Quirks ah!

Quirks ah!

Many a times I wonder about our quirky nature. House or hotel we have sambar and drink water as well but if a small drop of sambar falls into the glass of water we immediately call the waiter and ask him to remove the glass and replace it with a new one. What a strange thing, since we pour ladle-full of sambar and drink water by the gallons but a not if an unfortunate speck of sambar goes in the glass of water. An unprivileged speck indeed. Some time ago electric line men and believe me even policemen used to were trousers (another quirky thing as trousers in English means what we call pants, but here I mean the shorter version of the trousers or what we call shorts) and we have a dim view of adult wearing half pants and especially if they belong to working class. We are of course a class apart. But now we wear Bermudas and in fact the more goofy the Bermudas the better. Our village belles not wearing blouses would rightly be dismissed by our educated and enlightened eves as uncouth and rustic, but have no qualms wearing ‘sleeveless’ and exhibiting their wares – stunning or plebeian.

Our manja pai is very famous and every saree shop used to give it not very long ago till it was swamped out of the market by the now ubiquitous plastic carry bags in all hues and shapes. One (eves in particular) has to really descend from their lofty pedestal and condescend to carry that in the streets. Demeaning indeed! Now how do they carry the plastic bags? – not by the loops which form a sort of handle but twist the top portion and crush it and they carry it. It’s supposed to be a fashion statement. Not very long ago huge eardrops, nose studs would be a sure ticket for supercilious raising of eyebrows. And then you can hear them defending our customs and traditions in the most vociferous manner. Hypocrisy I presume.

Misfortunes never come single

Misfortunes never come single

The old proverb was at the back of me on October 19, 2006 or rather was on my head so to say. On second thoughts its Murphy’s laws all the way. I started for the Deeepavali (I hate calling it diwali, sounds awkward and rustic) holidays. Anticipating a maddening rush in the evening I wanted to get out by 5.30 and Murphy smiled at me. We were holed in a meeting with boss and any meeting with bosses finishing on time would qualify for a Guinness record. Arun fidgeting in his seat as if it was an over heated oven and after excruciating moments squirming finally his patience wore thin and he excused himself and now I was in the hot seat. A call saw me dash to my desk, closed my system, barked a few things to the team leads and developers which I am sure would have been incomprehensible and made them curse me (not the first time I m sure and I had a momentary premonition that it was not going to be the last either). Went inside again wished him a happy deepavali and then tagged along sushith who was ready.

Sushith is the kind soul who ferried me on more than one occasion to the Bangalore railway station as well as listening to my rants and raves, a journey on bike best not mentioned. It’s absolutely amazing that we still retain a modicum of sanity even after commuting in Bangalore (other way of saying that we are pachyderms – sorna illadha jenmam). Generally he is good hearted to even cranky and quixotic creatures like me and he drops me near the backside ticket counter in the Bangalore central station. This time he told that it would be a Herculean task to come out of majestic. So I disembarked on lalbagh west gate and for some time did some gymnastics flagging auto drivers. No empty ones. Then went near the signals and started soliciting autos with single passengers and my luck did not desert me completely and another kind soul agreed to transport me to the railway station. Seems my past has not been that bad. After interminable waits in the traffic signals our auto moved inexorably towards my destination. I gritted my teeth, cursed all and sundry, squirmed and writhed in the seat and the auto driver moaned about the state of things, corruption and what not.

Finally by 6.55 we were met with a solid wall of traffic near majestic bus terminal. I sat contemplating my plan of action for 1 min perhaps. The other passenger already left. He had already expressed his opinion of being prudent enough to walk instead of squirming in the auto. In other words he was plainly saying don’t be a damn fool, you idiot. Suddenly I realized that the train will leave in 1 minute and then gave the auto guy his fare and then started running, leaping the stairs in twos and threes I ran on the foot bridge towards the railway station. I bumped into others, stepped on their toes, pushed a few, got pushed by a few, hit their bags, twisted, turned, and wove my way past a sheet of humanity – I had no time about TMS song – kovil arugunil koodia kootangal thalaiyaa kadal alayaa – I descended the stairs to the subway like a devil possessed and then ran all the way in the subway and emerged on the other side with nothing on my head save reaching the backside counter where I had enough commonsense to ask Babu to buy a ticket and wait for me. Making a split second decision I avoided the main entrance as I had the premonition that I would just run into a massive wall of people which was impervious even to air. Now I ran past hundreds or people and again into the subway. I forgot to mention that my slippers already was torn a little at the back and since it was something like a shot it held though made my running a bit difficult.. I got out of platform 6-7 and then ran past bewildered policemen and I could see Babu prowling the vicinity of the counter like an angry cougar and he was already gesticulating wildly with his right index finger pointing at his left wrist – the allusion was obvious. He thrust the ticket into my hands. No time for niceties and pleasantries and he urged to get along and I am not sure I uttered a thanks or not

