Diwali season is coming. This is the time when everyone who is any one greets in anticipation of a bakshish or tip. One has to pay the watchman, the cleaners, the maid, the postman, the garbage guy, the pantry guy, the guard, everyone who is anyone. Nowadays even the courier guy comes in for his piece of the pie. I had once seen the telegraph guys come and ask for their share. God knows who even saw them ever.
But Diwali is the season of fun and merriment, which I have missed consistently for many years now. I don’t remember the last Diwali I spent in Mumbai. We just run away from the fire crackers and the noise and air pollution. But that does not mean the tip seekers don’t find us. They work as organized gangs. The watch men in the building typically form a union and go about extorting their bakshish. They approach and ask brazenly. Then they write down the contributions in a small notebook and divide the same internally.
I normally never gave any money to these characters around office. Though around home, it’s a done thing and considered a part of the expense. At my last office building I never gave anything to the guards as well. I then shifted office but I had to keep going there to meet some of the senior bosses. Parking is a mess in the area and one is left to the guards mercy to get a parking. There I was pretty much stuck. “sir” he said when I was trying to maneuver my car into an unauthorized parking slot, “last year’s Diwali is pending”. Ok sure. They sure know when to strike. I loosened the purse strings a little and voila, parking was available magically every time I went.
I learned the quiet benefits of Diwali bakshish. Loosen it and get magical service. I guess it’s a form of extortion or black mail or bribe. Soft power. But when you give them a bit, magic seems to open up doors and crucially parking slots.
My maid servant who is pretty friendly with us asked me generally the other day. “you too must be getting Diwali in office”. The Diwali tip is most often referred to simply as ‘diwali’. So “you too must be getting Diwali in office”.
Well. When I first started my career, I realized that what they said in the interview as CTC – or cost to company, is a magically large figure. What comes in hand is pretty less per month. What gets cut – first the provident fund contribution, then the company’s contribution to the fund (so much for forcing companies to contribute), then some professional tax, then some gratuity, then the tax that is deducted at source and then finally – bonus. The bonus deducted is around 8%, which is basically deducted so that during Diwali they give you a month’s salary as bonus. So they basically take your money and give it back to you later during the year as ‘Diwali Bonus’. Funny.
That practice carried on in a few companies for a few years, but my present company doesn’t do any of that. They don’t give you a Diwali bonus with your own money. You CTC has the normal deductions but no bonus deduction… which means more money in your hands every month.
But – you know I kind of miss the Bonus. Diwali is a season to spend and feel rich. It is a season to give others ‘bakshish’, celebrate, buy stuff and enjoy. We are a broking firm, a banking firm and more importantly an investment firm. We know what the shopping season does to the economy. People must feel rich during Diwali. They must spend. Spending kick starts the economy that spread cheer all around.
Most of economics is in the head. It’s what you feel. Recession happens because you don’t feel like spending, and economists do everything in their power to make you feel like spending or investing. If we are a financial service organization that believes in spreading joy within the economy and especially during the main season, then we must give this bonus. Cut it form the salary if you must but make people feel rich when they are likely to enjoy being rich the most!
I think I loved the bonus. I felt nice when I first got it. It was a week before Diwali and it felt nice being rich. I got a cheque. Those days’ people still got cheques! Now a days you get an email saying your monies are in. I remember feeling nice and happy. Pleasurable. I don’t know why we discontinued the box of sweetmeats as well. We used to give these out to all employees. It’s nice to take a box of sweets home from office. It’s a gesture to share joy and affection.
Economic sensibility wise I think it’s important to do something like this. If we as a bank player refuse to understand this, what hope we have from the lesser mortals who live in this big bad ugly world.
So “no devki, I don’t get any bonus from office during Diwali. It doesn’t work like that” I answered my maid servant. I guess she was disappointed. She probably had a point to state to which my organization probably helped in stealing the thunder away. Well. I guess there are some positive takeaways of not receiving a Diwali bonus after all.
