Saturday, March 23, 2024

20th Century Breakfast Experience!

A friend was visiting Bangalore from Bombay.  A rather innocuous suggestion from my dear wife that he should grab a bite at one of the antedeluvian `hotels' (restaurant actually, but those days we did not consciously make that difference) was wholeheartedly endorsed all around.  When I asked him if he wanted to immerse in a vignette from the past, he was indeed very exuberant!  Of course, he would love to visit one of the old world restaurants which still doled out the classic idli, vadai, benne dosai, coffee routine to loads of craving people daily, with very little change in its menu or dishes from decades ago. That enthusiastic response meant a half-hour drive to Basavangudi, with a lot of expectations, for a peek into history with our stomachs. But what we did not factor in was that it was a Sunday and that a sizeable population of Bangalore would have converged on that particular 'hotel' to satiate its pangs for the traditional stuff.  I encouraged the friend not to panic on our approach (he wanted to beat a hasty retreat) saying it was almost 1030, way past normal breakfast time and we should be ok.  I was lamentably wrong -  and there was a hungry mob milling around, at the entrance of the restaurant, as if free food was being distributed from a soup kitchen during a natural disaster or war.

No exaggeration - some 150-200 people were standing in assorted lines and that many hungry souls could never be kept quiet until something substantial went into their mouths.  Most of the people did not even know which line led to what.  Important to note, because they did lead to different destinations as we realised after some 15 minutes of queueing up. One line was for take-away (`parcels' as the restaurant had indicateed on a carefully concealed board, which can be seen only from 6 inches away); another one was to get a token with a number, which then gained some momentum for you by placing you in the main queue, waiting for entry through the golden gate. Many people stood in the wrong line for quite a while before realising they were literally misplaced. I felt very diffident now, because I did not anticipate such a deluge of people for the ubiquitous idli, dosa and multiple queues to contend with. The ultimate prize was entry into the famous, nearly 100-year old eatery, where the menu remained constant throughout the day - yes, one got the same items whatever be the time. People congregated just to savour the food and atmosphere from way back because there is no other logical explanation when the same stuff is available in some hundred other joints, with good quality to boot. 

Fittingly, the gentleman guarding gate to the culinary heaven, keeping the ravenous mob in some semblance of control was a symbol of the bygone era.  Seemed to have bypassed a few decades and generations and descended on this scene.  A blue Gandhi-topee was perched on his top and he was dressed in loose-fitting trousers and shirt, with a generous splash of vermillion on his forehead!  He growled whenever he announced a token number for the holder to make a hasty entry; hasty because people were convinced somehow that even a small delay might cause them to miss their slice of history.  Frequently he was mixing up token numbers, thereby causing frustration and confusion among the already restless. He was moderately dictatorial in his own way, entrenched in his high stool with a modern walkie talkie in hand a-la a war chief, gently reprimanding people when wrong approaches were made.  Due to some malfunction in his mouth/tongue, phonetically he was able to make very little distinction betwen his J and K when he bellowed the token numbers. So when people with K14 enthusiastically responded and tried to jostle through, he was derisively castigating them, with the clarification that he was calling J14.  When we thought our turn was coming up, he took a toilet cum coffee break and extended our agony. In addition to the walkie talkie communication, he also resorted to hand signals and sheer vocal-cord power, to obtain prompt updates on vacancies available inside.

Like all Indian establishments, this also had its own ways of playing favourites.  When people known to the management or the chef or even a waiter wanted to enter, even without a token, they were surreptitiously ushered into the restaurant, giving them priority over others and were secreted in a back-room without access to the public.  And they justifiably gleamed very proudly at being able to bypass the commoners like us.  Why wont they??  These were ushered in,  ignoring token numbers and calling out names of the favourites, making it obvious that something devious and  inequitious was happening and a grave crime was being perpetrated on the waiting mob. And as elsewhere in India, some people were trying to dodge their way inside, using cheatsheets - like one guy said he had left something inside and pleaded to go in. But when we were sitting there after one hour, he was still eating!!  Again a very Indian trait - find a hole in the process and get the thrill of cheating the majority even if it is only for a regular breakfast.

Finally when our turn came and we entered triumphantly, without further ado we were reminded that rules prevailing still pertained to 1900s.  We were two and the table was for four. We were pretty strictly warned not to sit opposite to each other but side by side on one side of the table so that one more party of two can be accommodated opposite. Saring a table with strangers is the norm like in days of yore; if you dont like it, too bad, you can foot it to some other forgiving place.  The waiter who took our order was also half ancient and must have got the job on quota, as a descendant of an old staff member. Seemed dreamily distant and had to be reminded four times about our order.  A smile was not in his portfolio and a permanent frown adorned his face, a reminder of the fact that this place is a no-nonsense old world establishment where nobody had time for pleasanty.  I was almost expecting him to give us something available and ask us to take it or leave it.  And when he miscounted and ordered one dosa extra from the kitchen, he was trying to cajole one of us to eat that extra dosa also!!  I would have done it, if he was the friendly type, but not for a scowling one.  And the autocratic environment was reinforced when we got the items we asked for, in an order unilaterally decided by the establishment.  Apparently, the kitchen chose what to turn out in bulk and when, nobody else had a choice. So, we just gulped down our irritation and self respect along with the food.

