Life and Lit | Tanvi Srivastava

The Park

(Narrated in the voice of Mary Alice of Desperate Housewives)

Life in the suburbs can sometimes be boring (pan to quiet streets of SFS colony, Yelahanka). Especially for those who’ve just arrived from the hustle and bustle of city life (pan to Gabriel Solice, Namrata Mehta & Tanvi Srivastava). In these moments of quiet desperation, our neighbours can be our only support. Or not.

Welcome to happening world of Yelahanka. Where the neighbours hate us. (Pan to evil left-side Uncle neighbour with eviler bitey Bingo dog who didn’t let us use the terrace. Then pan to right side Aunty who was stricken by the “ce n’est pas une pipe, mais c’est un toilet” art work outside our house ).

When the neighbours fail us, the roommates device their own means of entertainment. And today, a jovial bet became an entertaining yet life altering moment for two Cemites.

Namrata Mehta, in her mistaken belief that the early bird catches the worm, sadistically woke up at 6.30 am to actually catch some worms in the park behind our house. She searched and searched, but alas, her search was futile. So instead, she thought to herself, let me run around in circles and try to make my morning a little more futile. So she ran and ran, for hours, for kilometres (she thought), till the sun rose high into the sky.

Meanwhile, Tanvi Srivastava happily slept and dreamt of pieces of wool named Sheep. She awoke to see a cheery Namrata Mehta ecstatically declare that she actually got up in the morning and ran. To sleepy to react, Tanvi Srivastava grunted.

(left) The Chappal and (right) The Floater from the perspective of the footwear

The day slowly passed by. CEMA came to an end and the topic of Namrata Mehta’s morning worm hunting exercise was broached once again. Guesses and calculations were made.

Namrata Mehta: I must’ve run 4 kms today.
Dharmang Prajapati: wahzzzzzzup.. stuff!
Tanvi Srivastava: Really?
Namrata Mehta: Yeahhhh.. I took 5 laps and that park must be atleast 800 metres. So 5×800=4kms
Tanvi Srivastava: What shit! It can’t be more than 300 metres. 5×300=1.5kms
Namrata Mehta: Fine, we’ll go home and measure it!

The Detailed and Empirical Process of Measuring the Perimeter of a Park in the Hanka

1. Take two subjects (a) Namrata Mehta and (b) Tanvi Srivastava
2. Make (a) wear chappals and (b) wear floaters
3. Tell them to count how many steps it takes to take a chakar of the park
4. Give them atleast 45 mins
5. Add an audience of staring people so that both (a) and (b) feel like idiots
6. Calculate length of chappal/floater
7. Measure by results of abovementioned 3

The Results of the Detailed and Empirical Process of Measuring the Perimeter of a Park in the Hanka

(a) Namrata Mehta: 1803 steps x 23 cms = 451 metres
(b) Tanvi Srivastava: 1815 steps x 29 cms = 523 metres

Final approximate perimeter of the park = 487 metres

Conclusion

That was the randomest thing to do!

The CEMA Pink Chaddi Brigade

I’m happy to announce CEMA, in colloboration with UnderGarMent (Underground Garage Movement), fully supports the Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women. In fact, Agent Tata (namraTA mehTA) has even posed for the Pink Chaddi campaign in her delightful ‘creamy’ pink chaddis. Haha.

Breaking News: Namrata Mehta is becoming the face of the facebook Pink Chaddi campaign. Leave your comments on the Consortium facebook group (which now has some 22,000 members!).

(from the Pink Chaddi blog)

What is the Pink Chaddi Campaign?

The Pink Chaddi Campaign kicked off on 5 February 2009 to oppose the Sri Ram Sena. The campaign is growing exponentially (21,105 members at this point in the life of our Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women) and that is not surprising. Most women in this country have enough curbs on their lives without a whole new franchise cashing in with their bully-boy tactics. Of course, a lot of men have joined the group as well.

Here is we want to do with the Pink Chaddi Campaign. Join in. Be imaginative, have fun and fight back!

What can you do?

Step 1: It does not matter that many of us have not thought about Valentine’s Day since we were 13. If ever. This year let us send the Sri Ram Sena some love. Let us send them some PINK CHADDIS.

Look in your closet or buy them cheap. Dirt-cheap. Make sure they are PINK. Send them off to the Sena.

The address to send the package is:
From: The Pink Chaddi Campaign,

To: Pramod Muthalik,

Sri Rama Sene Office

No. 11, Behind new bus stand,

Gokhul road,

Lakshmi park,

Hubli – Karnataka

Contact person:

Benson – 9845167575

Areeba-9900569456

Samir Gandhi:9246282223

If you don’t want to mail it yourself, you can drop it off at the Chaddi Collection Points. We will be collecting across the country through this week and sending the packages on February 12. More information about Chaddi Collectors in your city soon on our blog: http://thepinkchaddicampaign.blogspot.com/

Step 2: Send the Pink Chaddi Campaign a photograph of the package.

Tell us how many chaddis you are sending out and inspire other women in other cities. You can either mail the information to freelancehabba (at) gmail (dot) com or you can mail it at our facebook address. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49641698651&ref=mf

Step 3: On Valentine’s Day we do a Pub Bharo action. Go to a pub wherever you are. From Kabul to Chennai to Guwahati to Singapore to LA women have signed up. It does not matter if you are actually not a pub-goer or not even much of a drinker. Let us raise a toast (it can be juice) to Indian women. Take a photo or video. We will put it together (more on how later) and send this as well to the Sri Ram Sena.

What happens after Valentine’s Day?
After Valentine’s Day we should get some of our elected leaders to agree that beating up women is ummm… AGAINST INDIAN CULTURE.

For right now, ask not what Dr VS Acharya, Home Minister of Karnataka can do for you. Ask what you can do for him. Here is his blog. Send him some love.

Nisha Susan
For the Pink Chaddi Campaign

PS. Our good friend L says we should not colour-discriminate. So if you really, really can’t send pink chaddis, send those in other colours.

PPS. Both Women and Men are invited to send in their chaddi’s/ pictures of chaddi’s.

Dev D-ed

First reaction: Quite the cool!

Second reaction: Is it a good movie? Is it a bad movie? Is it even a movie movie???

Let the Ram Sena judge. (Hahah, I can fall off my chair thinking of Mutalik and his chaddi-wallahs watching the movie. Paro to naked Dev: Arre, bade baal hai! Hahah.)

The movie definitely meets my cool-ness quotient requirements! Hence, ‘quite the cool’. Just look at the poster – uber-cool photoshopping. Sunglasses, smoke and lips. What could be cooler? It reminds me a lot of the Almost Famous poster. Sunglasses, lips and music.

Speaking of music. Emotional attyachar. Wah! Emotional attyachar managed to get a conservative Bangalore crowd hooting in their seats. That’s some achievement.

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Dev D; Star Cast: Abhay Deol, Mahi Gill and introducing Kalki Koechlin; Director: Anurag Kashyap; Emotional Athyachar.

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Tanvi Srivastava

Filed under Life and Lit …

Chappals & Parks in the ‘Hanka

The CEMA Pink Chaddi Brigade

The Zoya Factor

Dev D-ed

Art of Smita