Showing posts with label diwali. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diwali. Show all posts
Friday, October 14, 2011
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Burn the negatives from your heart
I was in Dubai till the third standard and we moved into India when I came into the fourth. One of the fun things that we could do in India that we couldn’t do there was burst crackers. I remember mom and dad taking us to the main market for crackers in Mumbai, the Mohamed Ali Street. It had so many shops that convert themselves into cracker wholesalers for the Diwali season. Mom and Dad realised that we were in this respect at least pretty deprived. We hardly saw crackers and hardly ever got to burst anything more than the basic sparklers that some Indians had smuggled into Dubai. I wonder why someone would smuggle something that is essentially a fun thing at such bug risk into Dubai. I wonder. But did and we used to use them with great care and caution. Take the case of cracker loom (tadaphadi is another desi word). It is basically the cracker that makes a noise like a 1944 WW2 machine gun. Not that I have heard one, but from all the research that I have done watching those movies, I can tell you for sure. I set would have around 40 small crackers. We would dismantle them and use them one tick at a time. That really time consuming and fun.
So in Mumbai, we went berserk and I credit my parents for allowing us to go berserk at the cracker store. We bought sparklers, atom bombs (loud raasi bomb), tadaphadi, flower pots, and what not. My brother’s favourite was the snake. It was nothing but a small black pill on which you put your sparkler or matchstick. From it a long black ‘snake’ would come out. It would emit a horrible smoke and would forever scar the tiles. You could see tiles on the staircase of many buildings scarred thus. One black round mark, where the snake once burned. It was fun and still is but I have no clue why.
Soon we graduated to getting a diwali allowance to buy our fire crackers ourselves. We spent wisely on bombs, rockets and the lot. Carefully avoiding girlie stuff like sparklers and zammen chakris. Though my eternal favourite has always been the flower pot. I have no clue what fascination I have for it. But I remember it being the cracker of choice for me and I would spend a little more on buying the big special flower pot. I would keep it safely and preserve it. The Diwali bursting starts a week before Diwali and we would conserve our crackers to last the whole week. The piece d renaissance would be lit by me at the special moment at the peak of the diwali night. My night / festival was made.
The next day after Diwali was the traditional New Year’s day for us gujjus. And that meant going from cousin’s place to another wishing and greeting each other. It went on for a few years till some politics developed between cousins. One side of the cousins was a squabble over property which gave rise to sub texts in relationships and on the other side was a struggle for dominance. All in all it made for a bitter after taste. Soon enough, the family Diwali tradition changed to getting out of Mumbai during Diwali. If you are not there is no reason to visit them, wot say?
Now many years since … there is no tradition in our family to visit relatives on Diwali or new year day. So we too have followed the tradition of getting out of Mumbai for diwali. This is something that seems to have worked in our favour. Get out of this place. The noise and the pollution has significantly increased over the years making the space completely inhabitable. The one year I was year many years ago made me make up my mind of celebrating Diwali out side in the peace and quiet. When a teeming metropolis like decides to celebrate noise and pollution the only choice you have is to run.
But contrast to that is the Dusherra celebration that happens 20 days prior to Diwali. I love the focal point of the day, which is to make a huge effigy of thr ten headed demon king ravana and burn the hell out of him. This to was something that we were first introduced to while in India. Till then it was just a chapter of our social science text book.
The first one I saw was a huge figure five seven stories tall and full of crackers inside. Bursting it would take all of 30 minutes or more and give a great thrill to many of us. It was clearly one of the high points of childhood celebrations.
Now that Jispa has grown up a bit we tried the last couple of years to take her to Chowpatty and witness the big celebration there also. That too was good fun. For 50 bucks we got the VIP tickets at the RamLeela that was being staged there. And then the end point was the big effigy being burnt.
This time around a couple of months before I saw this kit being retailed at the book store. “make your own ravanna”. A kit that had color drawings and instructions to make your own three dimensional effigy. That was cool I though and bought the kit. I promised myself to make it and figure out if we could burn this ourselves. I missed the Dusherra deadline but I saw and remembered it on the night we were to burn it.
I removed the covers expecting to simply punch out the perforated stuff and assemble it in 20 minutes. How tough could it get.
