Are We In a Complicated Relationship with Aadhaar?

I
n my callow youth, I’ve had many flings. My passport was my first love; I remember holding on to it for dear life as I took my first flight abroad. When I turned 18, my driving licence, my gateway to make all my testosterone-fuelled Fast and Furious dreams come true, came into my life. This was followed by the voter ID card, definitive proof that I was now an adult worthy of electing the esteemed representatives of our country. Soon after I had a short, summer romance with the PAN card (although we were more like friends with benefits)I don’t regret any of these relationships. They all did their bit for me, helped me grow into the person I am today, and I’m still friends with most of them. But they failed to complete me; I couldn’t see them as an integral part of my life. I wanted something more from my partner. And then on a fine winter morning in January 2009, I met Aadhaar.

It was love at first sight. I was awestruck the moment Aadhaar scanned my eyes. She was slender like Aishwarya Rai, had glossy white skin like Yami Gautam, was smart and way ahead of her time with a colourful display picture and biometric scanner. In those days of ugly black-and-white government ID photos and flimsy cards, Aadhaar was like Tina to my Rahul. Kuch kuch hota hai, PAN, tum nahin samjhoge.

But before you think I am being shallow, let me tell you how deep my love was. I loved her for her intelligence and inner beauty. With her by my side, government welfare schemes and direct benefit transfers would be as easily accessible as giving a bribe and getting your work done at the Income Tax Department.

Aadhaar’s parents, the Congress, and especially her father, Nandan Nilekani, were extremely proud of her. They kept telling me about all her wonderful qualities and how she could change the life of any person she went out with. And they kept reiterating it 24X7, on TV, radio, Facebook, and Twitter. That’s when I knew I was in love.

Our first date was blissful. We connected and linked instantly, and she accompanied me everywhere, all the time. She had a special place in my wallet. And I wouldn’t miss a chance to tell my friends, relatives, cook, house help, and the entire village about her. In fact, I even introduced her to the village cows and buffaloes. Everyone from foreign tourists to Bangladeshi residents were awed by her.

I was convinced that she was the missing piece in the puzzle of my life and so, I decided to marry her. Obviously, there was resistance from my parents as they belonged to a different caste, i.e. the BJP. They tried quite hard to convince me that she had certain issues and would ruin my life in the long run. But I was determined and their effort was in vain.

Nandan, Daddy Cool, played a key part in our marriage and convincing my parents, the BJP, of her charm and greatness. There was a change of heart, and the BJP became accepting of Aadhaar after realising her potential. She got a royal welcome home and my parents spent like crazy on our pre-wedding shoot and advertising. In fact, she became like their daughter and they wished they had given birth to her.

But it spelt doom for our relationship.

Aadhaar had changed. Or maybe, I had. But there was trouble in paradise. A lot of people started to say that she had security issues. But if you ask me, she also had insecurity issues. She started getting a bit controlling and wanted to know about every aspect of my life.

When we first started dating, she wasn’t the kind of person who’d want us to share Facebook passwords so that there would be “no secrets among us”. I don’t want anyone to know that I can’t spell Schwarzenegger without help from Google! Back then, all she cared about was my name and where I lived. But after our marriage, she wanted to know about my bank account, my insurance, SIM cards, airline tickets, mutual funds, post office, loo timings, every tiny detail.

Let’s agree that the key to a healthy relationship is separate bathrooms and some semblance of space between a couple. But there was just no privacy between us.

Every morning I woke up, I got a message for a new thing I must link Aadhaar with. Earlier, she was very polite and well mannered in her requests but then she got just outright intimidating – setting deadlines and threatening me with consequences for missing them. There has been a complete communication breakdown and we don’t even get cosy anymore – I’m just busy keeping track of deadlines and court observations.

If it weren’t awful enough that she has all my secrets, now all her friends know everything about me because her phone did not have a password. My embarrassing pictures and the fact that I am a heavy snorer is now public knowledge. All my deepest and most personal thoughts are so poorly secured, it’s like watching Arsenal defend at home.

When I raised some questions, she told me I don’t have the right to privacy, and this is all part of being in a committed relationship. I couldn’t see a way out of it, and finally approached a counsellor for help. Every time the counsellor heard our case and told her to do something, she would find a way to bypass it. It didn’t surprise me at all, I’d always known she was a tricky customer. Aadhaar’s own parents had bailed on her.

