Kavi's Musings

Marathon Post !

2012-01-22T12:46:00.006+05:30

So he asks, did you do the ‘foool marathon’. I nod in agreement. “You actually did the foool marathon” he asks three quarters in disbelief.

Savagely moving a large lump of paan from one cheek to the other making visible a coloured tongue with a resplendent red, as he sucks in air, producing a hissing sound. For a moment, the sound reverberates across the the space in the lift we both share.

After 42 kilometers of running, I am finally in my apartment and taking the lift home. This is a man that I know.

We meet in the lift often. He hisses for a while longer. I fear he may suck all the oxygen out of the lift. He runs his hands over his pronounced paunch. “Will I ever be able to’, he asks. I have just about energy to tell him, that that’s exactly where I started two years back.

Regular readers here, know about my running and the pompous spin that I give to a rather pedestrian pastime. Okay, strictly not ‘pedestrian’. This after all is about running.

‘Demented bluster’, lead me to think that I indeed could run the full marathon and register for the 42 KM. Announcing with fanfare and chickening out before implementation is what the government is teaching by example. I announced it too. Not out of great admiration for the government, but it was frankly a very convenient option! I could always quietly slink away.

The blokes at Striders had a different plan though. Challenging, pushing in an ever so non obtrusive manner, ‘slow & easy’ manner that it would fit in the category of non-invasive surgery. Of the mind.

The kind that the missus would call ‘magic’ because, her pretty much invasive attempts to get me to other things like stack up read newspapers in a manner that could be called ‘mildly orderly’ has only resulted in massive inaction that could befit a lump of limestone. Or something of that ilk. You get the idea, right ?

Practice happened over the last several months. Regular travel made me regularly irregular. But running is an activity for which all that you would ever require is a pair of shoes. So I ran alone wherever I went. Often inviting the attention of curious onlookers sipping in coffee from roadside stalls in remote corners of India.

More often than not, inviting the attention and unrequited anger of stray dogs. I presume they were mad at me. Perhaps my speed was incongruent with my heavy breathing. They would wake up and holler as though they spotted Veerappan or someone. Upon seeing me, some would whimper and growl. Mostly in pity I presume. Most others would just not bother to do that either!

The group at Powai I train with is an awesome bunch. Sticking together. Often chatting, laughing and infusing an excitable energy. A special mention must be a made of all friends. Hitesh in particular, who runs barefeet : my running partner! He is a much faster and far more experienced bloke that ran alongside for most of practice and the race too.

On D day, I did run. 42.2 KM. Surprising myself with a time of 5.07 hours. But that’s not the story. Or rather is just one part of the story.

The story of how Mumbai turned out to cheer us is, is the big story !

Expecting beautiful women ( and handsome men), evidently just out of bed , take notice of balding, paunch carrying projectile, would come close to ‘a wonder of the modern day world’! But to see them cheer for me ( yes, I looked all around in surprise, I was the only character in 50 meters), was, mildly put, very exciting.

Or for that matter. Slum kids who lined up the roads of Mahim, who erupted into such dizzying shouts of joy when a runner give all of them a high five, as they held out outstretched hands.

‘Bhagho Uncle Bhaaaaaaago’ ( run uncle run), they screamed. From the stress on the ‘bhaaaaggoooooo’ their estimation of how fast I was running was apparent.

I ran, holding out my hand to the kids. What caused them excitement to have a stranger running and giving them a high five is something that is beyond my brain, but boy, it sure did energise me like no other sports drink or energy drink can. Taxi drivers cheered. Old men shouted slogans for me. Some men stared in disbelief. Even cops clapped and gave us a thumbs up sign.

These as you can see, are beyond the realms of everyday life.

Running is an exercise as much for the mind, as it is for the body. Especially long distance running ! And sometimes when you run with a complete stranger, even for a few fleeting moments as he passes you or you pass him ( or her), a strange bond is shared. Acknowledged a few times with a ‘thumbs up’ or a ‘keep going’ or a ‘well done’.

At other times, the silence is broken by an exchange of heavy breaths or the sound of feet pounding the pavement. Not a word is spoken. Not a gesture exchanged. Yet, conveying much.

Ofcourse, there are exceptions like the ‘elite runners’. Those Kenyans, Ethiopians and others. Who by the time I finished the race would have fathered two kids and sent them to college. But the point is not about speed. The 42 KM is one heck of a distance. The body knows that. The point, is about the mind. That opaque thing called 'mind' has travelled a longer distance.

Heres a world of thanks to all friends who called, texted, wrote on the FB wall, clicked on the ‘like button’, sent messages on the BBM and for the few who actually travelled all the way to South Bombay to cheer... I have nothing but a gaping sea of gratitude. You made it possible.

This is a world where the following are common : Running for office. Running away from problems. Running away with the neighbour. Running from the media etc !

But the real running, the running on the road holds untold charm, an almost surreally unbelievable sense of freedom and wins some amazing friends.

Don’t take my word for it. Try it !

Zoning in !

2012-01-09T20:53:00.003+05:30

“You can never zone out” here, she shrieked.

While in the US, it was a treat to be on the road. Almost everybody observed traffic signals. Their economy may be growing at 2-4% but the traffic signals work. In true American style the minimum gap between vehicles in the USA, would seem like the distance between Sun and Saturn for the average Mumbai motorist.

Although I was there in American soil for only a few weeks, I can hold court like a well entrenched native with impunity, especially if the topic was a comparative narrative on the difference between driving in Mumbai and driving over there.

So, this friend from the USA, sat next to me as I drove, on roads that sported less than normal traffic on that particular day. Within five minutes of her first ride on Indian roads, I saw her hands shiver. In the seventh minute beads of sweat began to appear. In the eight minute, from the corner of my eye, I saw her hold on to the inside of the door handle. In eight and a half, her face was buried in her palms.

It was obvious it was about the road. For my hands were firmly on the wheel and I hadn’t spoken a word, other than professional conversation. My mind was racing at a faster speed than the motorbike that held an aunty, uncle and two kids that hung out of the bike rather precariously, and were looking into the window.

Obviously a ‘phoren’ woman, face buried in her hands with a chap that sported furtive looks can be fertile feeding ground even for the dull variety. All four of them were peering into the car, waiting for action.

In a brief while, it was but obvious, that every eye atop any moving object on Western Express Highway was trained on our car. Not wanting to run the risk of being featured on some news starved news channel with a silly ‘breaking news’, I pulled over. And hesitatingly asked my friend if everything was ok?!?

‘The cars are coming too close here’. She said. In some sense, I was relieved that she didn’t get to see the aunty+Uncle + one kid + another kid precariously hanging, all peering into the car. I was certain she wouldn’t have seen a circus act of that order!

We struck a deal. I would keep the car to the extreme left, that would come close to eliminate the possibility of a Ferrari hopeful overtaking on the left. Where she was sitting. After all of this, she offered “I’ll keep my eyes closed”. An offer, that was readily and graciously accepted.

Peace returned. She turned blind. I steered through what was ‘sub-normal’ traffic. Until we came across, a case of a ‘mild’ traffic jam. She opened her eyes, squirmed in her seat, but was far more comfortable than before.

After some agnonising moments, we discovered the root cause. A broken down truck, laden with steel rods. Sprouting a few twigs amidst all the steel. The twigs, any average Indian motorist would know, is a sign that warns other motorists of a broken down vehicle!

She went from ‘awe’ to ‘open-mouthed awe’ to ‘insanely open mouthed awe’ to ‘shaking heads in disbelief insanely open mouthed awe’.

Where in the world did we think of tying up a twig and a clutch of leaves onto a vehicle that had a breakdown ! Whatever happened to ‘hazard lights’ and the ‘hazard triangle’ to warn other motorist. Questions fired in quick succession.

I replied calmly. It was simple. Common sensical. Isnt it. I wouldn’t expect twigs to sprout from a lorry loaded with steel rods. That is abnormal. An obvious implication that something is amiss here and therefore the vehicle is stationary.

So, the minute your car breaks down, you don’t run you battery down with hazard lights and such else. You just reach for the nearest twig or a clutch of leaves and append it to some part of your car that is visible to others.

Which left her in a state of mild sedation, occasionally mumbling about Indian innovation and such else. I presume its going to take her a while to recover.

Until then, ofcourse, if you are travelling to India, a vehicle sprouting twigs is not a symbolic protest about global warming or something. This is a different kind of a breakdown. Ok ?

A time for renewal !

2012-01-01T06:45:00.006+05:30

Its time to change those calendars on your desks. Its time for a new year. While the sun and sea, the frog and the fox, the bacteria and the blue whale could wonder what the big fuss of changing calendars is all about, its time for us to seek renewal. In the name of a new calendar, if not for anything else !

2012 provides us an new opportunity to wear a fresh coat of joy that comes from pausing to ponder and pandering our curiosity about the simple things that life asks us often.

2012 offers one more the possibility to disagree honourably, to agree with grace and help us anchor relationships at an arc that is higher than mere agreements or disagreements.

2012 will lead us down new roads, if we care to take them! May we be blessed to take long walks. May we run. May we do whatever we can, to exercise muscles and wholesomely engage with the brain. May we laugh and be ourselves when we do these and everything else.

2012 will get us new gadgets while offering us another chance to put gadgets, tools and technologies in their rightful place : Along with other, tools, gadgets and technologies. May the focus shift to connecting with one another, from the tools to be used for such connections.

2012 could well see the death of the quest to find a superheroes in the world to put an end to the problems we face. May we realise that each of us are superheroes when we do what we need to, with joy, passion and in a spirit of just doing!

As we dash from deadline to deadline, may we find new diagrams and decipher answers to grand questions that comes from young children. Like ‘why is the sky blue’. Or ‘Why cant I be named ‘idli’?

May our children grow stronger. Drawing strength from the resolve of our characters rather than the latest gizmo they were presented with or the sight of the fancy car in the garage. May they learn to soak in every moment, and erupt in joy and learning. May they see a life that has a greater end than mindless competition. Oh yes, may we see it too!

May our worlds emerge far more clearer, when we take stock at the end of the year. May our lives resonate with a spirit of having made an difference to someone. Or to someplace. Or to something !

Heres wishing us all a wonderful, peaceful and fulfilling new year !

walk on

2011-12-26T06:39:00.001+05:30

Somewhere in Dec-Jan evey year, devotees of Lord Murugan ( a.k.a Karthikeya ) will walk to his abode in Palani and several other places in Tamil Nadu.

Although that sounds like a sleepy airy walk in the park, it isn’t so. It actually translates to several days of walking 30 odd kilometers daily.

It is the annual pilgrimage. Walking with their bare feet carousing the tar of hot roads, on which see some reinforced steel radials with hot speeds, more often than not. They walk. Carrying their belongings and all else that they would require on the journey atop their heads or slung across their shoulders

Unmindful of approaching traffic that could consist of whizzing buses or wheezing bullet carts, they walk. They are easy to spot. Dressed in a radiant yellow or an ensemble of green, roads in rural TN close to the foothills of Palani see them walk on.

I am told that they walk early in the morning. And late in the evening. Together making for almost 30 KM every day. They chant the holy name of Lord Karthikeya. And walk on.

The same happens in Maharashtra chanting the name of Sai Baba.

In Kerela they walk in the name of Lord Aiyappa.

The Amarnath Yatra up in the Himalayas.

And so we walk in the name of every God that we call out to. Mother Mary. Allah. Krishna. Shiva. Buddha. Mahavir. And ofcourse, Karthikeya. All over the country. And around the world too.

We walk many many miles over many many days. In penance. In celebration. In thanks or asking for something dear. I presume all the time that the mind is active while the legs plough on will provide for some reflection and reordering of thoughts. As well.

And so we walk on. For many miles over many days. In a strange quest for discovering love. Compassion. Peace. And well being.

Incase you cant imagine doing this with this level of an intensity, here is a suggestion. The battery of good Lords will agree, we have traversed an almost similar distance when we walk half way down the street and smile at our neighbour, help someone, do our duties with diligence and spread some cheer.

Walk on people. Walk with hope. Walk with joy. Walk with belief that life can and will be better for all of us.

By the way, that’s exactly what the doctor ordered. All doctors. Walk on.

Life has to go on !

2011-12-18T22:25:00.004+05:30

This is Peddar Road. A road on which I frequent more for running than for anything else. Once a week, and this road and its incline is a nemesis of sorts for inept runners like me. A Sunday morning on this road, looks like this.

On weekdays, this road holds more wheels than legs. Definitely more expensive wheels than most districts of Mumbai. Quite naturally, there are innumerable number of hours that you could be forced to spend stuck in a signal. Not knowing what else to do, but for twiddling your thumb and swearing at how ineffective our governments are and how fundamentally vacuous our democracy is.

The government has been proposing a construction of a flyover. Eminent residents living the area have resisted this. For a number of reasons that must be patently obvious to them, but cant seem to make sense to the rest of Mumbai, let alone the rest of the word.

So we see a logjam. Everyday, cars pile up. Inconceivable number of motorists hurl the choicest of abuses. Ofcourse, I don’t know for sure. But given the propensity of several motorists to heap abuse for anything starting from following traffic lights when no one is around, this is more than just probable.

Now its become a political issue. With parties taking a stance for or against. No one wants to give an inch. Life goes on.

-------

Somewhere in rural Maharashtra. One of the roadside stalls had this to offer. Now, red guava is a personal favourite. Naturally, the foot came off the accelerator and the car came to an instantaneous magical halt.

Drooling with vivid pictures in the mind of red guavas, we went in and chose a few guavas.

Only to find just a while later, just as the teeth were sinking into what looked like one heck of a luscious red guava, that it wasn’t red inside after all.

The vendor, without bating an eyelid, informs that the ‘red’ in the ‘red gauvas’ kept on display were ‘painted’ guavas. The only guavas he had were all white !

I am livid. I ask him if he is right in doing this. He shrugs his shoulders and says, ‘Life has to go on sir’!

-------

Theres this store in the corner. Which sells short eats through a window. It was a village sometime back. Now, it’s a well respected suburb of big city Mumbai. In the neighborhood tall buildings scrape clouds. Cars zip in and out of the building and life reeks of a certain ‘busy’ness.

Amidst all this hustle bustle, somehow, this store has survived.

The genial Maharastrian gentleman who runs this store, is usually very warm and receptive. So is he today. He smiles at me and asks ‘2 packs’ ? I smile and nod. Two packs of chewing gum get placed on a bottle.

There is no one today. So I chat up. What does he think of Foreign Direct Investment in Retail I ask. Filled with the usual city-dweller arrogance perhaps, half thinking the old man that he is, there isn’t going to be any answer. Leave alone, a cogent one.

‘Let them come sir’. He says. ‘

They can never be me. I can never be them. We all have our roles’.

With a pause and a smile he says, ‘Life has to go on’ !

Have a lovely week ahead people !

Dialogues.

2011-12-13T05:44:00.004+05:30

Me: You are up early

He : This is regular. Everyday.

Me: Do you catch a lot of fish at this time?

He: I do my best. Sometimes I catch. Sometimes I dont.

Me: You are alone here.

He: In this world we all are. It doesnt matter.

Me: How many children do you have ?

He: Three

Me: What do they do ?

He: They go to the municipal school.

Me: Is it a good school ?

He : I dont know. They go. They come. They are happy. I am happy that they are happy.

Me: Have you considered a big boat ?

He: I have thought about it. I am happy with this. On a good day, I make about Rs.200/-. On a bad, its next to nothing.

Me: You could make much more with a big boat !

He: Your educated mind will tell you so. But I am happy this way. No loans. No folding of hands before some money lender. Just about enough to give the family what it needs.

Pause. Reflective pause. Silence.

He: Just about enough of money. I dont understand you educated people. Running behind money.

Saying so, he lowered the boat into the water and went fishing. I kept looking as his steady rowing took him farther away. Aware that in his matter of speaking, he had brought me closer to myself.

Which is when the phone rang. I had to get back and get ready to participate in the conference. We were to discuss 'Inclusive growth' !

clicking shiking !

2011-12-08T05:25:00.004+05:30

This is a picture Iclicked. O a falling rain drop, saying hello to streaming rain water running away from a tiled roof. This snap has very little connection to this post.

He crossed his hands and tilted his head, barely concealing a smirk. I had just replied “OF COURSE’ in a tone that could be mildly described as ‘violently affirmative’, to his question. Which was, ‘Are the pictures that you upload on Facebook, your own or do you have download them from somewhere ?’

How dare, I thought.

Within moments however, I quickly broke into a smile within myself while maintaining a stiff exterior. The thought that he, and his well ordained intelligence entertained the possibility that someone better would have clicked them, was a compliment aterall. I gloated with ‘orgasmic ecstasy’.

I trust you will indulge in my confessions on photography !

My dabbling with photography, started a few years back, when I first dabbled with blogging. In the first year of blogging I thought it quite a natural God given right to use any of the images that Google threw up in searches. Like how an average Indian male thinks of the whole of India fit to down the zipper or loosen his drawstrings of a striped underwear to empty his bladder. Naturally !