Normally next to the counter was a small opening which will lead to platform 9-10 and on that day it was sealed, I ran along the compound wall and at the first place where there was no fence I jumped and ran to the end of the platform. I was about to cross and exactly the Hindupur train trundled along blocking my way. I could see one brave soul running in backwards, to go to the place where the train left, to jump on the track and then jump on the platform 9. I grit my teeth and cursed till the train rolled past and then I crossed and moved over to platform 9 only to be greeted by an empty track and a serene platform – much different to the pandemonium of the previous one hour. I blinked for a while and I thought I saw a red light at the other end of the platform. May be my eyes or mind were playing some tricks and may the gods wanted to teach me a lesson for all my past arrogance and haughtiness. I started to ran, for what I have no idea. I couldn’t see the train; in fact I could see nothing. My mind was a seething cauldron of boiling anger. Mad at everything I ran and I had the commonsense to pick my glass, my mobile and my purse one by one and transfer it to my hand bag. I stopped and asked a guy if the Mysore train left? He replied in hindi which maddened me like hell and I ran making me a spectacle of all those in the platform – those souls wondering if things in the world were so bad that here is a guy chasing a phantom train and had a good laugh to release their tension. What a sight I would have been, running in a haphazard fashion, age having caught up, a pair of slippers, torn and impairing my stride (not that it was graceful on any day), grabbing my hand bag in one hand and swishing my free hand in all sorts of directions. I have absolutely no idea what was my countenance like. Panting, body not willing but mind not ready to give up I ran for how many interminable minutes I had no idea. Then at the other end of the platform I could see the train stopped and some humane and kind souls (lots today) waving at me to run fast and catch the train. I was completely out of my breath and when I was near the train, maybe 5-10 feet the train jerked on its forward journey. Enraged at this grossly unjust colossal scale of conspiracy the entire world hatched at me, my mind roared with feral ferocity and summoning the remnants of my last reserves of energy I made one last burst and jumped into the train. Hurrah I made it in typical Thamizh, Telugu and kannada movie only a damsel was not at the other end, not that I would have cared for at that moment. Dazed and enervated I stumbled into the aisle only to find it completely occupied. I asked them to make way and they glanced at me and quietly acquiesced to my request. Probably I presented such a grotesque appearance that they thought that discretion is the better part of valor. The space was not enough and one lady had kept a bag as a sort of a barrier between her and the man sitting next to her. I brusquely told them to remove the bag and then I settled down and started huffing and puffing for oxygen. Did so for a long time and before long was bathed in perspiration. OOps what an experience!!

Maths

On the other day I was speaking to Poms and asked him how his homework was going on (His homework is something I would not like to miss). He said it was ok and generally reduces the decibel level of his voice when that subject is broached. He told he was doing maths and I asked him whether he liked maths. He paused for sometime and then declared that he did not like it. I was not amused as I think he generally fares well in maths though he goes nuts when we ask him some subtraction stuff.

His answer sent me off on to a thought trail about maths. What a clean and rational subject and what an exhilarating joy in solving some of the toughest problems. No wonder most womenfolk dislike maths (according to a myriad surveys). I remember tackling geometry in school and then I was so fascinated by application of integration. In fact I was the only one who attempted all the questions in that section in my class and everyone left that section in ‘choice’. My college mates looked at me as if I was a weird (euphemism for a nut) creature not to be allowed to roam the streets of Salem. It was a special kind of joy doing all those Maths stuff. The adrenalin pumping and the excitement when the answer is near is something that words cannot describe. You feel like announcing to whoever you find that you have cracked it – of course not when you write the exams. That’s what I felt when I did the queuing theory equations. Took a long time to understand what Ramu pillai was teaching in his rustic way in the class. I still remember lying prone upstairs ( when the upstairs was being constructed) and staring at all things for hours together trying to understand the fundamental principle behind the equation which ran a mind boggling 3 pages and I think my grin and my eyes were the widest when I understood the basic principle.

