Drive safe

Because the streets are filled with idiots; and one of them is headed straight for you

I can’t remember the last time an ad struck such an immediate chord with me. It opens with a guy driving a scooter with his pregnant wife sitting behind him. They are discussing the movie they just saw, laughing and joking with one another. Just then, a car comes crashing into the street, jumping a red light – and nearly running them down in the process. The man brakes just in time and the camera moves to a close-up of his shocked face.

“Are you okay?” he asks his wife, who is clutching her baby bump protectively. His ashen-faced wife responds with a breathless, “Yes, I am fine.”

And the voiceover says, “Because the streets are filled with idiots.”

Of course the ad is geared towards selling a particular brand of tyres which comes with superior grip and various anti-skid features. But why it works is because it tells us a truth that is universally acknowledged: our streets are filled with idiots. And that at the end of the day no matter how safely you drive or how faithfully you follow all the traffic rules, there are always enough fools out there to cause an accident.

It doesn’t really matter where you live. One metro is as bad as the other and the smaller towns are no better. People run signals with impunity, jump lanes at will, turn without bothering with the indicator, overtake from the wrong side, side-swipe you at the slightest provocation, and drive much too fast on roads with far too much traffic, weaving in and out like mad drunks (which, scarily enough, some of them are).

You need nerves of steel to survive a day out on Indian roads. If you are driving a car, you have to look out for jaywalking pedestrians who believe that they have right of way in every situation; you must dodge oversized buses and overloaded trucks which think nothing of squeezing you off the road; you need to watch for fellow drivers who happily flout every traffic rule, taking a U-turn where it is expressly forbidden and driving down the wrong direction in one-way lanes.

Sometimes when I watch the chaos that characterises our roads from the safety of the back seat – unfortunately (or do I mean fortunately?) I never did learn how to drive in my youth and now it is far too late – I wonder how we manage to survive the madness: the road rage; the reckless overtaking; the illegal parking; and yes, the sheer idiocy.

The streets are filled with idiots. I had an encounter with one shining example a couple of weeks ago when I emerged from my bank. The bright spark had parked his car bang in the middle of the street outside and then disappeared on some mysterious errand. The traffic backed up on the road creating a complete logjam while the parking attendants scrambled around to find him. After a good 15 minutes, he emerged from one of the adjacent buildings, completely ignored the irate shouts of the people stuck in their cars because of him, calmly started his car and drove away.

I guess it could have been worse. He could have shouted back, the fight could have escalated, violence could have resulted and someone could have been killed.

Yes, that’s been known to happen too, most famously in Delhi’s tony Khan Market, where an altercation led to the death of a manager of a nearby restaurant. He got into a fight with another man at the crossing, was angry enough to step out of his car to hit him, the other driver tried to speed away and ran over him – accidentally, or so the story goes – resulting in his death.

Sadly, such events are not as rare as we would like to think. Every week or so there is a story in our newspapers about one such case. Two neighbours got into a spat about a parking space; one pulled out a gun and shot the other fellow dead. Two cars collided into one another in a busy street; one driver was beaten so badly that he ended up in hospital. A child was run over by a DTC bus, the driver is now absconding. A carload of people were killed as they ran into a truck on a highway.

What is even more worrying is the stuff that is considered so routine that we no longer even bother to bat an eyelid at it. The odd scratch and bump on the car is seen as par for the course if you drive on Indian roads. Nobody thinks twice about driving back home after a party, no matter how many drinks you have put away in the course of the evening. And running a light or taking an illegal turn is okay so long as there is no cop around to note your car number and send you a challaan.

One of the reasons why there are so many idiots out on the road is just this sab-chalta-hai attitude most of us adopt on the roads. After all, if we don’t hold ourselves up to any significant standard of good behaviour when we are behind the wheel, how on earth can we expect other people to behave with a modicum of good sense?

Until that changes, I am afraid, the tag line of that ad will remain as accurate as ever – and our streets will remain filled with idiots.

Holiday lists
Honestly, they have a way of taking all the fun out of holidays

Is there anything more stress-inducing – dispiriting, even – than leafing through a glossy magazine in the run-up to the holiday season? I ask after an afternoon spent reading through the reams of advice thrown out to ordinary mortals like you and me by the arbiters of all that is fun and fashionable. And I have to say that my head is reeling so hard that I might just have to take a break from writing this to have a quick lie-down.