Quality?  Was good, but nothing I would travel one hour for and stand in three lines to reach.  There are many restaurants in Bangalore which serve similar food with same or better quality.  So, I personally felt a bit tepid after this experience and may not revisit this any time soon in a hurry.  But the benne masala dosa we brought back for the others was a hit and vanished in no time.  Some consolation, I guess.  My dear wife made the final adjudicating comments - `surely you guys enjoyed the outing with this kind of food to go with'.  We did not have the heart to contradict her, with the gory details of our venture.  She has to be always right!! 

  



   

Saturday, December 30, 2023

Frustrating Airmiles

Show me one frequent flier (FF) who is not enamoured of the airline programmes (AFFP), has not been disillusioned by the deliberately quirky processes involved but still firmly attached to them as if bonded by fevicol.  Such an individual would be a rarity because `who can walk away, leaving behind beckoning free trips on the table'? Every frequent flier gets hooked on to a couple or more AFFPs, lured by the justifiable desire to snare a few free flights or upgrades.  I have been, too! To some extent, the free flights do materialise pretty easily.  But, sometimes the experience of dealing with the airline miles can be frustrating, enervating and irritating, all at once.  And to rub salt into the raw wound, that would transpire at the most inopportune moment, when you are least prepared for dealing with the googlies the airlines bowl at you.

It is a fact of life that most of the accruals of free miles happen during your working days - when you fly hither and thither like a headless chicken at your employer's cost.  Since someone else is paying and booking, you dont have to worry about the cost and just demand that the secretary book the seat on the most expensive flight of the day of your favourite airline, possibly accruing the most miles possible.  Nobody bothers when you use those miles to book tickets for personal use.  Or almost, so.  In the late eighhties, some organizations sought to find out the quantum of benefits employees were collectively enjoying from free miles `donated' by them, as an invisible perquisite.  A feeble attempt was made to monetise that benefit and somehow get a share for the organization itself.  Some oversmart Financial Whizkid dreamt of winning a fat paycheque for saving the organization a lot of money.  But nothing came out of that because the entrenched group of beneficiary bandicoots included everyone from the top to bottom and everyone was most averse to let go. The free miles bonanza continued happily for the gleeful employees and AFFPs multiplied merrily over the years.   

If you have multiple AFFP memberships, you always end up confused as to which one you should patronize when it is time to book tickets.  You waste hours shuttling between various airline sites until you get vertigo - trying to analyse, compare and decide.  By the time the fatigued mind gives up and a less than optimal decision is forcibly made, the prices would have ramped up significantly, thereby annulling the skimpy benefits of the miles you would get.  After all this, when you want to avail of that elusive free flight, you will find that you have tantalizingly 2500 miles/points short of what a free flight to any destination would entail. To add some spice, when you are trying to book a new ticket, you invariably find that the airline offering you the cheapest and most convenient flight is not among your AFFPs; since that is the most attractive on offer, you snatch that and no miles accrue for that flight with any current AFFP for you, as a consequence.  Unless, of course, you being the typical FF sucker who is a smart-alec, decide to add one more, new AFFP to your priceless collection, thereby further diminishing your chances of getting a free flight in the near future because you are not concentrating all your free miles in one AFFP!

When you are looking for the free flight, invariably you will find, initially to your astonishment until you get used to the idea, that the only available flights leave at some god-forsaken time like 3.30 am or 11.45 pm. If you opt for either, you would spend double the amount you saved with free miles for transportation to the airport at an unearthly hour. Add to that a sleepless night either way and the resultant groggy state the next day.  Another spanner the machiavellian airlines throw into the machinery is to show you flights with more than 2 connections to your destination, hiding away all the direct flights.  So, a flight which should take about 3 hours in all, will be completed in 11 hours, with multiple layovers in the boondocks.  You will be so bushed when you are done, as if you had undertaken a trans continental flight. Why would one choose this? You won't. Since the average avaricious human being never learns any lesson, you fly a new airline, become member of another AFFP and further disperse your free miles as a disadvantaged flier, never to reap a benefit any time soon.  

