Clean Up!

Each year, each season brings with it changes, inevitable as we all agree and believe me, many times it invariably is also a huge relief. Imagine if there was no change, in the season or weather in Bombay for instance, and you are having to weather the unending heat of October without respite, each day, each moment for the rest of our lives, “Until…” as Chandler in FRIENDS, so effortlessly puts it, “Until the sweet release of death”! Change is welcome, and ought to be more welcomed by you and me, as disquieting as it may be. Do I see you nod more vigorously now? How else can one understand and empathise with a disgruntled commoner in our country, who opted for a theatrics-oriented, high octane Modiji in lieu of an extremely reticent, soporific yet scholarly Manmohanji. Likewise, in popular culture too, the collective conscience in India gravitates towards a logic-defying, non-acting blockbusters from an ageing Khan with swagger and  special effects, in lieu of a masterful adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Haider. Multiplexes charging several hundreds are enabling the Khan brigade to amass hundreds of crores in a matter of days where content has become a non entity.

I am not certain of your high standards, but mine clearly are a notch above the average multitudes. Like our ‘secular and sensitive PM’, I am all for a “Sweeping Change”, across the board. Perhaps movies, read Bollywood, is a good place to begin this clean up! By clean up, I am not referring to cleaned up chests of the 6 Pack Brigade, or the cleaning up of needless bits of clothing on the leading ladies that seems to be a prerequisite in the run towards box office hits. That clean up sadly is here to stay, as long as its proponents continue to hold on to their skimpy clothing by sheer force of will and without batting an eyelid emphasise that it is “the demand of the script”! Certainly, where storyline and acting is an alien concept, titillation and negation of sense ought to be welcomed, else we may end up having about 10 releases a year or perhaps less. 

Therefore, clean up on pop culture is not on my radar for sure. Instead, I am advocating a clean-up for lesser mortals like you and I who are in imminent danger of succumbing to the humble mosquito. Now is the time to be more regular with your ablutions, shower every morning, noon and night, preferably three times a day and if you manage to get bitten by a mosquito, shower again, you might have infected both, the mosquito and the maid, who handed you the coffee as you tottered into your house. If the friendly (Snehal) Mumbai Mayor’s words of wisdom are anything to go by, one member in my housing complex contracting the dreaded Dengue, would actually spell the death knell for the rest of the inhabitants, considering that it is a contagion! Sorry, you cannot frown at my ignorance and smirk at my paranoia. Reread my statement, my source is the Mayor herself! Not only has she affirmed that Dengue is a dreaded contagion, she is personally ensuring our safety too, sending in armed squads, sorry, squads from the civic body armed with probably HIT or a government version of this spray. So, that knock you hear on the door might just be these foot soldiers, arriving in time, to rid you of the infection. For she has urged that while it is contagious, it is not fatal, as the disease has managed to kill fewer people this year. So, she has wisely redefined fatality too. Fatal diseases are those that kill large multitudes! You and I may have heard the word epidemic, but let us heed to the suggestions and wisdom expounded by our Mayor. In other words, the best a mosquito can do is de stress you, provide you with an opportunity to enjoy the services of the neighbourhood hospital that could double up as Spa, depending on your willingness and ability to foot the charges. Since it is clearly not life threatening, those infected could jauntily trot across to a medical facility of their choice, and be cleaned up of the infection! 

Since we are in the clean up mode, would you also kindly clean up that desktop of yours, for then, that exotic or erotic, depending on your mood, preference and time of day, the screen saver is visible to you! I surely would want to know when was the last time you actually accessed that untitled folder and how are you going to use that three year old presentation at a later date?! If you are squinting and pausing for an answer, then clean-up should be the topmost on your to do list. Please include this too, again on the sticky note of your desktop! Once you are done with this, that poor smartphone with an ever expanding memory, that we have completely come to lack, could be attacked with equal gusto!

You guessed it, the next item on my list is clearly that overcrowded, filled to capacity wardrobe. Even at the risk of sounding sexist, mind you I am a proud feminist, most of us are guilty of this bulging wardrobe and storing in clothes and shoes that we ‘hope’ to either ‘fit into’ or will get a chance to wear ‘for that special occasion’ which to date has never come up! As they say, “charity begins at home,” what better way than to actually discard these clothes, accessories and footwear that we have not touched in the last five years at least. It is all the more vital for those of us living in a space starved Bombay, our clothes and stressed out mind will thank us for giving us some free space! Follow up this exercise with a similar clean-up, let us term it a sequel clean-up in our workplaces starting with our cabins or cubicles too… the dusty folders, magazines, files, books, pictures, stationary and plants have accrued far more dust than you and I can even begin to acknowledge or comprehend. Clearing these up might actually help us discover our missing wallets, pens, keys and all those reasons that cause respiratory infections and frequent sniffles. 

Actually, this where your best friend/ wife/ niece/ assistant with OCD would be most resourceful. Not only will they be gainfully employed, but trust me, you could be rid of not one, several heart bleeds. Now, having overcome such infection, you can then return to work in your best attire, make-up et al… Do you wonder why? Why would you not for once flip through the news paper! Right from Mr. Modi to the next door Trivedi, everybody nowadays is fondling a broom, sorry, holding onto a broom!! No, it is not merely for a photo-opportunity to be placed on Page 3 you cynics, they’re on a Clean-Up drive, our PM’s current pet project! What the BMC and the umpteen other civic functionaries across the length and breadth of India that are employed with your and my money (if you are paying taxes that is) have not managed to do in decades, since the dispatch of the Angrez from our proud nation, You and I, with the help of Media and a morning’s initiative can miraculously clean up Mumbai, Bangalore or your respective resident city! Is this not miraculous and an empowering citizens’ movement that is enough to put a smile across Modiji’s face and be the envy of nations like Singapore?! And all this in a matter of one day’s initiative only! One Sunday morning volunteering for a beach clean-up, alongside the celebrities and politicians, one weekday morning’s clean-up by one sweep of a roadside, it is just one single effort and a lifetime of cleanliness ensured! Our PM has exhorted that it is part of “good governance and being the Change”. So, carry along a broom that would match your suit, salwar or dress for we need to be well turned out and suitable coordinated as it will be featured in the media. For all you know, our innovative and hard at work designers based in Mumbai, Sabyasaachi, AND or a Manish Malhotra might have already put up the designer versions in their latest collections to help the clean-up commoners! This could be a good opportunity to clean-up those idly lying funds in your account or the credit balance on your cards too. By choosing a PM that is forever in an activist mode and urging the citizens to do all the work, we have surely cleaned up wisdom, facts and understandings from History and other sources. 

So, let us now embark on this clean-up initiative that is a precursor to other more such empowering ventures such as building temples of our beloved Gods and Goddesses. Not only will we be gainfully employed but it will stop us from indulging in meaningless musings about Indian economy, price inflation and other such protracted things which is beyond the grasp of us, commoners. We have chosen our beloved PM to take care of these complex things, which he will explain and expound to us in his next “man ki baat”. Till then, let us say cheese and clean-up!

Jai Sri Ram! Sorry, I meant, Jai Hind!

- A G K 

November, 2014