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Please drink and drive?

What kind of breath analysers are Mumbai’s traffic cops using, where the slightest amount of alcohol gets one into trouble?
Jatin Sharmaby Jatin Sharma

Don’t be misled by the heading of this column – I am not initiating a drive to turn you into a bevda who breaks a million records (and skulls).

This is not even a population control drive where I want people to dig their own graves by drinking and driving recklessly. But I hope to bring your attention to the faulty breath analysers our traffic policemen use.

We are almost a month into the year 2014, but old problems persist. Mumbai as a city has seen a rise in drivers specialising in dropping drunk people home after a party, thanks largely to the efforts of Mumbai traffic cops, who have done a commendable job of instilling fear in people who drink and drive. But then there are the sniffing traffic constables who make it difficult for the aam aadmi. And they carry breath analysers that don’t work well, or not at all. These breath analysers are programmed to show the negative sign the moment you blow in to them.

For the uninitiated, the permissible limit is 30 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood. That DOESN’T mean that the moment you have a drop of alcohol in you, you become eligible for a fine. Again, I remind you that I do not support drinking and driving in any manner – it is both stupid and irresponsible to take the wheel after you’re drunk. But know this: downing a single peg doesn’t automatically mean that you should go through a harrowing breath analyser test.

Most drunk drivers are actually scared the moment they see a traffic cop approach. Add to that fear is the fact that the breath analysers will show negative results, whatever the amount of alcohol in one’s blood stream. The Government has started a fabulous initiative against drunk driving, but it should exert the same zeal with regards to the equipment that traffic cops use – a basic need is to ensure that the equipment is hygienic for use.

Most traffic policemen work really hard to serve people. But due to the faulty meters and insufficient hygiene, they have to bear the brunt of people’s annoyance. The Government is definitely serious about the issue of drinking and driving, but when will it be equally serious about seeing that the innocent are not victimised? It’s not against law to have a single peg (although while driving none is the best), and hence, people should not be victimised.

So what is to be done? Do we insist on drinking and driving till the Government takes the issue of faulty analysers seriously? Tell me your views.

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will be like everyone else. ‘Overdose’ is his weekly take on Mumbai’s quirks and quibbles.

(Picture courtesy www.ndtv.com)

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Do din se ‘Like’ nahin mila hai, sahab…

What prompts this crazy obsession with our virtual selves, where we are begging Likes and Shares from all and sundry?
Jatin Sharmaby Jatin Sharma

It’s no secret that our virtual lives are overpowering our real ones. People are so submerged in the wave of social networks and gadgets that slowly and steadily, we will replace our real emotions with emoticons forever. It is very easy to find a family that is sitting in an urban living room, with all four of them engaged with their gadgets. This is the ‘virtual bonding’ that is becoming more important than emotional bonding for many of us. And it’s also a nice way to cheat your mind – you can say that you were ‘spending time with your family’ when actually, you were having a conversation with seven other people on Whatsapp.

This kind of behaviour has made us so sick mentally that gradually, we have all started to believe that our standing in the virtual world is way more important than out standing in reality.

Imagine this. Earlier, people used to take photographs and post them to Facebook. If that picture got a few likes and comments, it was all good. But now, people have actually started begging for ‘Likes’. I kid you not: this tribe of ‘virtual beggars’ is growing by the day. A simple conversation between friends is now:
“Hey, did you see my party pics?”
“Yes, I did.”
“How can you have?”
“I did!”
“Then why didn’t you Like them?”

I have personally experienced my friends forcefully extorting ‘Likes’ and ‘Comments’ on their posts in lieu of my loyalty to them 😐

Some people have reached an advanced stage of virtual begging, where they tag people and then even message them on the phone to ensure that there are maximum Likes and Shares received. This is going on all around us. I suspect Mumbai will soon become the capital of Internet-beggars.

What amazes me is that the accumulating of these Likes and Comments going “Aww…” and “Woww!” make the world a happier, shinier place for certain people. And the animosity that is being reflected when someone expresses an honest opinion, is quite disheartening. Socially, such behaviour is just going to contribute to the rise in fake feelings and words that have no emotions attached to them. The senses of individuals are now being switched continuously towards appeasing a certain FB friend or a Twitter follower.

There are some individuals who also take great pride when their Tweets are retweeted. Sure, it may be a minor achievement of sorts, because you got others to agree with you. But the problem starts when you take your retweets so seriously that you go on an anshan when your friends or followers don’t retweet you. It has become so serious, that from being an idea board, Twitter has now evolved into this space where people mould their thoughts according to the most retweetable idea. And again, to push the whole thing further, some people adopt the strategy of asking others to retweet their tweets from office.