Fortunately, most of the airlines do not attach an expiry date for their miles (in USA and Europe), so your meagre miles continue to languish endlessly in the account without ever getting you a free flight. But, be warned, this is just a mirage. Out of the blue, some airlines surprise you with the threat that miles will expire in six months because they were accrued 3 years earlier. Ah, but they offer a marvellous solution.  Now you are enticed to pay for more miles (yes, pay more money) in order to keep the old miles from expiring immediately and postpone the evil day by one more year.  What one does not realise is one year later the ugly situation would repeat itself, given our sloth, with more miles expiring unused, including the ones you `bought' the previous year.  Sometimes, when you receive the bad tidings from the arilines, you go and check their track record with miles and see that they threaten first and months later, unilaterally extend the expiry by six months to one year, with the grandiose declaration that they do so for the `benefit of the patrons'. So, the next time you receive the expiry notice, you are lulled into just ignoring it (at your own peril, of course), being cockily sure that the expiry would be extended as on previous occasions.  But, alas, no - this time the airline actually carries out its threat and denies any further extension.   The problem is you never can predict which way this will go and the airlines keep you guessing always. Now, you have to think of all possible, necessary and wasteful trips you might take in the next few months and book tickets on multiple-hop/red-eye flights, just to use the miles immediately.  You derive that false satisfaction that you are getting some free flights after all!!

If the airlines offer a choice of an immediate discount on the ticket or accrual of miles, I know what I will opt for.  With all this hindsight, I will happily take the immediate monetary benefit instead of the promised lala-land! Even if quantitatively the former is a lesser benefit.  But, I think most fliers would find the thrill of a free flight irresistible, whatever the difficulties involved in getting that flight are!  Human nature - a freebie attracts us like moths to a light.  The airlines know this irrefutable fact and will never change their diabolical ways.  Why would they, when they know the chimera of miles can be used to lure FF members until doomsday??

When we were discussing this, my dear wife, the contrarian that she is, asked sardonically `why would you look a gift horse in the mouth'?  Fair point, but I am not even sure it is a gift horse.  It is labelled that but I am sure we pay the packed-in cost through the higher ticket price every time we buy one!! 


Monday, September 25, 2023

Hobby, Dear Seniors??


Seven years back, after I had relinquished all my part time consulting assignments and became truly unemployed and retired, a friend visited me to check on how I was faring.  He figured that having been active for so long, without the crutch of some professional work I would be entirely out of depth in the new situation or at least suffering from severe sense of alienation.  I told him I was doing fine and did not have so much spare time to be afflicted by withdrawal symptoms or to worry about depression.  He looked at me disbelievingly as if I was sprouting a few horns on my chin even as he was looking.  I could understand why, because he went through a terrible phase after his own retirement, trying to cope with all the time he had on hand and a relentlessly nagging spouse.  He did not realise earlier that what he had to eventualy confront post-retirement, was that deadly cocktail; did not prepare for it and failed miserably to cope, culminating in intense depression for the first year, which got marginally better when he devised the solution of staying at home minimally until evening. Sad way to end up.  The fundamental problem was that he was one of those workaholics, who did nothing but work in the office, work at home and work elsewhere; went into a tizzy when he had no office work to do.  Could not speak a few sentences cogently about anything other than work, while he could wax eloquent on work related stuff.  He did not foresee the need to develop some hobby/hobbies to bail him out when he would have no work to immerse in.  He was nice enough to check on me when I retired and he was astonished to see that I was sane and happy.  The major difference was that I had adequate cover in terms of multiple hobbies to take refuge in. 

But then I have seen many friends attempting bravely to start developing hobbies after retirement.  While this is commendable and necessary, at the ripe old age of sixty or so, boarding that ship is not easy. I am not saying it is impossible because many enterprising retirees have flourished in new hobbies, to live happily and guide others too.  But, having to learn something completely different from life-time of work is, well, like Javed Jaffrey so masterfully said decades back, Maggi Sweet And Sour Sauce --  Different!! And quite a few could not handle the pitfalls and the effort involved.  Given that,  it is also very important to be judicious about the choice of the hobby one goes for, late in life.

One friend's choice was away from the beaten path - cooking.  His wife had fed him most of his life with excellent fare since she was a great cook.  He had inadvertently, despite himself, imbibed some of the skills during emergency situations which arose and handled things pretty well, to the satisfaction of the boss-at-home.  So, after retirement,  he asked his wife to give him some space in the kitchen to experiment with his own culinary skills and she gladly moved aside.  He was himself surprised by the good quality of the stuff he was turning out and the wife did her bit tohelp him and augment the taste as well as presentation.  What started as a hobby soon became a commercial propostion. He began supplying food to the neighbourhood and in no time at all, established himself and the wife as good chefs, delivering excellent quality.  They are reasonably busy with the venture and make good profits too with their hobby, nay, new profession.