With no option left, I finally approached the courts for a divorce. The courts were quite understanding and tried to help us resolve the matter and keep the relationship intact as well. They asked her to not snoop on my private information and convinced me that she played an important role in my life. But what about my embarrassing pictures that she already leaked? How do I make people unsee them?

As things stand today, like most relationships on Facebook, ours is complicated. We are in a love-hate relationship, she loves me and I hate her. 

It’s just like all those Black Mirror episodes: Everything starts out beautifully, but it’s obviously a trap. And then you die.

Ganesh Chaturthi: When Every Middle-Class Family Turns Interior Designer and Art Decorator

When you grow up in a middle-class home, outlets for creativity are limited, much like political options in India. Right from school, pursuits like drawing, singing, and craft are considered “extracurricular activities” — basically a waste of time. If you excel at them, the only stage you’re offered is at family functions where dad tells you “Beta, uncle ko ganaa gaake sunao” or “Beta, dadi ki liye birthday card banao”. As a career choice, art is considered the bottom of the barrel. If you told your parents, you wanted to join a design school, they’d sit you down to tell you, “Yeh ameeron ke shauq hain, beta.” Only rich people can afford creative careers, because “scope nahi hai”.

Middle-class folks are required to curb their creativity the same way Hardik Pandya curbs his attacking instincts in Test cricket. However, there is one festival which turns into a mosh pit for the creative types – Ganesh Chaturthi.

Ganesha is the God of Fun, associated with music, modaks, and masti. Whether it is channelling your inner Bappi Lahiri to decorate the pandal or dancing like Govinda on crack during the visarjan, this is the middle-class Ganpati bhakt’s moment to shine.

The creative minds get to work days before Chaturthi. When you go to pick the murti, even mom turns into Michelangelo, chipping in with enthusiasm about the shape of Ganesha’s trunk, the intricacies of his jewellery, and the colour of his dhoti. Even a tiny detail like the mouse is not missed. I remember her saying once, “This mouse looks a little angry. We need a happy mouse.” But when it comes to ordering food at a restaurant or buying a TV at Vijay Sales, she’d show little interest. “Jo sab ko acha lage le lo”.

Once the perfect idol is picked, the group-craft project gets rolling. Stationery that hasn’t been used in years in pulled out, Chinese lights and lanterns are bought causing a dent to Make In India. Remember the fancy marriage invitation you received from your rich Marwari neighbours, envelopes studded with colourful stones, satin ribbons, unique gift boxes, and wrapping paper that mom had saved waiting for the perfect moment to bring them out? This is that moment.

The only person in the family who took to art and crafts in school becomes the head of the Ganpati Decoration Project. In my case, it is my little cousin who takes charge, instructing everyone on what to do. It’s great fun to watch grandparents fidgeting with sketch pens and dad struggling with clay.   

When out of ideas, the family nerd chips in. “More research is needed for this project,” he says and immediately starts googling for “home Ganpati decoration ideas”. Ganeshji is a cool customer, he seems happy if you put him in a cricket stadium, have him pose with army men, or put him in a cave along with a little message about the environment. And if you want to keep it simple, a few lights and some flowers are enough to make Bappa’s face glow.    

Once the decor plan is finalised, everyone gets cracking. It is one of the very few activities that brings the entire family together. This and mom’s monthly paani-puri party. Or if Sholay is playing on Sony.

As the struggle with the scissors begins, dad will joke about how he always sucked at craft and sister will start mocking dad’s terrible colour choices for the background. Why would anyone go for the orange and red combination? Mom doesn’t appreciate how lightly everyone is treating the project and expects perfection. “Arré woh paper ke phool acche nahin dikh rahe hain. Log kya kahenge?”  

This is just the beginning and soon tempers begin to fly. Should the mountain in the background have orange lights or green? Should the curtains be velvet or cotton? Should we keep the sweets on the left or the right? It is one of the few situations in the house when democracy prevails and majority decisions decide outcomes.

Once the decor is complete and you are in shiny new clothes with freshly purchased modaks in hand, the examiners, aka guests begin flocking to the house. “Yeh phool kitne sundar hain,” says the neighbouring aunty and everyone looks at mum and smiles. But there’s always someone like Mrs Sharma who will find some fault. “Yeh mountains bade fake lag rahe hain. Humare Monu ki saas ke ghar mein, itna beautiful decoration hai naa.” Time for a joint family eye roll. After guests leave mum suggests, “Next time, let’s make Monu’s saas in charge of the decor.”

