What I Learnt in the Month Gone By

The answer to the burning question of what I like better- mountains or the sea.

Bhutan-Relaxing after a morning walk

Maldives-Sneaking out for a mid afternoon break

Mountains FYI. Hands down.

A young person's love life is everybody's business.
I got asked by a thirty something globetrotting professional woman whether I wasn't getting too old for marriage. And whether my parents were not introducing me to suitable bachelors.

It's probably not love if a muffin can help get over heartbreak.

I don't hate dogs. Not a lot.

I shocked myself by going 'Awwww what a cute doggie' at a random stray in Bhutan. Also, fun fact: there are no dogs in the Maldives. Not one. (Maybe not such a fun fact for dogs).

I enjoy teaching.

Or having a captive audience, at any rate.

Adam-teasing is a thing.

A shop girl would break into a Hindi film song every time a male colleague would visit. One of those times, the song was 'Husn hai suhana, paas mere aana' (yes that forgotten gem from Coolie No. 1).

Unnecessary beautification is not just something CWG obsessed Indian administrators do.

Ghastly ornamentation in Bhutan

Still better than this:

Ghastly ornamentation in Delhi

Young lovers the world over desecrate public property.

See, just the names change

Indians are world famous for circumventing queues and bending rules. And being unapologetic about it. Even in the emergency ward of a government hospital named after a former Indian Prime Minister.

All the hoopla about 'Ghar ka Khana' is justified.

You can have all the fish maru, grilled tuna with salsa, Kerala style fish curry, Bengali restaurant style fish curry in the world. But your mom's homemade curry that spills from one end of the plate to another is still the best.(Now if only the moong ki daal and the daily bhindi could be avoided).

I am more Bengali than I get credit for.

It's not just about the food. I have rarely heard a Bengali say, 'Valentine's day is an import from the decadent West'. It's more common to hear them say that we have Saraswati Puja for that anyway.

A Uniform Civil Code is not a necessary (and certainly not a sufficient) condition for women's empowerment. The senior management of the Central Bank in Islamic Maldives is all-women.

There's a pleasure in the world called Kit Kat ice cream.

There can be no reasonable justification for this being denied to an average person in post-reform India.

They are not paying me for this, I swear

My Favourite Textbook (as oxymoronic as that is)

In India after Gandhi, Ramachandra Guha (2007, p. 529), describes Indira Gandhi's behaviour during the Shah Commission's investigation of the excesses of the Emergency:

Three times she was called to the witness box; three times she came, and chose not to answer questions, claiming she was bound by the oath of Cabinet secrecy. A journalist victimsed during the emergency saw this as an 'outrageous attempt to make a mockery of the proceedings of the Commission'...

When I read this, the first image that came to my mind was one I had seen more than five years back in my NCERT Political Science Textbook for Class XII (2007 edition):

Cartoonist: R K Laxman for the Times of India
On Indira Gandhi's confrontation with the Shah Commission

I went back to the book, then realised what a glaring omission I had made in the list of books that defined growing up, for me. The book was simple, unbiased and liberal. But what made Pol Science my favourite subject, were the references to the relevant films of the time, the snippets from newspapers, and of course the cartoons. At worst these served as mnemonic devices. At best, they managed to place the textual information in context, also allowing students (at least me) to gain real perspective into current issues. If you don't believe my rambling, here is some visual evidence. These would make a better point (not to say a more entertaining blog post).

Cartoonist: Ajit Ninan for India Today
On the rise of coalition politics

Cartoonist; Sudhir Tailang for HT
On the V.P Singh Government being supported by the Left and the Right

R K Laxman for the Times of India
On the Emergency

Cartoonist: Kutty
On the manner in which State CMs were being chosen