10-11-2007..............8.22 AM

Yesterday was an interesting day! Just by fluke I found out that Aamir Khan has a website and he was going to be online to promote his directorial debut "Taare Zammen Par" by chating with fans . You have to register  in order to chat with the star. So in anticipation of the grand tamasha I also got registered and signed into his chat site. The set up for the chat site is something like this: there is a public room where the janta can type in their "thoughts" . And then there is Aamir's room where he "pulls" in people to chat on a one to one basis. The public room was in pandemonium. There  were about 350 people online (not a huge number, keeping in view his popularity) sending message simultaneously. The messages were flying past at a speed of some 100mph. I had seen fan frenzy on TV before (I do not find  it very lucrative to stand in a crowd of half witted people shouting themselves hoarse for any one person to make an appearance) but this was my first experience to be a part of the crowd from the comforts of my home. 

I will digress here for a short while and praise the marvels of internet for a bit. The wonders of this technology never cease to amaze me. Imagine, it gives me the boldness and the spunk to go into a territory I would never be caught dead in in person. As a principle, I do not like to follow the masses. Especially when it comes to being a part of the mob. Mobs and masses are blind to logic and reason. Following a leader, spiritual guru, a religion or a star  ;-) in my opinion, can be bundled into one category. But I am also open to experimenting and getting new experiences. Internet and Aamir Khan have helped me in that direction!! I got a nice experience of what the herd mentality can do to you without actually making me writhe and scream.

So coming back to the EVENT. At 9:00 PM IST, Aamir Khan makes an appearance on  the webcam and all the skeptics (myself included) are pacified that it will actually be Aamir Khan chatting. But no wait, there are some 'dee dee deees' (check out the Dee Dee Dee song at  Mind of Mencia to get a reference) out there who still do not believe that it is the guy who is actually sitting there and typing. HMMMMMMM. Anyway, the traffic is so high in the chat room and the people are so much more high on the anticipation that the poor fellow's system crashes. I have to admit that the guy is an absolute professional. He went  to his office where his technical team was standing by to help him chat with the crowd.

The chat was OK. He pulled in a few people. Asked them where they were from, what they did,  etc....You know how it goes....the small talk. But the fun was in watching the public room. OOOOOOHHHHH MY GOD!!! There were people with masculine names gushing 'OMGs' and 'Aamir if you do not chat with me I will suicide" (that is an exact statement being spammed every two minutes......hard to miss) and there were people screaming (yeah you can do that in type also; the intensity of the screams was deafening). Amazing how only the intent can create the actual sensation. It was impossible to put any kind of meaningful statement there. and the speed ....the speed with which the messages were flying by....it was enough to make me giddy. Aamir picked some 6-7 people for one to one chat. Every time he would bid a farewell to one person to go on to the next one there was an exponential increase in the number of messages coming in. People screaming "pick me" and "I am here" and typing their names. I soon realized that to stay in the game one has to make oneself visible. So, people were just typing anything.....letters...kkkkkkkbbbbxxyy....anything.....and one of the persons doing that was picked. Oh it was hilarious!!

 All in all the whole experience was FANTASTIC!!. I can now 'proudly' say that I was a part of the "FRENZY THAT MOBBED AAMIR KHAN"!!!!!!!! 

10-12-2007...............................11:17 AM

Well its not early morning, but it is still morning :-)

Yesterday two 6th graders came to my place collecting for Christams Charity. They had a catalogue they showed me from which I could select something, pay them the money, sign my name on their sheet with the  catalogue number of the article that I wanted and they would bring the article to me on Ocotber 23rd. It was cold outside, the girls looked excited and, well, they kept telling me that it was for charity. The skeptic that I am, I kept asking questions. One of the questions that I asked was "what do you get out of this?" The girls excitedly showed me a booklet that had pictures of some kid's stuff which they would get if they raised highest amount of money.What can I say, their innocent answers and their excitement swayed me enough to order an article. I am aware that I may have been taken for a ride by those doe eyed kids..... and then I think.... may be not. Oct 23rd will tell me that. BUT this episode set me thinking.

The school sent out kids on a mission to raise money for charity but the kids were more excited about the possibility of getting a material benefit out of it. They were using the word "charity" to establish the nobilty of the cause, but as far as I could see, in their own innocent way, they were trying their best to get the PRIZE. So, for them the significance of "Charity" was limited to getting the adult to contribute.

