I found this as I was looking through my hard drive. Some great instructions for use of the room in a classy little dive motel somewhere in Tamil Nadu, India:

Excuse the blur – it’s transcribed below.

1. When you are sleeping, switch off the lights. But wait until you’re asleep first…
2. Don’t deposit waste in the bathroom. Then where?
3. Keep bed and pillow from burning. Spontaneous combustion is a problem in these parts.
4. The use of iron box prohibited in the room, also high watt machines. What? What? Get out.
5. Do not alter the place of cot and table. It knows where it belongs.
6. Lock the door when you go out. Or someone might sneak in and malpractice your shit.
7. Do not use bed sheet as cloth. Pretend it’s a rhinoceros.
8. Switch off the lights when you go out. So we can malpractice in the dark.
9. You will be responsible for all the malpractices. All of them!
10. Do not place bed on the floor. Perhaps the ceiling? No, don’t alter its place!

Technorati Tags: India

I must admit my last blog about India sounded as if I’d soured a wonderful chapter in my life, and I would like to take time to remember My Mumbai in detail. The whole of India, as I love her, and as she loved me.

Parked in the shade on our way around the south

Louda, my bike, rode me around the South and up to Mumbai. I came with Laura – who was the bike’s namesake, when mispronounced with an Indian percussive Laura’s ‘r’ that sounds like a ‘d’ turned it into the Hindi word for cock. Laura had asked me to name the bike after her – a fair trade because it was bought on money from her in exchange for a laptop which she did not yet posess. So Louda she was.

I bought her in Kodaikanal, way up in the gorgeous mountains on the Tamil side of Kerala. For those to whom that means nothing, the Southern are often darker, slower to anger, and have a far more percussive popping b’s or t’s to p’s. It’s a very amusing language to listen to. The Southerners are also often more casually academic, and quite agricultural. The Keralan backwaters are gorgeous.

My housemate Hari is a Malayalee (one of the Southern folk). He’s incredibly kind, one of the kindest and most peaceful people I’ve ever known. He has an engaging way of telling stories, and always has exciting tales about disciplining policemen and staring down stand-over men.

He’s also generous – before we lived together, he called to ask how I was going. I complained that I had no work (I was an actor, he is a cinematographer). Within ten minutes, a friend of his called to offer me a role dancing in a music video. I apologised and told him that I can’t dance. He hung up. Hari must have called him again, because a further ten minutes later the director called back and told me that I had the role anyway. It ended up being quite a funny video.

People worship Hari like a god – literally. Much like when politicians or religious figures greet and farewell folk, I have stood with him after a shoot, while a queue of people waited their turn to touch his feet.

Getting around Mumbai is always an experience – traveling any mode across the city will almost always include a ‘Oh my. Bloody… Shit! LOOK!’ moment. I will not dwell on the early morning train track-side pooing hour, though those are memorable, but also deluges of incredible kindness. How so many people with limited ability and maximum effort would try to ‘fix’ my bike – even without knowing what was actually wrong with it.

Louda – after pimping, on a ride around Mumbai.

Indian people, my Mumbaikars, are all about relationships.

Indian people will welcome you into their homes, many visitor to India has been treated to tea and dinner by an entire family of strangers. They are eager to welcome new family members, too. Simply because you’re visibly foreign, they will ask you increasingly personal questions while still shaking your hand, once I had a conversation that started with a request for directions and continued until the chap had learned my full name, place of birth, number of family members, marital status and enquired about my sexual habits, still holding my hand long after the shaking had finished, for a full ten minutes. It’s not nosy, it’s caring, curious and keen to build friendships. By the end – I was his ‘bhai’ – his brother. Younger kids call me ‘ankal’ – or uncle.

On Raksha Bandan day, one will find the pretty waterfronts of Mumbai spotted with groups of larrikin young men, they’re sneakily skipping their classes at university or aren’t turning up to work. They are, for today, uncharacteristically avoiding female contact, where the reclaimed land meets the sea, where large, purposefully placed jagged boulders hold back the muddy waves.

They hide because on Raksha Bandan, girls can claim boys as ‘brothers’ which is a more formal, or at least religiously meaningful way of becoming family. She claims him, to be protected and cared for by him, and to be protected from him, because once she’s tied that red thread around his wrist, she is out of bounds. She’s his sister.

Hari and my brother Thos, coloured on Holi festival - he's now a Bollywood star too!

The horny boys will stand and laugh, argue and chase one another around and slap each other on the back with cupped palm for maximum pop and minimum pain.