Okay, so I am back. And on the grounds that it’s never a good idea to suffer alone, I am going to tell you what I have learnt about what goes into the making of a dream vacation.

Well, first up is the destination. Now, this is trickier than you might think. It’s not just a simple choice between beaches and mountains, Europe and Asia, spa break and walking tour, family holiday and romantic getaway. No, you also have to consider which are the trendy destinations of today and which are the no-go areas where nobody of wealth, style and distinction would be caught dead.

So Goa is passé, unless you’re partying with Vijay Mallya. Pattaya and Phuket have been done to death and if you’re going to any place called Koh make sure it doesn’t have Samui attached to it. The Southern hemisphere rates better than the Northern; the East scores over the West. Maldives is the new Mauritius (which is now too mid-market to rate). Or maybe Croatia is the new Maldives – I’m sorry, but it’s impossible to keep up with this stuff!

All you really need to know is that it is imperative to holiday in a place that hasn’t already been destroyed by tourist hordes (i.e. you and me); a paradise unspoilt enough for you to feel as if you are the first to discover it.

Once you’ve decided on the trendy location of choice, you need some trendy luggage to go with it. You need a lightweight bag with wheels so that you can zip around at airports across the world; a roomy carry-on so that you can pack a neck pillow and cashmere throw (both of which are apparently essentials on a long-haul flight) along with a nice trashy novel you can read if you don’t like the in-flight entertainment. If you’re going trekking, you will need a backpack; if you’re headed to the beach, you will need a straw tote; if you’re staying at a fancy hotel, you will need a smart clutch for the evening.

What to pack is a favourite topic. As is how to pack. Apparently, a white shirt and blue jeans are essential no matter where in the world you are going (so why is it that I never see anyone wearing this vacation staple no matter where I holiday?). We are all supposed to roll our socks and stuff them inside our shoes so that they don’t get crushed beneath the weight of our skin-care products (and these have to be packed in sealed, see-through, zip-lock containers on pain of death).

The instructions don’t stop even after you’ve safely boarded. Remember not to drink too much alcohol on the flight. Sure, the champagne and wine may be free, but you will certainly pay for the hangover once you land. Tea and coffee are both dehydrating. Just stick to water – and make sure to drink lots of it. And don’t just lie there, slumped in your seat – walk around the plane once in a while to guard against deep-vein thrombosis.

If you think this is exhausting enough, well, you ain’t seen nothing yet. If you go by the Glossy Manual of Vacation Planning, you will probably need a holiday to prepare for your beach holiday.

First up is the fitness routine. You can’t seriously be thinking of venturing anywhere near a beach with that wobbly stomach which has the consistency of cottage cheese? Perish the thought. You have to have what is called a beach-perfect body even if it means giving up carbs, alcohol, hell, even the will to live. Every waking hour must be spent on the treadmill, pounding away till the pounds melt away, on the floor working those abs till they are washboard firm, lifting weights to give definition to your pecs and biceps.

Yes, the instructions come hard and fast. How to get that perfect bikini body; what to wear once you have got it; how to disguise it if it doesn’t pass muster. You get lists of swimsuit styles so that you can puzzle over which works for your body type. You can choose from among sarongs, caftans, and see-through kurtis if you’re looking to cover up. Honestly, it’s enough to make you want to spend your entire vacation cowering in the bathroom, staring disconsolately at your cellulite.

Then, there’s the beauty routine. Exfoliate, exfoliate, exfoliate. Moisturise, moisturise, moisturise. Don’t forget to pack a sunscreen with a SPF factor of at least 30. And re-apply every few hours to get maximum protection through the day.

Get a manicure. Get a pedicure. Get new flip-flops to show off your pedicure. Get a Brazilian (warning: this involves the use of hot wax, not a hot South American man). Get a bikini to show off your Brazilian.

Frankly, after an afternoon of this, all I want to say is: Get a grip. It’s a holiday, for God’s sake, not a military campaign that has to be planned to perfection. You don’t need lists to make it work; it’s not working that does the trick.