Somebody explain it to me why there should be any 'prize' other than the recognition of the fact that the kid contributed time and effort and the sentiment to have worked for charity??? The nobility of a cause will always lose its significance to more tangible results. I feel, for kids who are learning to establish the cause and effect relationships, it is important to understand that there are some causes which have much farther reaching effects than the instant gratification achieved by getting a toy in prize. I don't want to go in to the mushy stuff of "putting a smile on an uderprivileged child's face being its own reward". My simple take on this is that sometimes doing things that do not provide instant gratification are still worth doing because they are the right thing to do. And that is what needs to be instilled in the kids. You may never get rewarded for a good deed in this life and there may not be a heaven to find after death but when a child is trained to respond only to tangible things, I feel, the line demarcating the human and animal world starts to diminish.

10-17-2007.............................5:28PM

The morning thing with chai does not seem to be working!!

Anyways, past few days were hectic, what with being in a car accident and  figuring out the insurance labyrinth. But before I go there, I have to affirm that no one was hurt, no bruises and no broken bones. That out of the way, being in an accident is still stressful. I have always felt that 'a car is an accident waiting to happen' and looks like I had been waiting for sometime now.  Those who know me, know how frustatingly cautious I am as a driver. If it was physically possible, people sitting with me in the car while I am driving, would definitely like to evaporate and reach the destination. I am 100% sure that many passengers in my car wonder why with all this progress we have not been able to teleport people the Star trek way. And then my poor husband never feels as aggrieved with me as he does when he is driving and I am passenger seat driving alongwith him.

Despite all the self critique and caution, what can you do when you are hit from behind while waiting in a swarm of traffic for the light to turn green. You are stationary.......no movement.....a sitting duck.......but you are oblivious to the possibilties of an accident (I don't know what you can do even when you are cognizant of that possiblity; you can't very well duck!!). and then WHAM!!. The first instinct is to look at your partner (who happened to be driving in this instance) and make sure that all the joints are in place.Then the second thing that happens is to look behind to see what happened. You see another car, you see the driver who seems shaken but otherwise not hurt. So you pull over on the shoulder and the other driver follows you. And then an awareness of this slow burn happening in the remote recesses of the brain begins. The dent in the car that may have happened (and that big WHAM!! mind you....not a thud!.... no definitely not a thud! but a WHAM would definitely have made a dent) begins to convert itself into flying dollar signs! The other driver gets out and assures that she is alright; I examine the damages on the car, my husband starts to call 911 when I do a double take. The PERSON driving the car is an ELDERLY LADY.

The person who banged my car was an elderly lady. One look at her apologetic face and the words just melted away. You know what??? It is not fair to be in an accident with an elderly person!!!! Especially when it is not your fault! She was apologizing........she was saying it was her fault.....and one understands immediately that these things happen. You know....if it had been a young, cell phone distracted person or a sleep deprived executive or even a hormonally pumped, raring to go teenager, one could  have shown one's displeasure. But it was an OLD LADY!!!!!! 

In this country where my mind automatically associates old age with loneliness, I could not but feel extremely sorry for the whole situation. She had admitted it was her fault; the policemen could see it was her fault.And while all this was going on, my mind was working on how high the insurance premium at her age would go. The police report done, the pictures taken, the insurance informations and reassurances  for each other's well being exchanged, we parted ways.........

She was insured and our insurance has been very helpful. I hope things have been as smooth for her as they have been for us. But my heart still feels heavy everytime I think about her apologetic face. She was 77 years old. I think at that age one would want somebody around who could take you places. I am all for personal independence and doing things on your own as long as your health permits. But like I said before ' a car is an accident waiting to happen' and I for sure would not like to see a life cut short because your reflexes have gone weak or you fell asleep driving!!!!

If I had ranted and raved about the accident I might have gotten over it after I had blown away all the steam. But what can I do about this slow pain that keeps tugging inside my heart? It raises all these questions of what is the best way and place to grow old? To grow old in a society that still to some extent values its old people and happily or even grudgingly takes their care or in a society that is so hell bent upon respecting ones personal space and independence to the extent that old people have to drive themselves around and run their own errands or depend on social workers to come in to help them? I dont have answers, but the questions sure do frighten me!