Life was good. Nobody read the blog, save myself. Or so I thought. I wrote for writing’s sake. Added a picture or depending on the whim of the moment, and shut the system down and reached out for a hot cup of filter kaapi ! I did this for what seemed like two centuries.

Until one day, someone wrote in. Asking a question, which I read in a rather polite tone. The question was simple : Should I not have the decency to check with the ‘owner’ of the snap, before using it? Or something to that effect.

My first reaction was of sheer delight! Someone was afterall reading the blog. I thought.

After a couple of nights of insane partying to celebrate the fact that the blog had indeed caught someones eye, deep remorse filled my heart and I went without food for three days. Ofcourse, I exaggerate. On both counts.

Truth be told, one of those days after receiving that mail, sitting in a hotel and diving into something tasty I wondered if I should click every picture that would get to the blog. Every picture that will get to the blog will be OWNED by me!

As a matter of propriety, I must confess here I also thought this ‘owner’ship of such pictures were perhaps one of the few ownership decisions that I could afford without a loan and an Equated Monthly Installment.

Before you could say, ‘in a flash of a few months’, I had migrated. From writing a post and clicking a picture to suit the post (which took a long time. Even Vajpayee spoke faster), to the exact opposite. Keep clicking pictures and writing blog posts on the photographs that catch my fancy.

So I clicked whenever I was in the mood. Or wasn’t. For that matter. From the photographs, came alive many stories. I ‘invested’ in a Canon S5 IS ! Which is the only camera that I have. A camera that I Iearnt to use by trials and errors suitably grabbing guidance from online well-wishers who now have heaps of karma in their account with the old man up there.

So I clicked whenever I was in the mood. Wrote whatever I chose. Getting filled to the brim with a deep sense of gratitude whenever people wrote in, appreciating the post.

On the same keel I was engulfed in guilt when people appreciated the photograph. And my protruding paunch ached with laughter whenever good friends asked sincere questions about something called ‘aperture’ or ‘focal length’ , ‘shutter speed’ and such else.

It was simple. I don’t know a goats horn about such stuff but for some bare essentials. There are well meaning colleagues who discuss their outstanding photographs through a set of numbers! '105 X 37 ?' they would ask when I showed them a snap that took me some time to click. Or something to that effect. All numbers seem the same to me.

To my ‘picture seeking – story telling mind’, the moment they do that, they morph from being insanely articulate to inanely accurate. That’s precisely when I peer at cobwebs in the corner of the ceiling.

Call me hare brained, but let me confess to you and get it out my chest. To me, photography is about story telling. It is about inclusion and exclusion. To include in a frame and to exclude! That includes light and shade.

If an image, at the spur of the moment feels like it is a prospective story, the finger fiddles with the few buttons and bingo, there is an image. Ofcourse, I over simplify. But by and large, that’s the idea. Some of the outputs occupy the space that Zuckerberg chap created. A few come to the blog here with an appropriate post.

Some snaps swell my chest. Like the one that you see here. When rain water streaming away from the roof, said hello to a rain drop.

I told all of this to a well respected friend who listened to my meandering rant with an inebriated silence. After soaking it all in with several rounds of chicken tikka laced drinks he spoke at length.

The sum and substance was this. In his own dismissive way he has asked me to put an end all this ‘dramabaji’, stop this ‘clicking shiking’, buy a real camera and ‘go learn photography’. With another minute of silence and one more stiff drink in his system, said, ‘Your snaps. They are good’.

Since then, I have looked up real cameras and such else. Looking at their prices, I have now commenced looking for a venture capitalist with a kind heart.

First there are stories. Then ofcourse, there are stories of stories.

All stories.

Poovar in pictures

2011-12-01T05:31:00.007+05:30

River commerce

The closest I had come to this word was an ‘actuary’. The actuaries that I knew were brilliant folks working on subjects which only they and their ilk could comprehend. I mean, I didn’t understand much of what they did and consequently was perpetually perplexed at the big bucks that they were rumoured to take home at the end of every month.

But this was called an ‘Estuary’. An estuary, I learnt, is an area where there is inflow of both river and sea water. In Poovar, the river Neyyar flows freely. Beyond which is a strip of beach. Beyond which is the mighty Arabian sea !

It was sight to savour. Ofcourse, it is not so often that the only avenue of commute to a place that I stay in, is by boat ! Nor do I come across such verdant green interspersed with fervent blue of a quiet river bordered by clean yellow sand holding a restive sea at bay !

Floating cottages on a river. Do you see the wisp of a beach afar ?

‘Floating cottages’ that are moored to land, that get mildly rocked by ripples from every passing boat. A mild sort of a rocking, that could make you think of a giant rocking chair !

Ripples in the river

faraway fishermen, pulling their net from the Arabian sea, while their shadows dance in the river

The scene and surrounding gives many an opportunity for picture postcards clicks. These obviously aren’t the best of pictures. The professionals were at it. These were the best I could manage.

boat jetty

Of the several places that were there, the boat jetty was the picturesque. In my humble opinion. Regular readers perhaps notice that for some odd reason I find these transitory places very attractive. Railway stations. Airports. Bus stands. Now, boat jetties. Perhaps its got something to hop on and hop off.

This place is, as a colleague put it, "is ‘infested’ with honey mooners!" I recall a couple which kept staring at me. They would, wouldn’t they. Who wouldn’t. If they see a madcap photographing the bench at the boat jetty for half an hour!

For all you may care, they wouldn’t have noticed me nor the boat jetty nor the river beyond, the Arabian sea or whatever. For they were absorbed in each other. Rightfully so. I think.

All that is besides the point. If you need some peace and quiet, well, head to Poovar. Its a small coastal place close to Thiruvananthapuram. If not for anything else, you’ll learn a new word : estuary !

I promise you, the word does not convey a fraction of the beauty the place holds.

Earlier post on this trip is here

K for...

2011-11-27T21:47:00.004+05:30

Rarely do I feel impressed with my amateurish dabbling with the camera. This moment was one such.

Kalarippayattu. That’s an ancient martial art form of the south. Kerala to be specific. It’s a fetching sight to see these fighters with bodies of gymnasts move with such agility and panache. With just a dash of imagination and a sprinkling of a story, any onlooker could well imagine how revered and soakingly absorbing a duel would have been just a few hundred years ago.

Oh, not to say a modern duel isn’t a sight to stop, hold your breath and stare in semi open mouthed awe, long enough for a few large mosquitoes to conduct a few sorties down the alimentary canal. More often than not, such goose bump causing art forms remain in the obscure confines of the past.

A trip to Kerala and a stay in a hotel at ‘attractive prices per night’ (which would be equivalent to what your father would have paid to buy the entire property, when he was your age), usually throw in a cultural performance or two.

Even better when the Company that pays your salary also pays for the trip and the room, in the name of a conference, harbouring extravagant hopes that such investments will pay off. In such cases, a hotel gladly throwing in ‘exposure to culture’ performances is de rigueur.

Kalari quite a popular performance. There are jumps. Fights with bare hands. Sticks. Fire. And several else. These are new techniques for the coporate types who are used to used to one martial art form called ‘Powerpoint’. Which ofcourse comes loaded with ‘bullet’ points! If the bullets don’t get you, boredom will.

In such Kalari performances though, young men spar on stage. Synchronised movement, overflowing with synergy. With swords, shields, some kind of a flexible sword, sticks, daggers and such else, with seamless movement. Like in the snap above, a fire bush at the end of the a rope fastened to the chest is used as weapon. Artfully swinging and moving about.

The corporate types usually look half in awe. Cheer in slightly inebriated delusion. Bite into the chicken with new found gusto and take a few more swigs of whatever drink their hands reach out to.

The really skilled photographers amongst them find the perfect spot to click. Additionaly, the morose ones aim their cameras from different corners snaps, click vapid snaps and write blogposts beginning ‘Rarely do I feel impressed with my amateurish dabbling with the camera..’

Ofcourse there is the mandatory crowd of American tourists. Their skin standing out amongst the crowd and their hair standing out on their skin. Staring. If I were them, I would wonder what all this fuss with Kalarippayattu and sparring with swords and building bodies and muscles was about. When all it took was a walk down the store and buy a .32 magnum and blow the brains off every living form in the locality.

Incase you are yet to look up Kalari, here is the link.

Incase you still haven’t, it is a martial art form that’s been around for ages.It was banned by the British. At one point in history, it was as common as ‘reading and writing’ and everybody in society was proficient in it.

Incase you are still wondering, what brings this post up now, I am back from another trip to a place that I have been in love with for ages : Kerala. Ofcourse, more posts & pictures follow.

But, boy, am I pleased with this snap!

What does it take ...?

2011-11-22T07:10:00.005+05:30

I run my hands over many layers of bark. They are sharp. I didn’t expect them to any otherwise. The bark is dry. I look up.

For a height that seems insurmountable, the bark and the wood beneath extends above my head. I arch my neck.

Many feet above, there is green.

What does it take to stand tall ? Without being upset with the wind or whining about the sun ?

What does it take to take to the withering that time brings with ease?

How does it feel to grow leaves, shed them every year, and regrow every year.

What does it take to stand tall and provide shade to the child and to the wood cutter with equanimity? Without pausing to think of how much is there to be given.

When the height is immense and the vastness so mighty, how deep must the roots run ? How much grounding is necessary for the height to stay high?

How old yet so full of life. And hope.

Why must a tear form in the corner of my eye. As I run my hands over bark and arch my neck and try to look at its zenith?

Indeed, what does it take to stand tall?

Impromptu words that flowed from a borrowed pen on to a spare tissue paper. Chancing a tree in a deep wood and thinking of appa & amma.

Goats & apples !

2011-11-15T06:05:00.006+05:30

There was a verbal volley with a definitive purpose that the ear was used to. When the marks didn’t turn up as well as they perhaps should have. When they were a marathon of a distance away from the swagger with which an extra hour with TinTin was devoured claiming that the math exam had gone off ‘beyond expectations’ .

This verbal tranche of insults and such else, were delivered all ofcourse, with the intention of somehow getting me more focused and ‘into’ the subject !

The assortment of words that made the sentence was remarkable for the sentence could masquerade as sarcasm, retort, insult, insinuation, motivation, display of anger. An extravagant paraphernalia of diverse meanings that I don’t have the patience to recount.

For that wide an array of interpretations, the sentence and its constituents were ( and still are ) remarkably pithy : “I’ll get you a few cows”

It was supposed to be the ultimate insult to an average young mind. It meant, that the new depths the maths marks touched could fit the grand occupation of herding cows and goats. It was a singularly frightening thought. Completely inappropriate by a grotesque proportion to what caused this : the math paper !

For the math question paper would have had a question like ‘ A has five apples. Of which he gave one-fifth to B and another one-third to C……’ . Finally ending with some vague question like ‘So how many apples was A left with’ or something to that effect.

For the record, I have always believed that the impact of apples are best felt on the tongue. The teeth biting into fresh fruit, and the tongue swarming with tasty juice was all that mattered.

If you had five apples, you ate five apples. Obviously, Mr.B and Mr.C were non-entities once the apples were sighted. Even if the apples happened to be theirs.

To me, people featured in the question paper like Mr.A, were beyond comprehension. To subject something as tasty as a simple apple, to such a fractious assault was downright unnecessary, completely impractical and cruel to an imaginative test taking kid!

These and such thoughts would play in the mind. Before I knew, test would be over and the mark statement would have touched a new nadir.

Oftentimes holding the report card in hand with the math marks settling in a new marina trench, would send me on a imagination frenzy to see myself herding an assortment of cows and goats. Which obviously lead to serious palpitations to form on my forehead. And other parts too, but that’s besides the point.

No no. Dont get me wrong. Not for me the insult. Not for me the insinuation. At that age, I didn’t give goats horn about what people would think of me being a cowherd. Nor do I care much now. It was not that. The problem was something else.

It was keeping count of those goats and cows.

Beads of sweat transformed into enormous water streams just thinking of the proposition of losing two goats for no fault of mine. As a matter of addition and subtraction we were taught to ‘borrow’ ‘from the next digit’. Or in case of addition, ‘carry over’ to the next column was important.

After dutifully ‘carrying over’ or ‘borrowing from’ I would ofcourse gloriously forget that act of generosity and move on with life and other numbers. Until such a time, the math teacher made me write such ‘carry overs’ and ‘borrowing froms’ in such gigantic font size to enable recall.

If that was the case with random numbers, to keep track of cows and goats was a different ask, to my fertile imagination. To keep counting them and finding I was two short ( or three short, for that matter) would have had some serious explanation, I figured.

I fretted that I would lose count for no fault of mine. It would be comprehensively unfair if, say, the goats wanted to scratch themselves against a specific tree, or stayed back at the local pond, or sighted a far attractive mate and decide to have a good time!

I would be reduced to taking the blame on myself and my math skills.

Grotesquely unfair. Isnt it ?

Ofcourse this attempt at fear laced motivation, stopped getting uttered one day. One fine day, one of those ‘uncles’ was home to launch into moms cooking. Such genial uncles back then ( and these days too) have a set of questions which were simple to figure out.

Usually starting with ‘Which school do you go to and somewhere along the line leading to ‘what do you want to become when you grow up’. ( At a younger age, ‘what is your teacher name’ used to be one persistent such, which in hindsight, rises an eyebrow. Actually both my eyebrows. )

Just as he was finishing the question of ‘what do you want to become’, in a flash, my mind streamed an image of a proud me, managing an array of goats and cows without losing count of any.

Without losing a breath, I announced with a singular flourish that I wanted to become a ‘Cowherd’. Much to the blasphemous horror of all around, evidenced by the stellar silence that followed an intemperate bout of laughter from the genial uncle.

After that, the subject of ‘grazing cows’ as a default occupational choice, in case the math marks didn’t move north, made a quiet exit. I must say, the cows and goats haven’t been ever so thankful as then.

Do you have such recollections of your childhood ? Or were you the Mr.A type ?

Duplicate cops ?

2011-11-12T09:18:00.004+05:30

The real thing about duplicates is that the duplicates are for real. Oh what a profound statement spouting out of the keyboard on to the monitor. Talk of an inflated chest, right now !!

Duplicates get by because they are so close to the real. In the seamless merging of the real and the duplicate, the gullible fall victim and duplicates live on. Or rather thrive.

‘Duplicate’ has very many names and forms. Counterfeit. Fake. Forged. Decoy. The internet has done its bit, by spawning : ‘copy-paste’ in students lingo firmly. A spot that was held by ‘xeroxing’ a while ago.

lets move on. Enough said that there have been cases of ‘versions’ of sweets, stamps, money, certificates, colas, paints, books and every thing that you could think of. Save the Sun, the Moon and such other imponderables.

Let me leave this here : If you are able to point to a few segments where duplicates are not present, well, I will personally write a letter to the prime minister, urging him to make use of such unmatched cerebral prowess. Original letter that is. Please don’t expect to hear from him though. But ofcourse.

If you find yourself cheated, God forbid, if at all that happens, what do you do ? Being preyed on for wearing your vulnerability on your sleeve as though it was an Armani suit, well, sometimes can have other consequences. As someone who sat through those civics lessons in school, you approach the cops. With a complaint. That’s when action starts.

In Powai, Mumbai there is something interesting happening.

Even before you could rush to the cops to complain, the cops are all over street corners letting you know to beware of duplicates. Beware of duplicate versions of cops themselves! Eh!

The first, time this ad met the eye, it was but natural to dismiss this as a work of a piqued smart alec. It didn’t take long, actually not beyond the next street corner, to realise that smart alec was in no way connected to this. For the next street corner had a similar board. A copy of the first one that is.

What does it take to be a cop ? A whole lot I am sure.

But that’s a wrong question. What does it take to LOOK like a cop? Not too much, perhaps. A crew cut and a burly look will perhaps get you close.

If some ingenuous chap with a crew cut, burly look and accompanying personality accosts you and catches you pants down, speaking to your surreptitious girlfriend, pause my friend and ask for ID. Or whatever. Establish he indeed is a real cop.

A few questions that come to the pea sized brain that nestles in a balding head are these mind are these :

Like who is the home minister? Which station do you come from?

Who is the inspector? Who is the commissioner of police?

Quite obviously, many of you would think of this as a rather juvenile list. Well, thats about what you can get for free.

The Amitabh Bachan KBC baritone is hesitatingly not recommended, for it could provoke thoughts of ‘crores’ at the end of it all, with no mention of lifelines.

The bottomline : Keeping a list of probable questions ( and answers) to test out the veracity of a cop is downright important. If nothing else works, then, asking ‘do you know who I am’ could perhaps be tried.

All these would work, as long as the chap who has accosted you is indeed a ‘duplicate’. If he does happens to be ‘real’ / ‘original’ and you end up asking all these questions with a tanker load of impunity, well, that could get you face to face with a discommoding peril of your life !

Whatever you do, people in Powai and elsewhere, do make sure you device your own means of separating the wheat from the chaff. The real from the duplicate.

Good luck. May the force be with you. The real one, that is.

Rants & pictures !