It’s not cricket

But Shahid Afridi’s anti-India tirade is pretty much par for the course

For the life of me, I can’t understand why people in India are so outraged by Shahid Afridi’s statements made on a Pakistani TV channel. In case you’ve been living under a rock over the past week, this is what Afridi said: Indians did not have as pure and large hearts as Pakistanis and Muslims did; and that no long-term relationship with India was possible because of this.

Now, as far as I am concerned, this is pretty much par for the course. However much we may try to kid ourselves, throwing around phrases like ‘We are the same people”, or even “Pakistanis are like our brothers and sisters” the truth is somewhat different. If you monitor their media, listen to people on the street, or even log on to Facebook groups and Twitter, it rapidly becomes evident that most Pakistanis don’t like us very much.

And frankly, that’s hardly surprising. Ever since the Partition, each successive generation of Pakistanis have been brought up to regard India as The Enemy. The textbooks they study tell them how awful Indians are; the media sends out the same message; the political leadership constantly harps on an anti-India theme; and the army whips up a frenzy about India’s dire designs on the Pakistani state.

So, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that we are regarded with implacable hostility at best and visceral hatred at worst by our ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ across the border. And yet, every time a story like this pops up, the reaction seems to be shock and horror.

How could Afridi say such awful things? Doesn’t he know that we are the ‘same people’? (And that, in any case, there are more `pure-hearted’ Muslims in India than there are in Pakistan!)

At some level, I understand where these reactions are coming from. As a Punjabi whose family roots lie in Pakistan, I was also brought up on a steady diet of pre-Partition stories of love and brotherhood. My father’s friends from Pakistan visited, there were many evenings of bonhomie as they remembered the good old days, even as we kids hung on to every word invoking a past we could never re-visit.

It was easy to believe – as we sat down to large meals and an even larger dose of nostalgia – that we were indeed the same people, with the same roots, the same tastes, the same culture, but just divided by a border created by political forces beyond our control.

It was in that mood that I made my first trip to Pakistan – as part of the press party accompanying the Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, as he made his historic bus yatra across the Wagah border. I was all set to get in touch with my Jhelum roots, re-discover the land of my ancestors, and get a taste of that famous bonhomie that had always marked India-Pakistan relations.

Boy, was I in for a shock!

The first false note was struck when a bunch of us were introduced to a group of volunteers who were assigned to look after us at the media centre. Our Pakistani friends repeated each new name with trepidation, as if they were trying out an entirely different language and weren’t quite sure of the pronunciation. Finally, it was my turn. “Ah, Seema,” said one of them with palpable relief. “Yeh naam toh hum jaante hain. Yeh baaki sab Hindu naam humnein kabhi sune nahi.”

That’s when I first realised that the West Punjab of my parents and grandparents had well and truly passed on. Now, there was a new West Punjab, with a new generation of Pakistanis, who had grown up with no Hindu neighbours. In fact, most of them had probably never met a Hindu in their life. To them, we were foreigners in their land; not long-lost brothers and sisters with whom they could establish an instant camaraderie.

If anything, the prevalent mood was one of hostility and suspicion. It reminded me of a story the late Mani Dixit used to tell about his time in Pakistan, when he visited a Pakistani diplomat at his home. He was introduced to the couple’s young son as a visitor from India. The child said an obedient ‘hello’ and then started running around a startled Dixit shouting ‘Hindustani kutta, Hindustani kutta!’ The embarrassed parents hurried him out of the room and apologised profusely to Dixit.

A friend’s aunt, who is married to a Pakistani, and often visits the country, had much the same experience. Sitting at the breakfast table one morning, she saw that her young nephew was playing with his toy airplanes. She walked across to join him, but stopped short when she heard him mutter, “Main India pe bomb maroonga...”

In any case, this stuff about a shared culture only goes that far. After all, it’s only Punjabis – and to some extent, Sindhis – who have a cultural affinity with Pakistan. For the rest of India, there is no special bond in the shape of a common language or even a common cuisine.

I remember an office lunch at Bengal Sweets, when there was a group of Pakistani ladies sitting at the next table. There was flurry of excitement when our paper masala dosa was served. What on earth was this, the ladies wanted to know. They had never seen a dosa in their life.