I think that those inventing Twitter and Facebook came up with these social networking platforms to create an enriching experience. But these social network websites have just created a parallel world peopled with virtual beggars. This is a world whose inhabitants have no qualms begging for a Like, Share, Comment, Retweet and Favourite. Dear All, please remember: begging is against the law. Sure it won’t get you arrested in the virtual world, but do shun begging there too.

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will be like everybody else. ‘Overdose’ is his weekly take on Mumbai’s quirks and quibbles.

(Picture courtesy techcrunch.com)

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What happened a year later?

A young girl was brutally raped and a nation revolted. A year later, what did we achieve for that girl?
Jatin Sharmaby Jatin Sharma

One year!

One year is a long time. A long time when a country is still asking for justice and still questioning the faith and seriousness of a Government in punishing the guilty. One year is a long time if you have lost your daughter to devils who have invaded the streets because of a system where law is not feared much, or not at all.

One year from December 16, 2012, we are still waiting for lots of answers. From questioning the feasibility of a juvenile’s age in a crime, to questioning safety of women or bringing justice to the family that lost everything that fateful day in Delhi; we are still asking questions. Isn’t that what we as a country love to do? Just ask questions?

Will we ever be safe? Will we ever get good roads? Will we ever see the Indian rupee’s value rising? Will we ever become a superpower?

That’s all we do – ask questions. Even today we will see the whole country asking lots of questions. We will trend on Twitter with #Nirbhaya, even #IWantToBeNirbhaya, we will hold candle marches to show solidarity, we will write impassioned letters to editors of newspapers. And all of this, simply to ask questions. We will repeat the old story for a day today, and by tomorrow, we will be tired of asking questions and move on to something else.

India as a country has always just kept asking questions. And the politicos very well know that we don’t move beyond a few questions and a few more shouted arguments. They become more powerful with the number of questions we ask, because they know that our repeated questions (that lead to no answers) reflect a state of mind showing confusion, even despair. If you are the one asking questions, you always end it with a question mark. And the one who has the power to put forth a statement with a full stop is the one with the maximum power. India has let its leaders enjoy the power of ending our questions with a full stop.

Yes yes , I know people in Delhi have started a revolution. They have voted for a political party that has just made its debut, that is very clean. But please ask a question where you really need to ask. Till now, this party just had to attack others as they have never tasted power before. Now is the testing period for them. They are faring well. But to give you the facts, only 41 per cent youth voted in Delhi. People who voted for these Delhi elections are still the same people who have always voted. The voting percentage has risen, but the citizens have not. Mumbai also is very good at questioning, in fact it is the best at focussing on logical loopholes, but are we really up for listening to an answer or is it just that we love to hear ourselves ask questions?

It’s time to finally condition our brains to ask the questions that will get us the answers. We should not ask if a juvenile criminal is of a particular age. We should agree once and for all that any person who can rape a woman should not be considered a juvenile. We should not ask whether being gay is unconstitutional or not. We should just pressurise the Government to bring the change in the Legislature. We have to show a little display of the common man’s power more often, just like we did in Delhi by demanding for a cleaner party and getting it, too. Last heard, the AAP wants to amend the law and include the gay community now. Likewise, they can bring a hundred changes that we want, within the ambit of law and sound reasoning.

My point is, that any change takes place when we start providing the answers ourselves and not just keep asking questions. If you can arrive at an answer, your thought process is clear enough. And if you can dream of something happening, rest assured there is always a way to make that dream come true.

Imagine, if we all start thinking of the answers, we can do the thinking for the nation, too. Our politicians will have 120 billion options to choose from, rather than answering our questions with the answer that they think is best.

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will be like everybody else. ‘Overdose’ is his weekly take on Mumbai’s quirks and quibbles.

(Picture courtesy post.jagran.com)

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This is why Mumbai is not Shanghai

It is through its consistently stupid decisions that the BMC is holding Mumbai back from being a truly international city.
Jatin Sharmaby Jatin Sharma

It’s true that the tongues of our politicians and of those in authority have always been slippery. Or rather, there doesn’t seem to exist a filter between their brains and their tongues. From blaming chowmein for rape to shutting down bars at 1 am to make the city safer for people, our authorities have, to be fair, always worked overtime to come up with the most innovative solutions to problems that plague us all.

But the BMC’s newest decision takes the cake. I continue to be amazed by how the biggest municipal corporation of India consistently comes up with highly original solutions for cost cutting. But before I get into really praising them, I would like to throw light on the fact that these are the same people who have been claiming to turn Mumbai into Shanghai or a world class city that would be lauded by all.