2011-11-10T06:20:00.005+05:30

They don’t call it Gods own country for no reason. It provided some wonderful opportunities for playing with light and the camera. Here are some snaps from a Kerela trip that happened some time back.

Just as the snaps load up on your screen : My MTNL internet connection is woeful at home choosing to go on strike on a whim. I am hastily pushing through this post, when it has chosen to show me that it ideed can work at top speed and this months bill will include charges for internet !

To compliment that, to blog on such esoteric topics from the workplace, well, err, is not allowed. So, please people, put up with my silence.

In the meantime, I continue to shout out into the world through the twitter accounts and I don’t have a modicum of memory of what all I have shouted out to the world. The chief twitter account I use is @KavisMusings . Well, that’s a subject for another time.

For now, here are the pictures.

Silhouettes have fascinated me since the time I knew they were called 'silhouettes'. I used to hate the spelling but quite liked the way the word is pronounced. With a twang that has almost an Italian connection !

All these snaps were taken at places somewhere around Kottayam. 'Panchali Medu' is one such. I don’t raise an eyebrow everytime we go far off, deep inside Maharashtra or down into Kerela where there is folklore around the exiled Pandava brothers with Draupadi in tow having lived there for a while. Panchali as Draupadi is better known in the south, has this hill named after her.

She is supposed to have taken bath in the local pond etc etc, details which I omit writing on, and leaving your imagination to do its work.

The modern day ‘medu’ (RTT : raised plateau) has 14 crosses. I wont tell you why. For I don’t know myself. I only know that the place has an extravagance of 'awesome'. There is an endless breeze, a feast of green for the eye. The clouds rolling over your head and tease you to reach and touch them if you can.

Off Kuttikanum is another green zone : Wagamon. Sometimes spelt with a ‘V’ instead of a W. Whatever, it is , It doesn’t alter green beauty. Green as in GREEN. Meadows. Plateaus. Hills. Throw in some mist. Some people who are ever willing to help. Water bodies that tempt. Well, in sometime, you could have romance brewing in the air.

Value for money romance. For the place is relatively unexplored ! Some unconfirmed news has it that Wagamon is called the ‘Scotland of Asia’. I haven’t seen Scotland. But I can go as far as I can and tell you, Wagamon is a lovely place to go to.

If any of those didn’t get you excited enough to pack your bags and include Kerela a big mindshare for your next travel, here is something that will do the trick. I ooze confidence in stating this.

Chips. Slices of a particular type of plantains. “Plantains” was to give the humble ‘banana’ a twang of fancy. Nevertheless, slices, deep fried in authentic coconut oil. You just cant stop with one or two for that matter. Two minutes on the lips and a lifetime on the hips. For sure.

But those two minutes they are on the lips, they give you a lifetime of yearning for the next time you will head to Kerela !

Earliers posts on the same trip are here, here, here and here !

Leafy colour

2011-11-04T22:01:00.005+05:30

There is excitement in the air. A distinctly earthy smell permeates the inner walls of your nostrils and make them twitch involuntarily. You know something is up.

Which is when you discover they have been up. Up for a long time. The women of the house, that is.

They sit up this night. Tomorrow is Deepavali. The rest of the country calls it Diwali with a fanciful twang immersed pronunciation. This is Madurai. At home, things are simple. Simple truths get spoken and usually without the need for fancy or decorative adjectives.

The women in your house aren't concerned with how you spell or pronounce Deepavali. To them, its the festival of lights. They have been on a different grind. Grinding leaves that is.

Grinding carefully selected leaves from a tree nearby. Adding a variety of ‘other’ natural additions ranging from lemon to an accompanying paraphernalia, managing which you imagine, could pose a stiff challenge to an established supermarket's store keeper, especially when his computer is down !

The grinding produces a paste. Soon, there emerges a green paste with a greasy look and of course, the earthy smell. You shake your head in much disbelief. For the look and the quantity of the paste is disproportionally stingy to the extravagance of the aroma that twitches nostrils.

Even as you soak in the aroma, the paste is now sitting pretty in a small vessel onto which it has gotten carefully transferred. With care that would you would accord a maharajah who has come home for dinner.

As if to indicate how fleeting time can be, in a brief hour, the vessel is empty. For the leaf paste now rests on the palms of the women. In various shapes and sizes. Accompanied by endless chatter. Laughter. Excitement. Happiness.

You realize that their hands are in a way tied. They have to sit there and do nothing but wait out the green paste to dry. Just as you think that their hands are tied, they say, ‘don’t think our hands are tied. We can wash it off IF NEED be and reapply’.

You smile. These women.

You being you, you gear up your imagination and try thinking up of the spectrum of acts that you could indulge in just when their hands are tied. You think of ‘this’. Perhaps ‘that’. You smile. ‘this’ to ‘that’. You smile widens at your own imagination.

But you realise that your imagination will stay put as imagination. As dynamic as it can be, it still is well within the whorls of your brain. For you see that the women are washing the paste off their hands.

Colour stands where a greasy green paste stood. Semi permanent colour. There is laughter amidst ‘yours is better than mine’ (or vice-versa) conversation. You see a bright red in the palm where the dark green paste was. Not too long back, when your imagination was soaring.

‘Its not RED’. They say. Proceeding to name it somewhere in the vicinity of an ‘orangiesh red with a tinge of yellow’. Or something to that effect. Inbetween varying degrees of laughter.

You realise that there is a magic in life. Magic that can be brought alive by simple things. Like grinding leaves from a tree and applying it to the palm of your hand.

Colour on palms that help you be. Palms that have always brought a smile to you. Fingers that have fed and hands that have helped. The ever inspiring love of your lovely mom and the missus that have always stood by you, when everything fell apart.

You smile. Indeed life is beautiful when you see a smile on their face and colour on their palms.

Today, its more than a week. Deepavali is gone. The many kilograms of sweets have occupied already rotund hips. The colour on the palms of mom & the missus is fast fading.

The green leafy paste is nowhere in sight. The memory of that happy time, though, automatically twitches the nostrils.

Still.

Reeking royalty !

2011-10-20T06:37:00.006+05:30

The zoom lens on the camera were the first to spot it. A patch of brown in a sea of green. Some more zooming and out with curiosity more than anything else, least of all, understanding history, got us in front of this gate.

It looked like any other gate. A gate that was fastened with a chain and a piquant lock. The biggest battle that the gate seemed to wage was with the forces of nature and ofcourse, the undergrowth in the vicinity. Quite ordinary, you might think.

Except that we were standing on Palace Road. This was a gate that we passed twice, without realising that we were passing the gates of the Summer palace of the Raja of Travancore. At Kuttikanam. 140 kilometers South of Cochin in Kerala.

The royal folks that lived here are long gone. The palace sits in silence. Unpretentious yet majestic. The walls could tell you a multiple zillion stories. The walls... Its extra smooth walls, which if we were to believe the old caretaker and his young son, were polished with eggshells amongst a millon other things.

Teak floors. Teak roofs. The broken glass panes of windows that a royalty and their retinue would have operated, let in the fresh crisp sunrays of another lovely morning October morning. Like the windows would have, decades ago.

It’s a quaint, simple structure yet reeks of prosperity and a princely time that seem present, in their absence.

‘Nobody comes here’ says the caretaker, giving us a look half filled with surprise and the other half filled with curious disinterest. Yet, he indulges us in showing us around, and relating stories of a time that’s passed us all. A time, that he himself, has only heard of.

‘This is where the king received his guests’ he says pointing to a large hall with a spectacular window and view. He moves on, leaving you to fill up the picture of a king, his queen, generals and visitors. The tapestry of movies seen and narratives read, can feed the imagination well. Within no time, imaginative narratives of a scheming Diwan, a loyal minister, a lovely queen with the British knocking on the door, ran in my mind.

Only to be occasionally broken by the realistic narrative of the caretaker who by now was doubling up as a tour guide.” This is the queens room” he says lowering his voice marginally. Perhaps in awe. A yesteryear carpet still fills the floor. Decimated by time, and neglect.

The Royal emblem stares at you from the window. A broken cupboard still stands. Perhaps for reasons of pride, for falling down can reduce it to a pile of wood.

The toilet commodes are ‘Belgian’. The tiles Italian. The glass panes are from UK. So thinks the old caretaker and his young son. Who by now, we realize, has fed the curious minds of a few stray visitors like us. There is no reason why we wouldn’t believe what he was saying. It was adding up well.

I ran my fingers across the wall for some odd reason. Perhaps vicariously caressing royalty and a royal time. Ending up with an inch of dust and a consequent glare from the missus.

True to form, the kitchen could accommodate four ‘1 BHK’ Mumbai homes and has the giant bicep powered grinder. The hand grinder seemed remarkably dust free which intrigued us no end. The intrigue didnt last long though. 'We use it’. He says. Quickly moving away leaving me facing the lotus shaped sinks, the vegetable racks and such else.

Right in the centre, is the ‘open to sky’ area. The undergrowth has come back with vengeance. Fungus, cobwebs and still air give the caretaker and his family company. So does life in flowers and bees.

Ofcourse there are those nuggets of architectural excellence like the central heating. Or the underground escape route, the splendour of using sunlight and the natural air, which by now, has become so de rigueur for us, that the eye brows don’t arch as much.

In a style that is typical of a city dweller who gets approached for taking a home loan once in two and half hours, we ask him about the owners and where they stay. Not that we had the slightest inkling of buying but then, you ask. As a matter of practice.

‘Its been bought by an IT company from Bangalore’ he says.

‘Ah IT’ is all that I mouth.

A quiet silence pervades the air.

Whats the point I wonder. Of meticulously buying glass from Belgium and tiles from Italy and leaving it to an elderly caretaker and simple visitors with interest that didn’t stretch far too beyond a curiousity enhanced imagination. Wistfully despairing the state of disrepair of dilapidation of what once must have been the nerve centre of a kingdom.

The nature of life and change being the only constant, sometimes gets eloquent reminders. This was one.

We walk away. My imagination in royal splendour for what now seems like an interminable period. Exciting possibilities of a beautiful queen, stately king, an interesting affair, blunder filled jester, , galloping horses, Lovely retinue, politics and twists, song and dance!

I don’t realize I am walking half in a trance, until the missus shakes me up.

‘Go clean your hands’, she says. ‘They are dusty’.

Toll Tales !

2011-10-15T10:16:00.002+05:30

If there were any more objects of interest than the roads themselves, they are the toll booths.

They have been a subject of enormous interest and intense enchantment. For me, that is. Are you rubbing your eyes and wondering if my lunacy has had a fresh bout of energy infusement, well, indulge in me as you always do. Oh, I shudder at the plight of the world without kind readers like you who have progressed to the 4^th line on such a topic of egregiously earth shattering importance like the toll booth.

For it is at a toll booth you catch glimpse of the moron who overtook you with such blinding speed that you really thought he was taxiing to take off to the Mars or someplace beyond. You catch the elderly grand mom kiss her sleeping grand daughter. And the grand dad looking away. I know what you are thinking here. No, I didn’t mean it that way. Whatever you were thinking.

It is also the place, where you see some strange acts performed with an intensity that bellies the seeming innocuousness of a toll booth. Like, picking their nose, brows furrowed in concentration that would befit a nuclear scientist on the verge of a mankind changing discovery.

Ofcourse, you would not be surprised to see those that would honk like there were virgins waiting in heaven for the loudest and most fervent honker ! If you are still not awakened completely, the attendants manning the toll booth wake you up in a jiffy.

Usually they talk to you from that elevated booth that somehow seems to you as though they are speaking from a distant star. Sometimes, there is paan stowed away and showing up as a lump in the cheek. By the time you comprehend and respond you realize that the line behind has grown at a pace that is faster than the birth rate in China and the honkers were having urgent apparitions of the virgins in heaven !

Ofcourse, then, that is the beginning. For the chap doesn’t have change for Rs.500 and you have nothing else but Rs.500/-. So there you are. Villain to a population on the highway with even the heavens hearing the noises !

All in all, the toll booth is such an interesting place !

In Kerala though, things are slightly different. First of all, Rs.7.50/- for a return journey is a fare that seems unbelievable. Especially to the wallet that grows lighter by Rs.150/- and more on trips to Pune. Rs.7.50/- ? That’s like a discount store selling off unsold stuff for free.

There are no high pedestals. The toll booth operators stand on the road. Ofcourse, it would take two lifetimes for you to pull out Rs.7.50 exactly. He comes in to help you.’ Give me Rs.10’ he says, not even bothering to look at you. As you hesitatingly fish out the Rs.10, wondering if you will get change in return, you get a small package in return!

The small package essentially is the balance of Rs.2.50/- packaged with the Toll Booth receipt !

"Move on". "Move on".

In a jiffy the toll booth moves to your rear view mirror!

Ofcourse, you despair the opportunity of missing the other promised sights at the toll booth. But then, just to see that surprised smirk in the toll booth operator’s face, as he sees your expression change upon receiving the ‘packet’ from him….well, that’s priceless !

Defining a state

2011-10-13T05:58:00.009+05:30

Driving through Kerala is an experience. For starters, whats called the highway has just about as wide as for two regular trucks to go past barely scrapping each others paint on the bumper. That may not be completely accurate all points of the highway. Someplaces, its actually worse.

Yet, it is an absolute pleasure. For several reasons. For it is in such a drive that the contradictions clean out any preconceived idea that you came laden with.

One, the perpetual sea of green that adorn the sides of the road is such a soothing alternative to Mumbai. Where the roads are so seamlessly and almost by way birthright encroached upon by a builder, a hawker or a gawker. The road side in Kerala is a green.

Two, is the colourful array construction that surprised me no end. Truth be told, some choice of colour left me open mouthed debilitation of the eye. Churches , temples, mosques, toddy shops all hold your attention. Amidst them the churches predominately hold attention. Atleast they did so to mine.

Just as you are taking a turn at the road, if you need to be keeping yourself mentally alive and occupied its easy to do here. You could play simple game like betting with yourself (or with the people in the car that you are traveling with ) that the visual element that would next meet your eye, upon taking the turn, would be a ‘purple coloured spire with some connection to Jesus’.

You could be right. In most cases, I was. Or wrong. Like I was. In yet other cases I was yet to recover from the intensity of the previous sighting or the point of interest it generated.

For instance, you couldn’t think of a South Indian temple without thinking of the golden staff that adorns them. The permeability of culture to enable people to settle into a new idea or religion and help them feel at home was evident in some churches sporting the same golden staff.

But then disappointment or joy doesn’t matter. Either way, the sight is arresting with a limitlessly boundless feeling. Of either joy, wonder, curiosity or ‘what-were-they-thinking’ ! For the sight of a green coloured toddy shop or a bright yellow temple or at the least, an aesthetically constructed and ever so visually appealing to the eye kind of a house (bungalow) ensure that there just is no dearth of what the eyes can soak up.

At other times, distant cousins of Schumacher and Hamilton will shake you up as they rev the cracker of an engine in what would seem like a bus that would barely survive the corner swerve. The only warning signs are written on the sides : ‘Super Fast’ . In a rather quiet and demure way.

If you look at the shape of the bus that seemed to have rubbed its body against dinosaurs and conclude that super fast would be as glacial movement, well, let me put it this way : please be prepared for a rude awakening.

But try wrapping your arms around the state with a singular idea or a definition, and realization quickly dawns that its tough to do that.

Somewhere between all these churches and temples, communist party supporter still thrive.

Amidst all the relaxed ambiance of nature that thrives by the side of the road, the super fast buses rule the roost in the middle of the road

Wonderful stately artistic houses nestle in the midst of purple spires, yellow domes and toddy shops painted in green.

The simple pristine dhoti is the regular wear while big billboards advertise for jewelry, seemingly by the kilo, that could well have the potential of making the Reserve Bank of India feeling downright jealous.

The artistic quotient in the real movies of Kerala is perhaps the best in the country. Of the other kind of movies, that get made have an equal if not exceedingly alluring claim to fame too.

It is these contradictions that seem to have made peace with each other and thrive in a seamless ease, that make the place rich for me.

Much like a husband and wife who have a productive and harmonious marital life. Yet, he annoyed at the way she squeezes the toothpaste out, even as he gives the same toothpaste case the treatment she would give to a jewellery box.

And she perennially cheesed off by his insistent perpetual oddity of chewing dosa with loud chomps that would fit a primate even as she would insist on using a knife and fork to prise open and transport the the masala dosa from the plate to the tongue with elegance that can reach a hall of excellence in that category.

The red flag waving communist complemented by the purple church spire and yellow temple dome. The clean roads matched only by elements of nature and insistent ‘towers’ that are coming up now. The oodles of history besotted by the imminence of the present day. All of these, and much more, make what perhaps is an idea that is Kerala.

An idea that is not defined by singularly by geography or history or Economics or by this all encompassing word of 'culture' ! For the state comes alive in its boundless contradictions and uncanny beneficence of nature and hospitable people.

Who make some awesome boiled rice and fish curry. On that invigorating thought, I rest this post.

Previous post is here

Kerala calling !

