Wannabe Activities That Masquerade As Hobbies

One of the prevelant traits of urbanisation is the upsurge of wannabe behaviour & attitudes. Wannabes are people who do and say things for the sole purpose of fitting in or seeming cool. While I have no problem with the activities or the words themselves, the obvious fakeness of their endeavors really gets my goat.

• Food – Only the most basic need of every living creature. What makes this one suspect is that the average ‘foodie’s taste doesn’t go beyond mummy’s food, perennial streetfood favorites like panipuri & unanimously popular restaurants. Everyone enjoys a good biryani, panipuri, steak or pasta. What sets you apart from the entire human race?
• Travel- I still can’t understand what makes people count this as a hobby. Travel means going to a different place. If it’s not on work, it means you’re on a vacation. Find me one person who doesn’t enjoy that. Again, what sets you apart from every schoolkid, corporate

  whore, ratrace junkie?

• 

  Image via Wikipedia

  Photography – This one is misleading. On the surface of it, it looks & sounds like a real hobby and an artistic one at that. Indeed, a decade ago, it would have been considered a respectable interest to have. But in this day & age of digicams, phone cameras and point-and-shoots which you can all but have sex with….what’s that mammoth clicker for, but to show off? What gets me is when people pull out foot-long lenses to photograph a plate of food right in front of them. Weren’t those created to be able to shoot dangerous animals in their habitat, in the perfectly civil role of a wildlife enthusiast?

• Cause Crusading- Animal rights. Corruption. Energy saving. Endangered species. Clicking ‘Like’ on a Facebook Page called ‘Let’s vote for (whatever cause)’ does not further the cause. Forwarding an SMS about said cause to everyone in your address book is spam, not crusading. Wearing a tee-shirt with a cause-ey byline helps fund the marketer’s brand, not aid a cause. If you really care about the cause, give something of yourself, starting with time spent finding out exactly what you’re campaigning and what the problem is. I don’t think half the people who wore Gandhi hats & liked/forward the Anna Hazare campaign even knew what Lokpal was.

I call this ‘The Glee Club of Hobbies’. You don’t have to have a talent or skill. You don’t need to know much about anything. And you don’t even need to spend the kind of time & energy that it takes to familiarize & become good at most other hobbies. These are things that everybody does.

I’m just mystified by why they’re suddenly cool. Everywhere around me, I see & hear people talking about one of these as their passions. These get put on resumes, listed on Twitter profiles & linked to on Facebook.

I suspect it’s just the pressure to show that one has a meaningful, full life, complete with hobbies that absorb & enrich one. Gah, wannabedom, your worshippers will even fake what gets them off.

Dirty Talk 2012 (Open Mic) By Queer Azadi Mumbai & Gaysi Family

The first month of this year promises to end on a colourful, vibrant note, thanks to Mumbai Pride Week. The week leading up to Queer Parade will see a host of related events. Queer Azadi Mumbai will host ‘Dirty Talk’ – an Open Mic event of original performances about & around the gay cause.

Expect an evening of varied performances including skits, music, poetry & other original expression. Here are the details of the event:

Dirty Talk 2012: Open Mic

Venue: The Big Nasty, Shatranj Napoli Building, Carter Road, Bandra West, Mumbai
Date: Wednesday, 25th January 2012
Time: 6.00 p.m. – 9.30 p.m.

If you’d like to participate, get in touch with GaysiFamily. To keep the evening safe & enjoyable for everyone, the organizers are asking participants to submit their pieces before the event. Come on along for an evening of fun & your expression!

‘The Reluctant Detective’ By Kiran Manral: ChickLit With A Twist

My weekend reading was ‘The Reluctant Detective‘, first novel by fellow-blogger Kiran Manral. Just as well, since it proved to be a hectic few days leading upto & culminating in the boy’s birthday, leaving me no time for heavy reading. This book was light and easily read in the short intervals that I managed to catch between organizing parties, shopping for gifts & tending to the social commitments of a busy weekend.

‘The Reluctant Detective‘ is the story of Kanan Mehra (a.k.a. Kay), a privileged suburban housewife, into whose pampered life comes excitement in the form of a double murder in the neighborhood. Kay is loosely linked to both cases, being the last to have seen the first victim alive, and the one to discover the body of the second, both on the same day. Her daily life of beauty treatments, fashion fanaticism, kitty parties and housewifely gossip, have her ill-prepared to deal with the ramifications of these events. She blunders through having to face gore for the first time in her comfortable life and rubs uneasy shoulders with such strange people as detectives & policemen.

The title notwithstanding, the story has very little to do with her actual solving of the cases. Instead, it builds on the response from Kay’s world, right from a sudden fear of taking morning walks alone, SoBo acquaintances dismissal of the suburbs, parental paranoia & automatic restriction, gossip sagas where maidservants gain starring roles and the revival of old-but-incompatible friendships.

There is a lot of focus on Kay’s wardrobe, her battle with the bulge and domestic adventures of the maternal, spousal & housekeeping sort. Thus the setting & tone give the book a Chick Lit feel, albeit with a heroine of a different demographic (slightly older, happily married with kids, no money/career concerns etc). Don’t expect a cloak-and-dagger adventure, all ye mystery lovers. On the other hand, if you enjoy Chick Lit and wouldn’t mind trying out something other than the usual ‘single girl-gay friend-bad boyfriends-alcohol & chocolates-BFFs’ formula, ‘The Reluctant Detective‘ will give you some pleasant, easy reading.

Here’s a promo of the book:

The blurb reads:

Kay, a.k.a. Kanan Mehra, is a thirty-something suburban housewife and young mother with a penchant for sticking her curious nose into things she definitely, absolutely and certainly shouldn’t go near. When a couple of corpses turn up in quick succession in her neighbourhood, she teams up with her detective friend, Runa, in a half-hearted attempt to find the murderers, only to suspect that perhaps the detective business doesn’t quite become her. A hilarious account of how not to get involved in other people’s murders, The Reluctant Detective is the story of every school-gate mom, searching for a purpose in her life that goes beyond kitty lunches, shopping and fish pedicures.

‘The Reluctant Detective‘ by Kiran Manral has been published by Westland & priced at Rs.195/-.