The racking of your brains and thinking in all sorts of ways to find the solution is an extraordinary feeling of joy and pleasure. The mind racing in different trails simultaneously, weighing the options, pursuing it and then discarding it. All this in a trice and then repeating it all over again. Like love, in solving maths, the pangs of ecstasy and the throes of agony coalesce into bizarre indescribable sensation.

And you haven’t even scratched the surface. I wish I could see the inside of Karl Jacobi, Euler, Srinvasa Ramanujan, Newton and the likes. What extraordinary minds!

Home work

I called poms and as usual asked him what he was doing and the usual reply he gives is that he is deep into his home work. His home work is great stuff. He will sit on a small plastic stool ( its always plastic now and we get them in an assorted colors and the women folk at home pick them to match them with the hall color and then that stool will be in any room except that intended room) and spread all his books on a round plastic table. Then after 10 mins of hemming and hawing he will want another table. Table gets substituted with a another stool ( no prizes for guesses, its also the ubiquitous plastic) and then he will start writing english, maths, evs and what not. His handwriting is - again no prizes for guessing - is as shabby as mine and the only the difference is that you can read his whereas you have rack your head for deciphering mine and then going bonkers as to whether its greek or spanish or some extinct language or even extra-terrestrial language and I would not be surprised it you thoughts meander in the direction of the animal kingdom.

Then he writes a line and then has a doubt unrelated to anything to his subject and then a stern voice will direct his thoughts back to the note book. Then he will want to sharp the pencil which already would pierce the skin without much ado. A pencil sharpener would be there and in goes the pencil and the lead would be broken. Then he would want it be sharpened with the electric sharpener which I bought from saudi at not so a pleasing price for which I am still being reminded and again in not so pleasing phrases. The moment I say yes he would be off the stool like a olympic sprinter takes off the blocks in a 100 meter dash. With a grin as wide as a barn door he would setup the sharpener and of course his entire interest is in plugging it into an electric outlet from which he derives an enormous pleasure which we can't fathom in a 100 years. One cant even feebly imagine how such a mundane stuff would enthuse anyone. But poms is made of entirely different mettle and he goes bonkers when it comes to electricity. That is for another day. The pencil is sharpened and the the writing starts. Some letters dive deep and some soar majestically upwards and the spaces given between letters ooze with extraordinary magnaimity. Encomiums are showered on him by the way of screams and yells and the eraser now flashed all around the notebook and he starts his calligraphy all over again, his enthusiasm a bit dampened and face a bit puffed and the twinkle in his wolf eyes a bit duller.

In between he will hear a car horn and would contemplate whether it was a indica or a scorpio and then he would be brought back to the world of home work by some vociferous shoutings. After a few lines the unmistakable hoot of a train horn would stir an hornet's nest in his mind and he would start whistling and then would want to know whether the train is going to dharmapuri or madras and if so how long it would take and how many wheels it has and whether train wheels would get punctured. His train of thoughts would be shattered by another round of castigations from a stentorious voice and poms would sulk for a few mins and in a sudden rash of boundless energy would zip zap and his small fingers would race across the note book at lightning speed.

Lo and behold his home work is done and the whole place looks like battlefield, chairs and stools amidst the strewn note books, erased rubber fillings and the pencil wood flakes and his page will look as it it had been raked all over.

Seems ages since I blogged and as usual a myriad things happened serious and hilarious, joyous and distasteful, interesting and banal and life moves on though I keep saying ( monologues to be frank) that we are the prime movers and that we are the ones who should move. Hmmm! And of course I keep justifying and rationalizing about the paucity of time while at the same time sermonising (grabbing every odd chance passing by) about the very same thing. Hypocrisy at its best I presume. Seems I have been induling a trifle more pulling legs and a bit or sarcastic humor, of course passing at as banter and persiflage. No idea what people say at my back. I have a sort of prestiment that the number of people who would like to strangulate me or do something akin to that is on the ascendancy.