2011-10-09T21:24:00.005+05:30

Just back from a trip to Kerala. For reasons that fall somewhere in the vicinity of 'personal work'. For those of you that think of that as a well qualified oxymoron, well, it is very much in use. Just run a random sampling of reasons employees give their managers, when the need to take a few days off! Thats that.

Kerala is a place that one always looks forward to. Green. Clean. And ever so offering something new to be seen.

Wavy mountains, pristine plains, wonderous waterways, and always : awesome people. Cochin was where the aircraft touched down. A proud Kerelite calls it Ernakulam and the moment you say, 'Cochin', well, they dont give you a dirty look. But, my friend, life is slightly uphill for you after that!

Ernakulam, the metropolis it is seeking to become seems to seamlessly bridge the gap between the past, the present and the future. Its not as though I am new to this place. Some eight years ago, work used to take me every month to Kerela ! It was almost home.

This time around several things were new. Time had worked its magic. Villas and property advertisements jostled for space amongst the ubiquitous ones for jewellery. Roads were wider. At a couple of places where the mind clearly remembers a 'dead end' the road seems to have had a fresh lease of life, dutifully coloured by teeming traffic.

And then, there was this tender coconut vendor I used to frequent. Who was still there, vending his tender coconuts. At the exact spot where I had last seen him several years ago. It was surreal. Almost like a group of children playing 'Statue' and freezing a part of town. But I only had to look up, to realise how close I thought I was to 'Statue', yet how far I was from the truth.

For right above his head, was a new giant hoarding selling '3 BHK, 4BHK villas' with a picture of a ever so happy family clinging together. Pandering to the great Indian dream of owning a house, even if it meant, paying an arm and a leg as EMI !

All the while the tender coconut vendor had been climbing up those slender coconut trees and bringing down those coconuts for the parched throat, 'development' had seem to have gone above his head, and completely missed him. For better or worse ? The jury is out on that one !

In other news..

Inbetween all the work that we had to complete, the greedy traveler and big city dweller that I am, took the time to soak in the clean air, fill up a few GB worth of photographs, take a peep into life in an estate etc etc ! Not to mention, soaking into the hospitality of friends and family. ( Which actually reads 'eating like a shameless glutton.' )

Posts and pictures follow.

Watch this space.

on the run..

2011-09-29T05:57:00.003+05:30

Today, I chanced upon this snap in the archives.

There we were, in Pebble Beach. California. Or thereabouts. Driving through a Californian summer. Now and then, stopping to soak in lung fulls of the Pacific air and indulge in uninhibited visual gluttony, soaking up the scenery and the sights.

I did what other tourists normally do. Click pictures. Eat like a pig. Click more pictures. Make funny noises. Click more pictures. And generally gape.

Which is when, the eye caught the old man running. He was doing a steady pace. Not that I hadn’t seen an old man run. I run with several who, with their enthusiasm and effort, drive shame into me with seemingly no effort at all. But then, it was 2.00 PM in the afternoon and this old man was running. No other runner on the road.

By Mumbai standards, well that is a step higher than ‘weird’! For one, the heat will vaporize you. Another reason could be, no actually, that vapourise threat is reason enough.

But this was California. Here was this man. Running a steady doddering run, with an adorable spirit and a certain incalculable antiquity.

Memories came sprinting back, as I looked at this picture today. Especially so because laziness has been coursing my veins for a while now.

Well, well, it’s a long story. I have formed part of the problem.

Several readers know that I enjoy a good run. These pages have seen how it all started with an innocuous ‘come see what we do’ invitation from a friend who was into running. It took about the time it took for your eyes to come down to reading this line from the line above. That’s all. That’s the time it took for me to commence running. I was running and enjoying it!

This year the problem compounded.

In a fit of demented bluster, I registered to run a full marathon to be run in January. That is 42 kilometers for the uninitiated. To those that have only seen the Kenyans run on TV and make it seem as easy as turning in your bed, I can only say, that running the full marathon, for bloated blokes with a sweet tooth and sorry food cycles, is like aiming for the moon with a Diwali pistol.

But then, like other good things with grand intentions, the registration was made in right earnest. As soon as the registration was done, investments were made. A new watch was bought. A watch that displays kilometers run. Speed at which the running is happening, calories burnt etc etc ! By the way, as a bonus and almost as an afterthought, it also shows the time.

So I have all these details on my wrist. These days its not the tail that wags the dog. Details wag the dog! Somewhere, between all the calculations and math, the joy of running slipped. Damn, Numbers !

To exponentially compound matters, I realize that I have dutifully informed anyone who lingered in my company for more than two minutes that I am into running and the marathon will be attempted this year.

Typical responses have followed. Always preceded by a sympathetic look and a shake of a head, that seem to indicate the unspoken words of ‘oh, what has befallen you’.

‘It will be ok’. They say. Accompanied by an arch of an eyebrow and with as much energy that a scintillating bureaucrat puts in his face while dealing with a cyclone victim.

My runs have taken a nosedive over the last couple of months with an elegance of a Olympic diver. Slowly and steadily, lethargy has pitched a tent. Inches in the waist have grown like wild grass at the first sight of rain. These days, I feel the weight of a large earth moving equipment juggle in me, every time I run !

But you see, I haven’t been sitting idle. Ofcourse, I have been busy. Weekends have flown by like aircrafts doing practice sorties. Some have also crashed.

But all that is in the past. Today, this man woke me up. This old man that I caught half a glimpse of on a bright and sunny afternoon in another part of the world, has shaken me up.

There is one goal now. As far as the running, that is! To complete the marathon in January. Whatever time it takes. To run with no ‘time’ in mind. Running for fun. Running to just enjoy the course and see how far two legs can take me. That suddenly seems doable.

For all those, that have a sudden outpouring of love and want to gift me with sweets, payasam and such else, hold on, till January. If you are insistent, well, I will have one bite. Only one. Ok ?

In the mean time, wish me luck and watch this space.

7 stones

2011-09-17T15:37:00.005+05:30

Back then in school, oh yes, you remember when you were in school, don’t you? When the biggest possible worry was what the questions in mid term results could be.

When chief amongst the wonders of the world that you couldn't figure out would be the acute deprivation in that human mind that caused him or her to think up of something as weird as Trigonometry. And then roll your eyes with even more wonder on the mind that thought of including as vile a subject as that in the syllabus!

These were brief interludes. At other times, you were free to do as you thought fit. Many times you just did and only then thought about if what you did ‘fit’ into acceptable scheme of things.

Ah. School days.

No this post is not about school days. Technically. No. this post is about a game called ‘Seven Stones’. That’s a game that caught attention much before games like basketball and volley ball emerged in the horizon.

It didn't predate cricket, but then, cricket required equipment that was banned by the school. You had to be a Houdini to be able to smuggle in a bat and three stumps. Tall ask. But you could always find seven stones and on the field, and take aim with a smuggled rubber ball.

The rules were simple.

1. There were two teams. One that had to aim the rubber ball at those stacked up seven stones. As soon as the stack was broken, the same that broke it attempted to rebuild all of the seven stones again.

2. Oh yes, the other team weren't twiddling their thumbs or picking their noses while this restacking happened.

3. They had to aim the ball and hit the members of this ‘rebuild’ team beneath the knees to get them ‘out’. If the ball ‘hits’ you, you are out.

4.Eventually there are fewer and fewer players around to rebuild.

5. The team that would build all of the seven stones before all its players are knocked down, or the team that knocks down all of the players before they can build up the tower of seven stones, is the winner.

Detailed rules are here

After this game 'players' would then go back to wondering whoever invented Trigonometry. Or why some crazy Midsummer Nights dream wasn’t as interesting as some of the other dreams that they would rather talk of.

Does this sound familiar ? Well, hold on. The world thinks that the Iraq war has no precedents. I beg to differ.

Examine it if you will. What were established cities, dams, roads , hospitals and the like were pulverised with remarkable accuracy. The news channels giving it a coating of pulchritude, as though it was some fireworks show! People died. Many were maimed. And many more left to fend for themselves.

Ofcourse, the rebuild effort started with greater speed by the same folks who pummeled the land. Like in the game of seven stones, the other team werent sitting there twiddling their fingers. They hit the re builders, usually, beneath the belt.

The other day in an animated discussion about the validity ( or the lack of it ) about the Iraq war, an animated participant said that this was the original idea of one Mr.Bush and another Mr.Blair.

Which is when the animated participant was calmly told that it was a 'stolen' idea. With an ever smart twitch of the corporate collar, a smirk and a slanted neck ( which is corporate speak for ‘ha ha you moron you shot yourself on the foot – I got you’) “so whats the evidence ? How can you prove this? “ the participant asked.

With an all pervasive calmness that would befit a zen master, the participant was told ‘go get me seven stones and a rubber ball’ !

Waking up yet again !

2011-09-11T17:07:00.006+05:30

This blog & its readers have been pretty close to my heart. High up there, on the ‘important aspects of life’ hierarchy. Like all such aspects that are truly important to life like ‘love’, ‘family time’, ‘personal health’ etc, this blog too has silently suffered the insufficient attention (of even the incoherent writing). But as is with everything else that’s part of this 'A list', the situation is alterable!

Change !!

These have been busy times. Seeing some deep discussions, decisions and mind occupying stuff. So much so, that blog posts on ‘Teachers Day’, ‘Anniversary’, ‘modern day Bangalore’ and many such, havent had movement beyond two gloriously vapid paragraphs. Such ferociously loquacious attempts have since been consigned to the safe confines of the trash box with an flourish that begs many an award.

Hmm.. inbetween the last post on the Anna Hazare and this one, a few things have changed. While Anna Hazare himself has broken his fast, friends have moved on from having his picture as their profile picture on facebook. Those are besides the point.

What is well within the point, is the fact that my computer monitor screen has been flickering away to oblivion. Singalling the end of many years of dedicated service as pointless blogposts and passionate indulgences ( in photography, reading etc…what were you thinking ? ) were satiated through the net!

In other news, there was some travel. Noticing the pranky nephew and his brand new pranks were hugely satisfying. There were regular business meetings and other interactions that brought me face to face with interesting sets of people and a diversity of perspectives that can be mildly put as ‘abundant’. Which brought me to marvel at the spectrum of God's creation all the way through. Oh yes, there is a spectrum out there. Let me stop going any further down this road.

Work has been heady and hectic. Had to state that. Just in case there are folks from work read this page. Really. Its been. Ok ?

So today, when the feet kicked out the slumber and emerged from the sheets, there was a resolve to restart all that 'truly mattered'. With a promise to myself to drum up an explanatory post. That’s this post people.

Thank you for all your love. And just in case you are asking, ‘so whats new ?’... well, people look at the header and the 'up in the cloud' addition.

Change they say, generally begins in the head.

On this blog, its gone as far as the 'header' and not beyond ! :)

A 1000 elder brothers...

2011-08-22T22:43:00.004+05:30

“There was a time when I typed Anna, and google threw up Kournikova” says a friend’s status message on Facebook. Anna mania has gripped India, perhaps far better than Kournikova gripped a bored bachelors imagination. Perhaps. That coming from a 70 + year old gent, is no mean achievement in a country with a penchant for ‘moving on’ from one issue to another with adroitness that could teach the most flexible ape, a lesson or two in dexterity !

These are strange times. A time, when speaking anything against Anna Hazare and his supposedly substantially burgeoning bandwagon evokes a George Bush kind of ‘Either you are with us or against us’ response, that eventually leads to being pilloried a traitor with no love for the nation.

Any word that strikes a discordant note against the grain of Anna and his team, invites a flurry of responses that have ranged from the ‘considered’ to the ‘dismissive’ to the downright silly. Unfortunately, with the last two dominating.

Well, this is a free country. On that note, lets face facts and call a spade, a spade. Half a spade, half a spade.

There are three roads that have lead us here.

The first one. It’s a fact that Anna Hazare stands tall. In a time when chaps half his age could have 'turning the pages of a newspaper' as their most intense physical activity, his energy and verve has lit up people. He seems to have a steely resolve and a resolute purpose. Fundamentally, his heart seems to be in the right place.

It is a different matter though, that has had generous helpings from extravagantly dimwitted attempts by those in the government to discredit him and a disproportionately loud and insistent singing of paeans by the electronic media. Matters that we shall keep aside for now.

He oozes confidence and a shrewd team with the likes of Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi, add larger than life dozes of credibility that lend themselves well to a perception that his armoury is chink free. That is such a romantic fit to a population that is starved of a charismatic leader with compelling story to tell.

On the second front, the vexed issue of corruption is something that every Indian has encountered. As a giver. As a taker. Or in an off chance, as a fighter! The last few years’ litany of loot is ridiculously unparalleled. The brazen size of the embezzlements and the shrill cry of a media that seems to be in perpetual hunt for a good story, catalysed by the penetration of the internet with space for the common man and woman to vent, collate and seize up the collective spirit have had a substantial impact on the psyche of the populace.

On the third front, the government seems to have floundered much like a pathetic array of generals who ride on new horses named ‘arrogance’ ‘pelf’, ‘doubt’ and the like, only to completely lose their way and meander aimlessly. Specialising in retreat after retreat, as foray after foray seemed ill-conceived, inconsistent and remarkably insouciant.

So there. Three different fronts. All leading up here. Inflammable material needing just a spark, placed next to each other ! Bingo. So we have an issue at hand. .

An emotionally charged and ‘affected’ population that has for long grown up aiding or staying mute to a culture of ‘giving’ to get by / to get ahead etc etc, suddenly sees a messiah who has brought the manna they were in search of, in a zipped file! Which they can download and install and ‘lived happily ever after’ endings would follow.

Anna Hazare’s charisma, in-your-face 24 hour media coverage and our own impatience to shake off a 40 year lull in four weeks, have had many of us jumping in. Candles. Topis. Flags. Dharnas. Shouting Vande Mataram and such else.

Don’t get me wrong. The intentions are pure to a large extent for most people, that have joined the protest. ( Builders, who ever so often seek black money on the sly, joining the protests presumably because they could pass on huge discounts to consumers that they otherwise would have to pay as bribes are one of the reasons as to why I say ‘most people’). The selfless passion that several other ordinary people have brought to the front through this movement is goose bumps creating stuff and reinstates hope that ‘all is not lost’.

Yet, even as the pitch gets shriller, could we care to read the Jan Lokpal bill in its current form. Examine the practical implications and sustainability please? Just give it a read. Lets understand what we want! The bill and its provisions are a far distance away. Nevertheless, that’s my opinion. Lets give it a read , form an opinion and enter the debate.

On another note has anybody considered the kind of a precedent we are setting in forming laws for the country ? We are not in cowboy backyard. India has a set of rules and governed by a constitution that is supreme. Sure, many of us are supporting the Jan Lokpal bill. But, since when did ‘many’ become ‘all’? Or ‘most’, for that matter ?

Lets face issues : Corruption is no CIA implant or a conspiracy hatched in a Pakistani madrasa. It is perpetuated by ‘us’. So much so, its existence is a ‘way of life’ for us! It is too far well entrenched for one Kryptonian bill to change it, as though it is some rogue software virus that could be removed by hitting the delete button on a keyboard.

Think about this. The political class is not the only one that is corrupt, although it sits at the helm of it all. Offering money to the cop in the corner, after breaking a signal is as much a form of corruption as is not raising a voice when the Reddy brothers offer a diamond studded crown worth 45 crores to Lord Venkateshwara, especially after illegally blasting away the good lords backyard in Bellary!

To many of us, corruption is an issue only when we part with money when everything is hunky dory on our side. Yet, to break the queue, skew the law in our favour, evade taxes, to get ahead, or to get an undue favour ( which, by the way, is quite often, given our laws) we could grudge but willingly pay! Or take a slightly circuitous route of saying ‘I wont pay’, but pay an agent ‘service charges’ to facilitate ‘transactions’.

As a society, our moral compass has shifted. To get it to point in the right direction would require the collective will of everybody. The collective will of ‘We the People’. A will to stand in queue. A will to endure discomfort that is far greater than an empty waving of the flag. Many a time, fighting a lonely battle. To face the heat that is many times more than holding on to a simple candle. That’s what it takes, to stand up to the corrupt.

A simplistic law is far from an effective solution. We cant rid a cancer in the blood with a cleanser for the face.

The fabric of the country is dialogue. An inclusive participative dialogue. A willingness to listen and engage. Not a set of deadlines and a ‘do this or else…’ set of demands. ‘My way or the high way’ may sound good coming from a Bollywood superstar in a scripted movie. Real life is no cine script, where blockbusters are rarer still. Change happens in small doses.

Lets get real. Anna Hazare is no Mahatma Gandhi. 2011 is not 1947. And by the way, we are not fighting a parliament that is in London.

There is now a certain level of focused conversation on corruption across the country, all credit to Anna Hazare and his team. This is a unique moment pregnant with possibilities. Hopefully, pragmatic sense would prevail and this societal momentum will be channelized for greater dialogue with everybody.

Lets consider Inclusive and participative dialogue providing space for words to get spoken and voices to be heard. Hopefully it would also provide the self indulgent indignation of every ‘I am Anna’ topi wearer a chance to pause and ponder on his or her own actions and responsibilities as well.