What did the BMC do now, you ask. Well, the Corporation has had a task at hand: that of cutting costs that go towards paying its drivers. The BMC hires drivers for all official works, and these may range from driving their bosses around, to even manning ambulances at all hours. These drivers, like other Government employees, work within an eight-hour schedule, and any overtime is to be paid for in their salaries. However, the BMC found that it was paying highly ridiculous amounts of overtime, because most drivers were working way beyond their eight-hour schedule. The problem of overtime pay was escalated such that the drivers were found to take home more salaries than their bosses!

And so the good folks of the BMC hit upon an easy solution: get retired drivers back to work so that costs do not escalate further.

Dear BMC, I would like to bring your attention to a couple of points. One, the retired drivers retired for a reason. That reason could be age, failing health, failing eyesight. Ultimately, it all leads to safety, or the lack thereof. There is every possibility that you made them work round-the-clock when they were still in service, so it makes me wonder if they are really up to Round 2 with you again.

Second, I assume you are going to pay your retired drivers some salary, right? So why are you not hiring young blood, instead? Also, what extra provisions are you making for these retired-but-back-to-work drivers? Are they contractual employees liable for benefits and leaves? Besides, have you considered the costs if these drivers are unable to drive properly (due to health reasons) and bang your cars into other cars or, worse, people?

I am sure this latest decision was given as much thought as the earlier ones that even considered covering up mannequins peddling underwear. Or refusing to fine their engineers for the city’s bad roads instead of making them accountable for the same. Or lowering the rates for hoardings that featured politicians. Or still not inaugurating a park in the city 11 months after its completion, because there’s nobody to inaugurate it. We could go on and on…

What else can be expected from a Corporation that wants to improve Mumbai’s look and standard by travelling to foreign countries and coming back with ideas to ‘cut and paste’ what works there? A city becomes a world class city when the municipal corporation is committed to identifying its real problems and coming up with local, workable solutions. It’s time that people in the BMC realise that the city has suffered for long because of such harebrained ideas. I wonder if the BMC will soon outsource its think-tank to a foreign agency as well.

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will be like everybody else. ‘Overdose’ is his weekly take on Mumbai’s quirks and quibbles.

(Picture courtesy www.panoramio.com) 

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So when will you stop playing judge?

By saying ‘These things happen’ in the context of the Tarun Tejpal case, we are sanctioning sexual predators’ ‘small’ crimes.
by Jatin Sharma

Mumbai has always been contradictory. It is known as the city of dreams, but it is also the city that never sleeps. From the 1960s on, people have been howling about the lack of space in Mumbai and how noone can find a house here, but the builders keep making houses and buildings by the hundreds. A city that is considered to be the most aware in India is still a laggard when it comes to voting. The financial capital of India also houses the biggest slums. Some members of the ‘elite’ janta will shudder in horror at the prospect of partying at not-so-happening joints, but will come out to eat anda bhurji on the bonnets of their BMWs. Mumbai is and always will be about contradictions.

I was reminded of this fact today when I heard people talking about Tarun Tejpal’s sexual assault case. Straining to hear a discussion about the case on a Mumbai street, I was sure I was going to see the city’s contradictory side again. And sure enough, there it was: “It’s not that bad, yaar. These things happen all the time in offices, everywhere,” was a statement often repeated amongst the group.

And so it happens.

sexual assault issueThis is the same city that simmered with fury last year in December when a girl in Delhi was raped. This was the same city that went on protest marches and endlessly discussed rape and how women were unsafe when a journalist was raped in the Shakti Mills compound by, er, ‘poor people’. Today, during a discussion with my colleagues, someone mentioned that in the Tarun Tejpal case, the victim must have wanted to get into the ‘good books’ of Tarun Tejpal and “that’s why must have done it. This happens all the time and in all sectors,” was the explanation.

Even if a girl is alone with you in your room, that doesn’t mean she wants to sleep with you. Sure, women are difficult to figure out, but understand one thing: when a woman says ‘no’, don’t take it to mean ‘yes’ or ‘maybe’.

A recurring point being made by several people is: ‘This crime is not so bad’. My question was and remains: Why? Why is it not ‘so bad’? What makes a crime ‘bad’? Must the victim cry incessantly and refuse to come out of her house to convince us all that the matter is serious? Why is molestation a ‘smaller crime’ than rape or murder? Why don’t we see this as a problem? On the one hand, we want a society that is free from malice and then we start to define the degrees of malice ourselves. A crime cannot be bigger or smaller in comparison to others. A ‘small’ case of molestation that goes unnoticed and unaddressed empowers the criminal to attempt a a more serious crime.