They will have tender moments, too – boys will walk hand in hand down the sunny Bandra boardwalk, or even rest their head on a mate’s shoulder when tired. It’s not all gay, but I’m sure that beneath the restrictive ridiculousness of the rules and religions, Indians are very sexually permissive.

Mumbaikars will welcome you to them, to become like them, because connection matters most. Yes, there is a downside – that strong familial preference means that those perceived as ‘other’ are easily cheated, targeted and vilified. The group conscience seems to dictate it.

I don’t complain, as a Caucasian, Australian male I was treated very well. But as you slide down, away from the wealthy families, down the caste ladder, religious divides, and the regionalist grudges, you will pass people who live unenviable lives.

Westerners talk about how ‘time is money’, ‘life is short’ and ‘it’s a dog eat dog world.’ They use these clichés to excuse themselves for being rude and self-absorbed. “I’m stressed” they cry, as they pride themselves on being independent, efficient and successful.

Not efficient, no. He'd rather smile and chat than deal with the 8ft high stacks of paper behind him.

Indians pride themselves on being caring, thoughtful and respected. They’d walk for hours out of their way to show you how to arrive somewhere you already knew how to get to, even if it meant turning up late to work. If mother is sick, they might not turn up at all.

Sure, there is a growing desire among the middle class to be more western, to consume more fancy phones and fast foods and speak English and strive harder; working longer hours, turning up on time and leaving late – meeting targets and achieving goals. But they must battle against a system full of people who’d prefer to have a chat or take a nap if it meant having a more relaxing day. Contentment is a reasonable goal for an Indian.

Sure, that is lazy, but it’s good. It’s important.

We are overpopulating the world, and India’s leading the way, but the Indian mentality of family supports a vast number of people on very little. It is efficient at using fewer resources to sustain an more people.

We must learn that.

And you cannot save time – time is not money. Whatever you’re doing right now is all that is happening, you couldn’t have spent this time differently. The frantic ferocity of that thinking causes unnecessary stress. Relax.

Instead we must learn to value our time.

Technorati Tags: Bollywood, India, People

The Mumbai was becoming invasive. It sneaks into every fold of skin, into armpits, it trickles down down back fat into bum cracks under ball sacks it festers, soaking flesh as gaping pores ooze a smelly slick of sweat that sticks the city stench to the skin. Mumbaikars desperately seek out sanctuaries of air-conditioned bliss only to find that as the sweat evaporates, it leaves smudgy black grime and salt crystals that crush, itch and irritate even into the fitful, frustrating, sleepless nights.

I had to get out. The city seemed to want me gone, as if it had risen its temperature to fight me off like an infection, and the bureaucracy had developed a sudden resistance to foreign bodies like mine. Like an immune system, with single-mindedness they are purging foreigners from their midst, but to argue with a government peon is much like having a debate with a white blood cell.

This cheery chap is tasked with making sure his own job is always necessary. This is a real photo of the FRRO.

I went back into the Foreigner’s Regional Registration Office to get my permission to leave the country. I’d been there the day earlier to be excused for overstaying my visa by two days. I had showed them my ticket and passport, and they sent me away, telling me I needed to come back with my proof of address, a letter explaining why I was leaving late, and a letter to verify that I should have been allowed into India in the first place.I’d returned with those documents and was told that they wanted a further four, but time was running out: I had a flight to catch at 5:50, and it was now 3pm – and I still had to get my bike from the police who’d impounded it (again), ride it home, grab my bags and get to the airport.

My brother and housemate faxed the stuff to me, but I had to take a moment outside the ‘Fax, Xerox and Phone’ shop and had one of those thoroughly unsatisfying inward screams, I almost shat my pants and burst a vein from the force of it.

The fax machine had jammed and two of my documents were still inside its memory, waiting to be unsatisfactorily printed. This man runs a shop that does three things – and one of them is send and receive faxes, yet rather than spending the excessive amount he charges for faxes on keeping his fax machine working, he spends it on the creature comforts.

Most of the floor space in his shop is taken by his bed, on which he was sleeping when we arrived; he had bought an air conditioning unit and sat it on a box out in front of his shop, It was pumping expensive cold air in the general direction of his shop, but most of it flows out into the rest of the world. Perhaps he’s trying to combat global warming.

I fixed his machine for him by slapping it and extract the last two pages of the fax, which are barely visible because it’s also out of ink. He insists it isn’t a problem because he can just run it through his photocopier a few times to progressively darken it. Voila. He’s saved money on ink cartridges and fax repairs and recouped costs by charging me for multiple runs at the photocopier, the profits of which he presumably spends on enormous AC bills.