Ganesh Chaturthi is when every parent turns interior designer, every kid a painter, every uncle a craft expert, and grandma is a jewellery designer. It’s an art exhibition of the middle-class — and every clay mountain or paper flower, is the pièce de résistance.

Shut the Hell Up, Demonetisation Haters

Hundreds of news reports, thousands of tweets, millions of people, and even the Reserve Bank of India gave its verdict on demonetisation. The RBI declared that 99.3 per cent of demonetised notes came back to the banks. Everyone still goes on and on about how demonetisation was a massive failure that hurt the economy. Poor Arun Jaitley had to defend demonetisation more than Rahul Dravid had to defend himself in the Rawalpindi Test Match in 2004. This negativity is so polluting that even the smog in Delhi looks at it and develops a complex.

I’m sick and tired of this nonsense peddled by the liberal media. Can we just ignore statistics and facts that reflect reality, and look at the good things demonetisation gave us?

Demonetisation had people of all castes, religions, economic, and ethnic backgrounds coming together for one grand cause – to coax hundred bucks out of the ATM machine. It united us a country, in a way that even the movie Border or India-Pakistan games haven’t been able to.

Demonetisation had young people heading to banks and finding out what the different counters are all about. Banks became the new hangout for millennials who once only queued up outside Starbucks and Apple stores. People who only knew terms like NSFW, BDSM, and MILF were now throwing shade with heavy acronyms like GDP, GST, and RBI. The economic literacy in the country shot up faster than Delhi’s air quality index. Everybody was an economist, and you didn’t need a degree for it.

People said that the timing was bad, I say, it was better than the timing on Virat Kohli’s cover drive. Demonetisation happened during the wedding season and suddenly no longer could people stuff ₹501 in an envelope and enjoy a thali worth ₹1500.  They had to buy real gifts. Everyone talks about lost jobs and slow industrial growth but who will mention the exponential increase in the sale of glass cutlery and Jaipan non-stick pans?

Parents and older folks, who couldn’t get a hang of smartphones and technology now know how to Paytm, download MMS clips, and forward sexist jokes on Whatsapp. Paytm became so big that it has changed from a noun to a verb. And still people have the audacity to say that this is not a success indicator for Digital India? And what about all the jobs that were created in IT cells by the government? Where people constantly kept on defending demonetisation through hashtags and Photoshopped images?

Demonetisation gave bank employees and managers an inflated sense of self-importance, it made the ATM guard a soldier. CAs who were laughed at all their lives by their woke friends now had the last laugh. People who had spent their time and energy on printing fake ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes now made even more money by printing fake ₹2,000 notes. What about these people? Do they not count?

Some people say demonetisation didn’t stop terrorism and cross-border violations. To those people, I present classic whataboutery and deflection: Did Europe have demonetisation? No. But terror attacks keep on happening there, right? Duh! It has nothing to do with money.

Just because 99.3 per cent notes came back to the system, some people declared that demonetisation failed. Does nobody count the money that was hurriedly sent out of the country? That money never came back. What came back were only some Panama Papers and Paradise Papers. We have always attacked the black market, whether it is black money, black people, or BlackBerry phones.

I rest my case, mitron. No matter how much we try, people will keep coming back to respond to your emotional arguments with facts, statistics, and graphs. Ignore them. As the classic phrase goes, “Haters gonna hate.”

Are Swimming Coaches the Real Water Monsters?

Can you truly call yourself a ’90s kid if your folks didn’t bundle you off for cycling, karate, or swimming every summer? Indian parents did not want their kids wasting time watching Cartoon Network all day, so they came up with a checklist to create a master race, and the way to do that was to teach the subjects a new skill during every vacation.

First, I started with cycling, because I live in a Gujarati family and it was the cheapest investment. The next year, The Karate Kid was a huge hit, and I was screaming, “Hu! Ha!” every morning in a white robe with the confidence of Bruce Lee and the ability of a ’90s-era Adnan Sami. Once land was conquered, it was time to venture into Poseidon’s realm, and master the art of swimming.

My father believed in the old-school instruction method of throwing me into a slow-moving river and hoping for the best. After definitely swallowing a few litres of dirty water and probably a few small fish, he gave up the DIY tutorial. It was time to approach the experts, and I was enrolled in a 21-day swimming camp close to our house.