Lest it whittle away in the excitement of participating in the frenzy of war cries ranging from “2^nd freedom movement” and such else. Taking with it whatever hopes that there was for change to emerge and further deep rooting the disease..

Girls !

2011-08-11T06:39:00.007+05:30

Incredible. Obviously apparently charmingly incredible.

That’s how she is now. Her new found height holds the years that have gone by since we last we saw her and I blogged about ! She is “tall and pretty” will be an ultra conservative understatement that can best befit an exemplary miser whose currency is words.

Our niece. I was quite taken by the fact that regular readers ( three of you ), wrote in asking for how she was doing, based on my blogpost of 2006 ! Initially all chuffed by the hope that it was my writing that stayed in the memory for so long, but only quick to realise that it is about the 'subject'.

This post is on our girls in the US !

Her process of choosing clothes can resemble a very conscientious accountant balancing his books. Exemplary care and methodicity in every step, and could often seem to last the time it took for a planet to evolve.

On another note, there are people that walk the earth with exemplary prowess in carrying off anything from a Zenga suit to a dhoti in manner that can be mildly put as ‘superlatively clumsy’. Then there is the other variety. Those , that can carry off anything from street clothing to designer wear with a degree of regality that gets all of the streets to turn and highways to take a bow. She belongs to the latter.

Her culinary skills are galloping away to mouthwatering results.. A knack of baking cakes and lovely milk shakes, always served with a tinge of lazy air and loads of love. By the way, made with one eye on the TV and the other on the oven!

Like the last time around, her accent is still American. Perhaps thicker. The English. The hindi. And the Tamil included. She corrects my pronunciation often and the English that the Britisher left behind and we ‘suitably’ modified in India, often inviting a shake of a head, a dash of laughter or a quizzical look. Our moments of discord went as far as that and no further. .

Swimming, Kathak and a whole array of activities, no t to mention academics, keep her and her parents busy ! Which is an equivalent of a Mt.Everest climb for me. Getting to work and back is a tall ask, and if I am in a good spirit after all work and the dodging of the quintessential jay walker, it gets me all excited.

Ah. There is one more addition. To the work that she does. That is to take care of her younger sister. A sister that has auto recharge dynamo within her with which she can generate ‘energy’ at will. A sister whose love for animals is a level beyond any combination of adjectives that I can hope to leverage.

A sister who is bright and bubbly, cute and naughty, rugged and sporty, fast and comfy. Easily enticing any who would care to play and getting them sufficiently tired in a few minutes. We saw her as a toddler years back. With energy bursting at the seams she is a package for whom your heart is perpetually warmed up for.

Together they make a pair that can melt steel ingots with sweeping hug and a simple word. They wear the chaniya cholis just as they wear those jeans. The twin liking for Jennifer Anniston and Abhishek Bachhan defining how equanimity prevails between the two culture whorls that they are in the vortex of.

To them, India is a ‘far away land’ in all senses of the word and the Californian air offers them a rhythm of life, that is so distinctly different than what lies within Indian shores. That is the place they call ‘Home’!

Their life and living is different. We may want to soak up their wonder years in our memory too, by watching it all in close quarters everyday. Questions. Exclamations. Playful shrieks. The purportedly tear jerking sobs, that announce a stomach pain precisely when its time to eat. All of it. And more.

But then their life is over there, ours is over here. Our rhythms are so different.

So, we soaked up a zillion memories and a couple of giga bytes of photographs, of a time with them. That should just about suffice, for now, to offset a desire that pops up about them ‘coming back’!

As I packed my bags and gave them a hug, it required no great effort to be acutely aware that the years will roll on as they have in the past. Each roll weaving in a layer of change over what I had seen in them the last time around. Intricately inter weaving and warping a boundless love that never fails to have us in such a bind.

The years ahead will add many more layers of life, love and living.

I wonder when I will see them next. I wonder how taller will they be ? What new English lessons will they teach. What part of ‘their land’ will I learn from them? What new fare will they cook up for us? I wonder.

And just as the suitcases were getting shut, she cocked her head on one side and asked ‘so, when are you coming back?’.

Just as I rolled my eyes as an answer, the dynamo kid said, with the 'hands on hip' stance : ‘Akka, why do you ask the wrong question always. Ask him, why does he have to go’ !?!

Ah, girls.

Time graduates !

2011-08-07T21:12:00.005+05:30

While I was there, I attended a graduation. Attended one. The brother in law was getting an MBA with some kick-ass project scores and some serious study.

Well, ceremony in itself was nothing short of splendid. It started on the dot and ending on another dot. The speakers, the pageantry and pomp gave order a new coat of glitz. The commencement speaker spoke with some purpose, perhaps taking her role rather seriously. That translates to “it was a rather long speech”.

People with knowledge of Six Sigma or stuff of that order perhaps facilitated the arranging of chairs. Students were at the best of behavior that had me wonder if they had been told that they better be at the best of behavior ‘or else’.

Three and a half pats, was all that I could give myself later. Beyond which it became a trifle laborious. For my hunch was right after all. Wikipedia says : “At the high school level, this allows academic administrators to withhold diplomas from students who are unruly during the ceremony”.

I know. I know. You are the ‘bullet train quick’ type who is quick to spot “but this is for high school”. Well, allow for some exaggeration. Will you ? Please adjust.

An overbearing black sea of gowns with borders of red / blue / yellow, well complimented by hoods, painting a rich tapestry of straight angles above the head. Ofcourse, you couldn’t miss the lovely garlands that adorned necks that seemed to have stuck out quite a bit to get this far !

Something that will definitely not miss the ear is the hoots and cheers from families. Families that seemed to have turned out in droves to cheer the graduating student, sometimes mirroring a mini product launch campaign, as names of individual students were called out. Much to my baffling, which you will empathise with, as you read on.

Overall, this was one heck of a ceremony. Something to remember.

Flip a page.

There are graduations. And there are graduations.

The only graduation that I attended was at the end of the MBA. Once. Just once in life. That was many years back. If you are expecting a deluge of memories to inundate this post, well, no. Sometimes you are spared.

The strongest memory, however, of that ceremony was the distinct smell that rented robe brought along. My family was represented by one person : me. I don’t recall of any of my classmates turning up. They had already immersed themselves in newly found jobs in an emerging economy. Better ( or worse) still, no one bothered to find how the ceremony went.

I have no recollections of the speech. Goes even further, don’t even know who was the speaker. I have racked my brains and re-jigged my memory with no results to show, except perhaps five and a half strands of hair that the floor bears as evidence.

Ofcourse, those were days where a facebook update to let the world know that you have just had a glass of water, wasn’t exactly possible. So no trail remains. Digital or otherwise. Net net, nothing remains as evidence, which is disproportionately epochal to what the degree has brought me in life!

Looking back, it occurs that that those were the ages when you just wanted to get on with it. There was no celebration of ceremony. We had a future to make. A life to live and a livelihood to create.

Modern day urban Indian schools are now towing the US line. Ah, I forget. In the US, graduations galore. Everything from swimming classes to kindergarten have graduations. Unfortunately, I never could make it to any of those, but yet, have heard truck loads of stories of them.

Back here in India, many a school has graduation ceremonies. With robes and all that. When parents invite me and the missus, to a party to celebrate their son or daughter graduating from Kindergarten, we turn out in our best. The moment in time, when the kid graduates from mellifluous ‘child blabber’ to saying in impeccable English : “This school sucks”, is indeed a moment to savour.

While I am quite neutral on the graduation for kids. But then forcing them to wearing academic gowns and caps and such else doesn’t get better than the league of fancy dress. Both for me and the kids. But it is a wonderful revenue stream for the school and perhaps a good photo op for the parents.

I am reasonably sure that your suspicions of me being one heck of an old world twit have been proven beyond doubt. Perhaps. But then, I am someone, for whom the only meaningful recollections of a graduation are of a postman.

Yes. A postman, who brought a Post Card, during the height of every summer. The only word printed there : ‘Promoted’. That announced graduation to the next class.

Even as the card was entering the safe confines of a steel almirah, courtesy my dotting mother, I would be gone. To face the sun, and try to beat down the beads of sweat on the forehead. Cricket. Tennis. Or simply, attempting to stone the next odd shaped tamarind fruit. No robe. No gown. No ceremony.

Times. They change.

Perhaps, Time graduates !

Bringing up children..

2011-08-04T05:50:00.005+05:30

We were at the Grand Canyon. It was almost end of day. Tired and exhausted. The muscles cried for some rest after hours of battling the sun, the heat and the height. Perhaps for the first time, the camera was whining too, with the batteries draining.

Attempting to take one last shot of the ‘depth’ of the Canyon, I ventured as far as daring would get me to and the missus would allow. It was a sheer drop beyond the point I was attempting to walk upto.

Earlier in the day, the bus driver had joked, ‘If you want to get to the bottom of the canyon faster than the bus, I recommend that you keep walking off that ledge. Beyond a point, it would take you all of 6 minutes”. And then he indulged himself into a shoulder-jerking-in-fits--of-laughter !

His words ringing in my ear, I took each step of the descent to the ledge, with great care. When I was about 5 feet away from what seemed like the end of the world, two important occurrences took place. One gradually receding and another getting more and more pronounced.

One, courage was steadily evaporating. Slowly but steadily. Leaving behind traces of the big sized occupant that it once was. For, from where I was, I could see the end of the stretch of land I was standing on, and the beginning of a sheer drop.

Two, from a distance, the missus was howling me to stop right there. Howling to the point of embarrassment. Anyone could have mistaken me for one of those greedy bigamists who was just running away with her jewels! There perhaps were two elements that powered her thought : One, she had heard the driver. Two, she knew me well !

Anyway, the combination of those two factors got me to stop moving, at the speed of light. Perhaps faster. I stopped. Waved back to her. Indicating that I am not moving an inch further, and she stood right there, in a distance, crossing arms.

In that moment, there was transformation. Of the howling scare on her face, transforming into a solid stare, perhaps indicating what would happen if I did. These of course are moments of silence and depth in our marital life!

As a consolation, I pulled out my camera, and started clicking.

Which is when this young mother walked past me with her kid in one hand and the camera in the other. I was aghast. She walked right past me, straight to the ledge. Got her kid to sit down, she sat down too. Two steps to her back or one step to the left would mean she would go down thousands of feet ! A concealed squeal escaped my lips.

She pulled out her camera and started taking pictures ! I stared in awe. I turned to gesture to the missus to see whats happening only to see that she her face was buried in her palms, not wanting to see what was going on.

That is end of the story. Obviously the lady, after clicking few pictures, stood up, looked around and walked away. Impervious to all the hyper pumping that she caused in at least two hearts.

What we didn't know was that this scene was to take several avatars and play itself out many times over during our trip. The settings were different but the theme was the same. Parents that seemed inclined to expose kids to what could be called, a certain 'spirit of adventure'.

Which took me back to how kids are brought up in the households of neighbours / friends / relatives and colleagues back home here. For instance, would anybody let their kids go that close to a ledge? Am not so sure. ( You would notice that I am conveniently side stepping the angle of 'Would anyone go close to a ledge').

Which is when the mind darted to a comment that an auto rickshaw driver made some time back, while discussing seat belts. The sum and substance of what he said was this : Daily life in itself was such a challenge, adventurous and risk-prone.

He spoke of his kids who were about in their pre-teens years old, who carry the satchels, cross the highway, take a public bus, at peak hour just to reach school. Everyday. For the past several years.

Now, quite obviously, crossing a highway will not be at a zebra crossing but just looking at and dodging traffic and rushing through. The public bus perhaps has all of four inches of feet space available. Of potholes, the less said the better.

With an arid tongue and matter of fact tone, he said, 'This safety & risk business is for soft people like you who live in high rises. Beyond a point, nothing matters'. The rest of the journey was populated with such conversation laced with moments of silence.

Quite often, I wonder how kids are brought up here. Forget risk. Do kids in modern day metro go out and catch fresh air, throw themselves at nature, run with gay abandon...? Like we used to ? I am not sure.

Ofcourse, I wonder what you think..

Mission Peak memories

2011-07-31T21:30:00.004+05:30

Mission Peak is a peak that is Fremont, California. Well, I scaled it. This post is about that. That’s about it. This post holds no intrigue or a labyrinthine weave of how a chief minister can be such a stickler for the chair, or how an MP can be so brazen about claiming dementia. And if you want to take it International you could well tune to a circus show over debit and credit in the US of A !

As said, this post wont scale those heights. Mission Peak is a 2500 odd feet ‘peak’. If that ‘I scaled it’ in the first line of this post, makes you imagine a Tom Cruise kind of mission, well, that’s the as farther than Pluto if Earth was about truth !

‘Mission Peak’ has a long winding trail that takes you all the up. Forever on an incline mode. Steadily. Gradually. For what seemed like an eternity. One early Sunday morning, prompted by an infectious enthusiasm that friends put on display; the ‘climb’ was attempted.

For someone used to running the ‘hills’ in Powai, this wasn’t exactly tough. But it wasn’t a walk in the park either. It seemed as though it was going to take forever. Occasionally, when the head turned to take a look at the distance covered, the long winding road with people, ant like in size and movement all making their way up was indeed a sight.

There was chatter. Endless chatter. Wafting in the air was Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Telugu, Malayalam. And of course, English. Of course there were other languages that was gibberish to me. Well, that’s besides the point. The point is, that was my convoluted attempt at letting readers know that there were a lot of people !

Watching people as they climb turned out to be an exercise that I highly recommend that everyone should indulge in, if you want to get to the REAL story. Well that’s another convoluted attempt to let you know that people who overtook us in the initial parts of the climb had such sophisticated accents that the TOEFL test examiners would be proud of. Only to lose their accents and being reduced to ‘amma’, ‘meri ma’, and other forms of calling out their mothers / other relatives in their native tongue.

There were the others, with dogs. Some of which, could have passed for cows, save their bark. There were a few who were cycling all the way up. Yet others, running. Young. Old. Men. Women. Straight. Gay. Bisexual. (well, the last two, are assumptions. Just in case you were wondering). All of that, in all shapes and sizes.

Right at the top is this pole with multiple openings protruding at different ends. Looking patently odd and misplaced. Even as I was standing there, drinking in lung fulls of fresh air and blue sky, one ‘dude’ was explaining this to another.

Panting, yet talking. Producing funny sounds, further complicated by a phoney accent. From whatever I could gather, this was a ‘preset view finder’ of sorts. You could look at Fremont through one of them. Milipitas from another. And so on.

Boring I thought.

You climb all the way up to catch up the sky and air. Not to look at specific parts of the city. Which was when one of them exclaimed, ‘They don’t have a zoom facility’ he said. I instantly recognized that voice. It was the one whose accent slipped as the climb heightened. Perhaps he had left some food in the microwave to warm up and he wanted to zoom in and find out how they were cooking !

The place itself was pristine. The sun came out bright and early. It isn’t often that one gets to stand above the clouds. If nothing else, paving the way for a few snaps and loads of memories.

The energy & enthusiasm that the group I went with, brought along, was so infectious that if enthusiasm was a disease, we would have had an epidemic of sorts. We discussed myriad topics so much so, if we assumed the role of an Indian MP, we could have actually got a few laws passed!

So the next time, if you belong to the tribe, that shakes its head upon reading what I write and mutter ‘this is heights’, may I suggest you try ‘Mission Peak’ ?

Cops !

2011-07-28T21:53:00.005+05:30

You cant miss their impressive height nor their majestic gait.

If at all you missed the height or the gait, the impressive turnout will get your attention. With clothes that fit to the T and muscles that show their contours although firmly behind those impressive uniforms

If you miss all of that, you sure must be fully blind to miss the half dozen accompaniments that hang from his sides. I mean, from the big leather belt. A gun, which perhaps could be a taser but could kill by the looks. A baton . Half a dozen pouches, with God knows what in them. A wireless microphone or a walkie talkie. A torch that perhaps can double up as a hammer. On top of all this, sometimes, a tie !

With all that on display, it is but natural that cars slow down, almost as an auto response when a cop car shows up in the rear view mirror. Wouldn’t it be an insult if the slowing down to all the ‘costume’ if the slowing down didn’t happen ?

I spoke to an officer once. No, no. No hanky panky. Just asking for directions. The response was to the point, respectful yet with a firmness that flowed !

You cant help but contrast the policemen that patrol Indian roads. Out of shape and out of favour of public opinion. Definitely not an inspiring presence!

On bikes and cycles. A faded khaki and heavy boots that adorn feet more worn out by providing ‘bandobust’ duty as some sundry cavalcade is supposed to whiz by ! Equipped with the most potent weapon in the world : a lathi !

Sure, the cops in the US were impressive. By how they talked, looked what they travelled in, and what they carried along. Am sure they are brave men, who inspire confidence in a society and are faced with innumerable challenges.

Yet, it is men like Tukaram Omble that stand tall. In the mind, that is. An unmentionable salary, unthinkable equipment, yet blessed with an undeniably indomitable attitude. An attitude that causes holding on to an assault rifle’s barrel that was pointed at him, even as a terrorist was spraying bullets! And just not letting go, thereby giving India the lone captured terrorist in the Mumbai attack of 2008

Such men's stature has nothing to do with their real height. Making them taller than the tallest of them all. Often forgotten. Many other times, ignored. Yet, rolling up the sleeve and tapping the lathi on the floor to enforce order.

