Richard Gere in Fifth Gear

Delhi usually is hot this time of the year and in the occasional presence of stars like Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty tends to get even hotter. The temperature broke all records when the venerable Richard Gere hugged and cheek kissed the lissome Shilpa Shetty on stage at a public function. The protectors of our culture were on the streets demanding the arrest of Mr Gere [Mr Gerehas been a major supporter of Dalai Lama and that was the reason why he started coming to India but I have never heard the Chinese government demanding his arrest in the US or his externment from India, a point to be noted]

But the more interesting point to be noted was in fact, was that gesture a just social cheek pecking or was there more to it? That really depends on the cultural shades you are wearing. While Mr Gere did not even figure out that he had kicked shit. Ms Shetty initially held forth like an educated and westernised Indian woman, but actually got nervous when Mr Gere executed the dance pose and the cheek pecking became somewhat passionate. To be fair to Ms Shetty, she held her fort in front of the mediapersons and steadfastly denied any wrong intention on part of Mr Gere.

Why did people get so excited? Of course, the protectors of our culture tend to get excited at short notice. I have never seen them so excited when students from north east get raped in the streets of Delhi, nor have I seen them so excited when underage girls get pinched in DTC buses. They do not hesitate to make catcalls or unwanted passes at women. Why were they so upset then? Was there racism involved? Perhaps yes. But I think not. What was involved is more subtle and more deep rooted in our systems than perhaps we realise.

It was the deep rooted Indian pysche of reserving the right to exploit our own women and giving others the right to exploit their women. But you dare not exploit our women. The definition of our and their can be as broad as anglo saxon versus Indians, Hindus versus Muslims and as narrow as Jats and Jatavs, Rajputs and Kurmis and so on. We just love our women and reserve the right to exploit them, we do not want others to do it. Please respect that right or you will hear from us.

Just to be a devil's advocate, let me ask you this: I have seen hundreds of clips of Mr Gere but never seen him that expressive with any western woman out of screen, was he then really getting into fifth gear? What about Ms Shetty? if this is her definition of air kissing at social events in Mumbai, she surely is going to be a huge crowd puller....

Shall We Dance

If you have seen this movie [it is very watchable starring Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Lopez] you would not have missed out on the character played by Stanley Tucci... A bald and non-similing lawyer by the day and a dressed up dancer with a fancy wig and a set of false teeth by the night.... The highlight of Tucci's makeover which he explains at length to Gere is a set of false teeth which is sparkling white and which is permanently held in the grin mode... Of course both come out at the end with much sadness and laughter revealing the real man...

Something similar has been happening to corporate India in the last theree years... the false grin on Budget days has been accentuated by a fancy flase wig of "affirmative action in the form of training underprivileged people and bringing them up to scratch"; to forsetall a veiled threat by the government to bring in affirmative action [read job quota] through legislation....

After the Budget this year the false teeth is out: Following a non-exciting budget from the industry perspective, directives have been sent out by some ministries to select sectors to the effect the the propsed tax hikes should be absorbed by these sectors and not passed on to users thereby initiating a cascading effect on prices... the sectors interestingly are steel and cement - basic commodities for the booming construction and auto sectors....

The wig too is at the verge of being pulled off: One active ministry has sent a directive to large industry associations stating that proposals for affirmative action submitted by them are not enough and are too slow moving... adding that all their members need to state in their annual reports what affirmative action they have taken [read how many underprivileged have been emploed by them in course of the year]

Now that the grin and the wig are out, will we see the real dance of India Inc? I wish we do not have to say "only time will tell" on this one....