Are we really not Intolerant?

Really Mr. Kher?  "Nobody has the right to call our country intolerant.”  Really?  I do.  I have the right to call our country intolerant when I feel it's getting intolerant.  Why?  Because I am an Indian.  And because I love my country.

It is only an idiot who’d associate blind devotion with love and patriotism.  A mother loves her son not because she thinks that he can do no wrong, but because she acknowledges all his bad habits and scolds him and chides him to be a better man.  That is love.  I mean do you really need an Apple ad to tell you that accepting the status quo is akin to slavery?  What if our great souls like Mahatma Gandhi and Shaheed Bhagat Singh had accepted that all was well with the nation and any protest was unpatriotic?  Where would we be? 

Civilizations progress because they are prodded and poked and disturbed, to develop, to be better, to treat their people better.  And that stands true all over the world, from Japan to Germany to the U.S.  The U.S. has a black president today because less than a century ago, the country looked deep into its soul and deemed that there was something rotten within.   And they decided to change.

Acceptance.  Accepting that we are damaged is the first step towards change.

And if all of what I say above is, well, too deep for you, let me present this.  Nobody is protesting against the country.  They are protesting against the intolerance of the government.  See?  The GOVERNMENT.  So, logically it’s not unpatriotic.  Because the government is not the country.

Or maybe it is for you.  I think it is.

But if that’s true, shouldn't the BJP be called traitors and unpatriotic when they were protesting the corruption in the country during Dr. Manmohan Singh’s government?  Huh?  “Scamgress” and all that.

Or how about this: when Prime Minister Modi launched the wonderful Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, wasn’t he essentially calling the country’s streets dirty, that they need to be cleaned?  Isn’t that unpatriotic?

Now I am confused.  What exactly is your argument?  What's your logic?

Really?  You're ready to believe all these people, living lives of the mind: intellectuals, think-tanks, artists, writers, who have spent decades of their lives building up monuments of books and arts, cultivating the culture of Modern India, are totally evil, but you can't find a moment to think up a logical argument? 

Of course, as the great yogi dude says, Shah Rukh Khan is a terrorist, even though he comes from a family of freedom fighters.   So we don’t have to listen to dear sweet SRK.  Okay.  But what about the rest of them?  Surely they can't all be terrorists.  Can they?  Or maybe you think they are.

Leaving Eventual Marks

Dreams should never have limits, be they daydreamt fairy tales or of the sleepy kind.  This season of celebration, we talk to Watermark, a very talented bunch of experts in the dream-realization business.

Turning at Ernakulam's Kadavathra Junction, you find yourself in one of those side-roads that is essentially Kochi, where tiny roads guide you up to great destinations.  Opposite a large apartment complex, is located the offices of Watermark Event Solutions LLP, on the second floor of a rather quiet and unobtrusive office building.  Inside, the gentle, well done, colorful offices seems more a space for artists than a mainstream business.

Sidhesh K, the Managing Director, Anup Joy, the Executive Director and Sofia Mathew, the Director, have spent almost 20 years in the event management field, working in a host of companies, before finally coming together to start Watermark, officially launching it on the 1st of November 2014.

Our first question to them: why Kochi?  "Yes, compared to the North and other metros, the budget in Kerala, on an average, is less." Sidhesh explains. "But we are seeing that picking up.  Kochi is booming at a fast pace.  And we wanted to start from home.  For anything, the base should be strong."

Of course location has never been a barrier in their business.  From their head offices in Kochi, they stand positioned for the national and international markets, carrying forth experiences in conducting events around the world.  Everyone employed at Watermark has two to five years' of experience in the field.  The company is well-versed in all forms of events, be it conferences, exhibitions, product launches, wedding management, celebrity management or even entertainment shows.

Their rise, though fast, was not without its own challenges or without warranting hard work, a fact especially true of the wedding management section of the company.  They recount how in the beginning it was very difficult to make people understand what wedding planning was all about.  Earlier, weddings in Kerala were about cousins and relatives sitting around, cooking and planning.  Later it was caterers taking over.  It is only recently that wedding planners and event managers have entered the mainstream scene.  Still, only a very small percentage of the weddings in Kerala are handled by wedding planners.  Sofia, a professional wedding planner, spearheads the wedding management section of the company.