And sometimes, holding on to a barrel of a gun and falling, just so that a country can stand.

Loss Vegas anyone ?

2011-07-23T07:42:00.010+05:30

It was many days after I had safely reached Indian shores. With a distinct south Indian twang sparkling he asked, “You went to USA aah ?“ The 'aah' intonation at the end singularly transforming a simple statement to a deep question.

Before any word was uttered, came the next question like a spirited response from a casino slot machine, “So did you go to Loss Vegaas ?”

A chuckle could barely stay within the throat. Just about barely. The chuckle had nothing to do with the pronunciation of LOSS VEGAAS, for in many ways he was right. It was indeed ‘Loss’ Vegas, Of course, the loss is just monetary! But then, relating to the USA through one city, and THIS city, was indeed a unique world view which firmly registered in the mind.

“So did you have dinner with Obama ?”

“ East Coast or the West Coast ?”

“White House ?”

“Dude, did you do Hollywood ?”

Those were the most asked questions. Yes, most asked. Some asked with a tinge of sarcasm, yet others soaked in curiosity and the rest as ‘time-pass’ conversation leads. Several of them usually were a conversation starter but this “LOSS VEGAAS “ thing was quite unmatched in getting a smile on the lips many hours after the question was asked and done.

Taxi that could fit a dozen auto rickshaws. Perhaps more!

Vegas is the biggest of mirages in a desert. Its amazing how a city of glitz, pomp, show, tons of bulbs and electricity ( which can be easily expected to light up an entire civilization), gets an aura that many hundred years of history, war, science and such else are (sometimes) dwarfed.

Swarms of people mill around the soul of Las Vegas : the Strip. It a about a 7Km long stretch, which houses a host of casinos and accompanying avenues for a spectrum of vice that can stretch from the harmless to the horrid ! ‘Fun’ is euphemistic representation!

From air, the city sports an incongruous array of buildings that juts out into the day sky with an absent elegance that seems typical of an absent minded planner who thought up of shapes and structures half in delusion and the rest between bouts of amnesia.

The strip

Come night, the picture is different. The bulbs get their glow presumably from wires that carry electricity. The amount of electricity that Las Vegas uses up in one night is what the city of Dhaka requires for a three three years, two months, three weeks and four days. Ofcourse, that’s not corroborated. But it wont be too much of a surprise if Las Vegas beats that number hands down.

A city of show, pomp, pageantry and an atmosphere that could fit the description of a “continuous carnival” donning an air festivity !

If you have a coconut tree in your backyard that’s world famous, the chances that Las Vegas will have an imitation of it are very high. There are re-creations galore. From the pyramids to the Statue of Liberty to Eiffel Tower to the waterways of Venice, all of them glow with pumped up lights.

Indoor Venice

laser on the roof

yet another casino / hotel

Each of them light up the night sky and shine through, sucking up their share of electricity. Which I suspect must grow in trees or something.

Of course, every single one of them housing Casinos !

Now there are far better traveled people. But there is a doubt that lurks, if any from the most well traveled will be able to spell a city in which the world comes together with such focus and seriousness. Americans, Indians, Japanese, Oriental folks, Australian, Pakistani etc etc, all with singular intention of LOSING money!

The casions are indistinguishable from each other with carpets that seem jaded and an air that has a distinct swirl of alcohol and other vice. Sorry,'fun'. The casinos are large, stretching from one street to another and its easy to physically get lost in just trying to get to the bathroom!

Every casino has slot machines which would seem to extend till as far as your eyes can wince and see. Like someone standing at a beach and wincing to see beyond the horizon !

Of course absolutely normal people with such keen intent, sit in front of those slot machines, intently gazing at the screen and trying their luck at fortune. Be it 2.00 AM or 8.34 AM or 2.46 PM or 5.57 PM or 10.32 PM! 24 hours is small change for an outside possibility of fortune. Electronic ringers and the occasional sounds of ringing coins populate the thick dark air.

And an endless choice of casinos that you could enter, and go through practically the same experience. Water fountains, street performers, elevators at street corners that add to the glitter that crowds & electricity bring to the strip!

After having a good soaking in of the night life at the McCarran Airport welcomes the dulled eye with a bright look. After the customary security checks ( on which a separate blogpost is due ), the comfortable chairs just before boarding could seem empty. Which is when the eyes will notice the slot machines.

Gambling ! In the Airport. After security check. Of course, reams of passengers dutifully pulling the handle at the slot machine. A fortune before the flight takes off, perhaps is an allure with only heavy hand luggage as a deterrent!

laser ads on buildings

After hearing out all of this, he asks, “You make some money in the gambling or no?” The ‘or no’ uttered with dead seriousness. Every word oozing sarcasm. It was the quintessential Mark Anthony moment which was seized upon to deliver a short spiel on gambling, the waste of money, human greed and such else.

A loud facepalm ( which perhaps could have been heard in Las Vegas ) was followed by his quiet exit. Left unsaid was perhaps a a cryptic comment like “you go to Las Vegas for bubbling around. Not for a Bhajan session”.

Which is true. Of course !

Honour in Strawberry picking

2011-07-19T06:17:00.003+05:30

It was a perfect summer morning. We were driving from somewhere to somewhere in California. This big signboard was significant enough to grab and hold the attention of folks in the car. STRAWBERRY PICKING.

In no particular hurry to get anywhere the mind didn’t need any effort to get enticed to alight and set afoot to do some picking. Strawberry picking !

It’s got some level of physical activity for all in the family. For the kids to run around. For the adults to run after the kids. For adults to become kids. And for kids to chase the new found adult kids. In between, of course, plucking and heaping up strawberries in small containers.

There were very few instructions to follow. This board illustrated all that was needed to be done. Which was as elaborate as : Come here : Go pick : Come back & Weigh : Pay up : Go !

Pick we did. With some gusto. Any first timer could have mistaken us for folks that have never seen strawberries before or for folks that have been kept restrained for long. ~~Slowly~~ the baskets kept filling. The red strawberries glistened to the background sounds of cars and big Harleys whooshing by, which in themselves were dwarfed by the shrieks of joy in finding a bigger strawberry !

Soon we were done. There was enough energy left in the nieces to pluck the entire strawberry. It was us adults, who were tired. And folks like me still calibrating the dollar-rupee equation and wondering how much we would have plucked for !

That brought me face to face with the ‘honour till’ as they call it. The concept is simple again. It goes like this.

a. You bring in the strawberries that you have plucked

b. You weigh them yourself

c. You calculate how much to pay

d. You open the till ( ‘cash box’, as is better known in our part of the world )

e. You pay the money

There is no 'cashier'. In fact, no one from the store is around. There are no cameras. Nothing. The folks just trust you to weigh correctly and pay appropriately. Guess what, we lived up to their trust, in right earnest. Paying to the last dime. That perhaps is the model. Trust people to pay and they will ! That was interesting. To say the least.

Its about a month ago that we did all of this. The rain drenched Mumbai air provides a distinctly different flavor to the senses. Much different and much enjoyable too. Yet, dipping into memories of red berry dotted rows of green, is done with no difficulty.

The days when adults became kids and kids remained kids are not days that are forgettable. The expanse of nature and the fresh clean best complimented by an expanse in the trust of the ‘honour till’. The clean blue skies and the fresh stillness of farmland only to be punctuated by those shouts of joy from such adorable nieces.

Well, some memories are truly priceless.

Names & Numerals

2011-07-12T06:24:00.006+05:30

Truth be told, my math (amongst many other things that can go without mention) isn’t top notch. Well, let me put it mildly that way, and leave it there. But whatever little understanding that I have had around math was ably aided by scanning number plates and their three / four digit numbers on licnece plates.

As a kid, vehicle license plates and their three/ four numbers that Indian number plates had, held sway over my attention. Permutations, combinations, additions, multiplications on were best matched by a keen interest in automobiles!

That fancy for number plates, I discovered has remained ever so dormant. That discovery happened because the dormancy was disturbed, in the US !

While most plates were of the regular alpha numeric variety, there were some else that that arched the eyebrow, evinced a laugh or even evoked sympathy in human condition. When none of that happened, it plain popped the eye out !

Thus scanning of number plates of vehicles that were passing wasn’t just another passing interest but quickly ascending ( the missus calls it ‘ descending’) into a profound obsession that I could have easily passed for a car jacker or an insurance surveyor or a cop!

Some elementary macro dissection of the number plate. The full name of the state is present in a particular font. You are allowed to have symbols, alphabets and letters. The plate could get a different hue depending on a 'theme' ( for want of a better word ). " A memorial 'theme' " could get you a different background on your plate than what a "Olympic training center'theme' " could get. Or even ones that are 'themed' after a college / university that you went to.

A portion of the fee thats collected goes to that college / Olympic training center etc ( the list is long and myriad ). In case it interests you more than this, the list is here. And in the larger scheme of things, $ 75 per anum, well, seems ok !

Every spotting of a car with a fancy plate got the heart to beat a trifle faster. Sometimes evoking a strain on the neck to see the full plate or look at the driver to reconfirm deepest suspicions or just about see if the driver was for real !

On another note, these license plates while giving me new vocabulary, haven’t quite helped my math much. The closest that I came to math computation was spotting and counting ‘5Punjab’ ‘6Punjab’ ‘7Punjab’ ! That was elementary, even by my own towering mathematical standards ! Nevertheless, Name plates that beamed from BMWs and tangoed from the Toyotas stood out on Californian roads. !

Which brings me to another subject. The Hindustan Times speaks of number plates in Delhi that is going for as high as Rs.5 lakhs ( $ 11,200 )! All for a string of numbers. Imagine what creativity can be unleashed , if the US style is adopted. And of course, imagine the money spinner that it can become!

Sporting stylish license will become a super cool thing. Ad gurus will start specializing in it. Artists will thrive. Mainstream media will have a program going for it. And like all other sundry programs including the weather report, millions will stream to watch it.

Occasionally, or rather, frequently, some Sam in a whimsical mood to impress his wife or make up with her, could have his name plate bearing "SamYAni". That could get the moral police up in arms for "public display of affection" or some such convoluted interpretation of a some archaic rule that caught a Britishers fancy many eons ago.

Of course, there would be protests and prime time national coverage with four blokes having a shouting match and the winner being the one with highest decibel levels!

I mean, just imagine, how many salaries can this number plate rule pay. It can bring about a change in the economy, I say !

Ah, but I digress. As usual. The number plate I so strained to capture on camera but with very little success was of this lady on a Harley Davidson, as she whooshed pass us. Her plate just said : 'O Not Hiz'

Similar differences !

2011-07-09T21:46:00.004+05:30

Walking by. Or may be flying past !

I have been asked ‘what was ONE moment / event in your US trip, that stays with you?’ Prefacing the answer with ‘choosing one is difficult’ is as close to truth as truth itself. Not only that, it is fashionable you see. Any famous director worth his film roll has these first words in response to ‘whats the best movie that you have directed?’!

In my trip, the grandeur of man made creations stand tall in memory best matched by the moments spent soaking up oodles of natural beauty and the sheer majesticity of nature, left less touched. Those were truly moments that took my breath away. Quite obviously a few will get detailed in these pages.

While those moments took my breath away, there were other moments that filled me with LIFE. Much as the mind races to recount the stories of the bay-buildings and beauty, quite unsurpassed as they are, the heart wills to share these other stories.

Stories of people. Moments tucked away in the suppressed mutter of a word, the resounding splendour of a ringing laugh, a quiet exchange of an idea, a shared understanding through a glance, handshakes, brush pasts and many others, all heralding simple conversation! Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Desis, Mexicans, Britons, Australians and many others. And ofcourse, Americans. Including the original Americans!

We met her in the Grand Canyon. Just as we finished our helicopter ride. ‘How was it, she asked ?” The slight quiver of her voice gave away an elderly age that was otherwise hidden by the spontaneity and a joyful zest in her words. That got the conversation started.

‘Mother nature maintains it for us. Like she has been doing for hundreds of years’, she said. With a hand movement that required her to take one hand off the buggy wheel! As we echoed her thoughts and waxed further eloquence, she warmed up ever more.

‘Been living here, ever since I know. Having Mother nature taking care of your backyard is worth it all’. With a wistful twist, she added, ‘She makes the big mountains, small rivers, and smaller people’. Her voice trailed off, allowing silence to complete the sentence !

We chatted for a while, about life, living, giving and contentment. Even as she maneuvered the buggy on a terrain that was tough, sporting an intelligence that was profound and an attitude that was humbling.

The Hualapai people, as they are called, are a native American tribe who live in the mountains of Arizona. Markedly distinct in their features, if not in their costume.

One of the attractions of the Grand Canyon is a skywalk, atop the canyon. Some sort of a cantilever bridge, built on an edge of the Canyon to give people a REAL view ! With strength enough to support 71 filled up Boeing 747s ! Some chutzpah ! Isnt it !?!

skywalk atop the canyon

Viewed by some as a money spinner that is so vital for survival and addressing basic problems that the people face here. Yet others see it as a violation of a sacred land!

Which brings me back to the lady and her sign off statement. I told her that I was Indian as well. But a different Indian !

With a twinkle in her eye, a sparkling smile on her lips and a warm hand placed on my shoulder, she responded, “The more different we seem the more alike we are. We are all from mother nature. Come again young man. It was nice talking to you”

I thought of us and our pangs around ‘development’, tradition, preservation, distractions and such else. It seemed to be the story of the world ! "The more different we seem, the more alike we are !”

Indeed.

The grandest of them all !

2011-07-03T11:24:00.006+05:30

Faced with this choice maze on commencing sharing of the things we saw, the food we ate, the conversations that we had and such else, some logic had to get applied to get the first topic out.

So it was, and this post is about the Grand Canyon ! Imposing.Colourful. Instilling pride in people . Yet, so close to nature. Most importantly something thats stood around for millions of years.

Here is an attempt at perspective building : Imagine building a road that is TWICE the distance of Mumbai – Pune ( which would be a four + hour drive in sane speeds and simple cars). Quickly imagine ensuring that the road is 30 kilometers wide. Yes. 30 full kilometers wide. Even before that can settle down, think of digging the ground 6000 feet to make this road !

That’s the size of the Grand Canyon. 446 kilometers long. 30 Kilometers wide. 6000 feet deep ! All engineered by mother nature’s masterstrokes. One amongst them being the Colorado river whose continuous flow is said to have created this art in the mountain with corrosion as a tool!

Logical that the posts commence with the Grand Canyon. Isnt it !?!

As we stood on the west rim of the Grand Canyon and looked at the myriad shades of crimson on a series of walls that seemed to extend forever and beyond, greed announced its arrival with a desire to take a closer look. Perhaps touch the sands of the Colorodo river? At a depth of 6000 feet?

America singularly stands out for being a land of choice. If a desire is implanted in the mind accompanied with a wherewithal to act on it, there is always a way to make it happen! At a cost. Ofcourse !

In what can be called a truly Californian moment of budgetary rashness, wringing the last dime in the wallet dry, we chose to have an unplanned helicopter ride.

The ride operators promised to fly us from the western rim of the Canyon, all the way down to base where the Colorodo river runs its meandering course. Plus, take a boat ride in the river! The allure to see the work of mother nature over time, was simply irresistible. We signed up at a speed that could have blinded Lewis Hamilton.

Every wring of the wallet was worth it. The rock pattern dramatically changes colour every few feet the chopper drops, like a synchronous seamless background screen change in a show. At the end of what seemed like an unlikely landing point, the chopper landed and we were face to face with the Colorado

The boat ride in the meandering river showed much of the continuous work at beauty by corrosion! As the June Sun showered his unmerciful rays with a protracted wistfulness, beads of sweat showed up on tanned foreheads, copious sun tan lotions notwithstanding. All of it compensated by a gluttonous feast for the eye and a strange peace in the heart !

The big eagle !

To think of the Grand Canyon a month later, still evokes the same feeling. Of an exceedingly fetching view with a history that can really show what ‘long long ago’ could mean !

Please scroll below for earlier posts on the US Trip. Or find them here

Back from the Bay Area !

2011-06-30T05:59:00.005+05:30

So there ! Am back. Armed with a little more than the usual courage to wallow in prose hoping that jet lag and such else, will tug at the sympathetic sides of your brain and aid you in giving me some more allowance.

The Bay Area is a beautiful place. Clean air, copious food, cool breeze, warm people and an eclectic mix of experiences have left me pouting the good life in the the US of A to any who would care to ask me ‘how have you been’! With a preponderance that can only be matched by the now pronounced pot belly that is making its presence felt, best supplemented by the dark circles under the eye!

I come armed with stories and pictures. Of a land that’s far away yet seems so close. So different yet so alike. So familiar yet so distinct. Ofcourse, these stories will find a way to get to the blog. Or so I hope.