I got back to the FRRO and the woman looked at my stuff and said ‘You’re running too late, you won’t get your flight’ to which I rather coolly pointed out that if she hurried the fuck up I might just get there for check-in, that I was flying domestic to Delhi then to Los Angeles from there. Domestic check-ins only take 30 minutes, so chop bloody chop. She seemed puzzled by something, paused and rechecked my ticket for the fourth time…

“This ticket is domestic to Delhi,” she said.

“I know. That’s why I said that. Otherwise I would have said something else.”

“You must go to the FRRO in Delhi, we don’t have authority to grant an exit here.”

I tried pointing out to them that I’d shown them the same ticket yesterday, and had they mentioned this stupid rule then, I would have been able to do something about it. I’d shown them again when I arrived that morning, and still could have done something about it then, but now, at 4:50pm it was too late to re-book a ticket and get my exit permission because these useful and intelligent peons are pretty punctual when it come to a 5pm closing time, at which point they cease not doing their job (which is to check paperwork) and go home to suck otherwise useful oxygen out of the atmosphere and raising large litters of similarly useful children.

While this particular oxygen thief was filling out the forms the next day (because was forced to reroute my flight), I said: “It’s very difficult to get visas now, all my friends are being rejected.”

She said “Yes, the consul has changed all the procedures”

“You mean, made them harder” I suggested helpfully.

“Yes.”

“Why?” I asked… She didn’t reply. “Is it to keep foreigners out?”

“Yes.”

Marvelous. Great – well India, you win. If you want to keep me out then I don’t want to be there. Your people are wonderfully open, welcoming, intelligent, friendly, helpful and accommodating, but your bureaucracy is the exact opposite.

So you win, I’m out.

Technorati Tags: bureaucracy, frustration, immigration, India, passport, visa

My problem with life in India is that it’s simultaneously too hard and too easy. The easy bits are getting main roles in films, getting into A-list parties, and staying out of jail for drunken, unlicensed, uninsured, helmet-less motorbike riding only costs about 6 Aussie dollars. But the stress and frustration associated with something simple like buying coffee or getting dressed can cause me to vibrate and clench until I pop a valve.

I just went looking for Sony Pix to do an audition. I plugged “Sony Pix Mumbai” into Google maps and got a hit:

So I rode to the designated dot with the help of my occasionally awesome but frequently annoying GPS guided phone, to find the dot was on a big pile of crappy nothingness.

I checked the map again and again, and came to the reluctant conclusion that someone had actually bothered to go to Google Maps to place a marker, but had not bothered putting it in the right place.

I rack my brains every time this happens, trying to deduce the mentality that leads someone to make such an effort with a result that is worse than had they just done nothing (I fixed it).

On my way home, I stopped for coffee at Baristas. I pulled my bike up to the curb, kicked out the side-stand, switched it off, got off, pulled my helmet off and when I started walking away the security guard, who’d been sitting there watching me the whole time said: “You can’t park here”

Surely my intent to park the was apparent from the moment I pulled up, or perhaps more obvious when I kicked out the stand and leaned the bike over, but definitely when I turned off the engine, and I absolutely don’t plan on re-parking it anywhere after I’ve stood up and got off – but no. He waited until I’ve removed my helmet and started to walk off before he said something. Exactly the same thing happened only yesterday – it happens so often. I try to laugh it off but often fail and sound like a manic pirate: “Haha-har-harrr-arrgh!”

Pull this handle.

I think one explanation for the general theme of this directionless drive to do could be the notion of ‘dharma’ – which is your life’s purpose, doing what you’re meant to do. Dharma doesn’t care how efficiently you do something, it relates more to being in a continual state of doing whatever it is you were born to do, as well as you were destined to, until you die. Getting stuff done early doesn’t mean there’s any less stuff to do. If you did do it, then you’ll reincarnate into an even cooler caste with yet another dharma. There’s no escaping it, life after life, and aspiring to escape your destiny within this life is almost disrespectful.

Sure, people break free from the restraints of caste and rise to dizzying heights like the Ambanis, but it is much more common to go down the caste system than up. Climbing takes hard will, courage and lots of luck. Falling is as easy as having cow blood thrown on you, marrying wrong, getting raped or even divorced. In short, acting out of turn is more likely to send you down the ladder than up. In India, innovation is infrequently encouraged.

Pull the other one!

So I went in to buy my coffee and noticed that the glass door has a “Pull” sticker on the outside of the door, and another “Pull” sticker inside – but it’s a swinging door and can go either way, and anyway, neither side has a handle, so in effect neither can be pulled, nor need they be.