I often think of that moment when I hear the candles-at-the-Wagah-border brigade ramble on how we are the same people. You know what, actually we’re not.

Kitchen confidential

Sadly, the only people who can afford dream kitchens are those who wouldn’t dream of ever stepping into one

Don’t you just love the shiny, sprawling, spotless kitchens that feature in all those glossy interior design magazines? They come in shades of yellow and green, pale pastels, crisp white, or even monochromatic grey. But no matter what the colour, all of them look like perfect settings for our own inner Domestic Goddess.

Sometimes they are done in faux vintage style with brass and copper implements suspended from the roof. Sometimes they aspire to the minimal look, with every cooking appliance tucked away in storage cupboards. Sometimes there is a nice worktop where you can chop and peel away to your heart’s content. And sometimes there is a tiny table with bar stools where you can catch a hasty breakfast. There is a kitchen to cater to every taste; a kitchen to meet every need.

I don’t know about you but I can spend endless afternoons salivating over the visuals of these kitchens, dreaming of a time when I can finally afford one. Needless to say, that time is unlikely to come – well, at least, not in this lifetime. But hey, a girl can dream, right?

And since you ask, the kitchen of my dreams is a sunlit vision in primrose yellow offset with the palest of pale ivory. There is a large central island with cheerful wicker seating for my friends to lounge around in with a glass of wine while I rustle up a three-course meal (warning: only those who help with the chopping of the salad get dessert). The cooking range is set against a picture window looking on to a patch of garden outside, where fresh herbs grow, ready for the picking. The oven and microwave are industrial-sized but hidden away behind a glass counter. And the shelves are heaving with every ingredient known to Nigella – and then some.

Yes, okay, I admit it. A huge part of my longing for this kind of kitchen comes from watching far too many food shows set in picture-perfect kitchens. It is another matter that these ‘kitchens’ are set in studios rather than in the anchor’s home (yes, even Nigella’s!). But such is the fantasy of domesticity they conjure up that even those of us who can’t really cook want a kitchen that looks just like that – perhaps in the mistaken belief that once the hob is in place the cooking skills will surely follow.

And then, there are all those television serials that nurture the dream. In my case, it all started with Friends, where everyone congregates in Monica’s open-plan kitchen in good times and bad. The kitchen in Brothers and Sisters where Nora Walker feeds her extended family, provided further fodder. And more recently, the open-plan kitchens in Castle, where the mystery novel writer noshes and joshes with his mother and daughter, have fed the fantasy.

The first open-plan kitchen I ever saw in real life was when I went to interview Shah Rukh and Gauri Khan for a cover story (for Sunday magazine, where I then worked). This was before Shah Rukh became Shah Rukh, if you know what I mean, and I was granted the kind of access that hacks can only dream of these days.

As I sat with the Khans in the open-plan living-cum-kitchen area of their first Mumbai home – a humble flat in Bandra – listening to the story of how they first met and fell in love, a couple of things became rapidly clear to me. One: this was the kind of kitchen I wanted when I grew up. And two: I would have to give up on dal and subzi because open-plan kitchens were not conducive to Indian cooking unless you were happy to co-exist with the smell of roasting spices.

As it happens, life didn’t turn out quite like that. And now, as I wander disconsolately through the humungous design showrooms in the malls of Delhi and Mumbai, I realise that my entire real-life flat would fit into one of these dream kitchens and still leave space for more. And given the price of urban property, I am guessing that it’s much the same for most of us.

Which begs the question: who among us can actually afford these dream kitchens that are forever being advertised in the media? And I don’t just mean in terms of money – though the price tag, upwards of Rs 5 lakhs and going up to 25, would give anyone pause – but also in terms of space.

Unless you are a multi-millionaire with money to burn, my guess is that you live in an average-size flat. And flats like these aren’t big enough for one of those spacious kitchens stuffed with every gadget and gizmo that money can buy. In fact, ordinary folk like you and me consider ourselves lucky if we can squeeze in a microwave and oven-griller-toaster into our modest kitchen spaces.

