply chain infrastructure.

Crossing the blood lines

              

According to one Biblical narration (Genesis 19:33, Lot and his daughters, ZONDERVAN NIV Study Bible, pages – 35 – 36), “Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. One day the older daughter said to the younger, ‘our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father’.”

This shows that the incest was not a taboo during those days. These days it is considered to be an abomination and disgraceful act demanding exemplary punishment. Unfortunately, it is not as evanescent as it is considered to be. Few believed in carrying this intolerable legacy, as in the case of a Lucknow based ‘hakim’ who has made several of his daughters pregnant until one of his daughter complained the matter to the local police. He is now leading a shameful existence behind bar. In another horrendous act, one father repeatedly raped for several months his teenaged daughter after the death of his wife. He was a menial worker who was staying in one of the shanties of this bursting metro. Leading a life full of drudgery this mortal slog his guts out to support the family of eight kids. Staying in a claustrophobic 10/8 cubicle where the sunrays dare not enter, the family used to sleep on the bare floor. ‘I was not in my senses as it all happened under the spell of drink,’ he confessed before the dumbstruck audience in a packed courtroom. The city court pronounced relatively lighter penalization, based on the fact that given the ‘claustrophobic’ living condition such trespasses cannot be ruled out! In Jamshedpur, a vibrant industrial hinterland housing few giant industries likes TISCO and TELCO manufacturing steel and automobiles, a father killed his daughter after raping her several times! He was lynched by the crowd outside the court premises. He met his nemesis. In yet another similar incidence, a professor’s son in a non-descript township of Sahebganj, in Jharkhand, had incestuous relation with his own sister. It reached to such a pass that on one occasion she had even became pregnant! The entire town buzzed with the tale of the affairs involving the siblings.

From Nicaragua to New Zealand, from Ireland to Iceland, from Afghanistan to Argentina there are virtually no lands that can claim to be immune from this syndrome. Few years back, a news appeared in a popular US tabloid which mentioned a lady in her mid-30s who seduced her teenaged son into cohabiting with her!

These incidences show that this age old anomaly is still prevalent in the society and manifesting its ugly head every now and then. The moot question lies in how to detoxify our society from such beastly acts. According to a psychologist such incestuous acts are the manifestation of sick mind and depends mainly on the upbringing and socialization of an individual. In many households, particularly in the metros, the living conditions are extremely deplorable. In Mumbai alone, over 60% people are living in ghettos and shantytowns with corrugated sheets as roofs and four walls. In many instances, the situation is so grim that both the spouses sleep in the same small cubicles along with their young siblings and offspring. This cast wrong impression on the children’s nascent mind. Thus acts as the breeding ground for psychopaths and junk culture. Our social mores and culture considers it out of sync with human nature. Though there is no specific law to deal with such occasional cracks that mar our culture. Presently they are dealt under the obsolete adultery or rape acts.

There are many who believe that this is yet another cultural assault by ‘west-laced’ mass media to reduce us into a ‘cultural wasteland’. True, the sleaze that is catered by the incongruous channels – incompatible to our culture, have infected the minds of our youths and like epidemics contaminated their thinking. But how far is it related to the incestuous behavior is debatable. Even in the ‘free-sex’ west, this is considered to be detestable act and is taboo. The religious doctrines strictly warn us against any flirtation with incest. At one place the holy Bible says, “Cursed is the man who sleeps with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother (Deuteronomy 27:22).” How could the west, which professes Christianity, permit such infidelity? This is beyond one’s contemplation. Rather than accusing others, shouldn’t we come out from such strait-laced thoughts by introspecting on our own weaknesses?