Pramod Mahajan finally succumbed to the bullets today. John Kenneth Galbraith passed away a few days earlier. Thamizh nadu is witnessing unprecedented theatrics now. I am an incorrigable optimist and I am inclined to believe that our politicians are good in heart and that they are very considerate and humane. The sun is scorching the people of TN and literally baking them, our beloved finance minister may use his ingenuity and will even impose some tax on temperature and then he can collect an enormous amount of revenue which he can use it to service the fantastic and mind boggling promises the political parties are coming out every day. MK came out with rice at rs.2/kg and JJ ridiculed and poo poohed it in the most contemptuous and sarcastic manner only possible for her and which can be superseded only by her haugtiness, arrogance and mendaciousness. Vaiko the new joker picked up the threades and poured scorn and emptied buckets of slime only to be rendered speechles and thunderstruck a few days later when JJ startled even the dead by offering 10 kgs or rice free. MGR would be turning or rather spinning in his grave. MK vowed to put a color idiot box in every room of the state whether they have electricity or not and if they have whether its supplied for more than a few hours or not. What a vow indeed and now we move to the next comic scene. JJ comes out with 4 grams of gold for the thaali for poor brides. Now TN is shining like a supernova and the world has woken from its slumber. TN has not got a 440000 volts zip zapping the state in the 40+C heat and is electrified beyond description. Probably a whole betting racquet is going on as to what sort of comic opera is in the offing and what will be the largess. I think it would be a roaring one raking hundreds of crores and who know they me even make the irish sweepstakes pale into insignificance. The TN folks who are sweltering in the heat, without power and groaning under the yolk of chidambaram's service taxes have a nice comedy film scripted by a seasoned writer and a consummate actress and we are roaring with laughter eagerly awaiting for the next goofiest offer and more interestingly their rational, logical, reasonable and feasible methods of achieving it. No one should ask why they did not do it when they were/are in power. What a tamashaa!!

What a match it turned out to be between the proteas and the aussies yesterday - 872 runs in a single day - mind boggling and dizzying to put it midly. What gumption and what guts by the south africans. Not the actual win itself but the belief that they can have a go at that mammoth score without being daunted and intimidated is something really great. Gibbs went on the rampage after smith savaged and blunted the vaunted auzzie attack and them boucher sliced through the bowling like a hot knife would slice through butter. The guys who were there in the stadium would have never dreamt that they would see such a contest and probably would never stop talking about it I guess.

Back home the indians routed the english with munaf patel the great kumble skittling out the barmy army and then marching home without much fuss and this in a truncated test match. Anil the indomitable fighter has gone past 500 wickets. What a man, what determination and what endurance especially being dropped in the ODI's and always getting the stick of the so called critics who endlessly churn out the same old stale and plebian and sickening stuff of kumble not spinning the ball , not turning enough and so on. Well what did those who turned do? did they take 500 wickets. A great salute for Anil Kumble.

Time and agian the judges have come down heavily on soft targets. They will sentence a man who mixed water with milk for 3 months after 15 years, now zaheera but they will not put jayalalitha or kps gill or any ias/ips criminal in jail. They will order all car drivers to wear seat belts but auto drivers, lorry and bus drivers can go on without that. They will order euro II or III or even euro 7777 for cars ( the least polluting amongst vehicles) but will not do so for state buses literrally spewing the most toxic gases nor for the autos who go about adulterting petrol with even furnace oil. They will send to jail the owners of any private building in case of fire or building collapse but no govt offical will be sent to jail even if thousands die due to crass negligence of the officials - Did we see any arests in the recent stampede in thamil nadu where scores died? did we see any arrest when an army ammunition dump exploded, do we see any arrest when hundreds due to floods, storms, etc. But let one guy die in a hospital the judges will never let the doctor in bail for months to gether. A judge refused bail to a guy who was jailed for 37 years for a flimsy reason that the police could not trace his records. Why refuse bail? why not send the DGP, commisioner and the station head to jail for not producing records. What kind of judges do we have. Judicial activism - nay judicial tyranny..god save this country.