Maybe he could have put a push sticker on both sides, it’d easier to do with a coffee in your hand, but why did he bother at all?

Because that was his job. The fact that this swinging door doesn’t need stickers doesn’t change the fact that his purpose in life includes adding stickers to doors.

I was shooting a TV commercial recently, and the costume guys always love to help me get dressed. I assure them that putting on clothes is something I can and do do frequently without them,  but they are determined to help; even if that help consists of them holding my fingers and causing me to fumble as I thread my belt through the loops in my pants, all the while saying:

“It’s fine. No really, I’ve got this. Please, let go. You aren’t helping. You’re actually making it harder”.

But the costume wallah has a purpose. Part of what makes dharma a righteous path is the fact that sometimes it’s a challenge. Many obstacles will pop up to deter you from your purpose, but if you’re born into a job (as castes often are – and named so – Mr. Sodabottleopenerwalla) then you’d bloody well better do it, regardless of how pointlessly irritating it might be.

It must be noted that the excessive amounts of wasted effort do seem to keep everyone rather busy, doing and undone-ing things that took a lot of doing and didn’t need getting done in the first place. It’s a wonderful system that seems to support an unimaginable number of people.

Many Kakapo birds only gets laid once, AND THAT'S WHEN THEY'RE AN EGG! - Zing.

It’s ecological. If one billion people suddenly became efficient, if they only did things that needed doing, and did them right the first time, then I recon an overwhelming number of lovely Indian people would quickly find themselves unemployed and starving to death.

The Socialist Party of India recognized this, and rather brilliantly suggested that India ban English in schools, computers in offices and all farm machinery, which would send it back into the dark ages.

Inefficiency and absurdity might be an evolutionary result of overpopulation, much like how New Zealand’s Kakapo bird, which has evolved in an environment devoid of predators, has dealt with overpopulation by becoming fat, flightless, and amazingly inefficient at mating. Those factors are now sending it close to extinction, a fate unlikely to face Indians anytime soon.

*I must note that my observations are the subject of personal opinion, and in this are predominantly about traditional Indian culture – and are not at all about Indians in any kind of intrinsic, genetic sense. I am also not making a negative value judgment about it. Yes, it annoys me, but that doesn’t make it bad, it just means that I don’t get it. I hope you’re only mildly offended.

Technorati Tags: Bollywood, hinduism, India, People, politics, rationality, religion

He hates athiests and loves hair dye

Archbishop Anthony Fisher today decided to let the world know that he’s rather stupid. He used his inaugural Easter message to blame atheism for the ills of the 20th century, namely Nazism, Stalinism and Pol-Pottery.

What a dull cookie – particularly owing to the fact that he belongs to a church that is currently headed by someone who belonged to he Hitler youth and may have protected child molesters.

The reference to Nazism is regrettable, but it gets worse. He’s been so absorbed in his faith for so long he doesn’t realise: People don’t believe in Christianity because logic seems to indicate that a creator set up an intricate set of rules and laws that govern the natural universe and then occasionally breaks them for us if we ask him; they believe because that makes them feel good.

I was at the police station this afternoon complaining about bureaucracy to Khan, my friend and mechanic. Khan had found my motorbike at the police station, it’d been stolen a few months earlier – and we were trying to get it back. I was having difficulty proving that it was my bike, and the police were having difficulty explaining why they had it in the first place.

When I was done whining, Khan had a go: His hands had developed arthritis which was making it very difficult for him to twist spanners and all that jazz, so I suggested he eat more fish. He said he couldn’t cook it nor afford it because his wife’s recent cesarean section had put her out of action (so no cooking and no job), which meant he had to cook for her with his bung wrists. I asked why his wife’s mum didn’t cook (she lives with them) and he told me she’d recently fallen and was now paralyzed from the neck down, probably for the rest of her life. He had to look after her too.

Khan hadn’t slept properly in two months, because his two month old C-section son was very ill and crying and needed constant monitoring. I suggested he take a few days off from his workshop to look after his family, but he explained that he’d lose customers, and without the income from his workshop, there wouldn’t be enough money for the various medical expenses he had to pay for his wrists, his wife’s antibiotics and dressing, his son’s medicine, and his mother-in-law’s everything. Plus, they’d all go hungry – those four, and his nephew (who he looks after since his brother died), his older son and his daughter. He now looks after all eight of them (I’ve forgotten one, probably another niece) single-handedly; they live in a room that measures about four by four metres in a shitty part of Mumbai. I’ve visited him there – it’s dank, smelly and cramped.

