Thank you for your patience. Please hold the line. Thank you for your patience. Please hold the line. Thank you for your patience. Please hold the line. Thank you for your patience. Please hold––

Regular readers of this blog (just kidding; there are none – not even me) may remember my long-standing beef with the aviation industry and the People Formerly Known as Air-Hostesses/Hosts and the sneaky name changes they keep springing on us unsuspecting civilian passengers. There’s also the scorn and contempt I have for call centre ‘executives’ which has been an overarching theme in my evidently not very entertaining life. As luck would have it, now I’m being forced to take a little from here and a little from there to bitch about a new discovery.

I needed the number of a particular restaurant that delivers halfway decent butter chicken by the city’s very low north Indian culinary standards. My protest against smartphones and BBM and Whatsapp and being always connected and always manipulating touchscreens in public is still going full steam (plus eternal poverty), which is why I can’t access internet on my archaic cell phone without using a dated and dreadfully slow GPRS technology which would make the best of us cringe. Inevitably, I was forced to call up that information selling enterprise that also sometimes assists the general public with a few phone numbers and addresses. I can't reveal the name of this very well-known company for legal reasons (actually, I don't know if I can be legally implicated for taking their name but it's funnier this way).

So I justdial this company that I can't name for legal reasons. Firstly, credit where it’s due – someone from their call centre usually answers with a jovial greeting before even the first ring. But in this instance, there was a good five-to-eight second delay, which was a little unsettling. Nevertheless, the guy at the other end of my phone call did answer. He couldn’t find the restaurant information that I had asked for, so he put me on hold for a few seconds.

A little after the automated lady voice told me how important my call was, she happened to mention that “Our officers will be with you shortly. Thank you for your patience.” Officers? OFFICERS?

This needs to stop. I will not, no matter how insignificant this entire thing is, ever refer to the chaps who give me numbers and addresses of restaurants and give out my phone number to thousands of plumbers and electricians and key-makers as Officers. First of all, they don’t even have an office (not that I do, either). But they work out of a call centre – that’s very different. I can’t even call it a BPO out of the goodness of my heart because it’s not one. It’s most likely just an information-selling racket with a CSR programme that gives out numbers and addresses to callers. And what makes them deserving of being called Officers? Even our finest khaki dimwits aren’t worthy of that particular distinction, but that’s a can of worms that’s best left unopened.

Conclusion: I hate myself for saying this but I yearn for the good old days where these guys were happy living in their little bubble of all-night dhabas and calling themselves Executives. Or I could always just let this one go - chalk one up for dignity of labour or something.

The How-to Guide to Writing for the Internet

There’s obviously a loose template somewhere out there, which is why everything on the internet reads the same way. There has to be. And over time spent staring at my laptop screen, I’ve noticed that writers tend to fashion their pieces a certain way, latching on to collective quirks to lure unsuspecting readers into believing they’re having fun reading the thing. In the spirit of full disclosure, here’s me attempting to Wikileaks contemporary online writers.

1.      Drop Current Affairs References and Verbalize Them: Wikileaks isn’t strictly ‘current affairs’ but notice how I used it as a verb recently? Also: Verbalize. And Facebooking.

2.      Make Lists: A lot of people unfairly accuse writers of holding their readers in contempt by oversimplifying everything via lists; that they think their readers suffer from shallow attention spans. That’s expressly untrue. The real reason lists are so common is because it’s the writers themselves who have short attention spans and because there hap.

3.      Use A Straw Man Argument: “A lot of people unfairly accuse…” etc.

4.      Excessive Use of Irony: Sarcasm is too immature while sincerity happens to be really difficult to express and far beyond the scope of the average Joe. Lying in between is that special kind of feckless irony that’s the sole preserve of the budding online writer. It comes with either A) not having a clue what irony really means, or B) not being too sure what the purpose of its use is in context to the piece being crafted, or C) all of the above. It’s a postmodern conundrum is what it is.

5.      The Hipster Fixation: Call anything that pisses you off or you find threatening a ‘hipster’.

“The F7 key on my laptop is a fucking hipster.”

“My cook made black dal today instead of yellow dal; bloody hipster woman.”

“My hipster building has really old Schindler’s lifts.”