Sadly, the only people who can afford the kind of dream kitchens I fantasise about are people who wouldn’t ever dream of stepping into one. These are the people who leave both the cooking and serving to the staff, and wouldn’t recognise a vegetable slicer even if it took their index finger off. And yet, to them are granted the nicest kitchens of all.

Ah, the little ironies of life – you’ve just got to love them.

Blood is thicker

Every child should have the right to know where he or she came from

A few weeks ago I wrote about a man who was fighting a legal battle to establish his rights as a father.

Adam Dell had gone to court to ask that his name be added to the birth certificate of his daughter Krishna after a DNA test had established paternity. And he was in negotiations with the child’s mother, Padma Lakshmi, to come to an arrangement that ensured that he got to spend enough time with Krishna.

His relationship with Padma Lakshmi may have ended badly. But Dell wanted to be involved in Krishna’s life. He wanted Krishna to know who her father was; and that he cared enough to fight for her.

Well, today, I am going to write about a man who has just lost a legal battle to escape being named as a father.

N.D. Tiwari, that fine, upstanding political leader who has been chief minister of one state and Governor of another, lost the final skirmish in his long legal battle when the Supreme Court of India ruled that he had to supply a DNA sample so that it could be proven, one way or the other, whether he was the biological father of Rohit Shekhar.

It was a significant victory for Shekhar and his mother, Ujjawala Sharma, who had been trying for decades to get Tiwari to admit paternity. But Tiwari resolutely refused to recognise Shekhar as his son, even though his relationship with Ujjawala was common knowledge in political circles.

In his petition to the court, Tiwari – chivalrous old codger that he is – labelled Ujjawala as an ‘unchaste woman’ for having had a relationship with him while still married to her husband (presumably, she held a gun to his head while she had her nasty way with him, the poor man!). Rohit, he maintained, had been born while Ujjawala was married to another man and, in accordance with Indian law, he should be regarded as the legitimate son of her husband.

Therefore, said Tiwari, there was absolutely no reason why he should be required to give a DNA sample to prove (or disprove) paternity.

Well, the courts clearly thought otherwise. First the High Court and then the Supreme Court ruled that it was the right of every child to know who his or her father is. And that right trumped all the legal arguments that Tiwari’s team of crack lawyers had presented in court.

Finally, it seems Rohit Shekhar will get to know who his biological father is, even if he had to wait until he was 30 to get conclusive proof.

Now, you and I may well quibble over whether a man who behaves the way N.D. Tiwari has, should have any right to be called a father. But none of us can deny that the principles of natural justice demand that every child should have the right to know where he or she comes from.

Yet every day we see instances of children being denied access to that knowledge. And while many such battles are fought away from the limelight, the list of public figures who have dodged paternity is long and illustrious.

N.D. Tiwari is not the only politician to deny paternity of a love child simply because it was politically expedient to do so. Across the border, we have the shining example of Imran Khan, who refused to acknowledge his daughter, Tyrian, with Sita White. The US courts declared him the father in absentia when he failed to turn up for a court hearing or provide a DNA sample. But Imran continued to deny her existence because it would difficult to explain a child conceived out of marriage to his followers (such as they are) in Pakistan.

It is to his ex-wife, Jemima’s credit, that she took Tyrian under her wing after untimely death of her mother, Sita, and gave her the recognition that she so badly craved. But then, Jemima, who was born to Annabel and Jimmy Goldsmith while her mother was still married to her first husband, Mark Birley, probably knows how important paternity is to children no matter what the circumstances of their conception.

Aatish Taseer, the son of the assassinated Pakistani politician, Salman Taseer, addressed his angst at not being recognised by his father in his book, A Stranger to History. When he finally met his father at the age of 21, Salman explained to him that it would have been impossible for him to be in Pakistani politics with an Indian wife and a half-Indian son. Tragically, the two were estranged when Salman was shot dead by his guard and Aatish wrote poignantly about “mourning a man who was present for most of my life as an absence”.

Of late, though, science has made it that much more difficult for men to evade parental responsibility. Back in the 70s, Mick Jagger refused to acknowledge paternity of Karis, his daughter by African-American model, Marsha Hunt, until the girl was 12 years old. But in 1999, when the Brazilian model Luciana Morad had his son, Lucas, a paternity test cleared up the matter immediately and Jagger obediently stumped up child support.