‘Uppar wale ka hath mein hai’ he said to put me at ease when I’d run out of helpful suggestions and had resorted to apologising like it was all my fault. It means ‘It’s all in God’s hands’ or more specifically ‘the upstairs guy’.

That’s why he has faith – because it gives him strength to keep going in the face of incredible odds. Were he an atheist, he’d be inclined to believe that he’s in a rather unwinnable situation – with his ability to earn diminishing, and a brand new expensive son to add to his already huge burden, he’s kinda fucked. Belief in intercessory power (a god that intervenes) is all that gives him hope.

I’m an atheist of luxury – I don’t need god to solve my problems, because my problems involve trying to figure out who I’ll need to bribe at the impound so I can get back my fancy, shiny, noisy, penis on wheels. I’m an asshole.

So I wonder – even if it is a fantasy, perhaps his fantasy is helping him more than I am.

Perhaps you could offer Khan a seat?

But then I have a lurking suspicion that faith put him in his helpless situation, that if we chose to live as equals without irrational beliefs there would not be such incredible inequality; that if he could wear condoms he wouldn’t have had yet another child; that the poor, the uneducated and the downtrodden like him are used as fodder for the power-hungry elite like Fisher; and that if the Catholic Church really gave two shits about anyone at all they’d stop being such money-hungry child-molesting festering puss-filled weeping wounds on the backside of humanity.

Christians who wear the bracelets and chant the mantra “What would Jesus do?” Listen up: He’d come here and kick ass. What did he do? He was a wonderful man who tried his hardest to destroy a harmful religion because he saw it sucking the life out of humanity. He was worldly, educated, and brought a lot of Hinduism into Christianity.

He only got angry when he went to temples because they were money hungry, he hated the exclusivity of Judaism so he opened it up for the Gentiles, he hated the idea of eternal suffering so he offered the hope of salvation, and he thought bacon tasted nice. He stood against everything that Judaism stands for, if you ask me.

If he came back he’d be Luke Skywalker, and he’d light-saber this evil Senator Palpatine, Hitler Youth prick who’s spreading aids in Africa, and he’d love Khan even though Khan’s a Muslim, because Khan is nice and cares about people and he looks after my bike.

A video of me and my penis on wheels:

Technorati Tags: atheism, christianity, hinduism, India, religion

"A burning bus? Perhaps over there."

There exists in Mumbai a nearsighted and rather unpleasant bunch of radicals who revile my very existence within their beautiful city. They want foreign actors out of Bollywood (that’s me).

They are the Shiv Sena – Lord Shiva’s Army  and the MNS – political groups by name, violently quarrelsome by nature.

It behooves a writer to remain apprised of the legal ramifications of writing anything at all in India, because sedition laws are arbitrarily enforced and rather ambiguously defined as anything that “excites or attempts to excite hatred contempt or dissaffection“( - Wikipedia)

If anyone reading this gets excited or feels a smidge of contempt, then I’m going to jail for life – so please don’t. Sedition, in my opinion, is the most dangerous law in India – for exposure of real wrongs often leads detention or expulsion, as was the case with my friend who wrote of the Dalit murders in Gujarat and was summarily deported.

Let’s be mindful of that and carry on…

Bal Thackeray started the Shiv Sena and ran for a while a respectable right-wing, religious political party concerned with supporting the local Marathi people in whose state Mumbai stands. He was about ensuring jobs, health systems, pensions and education exclusively to Marathis, his ‘Sons of the Soil’.

They have a hard-line Hindu and regional agenda, and dislike all things non-Marathi – including shop signs spelled in English.

The Shiv Sena love whacking day

Bal’s son Uddhav Thackeray took over the Shiv Sena which used to riot against migrant workers from other states, bash North Indian rickshaw drivers and the like, pelt stones at police headquarters, voice support for accused Hindu terrorists, they’ve smashed shops and torn down billboards and generally caused a ruckus in order to get in the media, at which point they invariably react against the channel for the negative coverage. It’s a wonderful self-perpetuating cycle.

The Shiv Sena started going mainstream to gain support from a larger nationwide Hindu party, the BJP – which meant they had to stop bashing migrants (but not necessarily Muslisms). As a result, Bal’s nephew Raj Thackeray started a splinter organisation seeking more radical reforms – they are called the ‘Marathi Manoos’ – the MNS.

So now there are two crews both seeking votes from the same people, they attract attention to themselves by engaging in more and more brazen public displays of brute power – often leading to in-fighting between the two groups.