The excitement of buying a colourful swimsuit and fancy goggles immediately disappears when you’re first faced with the tang of chlorine and the scary depths of the adults’ pool. Your nerves are then calmed with the sight of floats around, and the swimming teacher and lifeguards all seem like nice and helpful people.

But then, even a totalitarian state once burst with hope and positivity in the air when it all began, which is the same feeling you get during the first few days of swimming lessons. Your float is reassuringly tied to your back, you’re happily splashing water on your new friends, and the only exercises are leg movements in the baby pool. About a week later, things start to escalate. The swimming coach becomes more dangerous in the water than a coked-up crocodile. Scared toddlers are thrown from the diving board and horrified kids are set adrift without floats, struggling for their lives and gulping down weird-tasting water. After swimming class, I always hoped the strange taste was from the chlorine, and not from someone emptying their bladders into the pool in fear.

A prerequisite for being a swimming coach is that you must be a strict asshole with no empathy or humanity left in you. Everyone should be terrified of you all the time. I secretly believe all the glowering, fierce extras playing soldiers in Border were swimming coaches on their winter break. If you could make up the perfect swimming teacher, you’d use Amitabh Bachchan’s authoritarian baritone, Rajnikanth’s bristling mooch, and Hulk Hogan’s bright, technicolour chaddis. I was so terrified of my coach that whenever I saw him outside the pool, in the market or at a fair, I’d pretend not to have noticed him.

I suppose their despotism has some roots. When you are trying to bully a skill into children, there is no place for sympathy, or human rights. How do you think the Chinese ended up with 100 medals at the Beijing Olympics? Dictatorships only work when people subscribe to a method or system, and it’s no different for water dictatorships.

When the 21 days of hell were over, parents were invited to the mujra to watch their kids glide across water like mermaids. It was a simple exam – you had to jump from the diving board, swim the length of the pool, and voila! You’ve cleared your test. It sounded simple enough, but when the time came to jump, I was too scared and held on tightly to my mom’s chunni. I even turned on the waterworks, hoping my tears would save the day with all the adults around. But dictators don’t get to the top by being soft or showing mercy.

The cold-blooded dictator sent one of his executioners, also known as lifeguards, to forcibly drag me away from my mom and carry me to the diving board. Like an animal being sacrificed on Eid, he handed me over to the dictator, who gently held me by the neck, and then threw a helpless seven-year-old into a 13-foot-deep pool from a height of 25 feet, in front of an entire audience of adults who all stood and watched in silence.

This is not a story of redemption with a background score by Hans Zimmer, where the swimming teacher’s tough love finally paid off, and I discovered I could swim like Kandivali’s Michael Phelps once I hit the water. Instead, I struggled and feverishly flapped my hands for about a minute before drowning and eventually being rescued. The teacher’s disappointed look made me feel like I just missed the DU cut-off by three marks. But for me, it was a bit like watching Bodyguard, I was just glad it was over. Thanks to my coach, I was scared of going near a pool for years. I would look at water the same way Jaadu from Koi Mil Gaya looked at darkness.

Screw Gabbar Singh. Maybe the punchline to our childhood horror stories should be, “So jao, varna swimming coach aa jaayega…”

Luka Modrić: The Man Who Embodies Everything Sport Should Be About

The visual of Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović trying to console a sobbing Luka Modrić after their side’s 4-2 loss to France in the World Cup final is going to stay with me – and I am certain I speak for many who love and follow football with ardent devotion. It was irrelevant whether you supported Croatia, France, or were a neutral spectator. Watching a grown man cry after a game is heartbreaking. More so, when it is Luka Modrić, a player you just cannot not love.

At 32, Luka Modrić might have played his last game at a World Cup for Croatia, taking them to the finals and winning the Golden Ball in the process. In his own words, it was a “bittersweet moment,” because personal glory is pale in comparison to winning the ultimate prize for the team. It tells you everything you need to know about the Croatian captain.

With three Man of the Match awards in seven games, Croatia’s midfield general had a stellar tournament. It is rather fitting that the biggest stage of them all, was graced by his tiny, dignified, and unassuming presence.  

In the time span that Modrić receives a pass and passes the ball to the next player, football seems to be the easiest sport on the planet. Everything seems simple, clear, and evident. “That’s what I would have done,” you think. Why doesn’t everyone play like him?