It’s too late for that as far as Rohit Shekhar is concerned. He is a grown man now, a lawyer in his own right. But while he may no longer need a father to support him financially, he still needs to know who father is. That is the right of every child – even after he is all grown up.

The backlash against Botox

It’s already visible in Hollywood; but is it travelling nearer home any time soon?

Have you noticed how the only time celebrities ever own up to using Botox is when they announce that they are giving it up? It’s a bit like how they only admit to `substance abuse’ (i.e. doing copious amounts of cocaine) when they are finally checking into rehab in the full glare of the cameras.

The latest in the long line of Botox deniers is Nicole Kidman. The actress, whose forehead has been completely immobile for well on a decade, has never ever owned up to using Botox, putting her wrinkle-free look down to good genes and clean living. But brave Nicole has now fessed up, declaring that she no longer thinks Botox is a good look for her. She intends to give up the needle, as it were, and let nature take its own course.

Nicole is in good, if ever-so-slightly wrinkly, company. Both Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston, who once played best friends in Friends and now reprise the same roles in real life, also claim that though they have used Botox in the past (just the once, I’m sure!) they no longer do so. They simply didn’t like the way it felt and decided to give it up, they say, wiggling their eyebrows desperately to prove the point.

Terri Hatcher (Susan Myers in Desperate Housewives) went one better when she decided to ditch the botulinum. Getting out of the shower one morning, she took close-ups of her make-up free, Botox-less face and shared them with the world by posting them on her Twitter account. I don’t know if there is any connection but these days even Marcia Cross (who plays the control freak Bree in show) seems able to move her forehead just a teeny-tiny bit when she wants to show emotion. It’s just the slightest creasing of skin but still, that’s progress.

But while there seems to something of a backlash against Botox in Hollywood these days, there has always been one notable refusinik. Julia Roberts has never agreed to join the ranks of the frown-free because, as she puts it, she would like her kids to know when she is angry. As Roberts once famously said, she believes that your face should tell a story – and it shouldn’t be about your visit to your cosmetic surgeon.

But with such A-listers as Kidman now openly eschewing the frozen look, could it be that the tide is finally turning. It certainly is beginning to look like it. Both Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in The Kids Are All Right had marvellously mobile faces, liberally sprinkled with laugh lines, crow’s feet and creases on the forehead. And as the stars traipsed down the red carpet at the Oscars recently, there were more wrinkles visible on faces than we have seen in years.

Ironically, just as the Hollywood brigade seems to be giving up on the trend, the Bollywood bunch is embracing it with both syringes. These days all our 30-something actresses have fewer lines on their faces than they did when they started out in their 20s. Some of them can barely raise a brow to express surprise, let one frown to show disapprobation. And then, there are those 50-something actresses whose eyebrows are raised so high that they look perpetually startled (perhaps they can’t believe just how old they have gotten).

Needless to say, every one of them denies using Botox but they take great pleasure in pointing out who else has been having the stuff injected on a monthly basis. During one of the many shock-horror moments on his show, Karan Johar even asked his panel of guests to name someone whose Botox had gone really bad. It is entirely another matter that Anil Kapoor got the wrong end of the stick and went on about how Shilpa Shetty’s lips had changed shape and ruined the continuity of his film. (Karan had to gently point out that this must be put down to collagen not Botox.)

And as is usual, real life mimics the world of celebrity. Never before has the use of Botox been so commonplace. And yet, it is hard to find a 40-something woman who admits to using it. Ask them about their suspiciously smooth foreheads and they will tell you about this marvellous facial they had at that spa in Thailand or refer you to this new eating plan which involves all the best anti-oxidants the planet has to offer and which does wonders for the skin.

Honestly, if their noses grew any longer, they would need the services of the plastic surgeon for something more than a little jab of the needle.

But maybe we should just give these ladies some time. Who knows, after a few years of being unable to express any emotion on their immobilised faces, they may just decide that it’s best to go all natural. And then, just like Nicole, Jennifer, Courtney, Terri and the rest, they may finally admit that they had been shooting up all along.

Until then, I guess, we will have to live with their lies, even if their foreheads give away the truth so effortlessly.