*As an aside, isn’t it time we – as dedicated consumers and self-professed content generators on the internet – begin phasing out use of the word? It’s been done to death and its overuse without any real context has pretty much blunted any potential impact it may have had – positive or negative – to begin with. I’ve personally tried using ‘coolcat’ or ‘hepcat’ on multiple occasions but it doesn’t seem to be catching on.

6.      “Self-Awareness”: In the real world, there are certain personality quirks that help one identify someone as being “self-conscious”. Online, that same thing passes off as being “self-aware”, which is considered quite cool. Less flattering terms include puffery and flash.

7.      ([{Over-punctuate}]): Usually; In-correctly…

8.      Excessive Use of Overdone Catchphrases: True story. Because nothing collects a herd quite like a dog whistle. Just sayin’. Keep calm and be ironic.

9.      Supposed Axioms and Clichés: Let’s all get together and rhapsodize about bacon wrapped in Nutella because nothing better has or will exist and fuck heart patients, diabetics, vegetarians, certain faiths but not all of them, and also people with different taste. Cue hilarious one-liner about bacon that makes it 2legit2quit.

10.  Be Meta: This is a two-step process: First, look up the word meta on an online dictionary and then be it.

11.  Name Drop TV Shows to Fit In: The so-called cerebral ones, particularly. For e.g., Community. It used to be Arrested Development earlier, which I happen to love. So I’m going with Community and its trying-too-hard-cockiness.

12.  Shift-F7 to Sound Intellectual or Witty: This is best used in conjunction with when the writer has no real point to make to begin with.

Exhibit A: I’m against corruption but I pay traffic cops a bribe when I jump a red light or talk on my cell phone.

Exhibit B: The act of corruption is preposterous and, fundamentally, it happens to be a direct consequence of a greed-infested world imbibed with values of capitalism, blind profit, and materialism, with blatant disregard, contempt even, for the true warriors – the working class. Power to the people and down with the government. Ultimately, the need of the hour is to destroy the multiple layers of protection enjoyed by the gentry, instead of focusing our collective energies fighting the little man paying a miniscule amount to get out of a speeding challan. That’s just a microcosm of a larger predicament, and unimportant in the grand scheme of things, especially when there are Coalgate (ugh) and 2G scams happening at the very top levels of our administration.  

Spot the difference. Although, in fairness, writers tend to get paid on a per-word system, so the more the merrier.

13.  Use of Tortured Analogies and Comparisons for the Sake of Contrived Comedy: “I had a dog when I was fourteen and in braces and I was applying acne cream four times a day. The dog ran away. I popped all my pimples that day. Eight years later, I discovered the internet, went on Stumbled Upon, and stumbled upon a video called 2 Girls, 1 Cup. That was far better than watching this government try to scam its way through its tenure.”

14.   Being Self-Referential: Refer to Point 10. That’s me being meta and self-referential.

15.  Overuse of Rambling Qualifiers, Colloquialisms, and Slang: This is just a sluggish attempt at sounding hip and cool (which leads to sounding smug often). For e.g., phrases like “like, y’know, you know, pretty much, really, really, etc.” Thanks a fuckton for that, David Foster Wallace. You’ve managed to inspire a generation of slacker wastoids to believe they can get away with lazy writing* by, like, sort of adding some colour and character. Also thanks for presaging Facetime video conferencing some 15 years before it happened. 

*Wallace is one of my favourite writers actually, and here's a piece that, while unnecessarily critical and contrarian, tries to explain this phenomenon. 

16.  Drop Token Infinite Jest Reference: See above.


(Not to say I'm not guilty of all of these, often together.)

An Impassioned Plea to Those Flight People: Pick A Name, Please

I’ve always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the world of aviation. Love because it gets me places. But I’ve had many well-documented (documented by me, of course) concerns and peeves about the industry – right from airports, ground staff, the planes, to all other associations and beneficiaries. So no surprise then that the fire’s been stoked again. This time, it’s those people who tell you to sit up straight, hand out food, and give you instructions on what to do in an emergency. In other words, the Professionals Formerly Known as Air-Hostesses/Hosts (PFKAHs).