The football world idolises pace, dribbling, and trickery. We love watching Cristiano Ronaldo embarrass a defender with a nutmeg, we love watching Lionel Messi go past half the team with quick feet, we love watching Kylian Mbappé run at 45 kmph. In a world that is premised on speed, Luka Modrić has mastered the art of the pause. Of waiting for the right moment. Of moulding space and time on the football pitch.

At any moment in the game, Modrić is aware where every one of his teammates is, almost like an aerial cam is feeding his brain. He always has an extra second on him, to make a decision, and it always seems to be the right one, like a chess grandmaster who has perfected the end-game. He knows when to make a pass and the precise weight it should carry. He knows when someone around will make a run and what it’ll lead to. Modrić has the rare ability that very few in the game have, of knowing what’s going to happen in the next three seconds.

The reason Luka Modrić is adored in the world of football, is because there’s no nonsense associated with him. He doesn’t roll over like a drama queen every 15 seconds, he doesn’t have a flashy signature celebration or any headline sponsors. He never walks into an interview and says outrageous things. There’s an underrated professionalism and dignity with which he carries himself, that we all love. There’s nothing about him that says “Look at me!”

He quietly takes the pitch every game, runs more than anyone, touches the ball more than anyone, and creates chances more than anyone, doing the job for the team. That’s what Modrić is all about: He creates chances so his teammates can score and he intercepts play so that his defenders are shielded. A team man, a leader, and one of the best box-to-box midfielders in the game.

Croatia’s dream World Cup campaign will be remembered for its comebacks and its modest group of players, consistently punching above weight. A war survivor, a child refugee, a “shy kid who was too timid” to play football, Modrić also kept making comebacks from adversity and punched above weight, to become one of the most loved players on the planet.

In the words of commentator Peter Dury, “There isn’t a person who embodies their country, much like Luka Modrić”. In him, we see everything we want sport to be about.

Diego Maradona, Always The Man of the Match

There are many things Diego Maradona could have done after his stint as the world’s greatest footballer of all time. He could have, like other legends from the world of sport, chosen a dignified, greying life spent in a suit throwing instructions at footballers from the other side of the touchline, he could become a football pundit on TV, or he could have simply posed for photographs while doing humanitarian work across the globe.

But that’s not who Diego Maradona is.

Maradona’s entire life has been a Mountain Dew commercial – full throttle, filled with thrill and adventure. If his life were to be summarised as an inanimate object, it would be a Formula One car. It moves at speed, there’s a lot of thrill, but a permanent risk that things could come crashing down any moment. He is Argentina’s comic star, action hero, and chocolate boy all rolled into one.

When he’s not busy smoking pot, sporting a Che Guevara tattoo, and trying out a funky hairstyle, he’s pissing people off on Twitter with his comments and engaging in a verbal barrage with Pele. A heart attack survivor and drug addict, he lives life to the fullest. A footballing Charlie Sheen, if you will.

When Lionel Messi’s Argentina were sweating it out on the field in a must-win game against Nigeria at the World Cup yesterday, Maradona danced with a Nigerian fan in the stands, posed with a saint-like image of himself, looked up to the heavens every 18 seconds, enacted the Wakanda sign, showed someone the finger, and then had to be carried away to a hospital at the end of the game. While the internet exploded with his antics, Maradona would probably call it, just another Tuesday.

While everyone else saw a football game, Maradona lived his life during those 90 minutes. The ups and downs, the heartbreak and the jubilation mimicked his existence. Cameramen and photographs were probably more in love with him than Messi. With every miss and every foul, the lens panned to the stands for his reaction. Even if you missed the game, you could feel the twists and turns with his changing expressions through the course of the game. The world wide web erupted as the greatest footballer of the current generation scored on the pitch and the greatest footballer of the previous generation cheered for him from the stands, in the manner that only he could.

It’s no wonder that while other celebrities garner respect, Diego Maradona garners only passion. He is as raw, frank, and as real as it gets. In a world that dictates political correctness for public figures in the limelight, he has no time for it. He speaks what he thinks, emotes what he feels, supports what he likes, and consumes what he wishes, not giving a flying fuck about what anyone thinks of him. He’s football’s darling, who people love seeing at the games, while he has the time of his life, every single time.

As the world’s most passionate Argentinian, he is GOAT at everything he commits himself to, both on and off the field. It’s the only way he knows to live life. And last night he showed us that he isn’t just the world’s greatest footballer. He is also the world’s greatest football fan.