Today, the need for wedding planners is manifold.  One, of course, is the daring dreams and visions of the brides and grooms, who find that they need a little assistance in fulfilling said dreams.  Event managers are also a great help to NRIs organizing weddings in India.  When they can't come over themselves to manage everything themselves, they need somebody they can depend on, somebody who thinks on the same lines as they do and can deliver what they want.  "We have clients from the U.K., the U.S., Dubai and many other places." Sofia tells us.  "At times they manage to reach just three or four days before the wedding."

The omnipresent reason of course is the tension and worries in organizing such an event.  Wedding planners are wonderful stress-relievers who can come in and ease the burdens on family members.  Once assigned, the wedding planner takes over.  All the clients have to do is attend and enjoy the wedding.

With examples like Executive Events, Impresario and many others, it's not that the Kerala market is short on event management companies, but Watermark constantly works in with an indelible belief that they have to rise above the market and set a new set of standards.

The company handles everything related to organizing an event.  They decide on the conceptualization, the entire design, the layout, the designing of the stage, all of which they submit to the client along with the budget.  And then based on the feedback, they customize further.

For a wedding, they take the idea of no headache very seriously, handling everything like valet parking, receiving the groom or the bride, arranging the garland for the person garlanding the groom, the lighting of the ‘vilakku’ on the stage, and even knives for the cake.  In some areas they act as consultants and coordinators.

Food-wise, Watermark advises and connects the clients with appropriate caterers according to the requirements, whether it be vintage Kerala dishes or Northern-Kerala cuisine for the wedding.  They can assign skilled videographers, photographers and make-up artists suitable for the particular client.  They will even take over stuff like the transportation and accommodation of guests from out of town, all the coordination and logistics of the groom, bride, their parents, their relatives and guests.

Anup divides the wedding-planning timeline for us into two parts: before Google and after Google.  Their clients these days are very sensible, and when the after-Google generation visits them, they come with a lot of ideas, at times they come with a particular theme.  Watermark's R&D is so strong that whatever is brought to them, they already know the subject well and can advance it further with more even creative ideas.  Sofia admits that it's helpful if the client knows clearly what they want.  All Watermark needs to do then is to improvise or develop.

They discuss with the clients in detail about their requirements, they offer options and proposals and give reasons as to why they are planning what they are planning.   They find that every marriage is different and every couple wants something different.  And it is in this diversity that they excel.  They can handle most things thrown at them, whether it be themes, colors or even customs.  They recount examples of a Mughal themed wedding they organized, several colour-themed ones, some where there were different day and evening themes.

They also consider the crowd among all of this, the percentage of people coming from outside and if there are two extreme of crowds, how they can make everybody happy.  "Essentially, we work for the client's client, we work for the guests," says Sofia

Who can afford them?  "Most people," Anup assures us.  They have handled weddings starting right from 5 lakhs up.  For them it's not just about the money.  The only thing is that they have to be promised is total control of the wedding.  They will not entertain clients who ask them to involve in only parts of the wedding, just to save money.  They don't see themselves as wedding vendors, but as wedding planners.

Watermark and its ilk are part of a new wave swarming into the Kochi wedding scene.  But what about the old ways, the old guard that just won't give way easily?  And so we ask: have they faced any interference from relatives or parents or other elders who might not approve the interference of strangers?

"There will always be interference. People start micromanaging when they are tensed about the outcome." They say. "We can't say no, and we have to accommodate them in a nice manner.  They have to feel that they are part of it.  There are a lot of areas where we need their support."

In that scheme of accommodation, what if what they are asked to do something that just cries out against their artistic sensibilities, what if they heart refuses to send their clients towards a tacky disaster.

Sofia smiles at this.  "We will make them understand.  When we talk to somebody, if we can communicate to the other person that what we are saying is genuine, then they will understand."  They have had people being particular about certain points.  They adapt that point and connect it with their design.  With 20 years in the market, and thousands of weddings and events behind them, they believe that their consultation would be well considered.  They haven’t yet had an experience where the clients haven’t listened to their reasoning.

"Some people want gentle and subtle, but others want to make everything loud," they inform me. "We try to accommodate both."  They are willing to go loud if the occasion requires it, but are not fans of the mix-masala, they don't do that.

Moving beyond professional, they stand out in principle as well.  They are very averse to the idea of doing their personal advertisements at the events.  They don't feel the need to leave cards at weddings, or to put up banners.  "Professionals aren't supposed to advertise like that," they say.  They are staunch believers in the idea of 'your work speaks for you'.  Most of Watermark's clients search them out through enquiries, usually after being impressed with their work.