I’ve always quite liked these PFKAHs (except for this one aged cow who once ‘forgot’ to serve me lunch and then taunted me by asking why I wasn’t eating). Other than that one, they’re all pleasant, warm, cheery, and they’re your one-stop solution for F&B. And it’s a job that can get tedious too – you can never step outside for lunch, for starters (unless you’re in Paris, maybe), and you have to do that annoying audio-visual instructional routine like three hundred times a day. Plus they’re trained to resuscitate people, tend to pregnant ladies, and so on, so there’s that benefit in case of emergencies. So they’re respectable people doing jobs that, while glamorous, are also just as competitive and challenging as most other professions. If anything, my problem inside airplanes is with those potentially drunk/sleeping wannabe RJs otherwise known as pilots, but let’s leave that for now.

Coming back to PFKAHs, several years ago, they changed their names. They didn’t like ‘Air-Hostess/Host’, which I found a bit odd because ‘Host’ has such a comely and welcoming intonation to it. But I think it was to dispel misguided notions that they were simply glorified waiters or busboys. Or maybe some reason I’m not quite aware of. So they called themselves ‘Stewards’. Not that I know what that means outside of an airport context, but fair enough.

You may have guessed where I’m going with this but I’ll spell it out nevertheless. Within three months of that name change, I found out that calling them stewards/stewardesses was also politically incorrect and frowned upon – it’s like how cell-phones keep going out of fashion; they’ll add a new letter at the end of an old model and you’re suddenly redundant and outdated. So like the 1x or the 1xPlus or the 4S or the 3390HD, these guys were now asking to be called ‘In-Flight Attendants’ or ‘Flight Attendants’.

Very cool, I thought. Another name change, but a definite upgrade, since ‘Attendant’ has that elegant professional aura that ‘Physician’, ‘Consultant’, etc. also have.

Fine, I still call them different variations of all of the above because, honestly, I don’t see the difference and I don’t get the fuss. But it is after all their profession and they all seem like very nice and kind people and they have the upper hand because they’re the ones who control my safety and comfort in airplanes and it’s just a word at the end of the day so fine: Fine, I shall call them In-Flight Attendants or Flight Attendants or Space Cowboys/girls or Aviation Sergeants or Aeronautical SkyDrivers or whatever they want.

But then, on my most recent flying experience, I discover that they want to be called ‘Flight Executives’ now…? What the hell?

When people ask me what I do, I say I’m a writer. Sometimes I say I’m a journalist. Other times I won’t. I don’t care whether they call me a writer or a scribe or a reporter or a paparazzo or a hack. I may sometimes correct them if they think I write for television or films but that’s about it, and that too rarely. Because who cares? Does anyone know what any finance guy in the world actually does? (Saying ‘number-crunching’ is ruled out for obvious reasons.)

--

I’m putting my foot down. I will not call them Flight Executives. And that’s not because they are or aren’t Flight Executives – that’s beside the point and maybe in their heads they really are.

I won’t call them Flight Executives because there’s no such thing that exists. It’s completely made up; it’s a hoax. You cannot keep inventing new professions as and when you please, while the job description remains static. The thing is, you’re the ones who’re making up all these flashy names, not us civilians. Please, enough of this madness; let’s just all sit together, develop, like, a huge thinktank with the finance guys and the ‘consultants’ and the ‘facilitators’ and the ‘strategists’ and the ‘policy’ guys and just decide on a final name once and for all, with no ‘Executive’ in there anywhere.

(Of course, if this is a feminist thing where the real issue is the gender-neutrality of job designations, then I concede that that’s a subject far beyond the scope of this blog, and not something that’s going to be dwelled upon even briefly here.)

And honestly – and I really want to know this – what does ‘Executive’ even mean? It’s a frivolous suffix with very little weight.

Epilogue: Maybe I should ask the next call centre ‘executive’ who calls me up but I don’t even want to think about the trauma that’ll involve: “Thank you for holding, Sir, my name is Steve Smith Jones. Before I answer your question, I would like to ask you if you are happy with your cell phone plan and your internet plan and your housing scheme and your credit card facilities and your bank. After that, I will go through my preset answer booklet and surely tackle your query at the earliest. Oh, and would you like to donate money for a charity helping underprivileged children and if not then why, Sir?”