Went to prometh's annual day celebrations on tuesday, jan 31 at jagmohan palace hall, mysore. After a long long time I was in such a place. As usual paens, praise ( flattery) were heaped on the guests. They stopped short of an elegy or a panagyric simply coz no one had the talent for those esoteric things I guess. Then every chief guest, there were plenty of them, extolled the virtues of the school and then launched into their own monotonous drone. What struck me was the absence of wit and humor in their speeches. Prizes were distributed to all the kids and some were there in the costumes which added color and glamor. The cheruby kids were a delight to watch just not caring two hoots for stage etiquette and behaving their own self in absolute nonchalance. Prometh came in and gave a shy and solemn bow after getting a certificate for a prize. I was sitting in the first row with my behemoth of a handycam positioning myself at all sorts of angles to get a clear view which were often blocked by someone or the other suddenly appearing in front me like a ghost with a gizmo in their hand. Them poms as usual started going near the electrical guy and the sound mixer guy and wanted to take it apart.

The cultural show started and it was a beautiful spectacle. The tiny tots in all their angelic and cherubic innocence swaying hither and thither, with gay abandon and past caring for any rhythm and discipline. The solo show was superb, a small kid calm recited a poem, cracked a few jokes with cool and elan that would put a few of us to shame. The dances for the songs were really enojoyable even though a boys was battling with his garment, which was bent to obey the newtonian gravity. He did it with remarkable adroitness and adeptness that I had no other choice to marvel. Deepu started getting calls and finally I told him to pack off for a movie. Then poms choir singing came and needless to say he was the odd note. Probably he was looking for me but I had gone to the other side to get him into the frame of my handycam ( not handy at all) and he was there swinging his hands and murmuring something. It was over in a trice.

Then Poms cooly wandered sipping a bottle of water into the stage where a drama was going on and one of the characters had to push him off the stage. But he still stood at the steps uncaring and not bothering about anything in the world and shaking his water bottle. Then he sat down and stared gazing at the sound mixing unit there.

To round off the function they had a superb pyrotechnic display. Nice to watch the crackers shooting up the sky, bursting and then bathing the night sky with a spectacular display of fireworks. The lights shooting in a myriad directions of varioud hues. Some of them did a bit of crazy somersaults also. Some glowed in all its resplendence, some twinkled, some sparkled, some coruscated and some scintillated - but all fizzled on their lazy trip back to earth, reduced to embers.

The third cricket test between india and pak started off in karachi an hour back and the indian seamers have sent paks packing literally. They have skittled the top order and reduced pak for a palty 44 /6. Pathan got a hatrick in the first over, only the second time in history.

The budget is round the corner and our arrogant fm is already talking about budget bias for the rural sector. When did the business and industrial sector got any bias, they have borne all sorts of discrimination, brutal taxes, evil laws, byzantine rules and have been harassed, harried and persecuted by 2 bit burueaucrats. Added to the already suffocating and strangulating maze of eveil and immoral laws of this country was the addition of an abominable evil called t the fringe benefit tax concoted by mendacious and flagitious and deranged minds. And now our compassionate comrades wants to tax diesel supplied to private cars, tax 5 star hotels and a list or what they call elite consumption. Its a shame that we still have communist parties and they have the brazen effrontery to talk with sickening self righteousness. Its time we banned this evil called communism.

We all do a bit of introspection one fine day. The other day I was doing just that and was wondering about many things. One thing that crossed was why is that we do not do things as we would like to do or even could do. Where do they go wrong. Its not exactly rocket science to decipher. We all develop a sort of a comfort zone and for most part of the time unwilling to venture out of this. if anything is suggested or required of us and if we percive that it means disturbing the comfort zone, immediately our negative antennas are out and we sort of build walls and try to deflect those things. A frog in the pond might not be that inappropriate. We dont want the excitement of the unexepected, we dont want the taste of the unknown, we dont want to sail in unchartered waters and no ruffling of our comfort feathers. How do we go about tackling this? Its pretty easy to throw words like passion, commitment and similar things but how exactly one goes about aquiring these qualities and then put into practice? Right now its a tough call and there are a hundred books in the market which dwells on this subject but the answers remain elusive. Probably all it needs is a spark to kindle the fire in you. Pray the new year does for all of use and we shall move out of the realm of ordinary to the extraordinary.