All three of them agree for the need for regulation in the market.  In other countries there are regulatory bodies and nobody can organize an event without a license.  But in India, a person with a laptop and a mobile phone can call himself a complete event management company.

Sidhesh recounts the story of a man organizing his daughter's wedding in Kerala from Kuwait.  He found a guy through a contact and gave him an advance of Rs. 2.5 lakhs, never having actually met the person.  After the money was transferred the guy disappeared.  In a market like Kerala, one person's ill deeds can affect the whole field.  Everybody forms a uniform opinion about all event management agencies functioning in the market.

The desperate father then goes on to contact Sidhesh.  "We understand a father's feelings about a daughter's wedding, how worried they are about it." Sidhesh says. "We should not use that fear.  Instead we should support them.  We gave the man a finalized proposal within 24 hours.  And all things ended well."

It is this dedication and professionalism that has been the fuel for Watermark's meteoric rise in just a year of existence.  They have managed to make a mark in all species of events they organize, be it weddings, conferences, launches, exhibitions, anything.  Expanding, they also have offices coming up in Bangalore and Dubai very soon.

Do they have any limits?  Have they ever refused a client because what was asked was beyond their capacity?  "No," they smile. "It's only a problem when it's too small and the budget is limited and we have to limit ourselves to a point.  Too big is not a problem for us.  We have no limits here.  We are willing to take on any challenge. Our biggest is yet to come."

Highlights

Major feathers in their cap:  the Aster Medicity event, ‎the Lulu Summer Camp 2015, the Hero Indian Super League promotional event by Star Sports‬,  the Philips Healthcare exhibition at Le Meridien, Kochi, the launch of Paragon hotel at Lulu and the book launch of Amish Tripathi's Shiva Trilogy.

What they handle:  Conferences, exhibitions, dealer meets, product promotions, product launches, road shows, wedding management, celebrity and artist management, live concert and entertainment shows.  

Happy Halloween in India

Sussanne Khan celebrating Halloween with her kids
Photo Credit: India Today

As I browse through my Facebook feed I find my friends in Bangalore and Mumbai dressed up in their scary best in bunches and ripe in celebration of Halloween.  It did bring a pull at the corner of my lips regarding the absurdity of such a thing, the celebration of Halloween in India, though, I will admit that a good push behind that pull might have been jealousy, the fact that I couldn’t do what they were doing.

Simplifying the words of wise historians, Halloween came into being as an effect of cultural intermingling.  Where the Christian tradition of All Hallows’ Day (a time for honoring the saints and praying for the recently departed souls who have yet to reach Heaven^(A)) and Gaelic/Irish/Celtic/Pagan traditions regarding prayers for the dead came together.  The pagan traditions involved “people going house-to-house in costume (or in disguise), usually reciting verses or songs in exchange for food”^(B).

Coming back to the topic, the blatant imitation by my friends and my desire for such a thing does pop up the question, do we really need new festivals and traditions in a country like India which is more or less overloaded with its own?  This question can then be further expanded philosophically to wonder into the mental westernization the youth of India and how a global generation is trying to set itself at par with their peers in the movies and TV shows. 

Of course it is easy to accuse the Indian youth of such fallacies, especially in the political climate we're in, but it should also be observed that there are other parts in the world, outside of the United States, where Halloween is celebrated.  The major catalyst in this regard would of course be the above mentioned Halloween and TV shows. 

Maybe at some point in the future it will happen that the digital world will unite and decide on a common set of festivals that are global and universal.  Such a list would of course have a lot of American festivals, especially, like I said twice, they are the most well-known and the most attractive.  For example my affections regarding Christmas does not have anything to do with community or religion, but is more about Die Hard and Kevin McCallister, that Home Alone kid. 

I carry the chunky DVD box in my collection to use on just one day, Christmas.

Adopting and celebrating festivals that are uncommon or unrelated to us should not be viewed just as pandering, a degradation of morals, or blatant westernization.  What it is, is a generation connecting with itself on the other side of the Earth.  And that is how society grows.  All that we have today in the way of traditions and festivals, much like Halloween, are an effect of intermingling of traditions. 

Even in India Hindu festivals often draw a lot from Mughal traditions, Persian traditions and others who made this great soil their home.  Christian traditions and festivals in India can find very little in common with the western traditions and more with the Hindu and Muslim customs back home.  Same is true for Muslim traditions in India. 

