Angry young woman that I am, the mention of Slumdog Millionaire gets my goat on most days. I think it’s a decent, engaging film, and have sat through it more than once. But the moment somebody feels that they know anything about Bollywood, Indian Cinema or India because they like the film, I get a little livid. Slums are a big part of Indian reality/ realty. Poverty exists. But so do many other things. By all means, make films, documentaries and the rest about slums, but a little something else isn’t bad?

Channel 4 and other channels annoy me a bit on this matter. Either they cover the absolute wealth of rich Indians who have 5000 guests for their weddings, or the blinding poverty of slums/ rural India. Yes, it’s a country of contrasts, and extremes makes for better television, but some people have found interesting ways of talking about India without launching into eye watering tales of grim childhoods.

Indian Winter on Channel 4 has this note

Channel 4 brings together the very best film, drama, features and factual programming in early 2010 in a season that celebrates India, exploring its rich culture, culinary traditions and the human stories that shape one of the world’s most diverse and captivating countries.

Of the six programmes, four are somehow or the other based on slums. And the one film is Om Shanti Om. Ugh.

Walking through Hyde Park during the pseudo-spring this country witnesses – I came across a strange prophet. It was a funny experience, as always the Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park has its share of loons and political rhetoric.

This particular chap (calling himself the Pizza Prophet) insisted it was time for a new religion, and one of the fundamental beliefs had to be at least one “food item” being banned. It led to much hilarity as he decided that pork and beef couldn’t be that one food item, as they were already taken, and so people came up with fish and apples. Others suggested that food of a certain kind – like Pizza or Sausages be taboo.

Perhaps it’s the recession, or the financial crisis. Or it’s ennui affecting the entire country – but the BNP and its many cousins like the EDL are having a field day. A cab driver the other day said he was a member of the BNP, and he wanted people like me to go back where I come from. He muttered something about St George. I asked him if he knew that St George wasn’t English or even British. In fact he was born in Turkey and died in Palestine.

I gave the cabbie a tip anyway. He said “I don’t mind people like you here. It’s the others I want out”. I asked him if he meant he didn’t mind people who gave him tips. He had no response. Thanks to the traffic jam I grilled him for a full five minutes about why he was a BNP supporter. The scary bit was that he didn’t know. Had no idea. There was rhetoric and more rhetoric. He might as well have believed the Pizza Prophet. But he wouldn’t want to give up on his pizza or sausages I guess.

He then told me liked Indian curry. There’s a joke in there somewhere, I am yet to figure it out though.

Mind you, I can deal with doubts about my intelligence just fine. I can deal with ignorance fabulously well. But today as a White man said a few things to my face as I killed time in a pub between two work visits I found myself unable to respond. Just how do you respond to vile.

All the hundreds of tolerant and indifferent folk I meet everyday but it takes one motherfucker to make me feel sick to my stomach. It’s a safe place and I will be off in some minutes. But I taste bitterness and anger in my mouth.

But this sweet dog comes to me. Sits on my lap and licks my face. And in that moment of tenderness everything is alright with the world.

I am happy to go back to London … Where somehow it feels easier.

However, this scene was extraordinary. Almost like a tropical sunrise. Golden. Streaming through my window. I hadn’t slept all that well. But drinking hastily made tea in the hotel room, my mouth tasting of hotel toothpaste, the day slowed down just a bit. The only time you can stare at the sun without feeling like your pupils must have shrunk to the size of pin points.

The good thing about this job is that it is taking me to places I haven’t bothered with so far. So what if this city didn’t let me see the short Liverpudlian skirts, I still got to see an exquisite sunrise in Birmingham.

If I did believe in God, (which I do, about every alternate day) I’d beg for such sunrises to grace my morning window more often.

So last night, while a colleague and I were getting back to where we were staying, after dinner… it was nearly midnight. Two women, rather skimpily dressed came and asked us if we knew where a certain club or something was. Even the name sounded vague. We said no, and kept walking. They followed us for some 50 meters, and suddenly one of them screamed.

“Look!! That girl’s wearin’ a real short skirt. We should follow ‘er.”

Second girl, astounded by the genius.

“Yeah! And the skirt’s real short too. Let’s go.”

They started following her. Somehow, one of the best ever conversations about road directions I’ve heard in a while.

I found myself giggling with joy. It’s so rare to see an advert that shows a man doing anything other than gaze admiringly at a car, buy life insurance, spraying deodorant or drinking buckets of beer. Most adverts for household goods usually center around the woman, and how the products enable them to be a better mom, wife etc. If there is a man present, it is to show how easy using a particular product is.

Take a look at this fabulous advert from the 70s, where a dove tells a woman that a dishwashing liquid is as good as a hand lotion. She then begins to soap dishes and looks with glazed eyes at her hands. Yay! Now you can be beautiful and wash all the dishes at home – at the same time!

Anyhow, back to Heinz. Turns out that the commercial has annoyed some folks.

The Heinz Deli Mayo ad has been pulled after less than a week on air after viewers complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that it was “offensive” and “inappropriate to see two men kissing”.

Other complaints include that the ad was “unsuitable to be seen by children” and that it raised the difficult problem of parents having to discuss the issue of same-sex relationships with younger viewers.

I am not entirely sure why discussing same-sex relationships is so taboo. The kids’ classmates probably have gay parents, they see people of the same sex holding hands on the street. You can probably tell them the same thing that you use to explain heterosexual relationships with. Two people like each other and kiss each other. I think what worries people is that it legitimizes homosexual relationships. Had the advert shown a man and woman expressing that nano-second kiss, not a single eyebrow would have been raised. Sigh.

Rape is simply sex (I am talking about ‘husband-rape’ here)… Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal…To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting force-feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence.

On an average, comments like this put me off for a couple of hours at the very least. But then I decided to jump through the cache of the blog and I spotted this gem.

Yes indeed kind readers, we now officially know that “white, middle class, male drivers” are the most oppressed social group evah! Now that the BNP has sacked him, maybe he’ll turn to stand up comedy. For more on the xenophobic, insecure nonsense that the BNP peddles, do read Ian Cobain’s articles in The Guardian on his experience as an undercover journalist working his way through the BNP.

There, that’s ruined chocolate cake for me – forever. Ugh!