The BJP: Perhaps education should be higher on their agenda

Then the BJP lost a national election, probably because they were corrupt and their policies were near-sighted and focused more on oppressing Muslims than running the country…

So the BJP and the Shiv Sena rioted against Australians for being such prejudiced and bigoted violent morons. They were helped along by the Indian media, which much prefers to be spoon-fed its sensationalist propaganda rather than doing real reporting (probably for fear of sedition laws).

Funny thing that only a few months before, the same group were beating North Indians for migrating to Mumbai, and now they’re upset because North Indians are being beaten in Australia. The group that revile outsiders and assault newcomers are also angry when degenerate, disorganised, drunk youths in Australia do exactly the same thing. Are they scared their jobs have been outsourced?

Now they’re back to being racist: The Manoos want all us foreign actors out of Bollywood – get this: Because we’re stealing Indian jobs. I have not yet met an Indian that can do my job, because my job is to be not Indian. I’m not a particularly exceptional actor, I’m not wildly attractive, I’m not even that skilled, I don’t dance or sing. I’m a single-threat: I’m just white. Who’s job do I steal?

Make up your minds, which do you despise: Racism or foreigners?

Their current claim is against Hazel Crowney because they claim she’s dancing in a provocative way that Indian girls wouldn’t, and tugging at the threads of Indian moral fibre. It’s clear that they know this already, but you might not: Indian movies don’t show sexy white girls flouncing about because Indian girls won’t do it, they show foreigners because that’s what Indians like to watch. The women watch it and think: “Ugh, sluts” and the men pitch pants tents – behaviour neither gender like to associate with good Indian girls.

Indian girls will do a multitude of things to get their beautiful, sensual bodies onto the big screen – and dancing provocatively definitely comes under that broad and intentionally ambiguous banner. Rakhi Sawant started the protest, but clearly her interests aren’t value-based:

Hazel Crowney: They're calling for her head

Rakhi Sawant: Principled instigator

Tell me again – which Indian values were they protecting?

The Shiv Sena recently charged onto the set of a shoot for the film ‘Crooked’, and demanded to see employment visas from the 136 foreigners on the shoot. I know every Bollywood Gora that has a visa – and there ain’t 136 of us. Bollywood runs on making its scenes exotic and foreign with cheap tourist labour extras. It can’t run without them.

These riots will serve to send more films overseas to shoot to avoid them, taking money right out of the pockets of all Mumbaikars who drive and light and serve chai and food to those who paint sets and clothe Bollywood. Their campaign would be short-sighted and flawed, if it were legitimately aimed at improving the lives of Marathis – but it isn’t, it’s aimed at getting publicity – and it’s working.

I love this country – but sometimes it gives me the shits (pun intended).

Perhaps it is me.

Perhaps my desire to become a part of the Indian fabric is mislaid. I had always seen India’s best values were the welcoming and inclusive nature of the people, how peaceful they are. I’d always felt that the laid-back, near-enough’s good enough, slow life seemed more ecological than ours – far more interested in things like a good laugh, an engaging (and intrusive) conversation or even silent company. They’ll stare, they’ll care, they’ll help even if they can’t.

This country holds the greatest potential of all on this earth. With some tweaks to turn the knowledge based education system to teach skills, a good corruption enema and a bit of cultural progression (in terms of womens rights and that stuff) – it will be the next superpower. Indians almost always speak more languages than you do, speak English better than you do, they wrap their agile brains around new languages, new concepts and new ideas with envy-inspiring speed, they have open hearts and kind minds, and there are a billion of them.

That was what I thought India was about, generosity, hospitality and intelligence – but apparently these guys are the last word on what’s Indian and according to them it’s all about the violence, stupidity and racism.

Perhaps it’s time for me to move on.

Technorati Tags: Bollywood, foreign, hindu, India, maharashtra navnirman sena, mns, politics, racism, religion, shiv sena, thackeray, white actors

A UTV channel in India called Bindass recently released an advertising campaign which appears to indicate that being an atheist is on par with not being serious about one’s career, doing drugs and being a slut.

What does being Bindass mean to you?

http://www.bindass.com/post/utv-bindass-what-i-am/

Thanks to Manushka for the heads up on this issue:

Manushka: Intelligent eye-candy to stop traffic.

She’s a very dear friend who is serious about her career(s), very chaste and abhors drugs. She’s also an avowed atheist – she doesn’t even believe in a single god. She also shared with me a rather interesting article which showed research has linked IQ with Liberalism, Atheism and sexual exclusivity in men (not women). Nicely done!

The point of the campaign appears to be: “Just because I watch this channel doesn’t mean that I’m a reprobate.”