It should not be a matter of debate that what usually took hundreds and thousands of years, in the age of digitalization merely take decades.  Much like Moore’s law regarding microchips, progress will only go faster as time goes on. 

In effect, it's okay.  We shouldn’t be too worried about it, especially since at the parties I was referring to above, the Lincolns and Bushes had been easily replaced by the Manmohan Singhs and the Modis and American pop culture characters with character from old Hindi horror movies and shows.  Remember Aahat?

  

Aaaaaaahaaatt...

That day. Can you love?

I have a friend, Nithin, a romantic. Well, a bit more than me. Romantic in the sense that he has started preparing for the surprise that he is going to give his girlfriend on Valentine's Day, a full month early.

He asked me for suggestions and then rejected them in his wisest tone. He delved in the depths of it in his mind, while I was left ignored across the table, like a lost little child peeking into the periphery of his great mind with its great ideas, hoping for attention and conversation to go along with my coffee.

I find I have mixed feelings about Valentine's Day.  There was Christmas a couple of months ago, you know with the joy and the laughter and the red fat guy, and then there was the New Year with all the beginnings. In a few weeks it's going to be Republic Day, where those great people with the great big machines on that great street, saluted by our great gentlemen, this time accompanied by the United State's first one. Can adorable little Valentine's Day match up?

Valentine’s Day as you might or might not know is celebrated on account of this dude who secretly married off couples when some king banned marriage in his land because he wanted the men to focus on war. I don’t know what happened to the king, but Valentine became St. Valentine. So there, the perfect Hindi movie.

At the offset, let me make it clear, I am not the most romantic of guys. No, no, it's not a manly macho thing, its stupid ignorant thing. We do have our share of fun with our share of playmates, but the looking-at-her-makes-my-heart-go-dum-dum thing comes along once in a blue moon to those very lucky among us. 

It's my freak of nature, my abomination. But I have always been curious, always been distinctly aware what was there and I wanted to have a share of it. Love as a topic, I have found is a seriously goofy and fascinating affair. The reason I mention this is not because I have some role in what is to come. I am just as insignificant as you are. It's because if somewhere along the line, if some of you find something weirdly weird, I want you to forgive me. And if you can't, deal with it.

Ok, my theory is love, like music was never part of our evolution. I don’t think the early man ever loved the early woman. You know, the guy in cave going hubba, hubba, hubba? The strongest, the biggest and the most resourceful of the guys got the most fertile girls. In fact the most romantic thing they must have done for each other must have been when they did not try to kill and eat other after mating. Also, how they actually figured out the mating process, that’s something to think about as well. Maybe later.

Anyway, times passed and there was the new world. There were the Romans and the Greeks and Zeus and the Persians, and while they were doing their 300, we had Aryabhata inventing zero and the Aryans running around. There were gods and saints. There were books being written and somewhere along the lines, love came about. How? We’ll never know. Then there was the middle ages and the ages after that. There was Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet. Two people who kill themselves because they think the other one is dead, taking along one other dude as well. Oh, the bard.

But now, here we are. The 21^st century and the world has come all around. A million changes and a millions new things. But has love evolved with us? Let's look at it. Three points. Firstly and greatly the equation between men and women has changed for the better. The idea of respecting women has finally gotten through the thick Indian skull. It’s when you are sitting in a local bus and you see a desi guy give up a seat-that is not a ladies seat-for a lady, that’s when you know that the modern world gave us something better than jeans, Aids and computers. Secondly, society’s influence has gone down. Yes there are some old people around with their wacky ideas, but we are getting wiser and pathetic ideas like purity, religion, “what will they think” and “how it's supposed to be”, is being ignored. Thirdly, cell phones, internet, video chats and Facebook, they are all nice to have around.

But my question is, are they enough? Is communication and respect and freedom to choose, enough? What about the love? Or where is the love? Have we grown up too much? Have we gone too corporate? Have we left it behind? Where is the madness? Where are the poems, the love letters, the songs and the big huge gestures? What about staring deep into her eyes and thinking about amazingly perfect she is?