My Grandmother used to tell me many stories. Amongst them, one darts to the forefront is about an ass who starved to death. Oh, no. He wasn’t practicing yoga or whatever. He starved to death because of the two bales of hay that were kept on his either side . Yet, the ass that he was, died in braying glory, unable to choose which side of the hay he start his food with.

Places seen. People spoken to. History that’s not so long ago. Natural beauty that seems to have been around forever. Contexts. Conversations. Reflections. The pictures that abound the hard drive and the stories that jump around in my head has lead me to the same problem the other ass had : The problem of plenty! Which leaves me reeling about what and where to begin !

I flew Korean air. But time flew some other jet, that flew far faster ! The only time in the entire trip when time seemed to go on frame-by-frame slow motion mode was on the 24 hour return journey. For a variety of obvious reasons !

But am back. Back from order to chaos. From dollar to rupees. ( My multiplication skills have jumped manifold, especially if something is to multiplied by 47). From silence to noise. From left hand drives to right hand drives. From tissue paper to the good old mug in the bathroom.

Am back home and feeling good that am back home !

PS: Please scroll down for earlier posts on this trip, or read them here and here.

Conspicuous Absences

2011-06-20T01:51:00.009+05:30

The trip to the US continues. The roads are clean. Traffic is orderly. The level of orderliness merits a separate post ! Every other street corner seems to be replete with an effort to blank out 'grey' and possible ambiguity, announcing several aspects, including one that announced 'uneven surface'.

When your immediate context is Mumbai or Chennai or any other city in India and you are used to entire valleys (if not Marina trenches) coming up , where roads existed till the night before, to see a sign that announces 'uneven surface' is a matter of great preponderance.

What strikes you most is the absence of people. Vast empty stretches of land, occasionally signalling to you, the existence of life, by a passing car ! That 'once in a while' passing car is an important

event, but for which the entire neighbourhood could pass for still image resident in a tourist's camera. All of this ofcourse, in California, the most populous state in the US !

India has 1/3rd the size of the US and three times the population !!! That could define 'double whammy' perfectly. Every other factual comparison however obvious morhps into a tiny sliver of inconsequential information when viewed through the lens of '1/3rd the size X 3 times the population' !

Ofcourse we have a huge population in India. The entire of population of the state of California is less than the population of just three metros Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata put together. Remember, California is the most populous state !

'Oh we have far too many people' is an argument that can pass muster with consummate ease against any other factual comparison that could be made based on whats seen here and whats missing back home. Perhaps not without reason. However, that argument doesn't fly all the way and gets a rather specious shade when its thrown as a defense for any and every sore pore !

The other obvious absence is 'litter' ! Boards which carry a message '$ 1000 fine for littering' anoint every other crossing. That is a lot of a money and is a Mt.Everest of a financial barrier.

On the same keel, the super efficient garbage collection methods with more than adequate opportunities for people to dispose their litter completes the circle !

Every house has three bins for three types of waste. ( Yard, Recyclable and non-recyclable). Trash gets collected over a week. On one pre-scheduled day, trash shows up on the roads. In orderly trash cans like this.

Specifications on how and where to place them, can pop an eyeball. But when a large truck comes along and does some serious robotics ( said to be equipped with cameras et al to scan through the waste ) to pick the cans with precision that's seen in an automated factory, the necessity of following specifications become obvious.

In a flash the trash is taken. Not a drop spilled. No drips on the road.

Perhaps employing all of three people. Driving three different trucks for three different trash cans. Quite obviously the capital expenditure on such trucks and technology could trump full economies of countries. Obviously this is not recommended in India !

What perhaps is recommended for India is another form of cleansing to begin with, which you, the reader, can arrive at far accurate conclusions than what can ever be articulated on this blog!

On another note, for many ages now this blogger has been given enough of an education by his missus that cleanliness begins at home. Only now, does he have some response. Which could go like....'Sure, cleanliness is next to Godliness. But for 'Godmanliness', there is no answer !' America gives courage to the married man.

Whatsay !?!

The other post is here

From The west of the west !

2011-06-14T22:25:00.006+05:30

The cobwebs are getting dusted and its all just settling. I pick the pieces and start writing. Again ! Many reasons can fill in the silence in this space as a cogent explanation that range from 'plain laziness' to 'bloggers block'. However, none gives it the exalted status of an exotic excuse in my mental map like 'travelling' !

Yes. I write this from the west of the western world. The 'Bay Area' as they call it. Our time here has been one of travel, catching up with the family. Resulting in several things, the chief amongst them being a mind that is calming down and sorting out priorities in life that REALLY matter. Quite obviously, this blog is back in action !

There are countless stories to tell of this land. A land that I have heard of ever so often. A landscape that we have attempted to explore by road, by sea and by air. Criss crossing a few states, experiencing snow, rain and Sun. A landscape thats ever so familiar yet ever so distant. A people that are polite, courteous and let you be.

I have been warned enough that I could well seen to be singing paeans to the American way of life, in a rather blind sort of a way. Other well meaning friends have cautioned me against looking at this ONLY through an India centric lens. A few others have encouraged me to just stand, stare and absorb for the 'the truth is somewhere inbetween'.

Over a few next posts I am going to tell it like I have seen it and experienced. I just read that statement again, and it sounds like this blog is going to give some serious competition to wikileaks or something of that ilk ! Bah ! Regular readers know how farther away from that truth that statement is !

Ok here are some immediates. The tongue has been smitten by Starbucks coffee. However, the mouth refuses to close from the awe triggered 'open' position it took, looking at the sizes. 'Tall'. 'Grande'. 'Venti'. 'Trenta' are how the sizes are named ! 'Trenta' is about a year and two months of my consumption. Well, almost.

More posts are coming. Will try and keep this space as updated as possible, snatching time between travel and such else.

Oh yes, there is something else that I have enjoyed quite a bit here.

Pushing the button to stop the traffic is cool just to let us cross the road. Back in Mumbai, an outstretched arm to stop is all that is needed to stop a humungous truck. ( Well, you are reduced to a small newspaper snippet, If the truck doesnt stop).

So people, I have been pushing this button, with glee that perhaps adorns the face of a rogue dictator when he pushes missile button !

Schwarzeneger is fading here. But then, I'll be back !

Moped memories

2011-04-19T06:20:00.002+05:30

‘That’s the morning round’, says the milkman when you chat him up. He is quite happy. And sports a perdurable smile that is instantaneously strikingly envy provoking! You notice that it’s a can load of milk. Another can on one side. Yet another in the front.

Zipping in and out of narrow streets. Every household’s door knocked and delivered. An important vehicle in the distribution chain.

That causes you to wonder. How much can you accomplish in two wheels ? Especially when the two wheels are not big fat wheels that would take you long distances or are powered by engines that would equal an entire top notch stable.

There was a time, when going to school in a ‘moped’ was the thing! When classmates used to haul themselves and those heavy satchels into the school bus, you would dream of ‘zipping by’. It is completely another matter though, that the needle on the speedometer moving up by another centimeter would mean the engine having to quiver like a frail patient in an air-conditioned room with 106 degree fever and ratchet up a noise that could wake up someone in Hawaii.

But if anyone cared, it wasn’t you. For, you had a moped! You had mobility. You had freedom. You were a teenager looking into the future filled with possibilities and the two thin wheels of the moped had ‘arrived’ you.

Like all things, this status changed. In a blink of an eye, the big bad bikes replaced mopeds as the aspirational status symbol for boys. As life progressed and as the boy morphed into a man the moped was a relic, alive only in his memory.

But then, the moped continues to live on. Like with the milkman. In a very different avatar though. The moped had now dons the mantle of a partner for businesses.

Quite often, slipping to don the role of a load carrier.

These are small retailers. Hoarding their mopeds with merchandise, that any lay person would think that one more gram could appear to break the chassis. That’s when the man will haul himself atop all of his merchandise and drive off with a palpable disaffection for any sentiments and focused solely on getting ahead with business.

Safe travel is fortuitous and living is more than just merely ‘getting by’! The milkman and the shopkeeper represent a world that not many peep into. Taking for granted all that’s delivered at home when the only bones that are to be moved are those in the fingers, to dial a number.

But there is world out there. Still on the moped. Underpowered and over-delivering ! Spare a thought. Say hello. Sprinkle a smile. Pass an encouraging word. Give way..

If not for anything else, atleast for those moped memories from those teenage years!

Means, meaning and change !

2011-04-10T23:21:00.004+05:30

A twitter friend informs that a Singapore friend a store carries a bowl with an announcement “if you fear change, leave it here” ! Ah, change ! That universal constant.

Finding change is difficult. All the time. In the organization. Or in the wallet.

There was a time when a handful of such coins would get you a fair distance. But those were times when inflation was something that you did to a balloon or a cycle tyre !

The modern day frenzy of glitz, glamour and big ticket acquisitions, these coins don’t curry any favour. You run the risk of being politely told to keep the change that you left behind for the waiter, if the change was nothing more than a grand jingle of a fistful of coins !

There are those that rue “For 10 ps you could get an ice cream. For 25 the town bus would traverse the distance that would do the milestone proud”. Ofcourse, people from a generation ahead would talk about ‘annas’ that used to have far more bang for the coin.

In a process of evolution, these are becoming relics of the past. A couple of years ago, while exploring the Daulatabad fort a young boy tugged at the camera bag. “Psst..want to buy old coins ?” It was much later that I learnt that the ‘cloak of secrecy’ was a class act. A ploy to work on the ‘genuine’ quotient of all what was sold.

There was no way of identifying if the coins were fake or otherwise. They all looked faded, oddly shaped and interesting. The missus was appalled that I was even pondering exchanging coins that had ‘no value’ with hard currency that would set her back by an arm and a leg.

Someday, these coins will be a collectors item. Out of circulation. Called antique pieces. But that’s the story of life, isn’t it !?! These coins, if they had vocal chords, what stories would they tell. Of endless toil to acquire.

Inevitably wrapped in those instances, stories of how ‘means’ superseded ‘meaning’ !

I write this pondering about life. The setting sun is taking the Sunday with him. Tomorrow is Monday. A busy week ahead.

Theres loads to do. But that’s not going to stop me from wishing you a meaningful week ahead. By all means !

Yes We Are !

2011-04-03T22:34:00.003+05:30

For a month and a half the nation has been huddled in conversation. You have noticed it. For everywhere from the office canteen, to official meetings to even your own bedroom this topic has made silent entry.

From wickets to balls. From heavy bats to bad bounce. Seam to spin ! Everything of such nature and beyond. The frenzy that accompanies newscasts, has had ready made fodder, for they have been quick to assemble an array of cricketers that once ran between the wickets to now give commentary on the ones that do!

Suddenly one Friday, your team beats Australia. The ensuing Wednesday they beat Pakistan. The following Sunday Sri Lanka is downed. Suddenly, the nation is crowned World Champions.

It’s a moment in cricketing history that must not escape the pages of this blog and hence must be written about.

The last several months have seen several scams. Parliament was held to ransom. A government that seems inept. A parents accused of murdering their own daughter. A overlaying general apathy that seems to have progressed as terminal cancer across the breadth of the population. The list is incomplete, incongruous, progressively more gross. Heaping many permutations of ‘oh-what-will-get-inflicted-on-us-today’ kind of a feeling. Everyday.

This was a divided country. Thick lines of religion interlaced with politics and served with an overarching base ingredient of corruption and moral degradation, over very many years added to continuous woe and misery.

Well, all of the above remain. Infact, nothing has changed. Not the cases that have been filed. The corrupt judges have not had a change of heart. The colourful politicians and their ever so creative means to greater means perhaps has only got new boosts.

Yet, for a few brief hours, the nation suspends its despondence and celebrates. On a sultry Saturday night every square in the country resembles the Tahrir square of Egypt. The nation today erupts in unanimity.

As the composed eyes of the captain scans the stadia to know of the six that is hit indeed clears the ropes, the slum dwellers clap and hoot. The rich pump their scotch drenched viens with little of the refinement that they usually swear by. Hindus hug muslims. Buddhists pump their fists with energy.

Soon, cars, scooters, bikes all pour into the road. Waving the Indian flag and shouting Vande Mataram.

The old reminisce 1983 even as the young don’t care anymore. They have a new story to tell. Men jump as though they have been injected with fresh bouts of testosterone.Women hug and hoot with frenzy that would befit little girls in school. The twitter feed is continuous.

Politicians are going slow in their campaigning. Airplanes have gone empty. Governments declare holidays. SMS messages pour in. “We have won” is the overriding theme, as though the victory is a result of the dint of hard labour of every single Indian.

But then, perhaps. That’s not too far from the truth.

This victory perhaps belongs to the faceless Indian cricket fan. Yes, the one that stands in queue to endure lathis and collect just one of the measly 4000 tickets on sale. The faceless fan that will wear the same T-shirt just so that we win !

Oh don’t forget those Non Resident Indians who beat the time zones and zone into You Tube, Facebook, twitter and whatever they could get shreds of information from ! And the abundance of others that borrow money to travel and cheer the team ! The fan puts all else, far below the pecking order that has only one entity up there : The Indian cricket team !

Today a billion people watched. For a moment the despondence disappears. People hug each other and laugh their hearts out. The tireless efforts to divide us all usually succeeds. This time there is some respite ! Our problems awaits us. The cases. The politicians. The judges. The corrupt and the corrupted. The vain and the vanity prone.

Yes. But that’s tomorrow. For today, we have won. We are world champions. As the fledgling hands of my almost four year old nephew struggling to hold a plastic bat, shows the strain, a loud screech escapes his lips : ‘I have never seen such a match in my life”. All of almost four years. Mind it !

Standing as tall as the TV stand, just as his dad claps and his mom hoots. Tomorrow, reality will drift back into our consciousness. But today, we are world champions.

Yes we are.

Wisdom in a truck..

2011-03-28T06:15:00.005+05:30

The colour and pageantry of India is a subject of a deep discussion for anyone who lands from a foreign soil. It has always been a comment with sincere and perpetual wonder, often causing ceaseless head shaking and a breathless ‘its so colourful ..’

What was so colourful here didn’t dawn on me for a long while. But, enlightenment can dawn at odd places and often arrives unannounced. The Bodhi tree for instance would have been another tree until Buddha sat underneath it ! Or take the case of the like the just-another-apple that brought appledom great fame by falling on Newton’s head!

Well, read on !

A sultry evening of fiddling with the camera had an interesting picture in the view finder. A moving truck. In all red splendour. As a cleaner hung on to in what appeared to be a rather precarious position. To me, that is. For him, he didn’t seem to have a care in the world as he sashayed like an emperor in his bathtub, with confidence only fit of a trapeze artist in a Russian circus !

Sruprise surprise, I soon lost the plot of staying clued on to the chap that was hanging by the door, but was hooked onto pageantry of the rather pedestrian form of transportation for goods!

As the finger clicked away, beaming red truck carrying what looked like gravel suddenly became an object of wonder. Go on, play close attention to the picture. Play with me, ok ? Go on an spot these for yourself.

The trishul on the bonnet

The yellow eagle on the bonnet

The multi coloured fenderThe chains that hang

The picture of ‘kumb’ on the sides

The invocation for profit (above the headlamps !)

The same invocation (written colourfully in the head )

The Triad of Red-Green-Yellow ( three ) near the windscreen

The Three night lamps kind of bulbs on the header

The psychedelic designs on the header

Ofcourse, all in the name of God !

The intricate curls in the brain could be filled with hyperactivity to articulate a cogent utilitarian reason. Those three bulbs you see ? or for that matter, those chains that hang ? Or the psychedelic design of the header? And so on. Except ofcourse, well, the cultural leaning towards colour !

The truck was oblivious to the zoom lens in action. A rash swerve announcing a turn and bearing the blue design on its behind ! What a combination you would imagine ! A bright red on the bonnet and a bright blue to compliment that would seem an eerie combination as a shirt-trouser combination but somehow this truck seemed to pull it off with elan !

Ofcourse, the tale doesn’t end there, if only you care to look. Yellow and red design layering on the rear may seem out of place for the rather dull gravel in the back but, don’t they make a pretty picture. The ubiquitous ‘Horn Please’, some flowers, and two seemingly replica landscape paintings! Landscape paintings!

If there were any questions in my mind about how colourful a land we are, well, those were dispelled with disdain by another swerve of the truck. Considering the plain monstrous trucks that ply the highways of foreign lands, and where only one man precariously hangs by the door : Arnold Schwarzenegger !

When the eye starts looking, the colour and art that thrives in our everyday lives isn’t funny. Sample this designer danglers that adorn another truck’s door.

And ofcourse, intricate artwork to back it up. If so much of colour can go into porting gravel and such else, we sure were worthy of the tag of a ‘colourful’ country !

Well, that’s the wisdom that came in a truck !

In public interest !

2011-03-22T21:23:00.005+05:30

Pirates. Robbers. Thugs. Mafia dons. Hoodlums. For a normal person, these words would get the adrenalin ready to flow. Either in flight or fight. Movies over the years have heaped on us villainy in such abundance that even the nicest guy in town can be the subject of an average mind’s serious investigation, because of a shuffle of feet or a lurking look!

Whats caused this recollections of the criminal kind.