'Why Won't Someone Think of the Poor Kids?'

There was a time when pathetic deadbeat lowlifes working in call centres and referring to themselves as ‘executives’ would call me up and request “a minute of my [fucking] time” to enlighten me about a new housing realty scheme or some great new offer in HDFC bank or about how I had “won” a brand new free caller tune for which I would just have to pay 40 bucks a month. Life was so much simpler in those days; it was uncomplicated. I could tell these morons that “I’m not interested” and hang up without waiting for a response. They weren’t complete boneheads though, or at least their bosses weren’t, so in time they would anticipate the “not interested” response and retaliate with a pleading tone to hear them out. OK, well played, but whatever. I could still hang up.

Then came that DND ruling which allowed consumers to stop these phone calls via some procedure that I don’t know too well. So companies stopped investing heavily in the practice of these cold calls. Instead, they began bombarding me with texts. No worries, brothers; I started blocking those numbers each time I got a text since my unsmartphone does indeed have the option of blocking spam. And yes, I get that they could always spam me with a different number. But at least I could feel superior about blocking every single number of theirs, like one of those first person shooter games. It was challenging; fun, nonetheless.

All good till now: ‘Perils of Capitalism’, I say. Until like ten minutes ago. Indeed, now the power has fallen into the wrong hands.

The newest trend consists of NGOs – those paragons of virtue and morality and integrity and honour and decency and other bullshit middle-management terms – that have diligently employed those same morons [call centre executives with limited language skills; any language] to inundate unwitting consumers into ‘donating’ money for ‘noble causes’.

Personally, I’m against the idea of charity (unless I’m the one receiving it), because it’s degrading, unbecoming, etc. However, I can understand how the concept appeals to religious nuts or wealthy philanthropists trying to sidestep tax regulations and converting black money into white or maybe just generating goodwill to hide their other more devious goings on. Whatever; not my place to judge, and not that I particularly give two shits about the whole mess.

But ultimately, the long-winded point that I’m trying to get at is that charity, fundamentally, should be natural. It should come from within. It can’t be forced, or at least it shouldn’t be.

So when I just got a phone call, from a Delhi landline number no less, even though I have a Bombay number, and I answered, I regretted my decision instantly. It was a dimwitted little shit of a woman telling me that she was calling from an NGO which helps poor kids in need.

‘Oh, the kids, yes, yes, the goddamn kids, they need my money.’

Notice how they never ask you for old clothes or medicines or food or other essentials? They always want your fucking money. Always.

And the ploy is to emotionally blackmail the consumer into offering that money ‘voluntarily’. And once the money comes in, they can buy those poor kids in need Parle-G biscuits and clothes from those hawkers peddling substandard shit outside Jantar fucking Mantar, and they can pocket the rest of my money. Well, technically not ‘my’ money, because I would never pay. But someone’s money. For ‘infrastructure’. And, of course, there’s always the tax rebates when you run an NGO. It’s a classic strategy, this whole social entrepreneurship bullshit that’s doing the rounds.  

But again, whatever. I’m making the very daring assumption that they do in fact help the kids just a little with the money they swindle off of emotional softies. So there’s profit and there’s social welfare, which is great, no shit.

So I told the lady in question, who had called me up to beg me for money, that I “was not interested”, and I was about to hang up. But no; No is just not an acceptable answer for call centre dipshits.

Back she snapped, “But why? Why don’t you want to help out the ‘poor kids in need’? Can you tell me why?”

To which, I asked her where she got my number; I would never voluntarily pass on my number to anyone even vaguely associated with an NGO and that’s the whole truth. She told me they got it from a ‘database company’ – my guess is that it’s called Justdial but I’d rather not speculate.

So I asked her whether she knew it was illegal.

She said, “Why don’t you want to help the poor kids in need?”

“What you’re doing is wrong and underhanded,” I said.

“Why don’t you want to help the poor kids in need?” she replied.

“You do something unethical and illegal and then you try to emotionally blackmail me into giving you my money?” I asked, sort of rhetorically. I was clutching at straws here.