To my chagrin I saw large sheets with color prints on them. No perforations. I had to cut them all. The prints were nice and detailed which meant even more time in cutting them. The hair, the moustache and the head gear and to add to it, Ravanna has ten heads. What a pain. Some of the stuff was to be cut across circles, which meant plenty of small cuts on the paper so that thy fold in a circle and lots of irritation. The hands had to be stuck to the body using glue, his skirt to the legs, his head to the neck and what not. Very very painful. Jasmine had joined me soon enough and both of us were figuring this big mammoth task. Poor Jispa who I thought would love to do it was quickly sidelined. We had to give her simple cutting work. After some time we realised that the glue wouldn’t be enough and in came in the artillery. The humble scotch tape and the even humbler stapler came in. a stick there a tuck here and a punch in there somewhere.
We had to abandon the project for the night to catch it the next morning. Jispa was unwell and was at home. We tried to take it up again and try to get the pieces to all add up. It was so frustrating and tiring. Jasmine remarked that ‘she is going to love to see this guy burn’. I concurred. It was a real pain putting it all together. I guess we just don’t understand what it is to make life easy for the customers. I mean the least was that they could give was pre-cuts or perforations. I don’t visualise anyone less than a 14 year old managing this. In fact I am planning to give this project to my new team in order to help them get a hang of what it means to have bad design, bad instructions and bad user experience.
Five hours and 15 man hours later the Ravanna was up. Finally standing. The big boy with all his ten heads and a menacing smile with a sword and a shield. There boy. All that sweat was worth it. Here the BIG FELLA is in all his glory.
Since Jispa was a bit unwell, the week passed by with the man remaining on top of our book case. Today we got the opportunity to burn the fella. We called in Jispa’s friend, bought 100 bucks of sparklers, and set the fellow on fire. Like all dad occasions, this too passed by without me really sitting back and enjoying it. I was busy making it stand, then setting it alight and then managing the kids so that they don’t get burnt. But it was fun any ways.
Here is he just before he was burnt.
The last bit was the clincher – Jasmine said “not bad eh? Its worth doing it the next time as well. Lets buy one and keep right away. I don’t think it will be in stock.”
I agree. Haha. After all that work, it did turn out quite a nice experience in the end. A sweet ending is just so important. With the Ravanna, we burnt all the ill will we had towards the guys who sold the dam thing. At the end we were left with sweet memories. I was telling Jasmine that "these things are the best projects. You spend time to make them and then you just have to burn them. You enjoy the process and then the thing also does not take up any space in the house. "
So in Mumbai, we went berserk and I credit my parents for allowing us to go berserk at the cracker store. We bought sparklers, atom bombs (loud raasi bomb), tadaphadi, flower pots, and what not. My brother’s favourite was the snake. It was nothing but a small black pill on which you put your sparkler or matchstick. From it a long black ‘snake’ would come out. It would emit a horrible smoke and would forever scar the tiles. You could see tiles on the staircase of many buildings scarred thus. One black round mark, where the snake once burned. It was fun and still is but I have no clue why.
Soon we graduated to getting a diwali allowance to buy our fire crackers ourselves. We spent wisely on bombs, rockets and the lot. Carefully avoiding girlie stuff like sparklers and zammen chakris. Though my eternal favourite has always been the flower pot. I have no clue what fascination I have for it. But I remember it being the cracker of choice for me and I would spend a little more on buying the big special flower pot. I would keep it safely and preserve it. The Diwali bursting starts a week before Diwali and we would conserve our crackers to last the whole week. The piece d renaissance would be lit by me at the special moment at the peak of the diwali night. My night / festival was made.
The next day after Diwali was the traditional New Year’s day for us gujjus. And that meant going from cousin’s place to another wishing and greeting each other. It went on for a few years till some politics developed between cousins. One side of the cousins was a squabble over property which gave rise to sub texts in relationships and on the other side was a struggle for dominance. All in all it made for a bitter after taste. Soon enough, the family Diwali tradition changed to getting out of Mumbai during Diwali. If you are not there is no reason to visit them, wot say?