There was a mail from the Income Tax department which let me know that I was eligible to a tax refund of Rs.40,135/-. Now, the amount, a mail coming in from the IT department and all of that, should have relegated the issue to the status of ‘get real and move on in life’!

But.

Rs.40135/- was a mouthwatering amount. The scenario outlined was so plausible. ‘typing in a letter A instead of G makes your incorrect..’ and that seemed tailor made for types like me. Types that perpetually are in a race to outdo themselves in such stuff. The mail harmlessly had a ‘click here’ sweet spot. Before the mind could say t-h-i-n-k , the finger went ‘click click’ as an embodiment of ‘reflex action’ !

Which lead me to this incredible looking website. Having much congruence to the Income Tax season and innocuously asking me the detail of the bank the refund request must be send to. Before you could say j-i-f-f-y, my fingers were on overdrive, I came face to face with the HDFC login page.

The allure of getting what rightfully belonged to me ( a tax refund is about money that belonged to me), saw some ferocious typing ! The keyboard resonating with spirit ! Midway through, reason reappeared. The fingers paused.

"Immobiliere-guessous.com/image/smilies/….." instead of the usual 'netbanking' URL caught my eye. Doubt crept in. The fingers went off the key board as though they were fraught with hot oil ! Realisation dawned that another fluttering presses of a few more keys, I could have been swiped clean of whatever small sums that honour the bank account with their muted presence!

In a short while, colleagues confirmed that it was what they called a phishing attack.

There I sat. With relief plastered all over my face. Realising that I was almost mugged. By someone sitting perhaps languidly infront of a computer screen somewhere ! I was almost mugged by someone who didnt resemble the hoodlum with yellow pants, villainous laugh and a Tata Sumo powered battery of thugs like they show on Tamil movies!

This must have been some wise guy who thought I would cough up my customer ID and password, promising the unthinkable. He sure is a wise guy. Atleast half of one. He almost got me!

So, my bank account remains safe. Atleast so far. Life goes on.

On another note, a dear friend asked me what was the closest that I came to blogging in the ‘interest of the general public’. ‘Socially Responsible blogging’ he emphasised. Almost as an afterthought, he added that he had read several of my posts and made particular mention of “ ‘loo contraptions’ & such other posts of eminence’.

Well, sir, this post is inspired by our conversation. ! In public interest.

On that note people. Beware ! There are many that lurk the net !

Cricket confessions !

2011-03-13T22:43:00.002+05:30

This is cricket season. Everyone is glued to the TV sets. Tweeting simultaneously. Commenting on how squalid Ravi Shastri's commentary is or how queer the pitch is and how this game could be a ‘cracker of the game’.

Ofcourse, expert comments come from people ranging from the next door aunty to the ex-gully cricketer who now spouts a belly and has a ton of stories from ‘my playing days’.

The eloquence that is waxed on players and their performance, is a perpetually swinging pendulum that swings from creative abuses that will shame the insipid listlessness of a laggard bowler and extend all the way to the elevation to a GODly status when a personal milestone is cracked !

Before you label me with definitively pronounced adjectives like ‘unpatriotic’, ‘unfit to be Indian’, let me hasten to add that I follow the game too. Not quite with the same intensity that people put on display in restaurants and public places. And boy who can forget twitter. Tweeting fervently, exhorting others to sit where they are or hold on to their pee until another man scores a century ! ( No, am certainly not making this up).

Am not necessarily an ignorant small towner. My own growing up years saw many a summer day that slipped by in battling bowlers from the next building with utter disrespect for the Sun and searing heat. To hit, to run, to roll arms over irrespective of where the sun was in the sky, as long as he was out there in the sky! Ah, it’s a lovely game. Yeah. G-A-M-E !

Much water has flowed under the bridge since then. Age takes a good catch, always. The hair on my head is receding and whatever is left of it is as stark as the black & white photograph. Cricket is well, different. The frenzy is several time more pronounced. Outlets to wear it on your sleeve, is multi pronged. TV channels are a famished lot without the game. The result: everybody is an expert. Vocally so !

Truth be told, I can never get myself to sit before the TV for many hours on end and confine my exercise to jumping to conclusions, stretching the statistical truth and pushing the country’s luck (exhorting people to stay still and hold their pee)!

I harbor no ill-will against the people that are more passionate. The world is made of all kinds. For long, several well meaning people have popped the obvious question at me : Why ? Why don’t you follow the game as closely ?

For an equally long time, I have either maintained a stoic silence. A silence that could outdo a hermit in deep penance. Or have hidden behind a decorated façade of ‘a game is meant to be sweated out’ argument. Now its time for a confession. The real reason is Statistics !

Yes. Really. Statistics.

The sheer magnitude of statistical trivia that International cricket can spew ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous, perpetually pushing the boundaries of both the sublime and the ridiculous! Quite obviously what is sublime to one has another searching for words that amplify ‘ridiculous’.

‘Dilshan is the seventh batsman to face Abdul Razzak when he is bowling from the Khetaramma end in the Premadasa stadium’.

Well, well. That could well be a rather tame concocted example.

The more informed amongst my friends rattle of statistics that could perk the ears of an encyclopedia maker and could go like “This is the third highest, seventh wicket partnership between Kenya & Zimbabwe, the second highest in in a one day game in Nagpur and is also the seventh highest in all world cups and 293^rd in the history of one day internationals “.

Even as my mouth opens in awe, experience has taught me not to be surprised if someone else strikes a degage pose and throw a rejoinder that could go like “It actually is the 294^th. The 167^th got mired in a controversy because of a thunderstorm which sometimes is not counted…”.

Such powerful stuff is pregnant with poignant potential of sending the partially interested into perpetual coma!

That’s when I go looking for my running shoes.

Broom time !

2011-03-07T22:29:00.004+05:30

This is the broom. Well, for those that think that it is an antiquated instrument that is used only to sweep off the remnant of cow dung or the recalcitrant dead leaf or empty dust, well, you are sadly mistaken. The broom is a mainstream household article. Of considerable eminence.

An article of significance that people cant, don’t and wont do without. Having been used to seeing it used with a casual bend of the body at the hip and an arc of the hand, the ground getting brushed clean in sweeping motions, is part of life !The swish swash sounds back home, herald a new morning. That is if the neighbourhood rooster's silence leaves you wondering if he is having a throat ache, headache. Or perhaps a hangover !

The broom has more social standing than what its put to use for. An item of reverence. An item to be feared. From ghosts to Gods. If you didn’t already know, brooms form part of the offering paraphernalia for a variety of Gods down in the deep south !

Brooms being the Jaguar equivalent for the nether world is often quoted and kept alive by the likes of Harry Potter. Made famous enough to be left at that !

What perhaps is a must mention is the broom’s standing in language! Case in point : An oft quoted usage in Tamil is a two word combination which when roughly translated reads ‘the broom will tear’ ! Which is short form for ‘i-will-lynch-you-with-the-broom-till-the-blood-that-courses-in-your-dirty-veins-oozes-out-or-till-the-broom-tears-apart’. Or something to that effect.

Used with such swirl of the tongue and pitch of the voice, that any gent with an ounce of self respect and quarter of an ounce of pride, will quiver in his boots.

In modern times, urban homes are dotted with the sophisticated ‘vaccum cleaner’. Electricity powered sucking up or blowing away of dust and dirt is a fancy that many households can ill afford to miss, if a certain standing amongst the neighbours has to be maintained. That sure is a far cry from the broom.

At a sophisticated premises, there is a new instrument in use. Seemingly simple yet efficient. The user just had to hold firm and walk about. No swish. No swash. The gloves are spotless.

Indeed we have moved on in life and the broom is steadily getting confined to a certain class of homes in certain parts of the country ! Perhaps good for everybody, for all you know !

But, come contest me on this. Methinks, that the broom will stay put in peoples memories, if not in their homes. A vaccum cleaner as an offering for a God will am sure be promptly rejected by the Gods themselves, and on old lady flying off on a twin tailed contraption like the one above, sure is not going to be endearing on the eye !

If not for anything else, the swirl of the tongue and the pitch of the voice that will spout ‘the broom will tear’ will remain. Whatsay ?

On tracks !

2011-02-20T12:32:00.005+05:30

A number (that could sound improbable) of Mumbaikars travel on these tracks every day. Life revolves around these tracks as they go up and down carrying energy, conversation, laptops, books and such else ! Not to miss the countless hopes of a better life and the unmistakably prodigious body odour.

Bodies pressed against each other, so much so that your nostrils could swirl with smells of hair oil or deodorant depending on your height !

The 8.33 AM local is so much part of the missus’ recollections of her youth. For her and several others like her, life here revolves around the ‘local’. (Are you catching the ‘fast’ was a dialect that I was very slow in catching!)

Perpetual awe descends on the mind at the very thought of the local trains. Legendary as they are, they cart a population that would be equal to the population of Australia in five working days ! To travel in one during ‘peak hours’ requires a certain pugnacious and a drive that escapes simple description.

One look at the beehive bulge of commuters that jut out of a doorway as the tall towers and standard slum whizz by, can considerably shake up a mind that's foreign to Mumbai.

Occasionally, (which would translate to once-in-a-day), the newspapers carry a story of how a man fell off and died. A normal man, who was getting to work as he had got to in the past several years fell off. Or perhaps was run over . Or how some sedentary lamp post came in contact with one of those that hung out of the doorway, perhaps a tad too far. Many times it happens too often to get reported !

There are other stories that reach the ear. About buddies and support systems that get formed here. Imagine sharing the next seat with someone for 10 years and counting. It could be implausible for a Mumbai-alien mind !

But just play with the thought that for 10 years you travel with the same set of people whose only claim to an equation with you is that they travel with you, days on end. Everyday. In the same compartment ! Friends who will know exactly how you smell at 6.34 PM, amongst the many such things!

There are legendary stories of fellow commuters who have shown up at home, after a train buddy Didn’t travel alongside for 10 days ! That your not turning up at the train station getting someone who is not your boss or a recovery agent from a credit card company announcing a search for you, is SOME thought in itself !

It is fascinating. To say the least.

The other day, the missus and me took a local train. Not that it’s a first experience for me. Yet..! A combination of off-peak time and direction, gave some space to wield the camera a bit ! Of course, having me do what most other foreign minds would do. Shake their heads in disbelief and awe.

You can call it overcrowded. Unbelievable. Cruel. Energetic. Passionate. Lifeline. Whatever ! One thing you cant do, is miss the trains in any conversation with a Mumbaikar ! Put two Mumbaikars in a room, and the chances that the conversation will veer around to the ‘local train’ is as good as turning on the TV during this world cup season and seeing Kapil Dev still getting interviewed about the 1983 world cup win !

Yeah. For sure.. ! Perhaps rightly so, in the case of the Mumbai locals! About the 25 year old win, well, lets change track !

Loo contraptions !

2011-02-06T12:10:00.005+05:30

The last time i wrote about pictures from the Washroom, it received so much applause comments that it was reliably learnt that the google servers tripped.

Yeah. Sure.

The missus of course opines that this was the was the audience’s way of showing me ‘my place’ ! That was incontestable. It was from the missus.

Work takes me to fancy hotels once in a while and recently the eye caught a ~~contraption~~ sleek looking machine in the men’s room. Any of you frequenting hotels that have a ‘star’ tag to befit the charges that go past the moon, will take offence to these mundane ‘everyday elements from the loo’ ( as a friend called it) making it being a blog subject !

Tissue paper ( a.k.a just as ‘tissues’ ) that are placed in artistic boxes that could well find a place in a middle class living room and a noisy ‘hot air blower’ to dry your hands, that can emit so much noise that they can compete with one of those Apollos or Sputniks are de rigueur.

Perfumed hand sanitisers, shiny floors, sparkling lamps and spotless mirrors and such else are far more basic in the star hotel loo!

“But this one is far more ‘energy efficient’”, said a pinstripe type as he dried his sanitized hand using the shiny new pristine ~~contraption~~ machine. ‘The hot air is contained in this cavity and thus your hand gets dry faster….Wow, what innovation’. Adding, in some time adding, ‘even the machine’s noise is far more refined’

The chap next to him was obviously a junior as he announced his position in the hierarchy and the relevance to the gentleman through nodding of the head in agreement, mildly describable as ‘vigorous’. In a hierarchy induced vigour, proceeding to talk about global warming and Mr.Pinstripe’s ‘energy efficiency consciousness’ as Mr.Pinstripe himself held grand court.

All this in the loo.

In a brief while, Mr.Pinstripe, reached out to the tissue paper with a flourish, I presume after the hands were sufficiently dry (if his eloquence on the machine was anything to go by). Dabbing his dermis on the hand off the dormant germ and the evaporated droplet !!

Mr.Pinstripe and his junior were soon gone.

It was my turn to use the energy efficient hand drier and hear ‘the refined purr’, as they called it! The ~~contraption~~ machine purred away singing glory to refinement and technology!

We live in good times. Don’t we ? A hand drier to steam away dormant droplets and a sophisticated tissue to dab away whatever remains are evidences to that. While uninterrupted electricity is a mystical promise that gets spoken of at election time and environmentalists are ‘bizarre’ folks !

As the last water droplet was banished into evaporated state of invisibility by the ~~contraption~~ sleek machine with a refined purr, the day of a good clean handkerchief that I learnt to use when my mother used to pin one on to my school uniform, came whizzing back to the mind.

But hey....

We are an emerging economy. With fancy words / phrases used by all. Emerging tiger. BRIC country. Growth story. Middle Class. Incredible India. GDP. FII inflow And such other glorious words and phrases. Of course, we need better cars, clothes, ice cream, paints, computers, mobile phones and such else.

We need such pursuits to keep us particularly chuffed, the economy to keep growing while fat salaries provide a comfortable numbness to stifle any memory of the simpler times. A simpler time when a good clean hand clean handkerchiefs ruled, with no hand drier and tissue paper in sight.

Come on, what am I complaining about...

These are instruments that help people hold grand court in the loo if not anything else. Not to think of providing a below average blogger a topic for his blog. Amen to that.

PS: A better post and some pictures from the mens room, here is the earlier post !

Jolly & Lucky !

2011-01-30T21:04:00.006+05:30

Wren & Martin sat on the desk with a weight that was well beyond what it weighed. This was the only pathway to a glorious land called ‘good English grammar’ ! For several years, teachers extolled the virtues of 'word power', 'appropriate pronunciation' and other linguistic gymnastics such as conversion of a sentence from ‘active voice to passive voice’ !

Verbs, nouns, conjunctions and such other rules were taught, learnt and ofcourse forced to wrestle with in 'English-II' exams, with such sincerity and fervour that an empty onlooker would have mistaken it for a something that was done with a strategic intent to redefine the geo-political reality of the country !

Several of you would argue that such English lessons have indeed crafted the geo-political might of the country. It is not without reason that we are the call centre capital of the world. An argument that you would buffet with evidence such as the number of Tata Indicas and Sumos ferrying young active minds at the dead of the night to answer calls from around the world.

Strategic geo-politics is a stratosphere away from this blog. Quite obviously this post is about something else.

During the days when when Wren & Martin lorded over the study table, there was this grocery store in the neighbourhood called ‘Shiva stores’. There i was, fresh from studying verbs et al and watching a Tamil epic called Thiruvilayadal.

Shiva stores?? To my young mind, it bordered on blasphemy to think that the great God who seemed to carry a serpent on his neck as a style statement, was reduced to some kind of a local warehouse manager !

‘What does Shiva store?’ was the question that was posed to the English teacher in the next class, in full view. The teacher’s arching eyebrows at its pinnacle could have touched some tall peak ! After a heavy heave of a breath and a tinge of a smile she announced , ‘The ‘stores’ in “Shiva stores" is a noun and not a verb’ .

She spoke with a flourish that could well be an exemplar of matriarchal tonality while the rest of the class laughed at the incredulity of the question and reveled in the supposed snub to an aspirant smarty pant.

Naturally, the tone, the collective laughter reverberated for a long time. The lesson stuck.

Walking a Mumbai road, one recent early morning ‘Jolly Tailors’ brought that teacher’s matriarchal tone zooming in from the wonder years. But not before the imagination ran riot. With a caricature of a James Bond look alike on the board, ‘Jolly’ the specialist in Mens wear, tingled with ‘possibility’.

Maybe there was ‘Jolly’ness as he took measured. Maybe there were a ‘fun’ tailoring outfit with great camaraderie and such else. Perhaps they made outfits for the menfolk that were ‘jolly’! Or perhaps their outfits made the men jolly or perhaps it gets the onlooker ‘Jolly’ !?!

When the mind was firmly entrenched in traveling some more distance on this ‘jolly’ road, was when the matriarchal voice boomed stressing the difference from nouns and verbs ! Announced with such incisive ferocity that the ‘jolly’ness scouted back into the frayed pages of the Wren & Martin that lies in the attic.

A few days later ‘Lucky’ came within eyesight . The imagination that ran riot with 'Jolly' men’s wear specialist, took ‘Lucky ladies tailor’ to a different height.

Well, it was too not long before the matriarchal voice returned.