Prejudice

Prejudice means to dislike something or someone without any basis of logic or experience. We are all so comfortable with the innumerable prejudices we carry with us, that we fail to pay a thought to its correctness and fail to even question its existence in our minds, leave alone doing something about it.
At the root of this lies the fact that instead of identifying people by their behaviour or habits or statements and actions, we are more concerned with where they are from, what their surnames are and so many more details that help us categorise them in our minds. We are always giving shape to our prejudices by labelling people into categories by calling them 'mallu', 'gujju', 'bihari' etc. on linguistic bases, or other names on other bases. This constant 'othering' is our way of zeroing in on a person's individual identity. We don't remember our experience of interaction with a person as much as we know their caste labels, the places they come from and the languages they speak.
At a larger level, prejudice is given vent to in dangerous forms. Leaving aside the fact that films and other perpetrators of social prejudices portray particular communities in 'comic' roles to raise laughter among the audiences, one can see that prejudice lies at the root of all riots and probably even wars. All the -isms that are based on the principle of 'othering' - communalism, male chauvinism, jingoism, the omni-present casteism and the like, are all ugly manifestations of prejudice.
In spite of the countless ramblings of wise humanists and socialists who have been calling for an end to this malice, it has not been easy for people to change established notions based on linguistic, social, regional and gender-based categories. It needs immense resolve from our side and a conscious attempt to wash away such deeply-ingrained ideas from our minds. Let us attempt to do this.
deepesh

Television

We sit gaping at flashing screens
Yelling and screaming and hurling packages
Of sound and picture carefully crafted to paste us onto them. We
Often throw ourselves on it and yearn
For that ungettable nothing by switching
Channels rapidly like flipping through an
Uninteresting interesting book in the library
About to close. Torn between this yearning and
The guilt of having wasted hours, we overwork
Our fingers on the worn-out buttons of the remote,
The cheap Chinese batteries unable to comprehend
Our inability to discern. What do we want? The TV
Refuses to give us that. We forget that it only gives us
What they want to give us. Where is our choice? We sit in
Emptiness looking for the eluding fulfillment. God
Bless the TV! I think it’s not for me.

Cooking

I admire the nimble fingers of my wife that work
On frozen uncut vegetables and on spices pulses
And cereals stacked away for innumerable tomorrows,
To change them in minutes into an admirable symphony
Of steaming aromatic delicacies. I have often stumbled
On these unwilling musicians but they don’t ever
Sing for me. I begin with noodles and end up in soup.
Breads become rusks and often at the dreaded time of eating
What I cooked, I make up foolish faces of false delight and
Bury my disappointment. I can do the dishes, clean the mess,
But don’t let me cook. It needs courage to eat my dishes and
I am not so brave.

Holidays- incarnation of nemesis

The Time that you carelessly trampled on for so long
Gets back to you now and you will have to plan and
Replan and plan again to merely decide what you’re going to do.
Remember all the victims of your boring talks and you’ll
Get to know now how they all had felt.
Think of the miserable, with nothing to do and if
You want to kill them, hurl on them a holiday or two.
Their spirit will die a torturous death
And they’ll writhe and moan and groan and fret.
They’ll spend time on thinking how and when and
What and where and at the end of the holidays
They’ll carry the albatross of their yet-to-be-dones
And whiled-away-times and not-so-sweet-nothingnesses
And their hearts will sink to think that it’s all over.
I tell you this here and now, if you want time to reflect
And finish the unfinished work you have,
Just an hour or two on a busy day will do,
Please don’t curse me with a holiday too.

Genius gadget

Of all of man’s recent inventions, the Iron has been the most neglected.
The magic of heat and weight straightening crumpled creases on various clothes is an important part of our daily lives. From officials to stars, anyone who is looked at or looked up to tries to get the creases ironed out. The frowns and glares that crumpled shirts invite are incentives enough to make the hard work that goes into this straightening act worth it.
Though simple-sounding this stretching and pressing can be a painful act. The fabric dictates the temperature to be set and anything too cold will dampen your work and anything too hot will end up in smoke, even burning a hole in your pocket. This gadget genius needs careful handling for it can burn your skin to a roast, or shock you with electric current. The steam function can be easier but also tougher what with black grease holding on to your iron’s surface.
Many an impression in the modern world zeroes in on the work of this plugged contraption.