Now many years since … there is no tradition in our family to visit relatives on Diwali or new year day. So we too have followed the tradition of getting out of Mumbai for diwali. This is something that seems to have worked in our favour. Get out of this place. The noise and the pollution has significantly increased over the years making the space completely inhabitable. The one year I was year many years ago made me make up my mind of celebrating Diwali out side in the peace and quiet. When a teeming metropolis like decides to celebrate noise and pollution the only choice you have is to run.
But contrast to that is the Dusherra celebration that happens 20 days prior to Diwali. I love the focal point of the day, which is to make a huge effigy of thr ten headed demon king ravana and burn the hell out of him. This to was something that we were first introduced to while in India. Till then it was just a chapter of our social science text book.
The first one I saw was a huge figure five seven stories tall and full of crackers inside. Bursting it would take all of 30 minutes or more and give a great thrill to many of us. It was clearly one of the high points of childhood celebrations.
Now that Jispa has grown up a bit we tried the last couple of years to take her to Chowpatty and witness the big celebration there also. That too was good fun. For 50 bucks we got the VIP tickets at the RamLeela that was being staged there. And then the end point was the big effigy being burnt.
This time around a couple of months before I saw this kit being retailed at the book store. “make your own ravanna”. A kit that had color drawings and instructions to make your own three dimensional effigy. That was cool I though and bought the kit. I promised myself to make it and figure out if we could burn this ourselves. I missed the Dusherra deadline but I saw and remembered it on the night we were to burn it.
I removed the covers expecting to simply punch out the perforated stuff and assemble it in 20 minutes. How tough could it get.
To my chagrin I saw large sheets with color prints on them. No perforations. I had to cut them all. The prints were nice and detailed which meant even more time in cutting them. The hair, the moustache and the head gear and to add to it, Ravanna has ten heads. What a pain. Some of the stuff was to be cut across circles, which meant plenty of small cuts on the paper so that thy fold in a circle and lots of irritation. The hands had to be stuck to the body using glue, his skirt to the legs, his head to the neck and what not. Very very painful. Jasmine had joined me soon enough and both of us were figuring this big mammoth task. Poor Jispa who I thought would love to do it was quickly sidelined. We had to give her simple cutting work. After some time we realised that the glue wouldn’t be enough and in came in the artillery. The humble scotch tape and the even humbler stapler came in. a stick there a tuck here and a punch in there somewhere.
We had to abandon the project for the night to catch it the next morning. Jispa was unwell and was at home. We tried to take it up again and try to get the pieces to all add up. It was so frustrating and tiring. Jasmine remarked that ‘she is going to love to see this guy burn’. I concurred. It was a real pain putting it all together. I guess we just don’t understand what it is to make life easy for the customers. I mean the least was that they could give was pre-cuts or perforations. I don’t visualise anyone less than a 14 year old managing this. In fact I am planning to give this project to my new team in order to help them get a hang of what it means to have bad design, bad instructions and bad user experience.
Five hours and 15 man hours later the Ravanna was up. Finally standing. The big boy with all his ten heads and a menacing smile with a sword and a shield. There boy. All that sweat was worth it. Here the BIG FELLA is in all his glory.
Since Jispa was a bit unwell, the week passed by with the man remaining on top of our book case. Today we got the opportunity to burn the fella. We called in Jispa’s friend, bought 100 bucks of sparklers, and set the fellow on fire. Like all dad occasions, this too passed by without me really sitting back and enjoying it. I was busy making it stand, then setting it alight and then managing the kids so that they don’t get burnt. But it was fun any ways.
Here is he just before he was burnt.
The last bit was the clincher – Jasmine said “not bad eh? Its worth doing it the next time as well. Lets buy one and keep right away. I don’t think it will be in stock.”I agree. Haha. After all that work, it did turn out quite a nice experience in the end. A sweet ending is just so important. With the Ravanna, we burnt all the ill will we had towards the guys who sold the dam thing. At the end we were left with sweet memories. I was telling Jasmine that "these things are the best projects. You spend time to make them and then you just have to burn them. You enjoy the process and then the thing also does not take up any space in the house. "
Jai Lankesh!
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