“We aren’t emotionally blackmailing you, Sir,” she said. “We’re asking you to help the poor kids in need. Why wouldn’t you do that?”

“Thank you; not interested,” I managed, and hung up.

She won.

Rating: 0

'Music' Review: Coldplay

Band: Coldplay

Album: Mylo Xyloto

Over the years, it’s become hip for self-professed ‘serious’ music lovers to hate Coldplay; even vocalist Chris Martin has mocked himself and the band multiple times. Why, we hear you ask? Is it because Martin is a whiny and annoying man-child who will never reach the emotional depths of Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke? Maybe, but Mr. Martin does his best to dispel all notions of Coldplay being an insincere and inferior version of Radiohead in Mylo Xyloto, and the comparisons should finally stop now.

The reason for all the hate directed towards Coldplay is most likely the simplest answer (Occam’s razor and all that), which is that they genuinely do suck. The album has its fair share of promising moments, but since the band has pimped it out as a ‘concept album’, we are forced to judge the sum, and not the individual parts that constitute Mylo Xyloto.

The Good, the Bad…

In an attempt at building up a semblance of street-cred, Coldplay has once again managed to rope in Brian Eno (pretty much the father of Muzak/ambient music) for a collaboration, and the album is littered with beautiful instrumental passages of serene landscapes. These strings and synthesizer-laden tranquil moods fade in and fade out, pockmarked as they are by Martin’s jarring interventions and his insistence on cheesy lines of painful faux-depth. “Paradise” kicks off with an imperial strings section and a groove that trudges along just fine, before Martin interrupts, crooning: When she just was a girl/ she expected the world…Dreamed of para-para-paradise (the album is filled with such profound ge-ge-gems of wisdom). We threw up a little in our mouths, but the infuriatingly catchy melody of the vocals kept us hooked, before the pretty strings returned for partial respite.

There is some stellar (but nothing more) guitar playing on Mylyo Xyloto, fitting in snugly with the overall just-a-tad-bit-experimental pop-rock sound that the bands goes for, with a charming guitar solo adding just the right amount of sparkle to a nice and lush backdrop towards the end of “Major Minus”. “U.F.O.” is probably the finest song off the album – a sweet little acoustic guitar-driven ballad where even Martin’s ‘vocals’ sound enjoyable over the up-marketly opulent strings. In fact, the album seemingly picks up in the second half, but don’t worry, it’s merely a false dawn. Also, a word about the so-called ‘concept’ behind Mylo Xyloto; it’s the story of Mylo and Xyloto falling in love in a dystopian world. “Princess of China” springs forth a pleasant surprise as Rihanna pops up in the otherwise predictable duet with some grating 80s synth sounds thrown in for good measure.

The songwriting tends to get predictable and banal once Coldplay-fatigue sets in, and the penultimate song “Don’t Let It Break Your Heart” showcases the band at its tedious and most contrived best. However, the gentle and bright early-morning soundscapes that are built up on “Up with the Birds” come as an amiable flourish to a distinctly average album. However, the band’s attempts at critical acclaim do provide another nice surprise in the last song, as they sample “Takk”, by the Icelandic post-rock wunderkinder Sigur Ros (it’s hip to love Sigur Ros, even if one has never heard them, which pretty much makes them the anti-Coldplay).

…and the Ugly

Chris Martin.

Rating: Ugh

Mogwai Revival: The Self-Indulgent Prelude

I moved to Bombay the first time back in ’09, just a day before I started to really hate the city. I remember the flight clearly; there were noisy people all around, the weather was terrible; the usual. It was raining, and there was lots of horrible turbulence. Honestly, I was scared shitless. But now that I think back, I have very fond memories of that flight. Reason being that a couple of weeks or so before I took that flight, I had bought (downloaded; whatever) this album called The Hawk is Howling by Mogwai, while in the midst of this massive three month long instrumental atmosphere music spree. The entire two hours that I was on the flight, I heard just the first song off that album on repeat, called ‘I’m Jim Morrison I’m Dead’. Rumination and nostalgic remembrances rendered a miserable experience into a meaningful one, thanks in no small part to the song.

The flipside to Jim Morrison’s impact is that I could never get past that first track on the album; I invariably ended up playing the same piece on repeat and I never really allowed myself the chance to explore the album further.