Yes, we have our plans, and egos and mind games and manuals. Yes we can make money and get awesome bikes and go to gyms and straighten your hairs, but what about the act of being in love? What about that? I think we have to reassess our priorities. And if you are one of those who’ve read through it and laugh cause you just care about that one other  thing, trust me, there comes a moment when you know you’d felt much holding that somebody’s hand than having orgasms with this somebody else. I think the world comes around to all of us. Why don’t we surrender ourselves to the beauty of that which is beautiful?

Valentine’s Day shouldn’t be for the couples to like and for us single or recently single people to hate and moan about it on Facebook. It's not only about that someone. It's about reassessing the importance of being in love. So, let's just go fall in love. I know, I know, it's gooey and icky, but we if we can risk lung cancer with every puff, why can't we risk a little heart break. That’s just as bad-ass. A friend recently told me about her guy. About how he “makes her feel like a princess.” Isn’t that just freaking awesomeness? Who wouldn’t want to be that lucky guy, to have a girl say that about you? I know I would.

So, again, fall in love. Let's be romantic. Hold her and tell her how special she is to you, how she is god greatest creation, how grateful you are for every moment she is with you, for every breath she takes. How all you can think about when you look at her is how magnificently perfect she is. And mean all of it.

Let's give our hearts away. Let's bleed inside and let's watch the rain and sunlight. Let's write songs and poems, let's be foolish and irritating. Let's day dream and be gooey. It’s a beautiful life, why don’t we live it in a beautiful way.

Everybody reading this will die in the next 50 years. Fact. So, why don’t live for ourselves? It's never about the stories that you’ll tell your grand-children, it's about the stories that you’ll tell yourself. The ones that you hold deep in your heart. It's not about the moments of glory, it's about the moments of happiness, of pure joy, pure being the key word.

And if my ramblings and words don’t mean anything, or you don’t care about love, I’d like to leave you with words of Doe Zantamata. I have no idea who he, or she is, but I am assuming, a nice person…..

Another Cafe

She said that she was confused.  She said that she didn't know if she was comfortable dancing just for me.  We were close yes, she said, but we were not yet that close that it goes away.  I smiled as if I understood.  I told her that I asked her because I knew how good a dancer she was and I wanted to see it, and I didn’t want to make her feel shy. 

I didn’t tell her that I wanted her to dance for me because she was mine and her dance was mine and I wanted her to work to impress me even if for 10 minutes.  I am her man and I deserve that.  I told her that I loved her dance.  She smiled at me.  She said that she would dance for me.

Outside the sun beat a heavy heat down on us.  The coffee shop was nice and the coffee was good and so were the waiters and the people.  There were pretty girls and she caught me looking at them, she smiled, I avoided her eyes.  I caught her looking at a guy and again she smiled at me, I gritted my teeth at her.  Her father would come back by 4, it was already 2:30, it would take half an hour for her to get back home.   We had an hour.

Anjali knew that she was going to become a doctor, I didn’t know what I was going to do.  I imagined her marrying a doctor, I imagined her in an Audi, wearing a costly saree and with kids.  The doctor husband gave her the kids.  And I would be a memory to her by then.  I loved this girl now. 

Her hair fell down her face and she licked her lips getting the drops of the juice that she was drinking.  I had told her that I loved her a week ago.  She had said that she felt the same.  That’s what she said, that she felt the same, not that she loves me.  We hadn’t talked about it since then.  She was pretty and I loved her.

I would never sexualize her until it was night.  At night she would be naked and her skinny frame would support a bigger bosom and wider hips and slightly overflowing tummy that was soft to touch.  She would get in bed like a virgin and she would do things that I asked of her, and after I had asked of them, days later, she would do them on her own, but only after I had asked it of her once.

When the waiter came around to ask if we needed anything else, I told him we didn’t.  She looked at me, I looked back and smiled.  No, I conveyed, it's no big deal, you can leave, I have other things to do.  I wanted to take her home, to my bed and just hold her.

Outside we waited for the bus, talking about school and teachers.  She looked away and talked and pulled the hair back from her face, so that I could look at it and not be embarrassed and not have to avoid her eyes.  When there was a pause in the conversation she looked at me.  I wanted to tell her that I loved her, the words hovering in that space in my throat.  She waited.  I couldn’t. She said that she was getting late, she was going to get an auto.  I agreed stoically.  I helped flag one down.  When she got in she waved a hand goodbye and said that she would see me tomorrow.  She did not smile. 

I walked back with my hands in my pockets.  The pretty girls from the café were coming out.  I watched them giggle.