What’s more, I can’t digest this idea of delegating a professional or personal sphere to a crime. The journalist who is fighting for justice right now was certainly an employee and may have partied with the boss, but that doesn’t make her ‘that’ type of girl. Even if a girl is alone with you in your room, that doesn’t mean she wants to sleep with you. She might be drunk and it may be 3 am, but that doesn’t mean she is allowing you to make overtures. If you read that last line and thought that I was wrong, then maybe you need to adjust your thinking a bit. Sure, women are difficult to figure out, but understand one thing: when a woman says ‘no’, don’t take it to mean ‘yes’ or ‘maybe’.

With respect to this case being discussed endlessly in newspapers and on news channels, all I can see are judges around me, dissecting the girl’s moral character. What gives us the rightTarun Tejpal to demean an individual who has the courage to go against someone as powerful as Tarun Tejpal? What gives us the right to say, “Oh, but these things happen at the workplace,” so casually? Yes, these things must be happening around you, but not all the victims are as courageous. Most victims let the bosses who took advantage of them during weak moments go scot free. With examples like the Tejpal issue, maybe figures in authority will realise that employees are to be appraised on the basis of their professional skills alone, and they cannot threaten an individual and force themselves upon any girl just because the girl is on his payroll.

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will be like everybody else. ‘Overdose’ is his weekly take on Mumbai’s quirks and quibbles.

(Pictures courtesy onwardstate.com, thebodypacifist.wordpress.com, www.mid-day.com)

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BCCI, you disappointed me

Let the BCCI milk Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement, but fans will not easily forgive the empty seats during his last match.
by Jatin Sharma

The world cried when Sachin Tendulkar gave his farewell speech at the Wankhede. The speech was not made of words; it comprised emotions that were residing in his heart for long. Bharat Ratna Sachin Tendulkar became a bigger legend with his parting words. The atmosphere was electrifying and all the fans shed a tear written in Sachin’s name. For the first time, everyone wanted this test match to never end. It looked like the fans really wanted Sachin to do everything on the ground, from bowling to fielding to batting. They wished that Sachin would never retire.

But despite the tears and smiles and euphoria at having witnessed cricket’s legend one last time, I have a complaint with the BCCI.

Sachin's last matchSachin, the God of Cricket, gave us pure joy for 24 years, and received accolades not just in his country but from all over the world. There is hardly any need to go into his greatness – indeed, in the last few days there have been many articles written about different experts who know more than I do about the man and his legendary moments in the game.

Naturally, that every person who has experienced the joy associated with Sachin Tendulkar would flock to Wankhede Stadium to see him in action one last time. But once the ticketing process started last Monday, all hell promptly broke loose. The official online ticketing partner Kyazoonga’s site crashed. Meanwhile, there were rumours that the ‘general public quote’ number of tickets – 5,000 only – were, in reality, only 3,500 in number. Most of the tickets were given away in quotas and to individuals associated with the game and MCA. With such a carnival atmosphere pervading the city as the day of Sachin’s retirement drew close, it was logical to assume that Wankhede would run to a packed house during the match.

WRONG.

I was at Wankhede and I saw empty seats. With so many genuine cricket lovers clamouring for tickets, every single empty seat made me realise that Sachin deserved far better. It’s Sachin fervourobvious, what happened here – the BCCI goofed up again. Failing to understand the people’s sentiments, the BCCI only tried to please its associates and make money off people’s fervour for Sachin. If the ticket distribution had been opened to the aam junta, we would have seen a very different scenario at Wankhede. But so many tickets were sent to corporates who only believe in balance sheets, not emotions. If the ticket windows had been opened at the stadium, if the ticket distribution process had been fair, there would have been no black marketing of tickets and no need for people to pay astronomical sums of money for tickets.

Those empty seats were meant for fans, who had no option but to get tickets in black. No wonder they booed the Board authorities during the match presentation. The only people who were cheered on by the public were city Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh and the cricketers themselves.

As a fan, I was quite angry when I saw those empty seats, that were like a sign of BCCI’s greed and how they just wanted to make even this, Sachin’s swansong, a money making event.

There could have been many more Sachin lovers in the stands than at home in front of their TV sets. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, who has time and again credited his fans for his stupendous career, might one day be felicitated by the same BCCI on the same grounds for being the youngest recipient of the Bharat Ratna. But more than anything else, those empty seats will continue to rankle in my memory and dishearten me for years to come.

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will be like everybody else. ‘Overdose’ is his weekly take on Mumbai’s quirks and quibbles.

(Pictures courtesy blogs.ft.com, sports.in.msn.com, www.indianexpress.com)

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