Play it again – and again

Sometimes re-runs of old favourites are much more fun to watch on television than new programming

This is a slightly shaming thing to admit to, but I have to confess that I spend more time watching re-runs on television than any fresh programming. What can I say? A re-run of one of favourite shows is so much more fun that watching yet another mindless cop drama or sitting through another dreary, depressing news bulletin or even enduring another tasteless reality show.

A re-run of Friends has a hypnotic pull on my remote, rendering it unable to proceed any further on a channel trawl. I giggle at gags I have seen a million times before; I mouth the dialogues along with my favourite characters; I crack up at Joey’s dim-witted adventures; I identify with Monica’s obsessive compulsive behaviour; I smile indulgently at Phoebe’s kookiness.

But mostly I just marvel at how young the cast members look, all dewy and fresh and embarking on the adventure of life. Don’t get me wrong. Both Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox look much more elegant and sophisticated now but there really is no substitute for the bloom of youth.

Will and Grace is as much fun now as it was a million years ago. Though it does seem funny to think now that a gay lead character was seen as such a bold, path-breaking move in those days given how far we have come (out) since then. And ever since re-runs of Frasier have begun showing on FX at some unearthly hour, I find myself staying up till the wee hours chuckling knowingly at what must be one of the best-written shows of all time.

Just in case the programming wizards let me down, I have a box set of West Wing saved up for the proverbial rainy day when I am stuck at home with nothing much to do. I guess that will have to do until Aaron Sorkin deigns to do a sequel with Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) as America’s first Hispanic President. (Wonder what’s holding him up? Isn’t the presence of Obama in the White House the perfect moment to go with an Hispanic President in West Wing II.) But till that happens – and I haven’t given up hope – I will just re-acquaint myself with razor-sharp wit of CJ, Sam, Josh, Donna, Danny and the rest of the quirky bunch that inhabit President Bartlett’s often shambolic but occasionally sparkling West Wing.

All of which makes me wonder why we in India don’t make as much of our own iconic shows. After all, if Friends, Frasier or even Full House can have such faithful adherents decades after they were first aired, their desi versions like Dekh Bhai Dekh must have their own fan following, just waiting to be tapped. Or even Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, which made the comic careers of Satish Shah, Shafi Inamdar and Swaroop Sampat.

But while sitcoms are, by definition, creations of their time, there are also those timeless sagas like Buniyaad or Tamas which had the entire nation mesmerised a few decades ago and would strike a chord with the audience even now if only someone had the imagination to mount a re-run at prime time. Growing up in the 80s, I still have fond memories of the luminous beauty of Veeranwali (Kiran Juneja, now married to Buniyaad director, Ramesh Sippy), the courageous spunk of Lajoji (Anita Kanwar), the essential decency of Masterji (Alok Nath). And what could possibly beat the poignancy and drama of the Partition as an epic story for our times?

And that’s not counting the grandmother of all sagas, Ramayana, which was the high point of Sunday mornings during my childhood. It was cheesy, it was glitzy, it was completely over-the-top. But it was mandatory viewing, nonetheless, with the entire family sitting down to watch a story that they knew all too well unfold on the small screen.

Mahabharat was another staple of those times. Rupa Ganguly, with her flowing black hair, made Draupadi come alive while Nitish Bharadwaj’s Krishna quickly acquired a cult following. And we need to bring it back if only to erase the traumatic memories of the ghastly Ekta Kapoor re-make – which had all our epic heroes sporting freshly-waxed chests – that blighted our TV-viewing lives a few years ago.

But last night as I stayed up way past my bed-time to watch Niles gaze longingly at Daphne while Frasier hovered disapprovingly around them, I started to wonder about my own television-viewing preferences.

Are these shows really better than the current fare on television or do I just like them because they remind me of my younger days? Is it genuine wit, humour and sheer entertainment I am reacting to, or am I just caught in a nostalgic haze? Am I, in fact, in danger of turning into one of those ageing codgers stuck on 60s music because it evokes memories of their disreputable university days when they would stay up late smoking questionable substances and like, grooving, baby?

Scary thought. Maybe it’s time to tune into the latest season of Castle instead or catch the fag end of Two and a Half Men.