The channel has named itself ‘Bindass’ after the Hindi word for ‘reckless abandon’ or ‘without restraint’

I don’t see anything wrong with ‘doing’ drugs. It’s a personal choice that can affect your life, so like driving cars, drinking booze, masturbation and surfing, they should be approached with caution and moderation proportional to the danger. Some things, like drugs, cars and booze, are dangerous. Others just sap your energy and time.

Alcohol sends many people to their grave, marijuana has never killed anyone in recorded history.

And before you spurt out some apocryphal anecdote about some stoned guy who thought he was a thought and punched a cloud and then ended up dying because he tried to eat a Cadillac, I will reiterate. Marijuana has never killed anyone, but being a complete moron has been killing things forever. Drugs aren’t bad.

Making drugs illegal is reckless.

It looks like the mountains in Afghanistan! (click for stats

Making plants illegal is absurd, it makes people you would call ‘farmers’ become what we call ‘criminals’ and hands a ready income to terrorism and organised crime.

That’s what funds the Taliban. Look at the pretty picture I made to demonstrate my point (diligent, aren’t I?).

In 2000, the Taliban banned opium production, which caused that downy bit in the middle of the graph. They were really successful, the downy bit indicates a drop in production from 3000 tonnes to a measly 135.

With no supply, heroin prices went uppy (there is no graph for that), and junkies started going clean. This was around September sometime…

Then some Saudis crashed some Americans into two of the twin towers causing three of them to fall down (what did happen to building 7?) and the world fell on our heads, and everyone blamed the Afghans (with bombs), destroyed their economy, and the Taliban decided that poppy production wasn’t so haram (evil) and as of 2008, it was back up climbing over 7000 tonnes, helping them buy AK-47′s and food and Korans.

Ponder this: Our troops are crawling all over Afghanistan looking for imaginary terrorists hiding in imaginary caves, but are walking straight past real poppy fields.

Poppies are easy to find. Unlike imaginary terrorists, poppies grow outdoors, in the sun, and take up 157,000 of Afghanistan’s hectares, two thirds of them in the Hilmand region alone according UNDOC (PDF). If we burned their funding, the Taliban would suddenly become very hungry and their guns would become very empty, our streets very junkie-less, and our jails quite empty. After all, they produce 93% of the world’s opium (stats), it’s their biggest export (CIA Factbook).

We could kill the war on drugs and the war on terror with a couple of humvees and a flamethrower, but we don’t. Why is that?

Yesterday India’s Border Security Force captured 15kgs of heroin crossing the border from Pakistan. Now it’s on my doorstep.

Drugs aren’t bad. Making them bad is bad. Moving on.

Though I kinda wish you did!

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sleeping around, either. Well, provided you’re well informed, aren’t hurting anyone, and have studied sexual health in school.

The Bonobo are a relative of the chimpanzee, and where chimps use violence to maintain social order, the bonobo use sex.

They use sex as a greeting, for conflict resolution, to relieve boredom and as a method of maintaining a social hierarchy. They are matriarchal and bisexual, the girls growl out and the boys engage in “penis fencing” (no joke).

And they're great photographers.

When a massive patch of food is found that would cause ordinary chimps to become violent and greedy, the bonobo have a crazy orgy and then feast. They’re also freakishly intelligent, far surpassing their dullard chimp cousins. Be more Bonobo.

India refuses to teach sex education in schools. Many government schooled Indian adolescents still aren’t clear on how babies are made and diseases are transmitted.

A Indian politician shared his view on why India refuses to teach sex ed:

“Europe needs sex education because of its declining population rates.” Nawab Malik NCP MLA (Thanks IndiaUncut!)

You are as wise as you are eloquent Mr Malik. Please don’t deport me for calling your stance reckless.

The Mumbai Mirror’s ‘Ask the Sexpert’ column is always a fascinating read:

My girlfriend swallowed my semen while we were engaging in oral sex. Her menstrual cycles are perfectly normal. However, I was worried and surfed the internet and found information there  that suggested that swallowing semen leads to  cancer. Is this true?

Oral sex with swallowing of the semen is a known and common behaviour among many couples.There are no side effects and it does not cause cancer or any other infections. However, it is illegal in our country.

Ahhh… India. Where sex education and oral sex are illegal.

Ahem. Moving on. I’ll skip the one on career, it’s boring.

Well, there’s no arguing that, is there? I think people don’t believe in enough gods.

I mean, most people believe in only one religion, making them mostly atheist anyway.

And really, what are the odds that out of all the religions there were to chance upon, you happened to be born in the right place to the right parents at the right time to be born into the right one? Believing in only one seems reckless.