A month or so down the line, after I had well and truly sucked all life out of that song, I decided to give the rest of the album an honest listen. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get past the third song, ‘Danphe and the Brain’, which again grabbed me instantly, so I just decided to give up. I heard ‘I’m Jim Morrison I’m Dead’ and ‘Danphe and the Brain’ on loop for the next few weeks, and never really got the chance to hear the entire album, and then I just sort of forgot about it. Oh, such a fool I was back then.

Then, just the other day (three years later), while working on something, I decided to play ‘Danphe and the Brain’ since it had been playing in my head for a few days so I had to get it out. I sort of got lost in what I was doing after a few times of re-playing the song, and the rest of the album continued to play very slyly while I wasn’t noticing. And somewhere during my passive state, it hit me.

Words can’t describe the kind of impression this album’s made on me since (which is shameful since I write for a living), and in such little time too – just two days to be precise. So I’ve decided to do a review of one song off the album (soon to follow), and it’s as hard a decision as any to make, since I really can’t decide between ‘I Love You, I’m Going to Blow’, ‘Scotland’s Shame’, ‘Thank You Space Expert’, ‘The Precipice’, and a couple others. Shall try nonetheless.

Album Name: The Hawk is Howling

Rating: 10/11

Because this is one of those rare albums that truly deserves 10 rating points. Then again, it’s not the ‘greatest album ever’ either, and I can think of many others which would probably get a 10.5 or so on the same ratings scale. So this rating has been picked for the sake of both fairness and convenience.

Food Review: Dessert at Big Chill - II

I’m not particularly big on milkshakes, although I don’t mind them occasionally. I’ll get to the milkshakes later though.

So I ordered my Mississippi Mud Pie from Big Chill, or The Big Chill for pedantry’s sake, and asked for takeaway. They prepared this neat little tin foil box with the dessert inside, a small plastic cup filled with aforementioned chocolate sauce, and put both duly into a jute bag, because plastic is so 20^th century.

Now I’m all for saving the environment, and plastic is bad and plastic bags are the scourge of the new-age hippies. But sometimes – every now and then – plastic is necessary. I genuinely believe that in the service industry – particularly in the hospitality sector – one should always account for the lowest common denominator, or the dumbest breed of people that will flock to your establishment for nourishment. In this tale of mine, I belong to that class of society that I just spoke about.

You see, the mud pie I had ordered is set largely in a base of ice-cream complemented with a thick crust. Ice-cream melts. Jute leaks.

So I was left with a big bag of leaking chocolate milk (with just the right amount of peanut butter for optimum taste pleasure) on my lap for the better part of 40 minutes, which was the length of my ride to my destination from Big Chill. I was in a car, so I had to do my very best not to spill even a smidgeon of the formerly solid-state dessert floating around in the box on my lap, for which I decided to sacrifice my sole pair of jeans.

I actually had two options; one of holding on to the jute bag and hoping and praying (which is what I did), and the other of actually using those two feeble plastic spoons inside the bag and eating before the mud pie melted completely. I chose the former, since eating the dessert in the car would have meant risking complete spillage disaster. And more importantly, I would have had to share. So I suffered in cold silence as the chocolate drip entered my socks even.

While in the car, I didn’t quite realize the magnitude of the problem. So I got home and opened the box, only to find decapitated crust bits floating around in a sea of brown milk. It was massacre. I tilted the box and drank all of it like milkshake. The chocolate sauce in the little plastic cup was still completely intact, so I gobbled that up neat. Worth it, I guess.

Like I said, the fault’s probably mine for not thinking things through, but the restaurant isn’t completely blameless either. They should have the good sense to have a couple of plastic bags handy for people who want to carry ice-cream dessert for 40 minutes in a car in Delhi heat.

Verdict: Dessert good, packaging not so much. Get some bloody plastic – out with the new, in with the old.

Rating: 3/7 – Fine, be ecologically conscious all you want. But let’s not be greedy tree-huggers? Or daft? If you really must maximize profits at the cost of customer jeans, then why not at least warn the foolhardy about the perils of ice-cream in jute bags in advance? Would have saved me a potential ant-picnic inside my pants.