India has a lovely inclusive nature to all religions, the taxi that brought me here to the airport had both a crucifix hanging from the mirror above a Lord Ganesh on the dash. I say that’s still not far enough though.

If you had all the gods on your side you’d be so busy not eating things, and not doing things that you’d only barely have enough time left for worshipping things, and there’d definitely be no time left for sinning.

You’d certainly never drink, do drugs, masturbate or have sex. Then you’d be truly religious. It’d be a great insurance policy, you’d pay a premium of never doing anything enjoyable, and as a reward, nothing terrible would ever happen to you.

While the rest of us are beset by natural disasters, pestilence, famine, plagues and holy wars, you’d be fully protected from all that suffering that seems to strike the semi-religious world at random regardless of belief.

Then, you could start worshipping your food before you sacrifice it to yourself, and then worship yourself for being you in the process. You could worship stuff that’s not there and thank it for not being there and getting in your way, and worship the stuff that is there for not being not there. You could worship your thoughts for being thunk, and your toes for not being poisonous. You could start worshiping confusion for being what you are now that you’re not not.

So perhaps we could all be a little less serious, more sexual, less violent, more reasonable, more informed and stop fence-sitting on the religion issue. Then we might learn that we’re all pretty fantastic and sexy smart people.

But we should definitely not be reckless.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, atheism, conspiracy, drugs, global warming, logic, politics, rationality, religion, sex

I was feeling disconnected from the world because my fancy new phone was out of credit. I went to a Nokia dealer in a spanky new shiny mall and asked him if he sold Vodafone credit.

“Do you want to do it the easy way or the hard way?” He asked.

Bewildered, I gave the predictable response: “The easy way.”

“Not possible” he replied.

“Okay, the hard way then.” I acquiesced, feeling sure we were already doing it the hard way.

“Where is your phone from” he asked.

“Mumbai” I said.

“Not possible.”

Here is his loveable helpful self

This is not an unusual occurrence in India, and it usually frustrates me enough to write a rant blog. Luckily for Nokia dude, I’m trying on something new. Rather than rants, I’m committing myself to writing blogs that are positive and life-affirming rather than critical and cynical.

India is obsessed with relationships and interaction, and that takes precedence over efficiency and accuracy. As a westerner I am befuddled by the rather pervasive Indian habit of offering multiple options to somebody for whom those options aren’t available. It seems inefficient and absurd.

Indians love to have a variety of choices available to them, and expensive restaurants will cater to this by having menus that number over 200 options of food. It is unlike the west where the fancier you go, the less options there are.

This obsession with choices permeates every area of life, and in large part explains the prevalence of corruption. If told there is only one way to get building permission, the Indian mind will always look for another option, following its other great love: Building relationships.

To Nokia dude, talking me into circles is not wasting time; it’s having an interaction that he values. I get the impression that the quality or tone of the interaction doesn’t really matter, either. One only need see how Indian men become when screamed at by western women to be certain that they’re aroused the intensity, and barely concerned by the content.

Similarly, if you’re sitting by yourself reading or typing or just musing, Indian people will take pity on you and come over for a chat about your country of origin, marital status and sexual proclivities. It’s their way of showing you that they care. It comes from a wonderful and caring place.

There is an avenue for further frustration: Nokia man can give me credit. I know he can, but I’m upstairs blogging about it instead of downstairs buying it. There is a further element to Indian culture: Inaction is always preferred over action.

Westerners usually come from ‘one shot’ religions, which offer only one lifetime in which to get your stuff done. These religions favour action in order to have been as good as possible before being dead and incapable of doing anything ever again.

Eastern religions have a ‘keep going till you get it right,’ Groundhog Day kind of mentality. To live a good life is to live a blameless life, which often amounts to doing less bad stuff. Doing nothing is preferable to doing something wrong, which is why there is a heavy preference for inaction (particularly if you have an eternity to get it right). Meditation is the art of spending as long as possible doing and thinking absolutely nothing at all.

As a result, downstairs Nokia dude is unsure about whether selling me credit is the right thing to do, so he is not going to do it than to risk it. As a result, he’s one sale poorer and I’m disconnected from the world. So be it.

The positive to all of these cultural quirks is that Indians are very ecological, in the environmental and the ethical sense. They are not prolific consumers, they are selfless and inclusive, humble and kind.

It still drives me nuts, but I just wrote a blog about how lovely it is, in keeping with my commitment to focus on positives. Hell knows how I’m going to upload it without an internet connection (via my awesome HTC HD2 phone which can become a WiFi hotspot, when it has credit).

Technorati Tags: India