But the above is not the norm and not everybody is so fortunate.  A couple of other friends who wandered into the cooking arena  for passing time, got scalded literally and metophorically.  Their scars showed for a long time to come.  For, even a hobby requires certain amount of commitment and skills.  Cooking is not for everyone, contrary to eating (which anyone can do well, generally), even though they are allied spheres.  If one is the kind who cannot distinguish between sauteeing, shallow frying and deep frying or tell the difference between toor dal and chana dal, one is destined to be a non-starter in the cooking arena, even for a hobby.  Some intense, belaboured trials by aspiring friends have tragically ended up with heart-breaking results, as in the case of top class brick-quality idlis which could have been used as deadly ammunition in a war; or a benumbingly salty and ferociously spicy curry unintentionally produced due to a sad mix-up in measurement of spices.   Of course, one can learn and climb up the ladder but most people don't even get a footing on the second step.  Funnily, it looks one basic qualification for a person to be a decent cook is that he should invariably enjoy what he eats. This comes from some veteran ladies, who have cooked for decades and enthralled multitudes with what they turn out impeccably. Despite this, a lot of us good eaters will never be decent cooks, I believe.  The classic difference between consumers and producers.

Gardening is another favourite of retirees.  Some have done wonderfully well in turning mud patches at home into green oases but not everyone is so lucky.  One chap, over a period of 8 months, emptied half of his neighbourhood nurseries into his backyard and sizable bank balance into the nurserys' accounts in his fruitless attempts to grow something, anything, green.  For some reason, anything he planted remained green precisely for 17-22 days and never beyond that.  Most of them failed to co-operate and committed suicide very early.  Plants, leaves, etc shrivelled relentlessly and breathed their last right under his nose. The half baked gardener of his encouraged him to buy more new plants as the solution to his ills (as is normal, he probably had a cut in the nursery's invoice value) without changing anything else in the process and our hobby-seeker was too desperate to be questioning.  Someone told this chap he had a red thumb as against a green one and the suffering intern did not take that kindly.  The explanation for the disastrous results was always that he had been too generous with water for the plants or there was not enough sunlight or the plants needed more or less fertilizer than was supplied.  A precise and pointed reason was never given and the man's hobby died with the last set of plants when his fuming wife ran the riot act to him to cease and desist.

Photography could have been an attractive option ten years or so back but now every three year old kid shoots good photos with the mobile. Unless the effort is to become a professional photographer, there is little sense in moving away from a good mobile phone for photos.  At least one is saved the agony of watching some unidentifiable lump turn up on the screen of the camera and one cannot explain what it could be.  The serious cameras require a lot of understanding, tuning and syncronization before a good picture can be shot and the learning process can be quite arduous. When the mobile phone is looming as a ready alternative, very few go the other way and so, photography may not be a popular hobby any longer,  Except when one is a mindless shooter of snaps on mobile phones for laods of sharing with the sole intent to persecute them daily.  

Some people have gone into music. Either vocal or some instrument. `When I was young, I always wanted to be a musician' is their standard but eager tagline.  Again, this is like cooking.  One has to have some basic gift in terms of the sense of music as well as a good voice to be a reasonably good singer. For some inexplicable reason, what the whole world realises instantly on listening to their first attempt, our musician is just unable to see or hear -- that music is not his or her cuppa.  Armed with videos of their attempts at amateur singing and the sharing apps, he/see enthusiastically sends the productions to friends and relatives, who suffer silently for fear of hurting the poor fellow with honest feedback.  While some graduate to a higher level eventually, most of them stubbornly remain rooted to where they have been for years, but not giving up.  God bless their perseverance and efforts.

All the above goes back to what I was saying earlier - that hobbies probably should be developed much early in life, when one has the time, energy and ability to overcome issues.  Later in life, simple things become a struggle.  

My dear wife is chipping in with her wisdom.  According to her, the one thing that retirees can and should learn even late is to deal with small kids.  Eventually this comes in handy when you are expected to baby-sit or otherwise deal with grandchildren.  This may not be an enjoyable pastime for many but is practically useful as many would vouch and helps in developing harmony at home, pleasing the progeny and scoring brownie points overall.  As usual, I am with her on this, one hundred percent!



  


  



Thursday, May 18, 2023

Murphy's Law Is For Us All !

Murphy's Law (ML) - `Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong' is not some esoteric thunderclap that periodically affects only big-time, multi-million dollar projects, sparing ordinary mortals.  Whether those projects have a few hurdles erected by ML or not, each individual would have experienced some ML pitfalls in his life surely.  We have grown used to being confronted by ML so much that we placidly accept its inflictions on us without even a second thought or paying too much attention to the what or why.  Here are a few of my own anecdotal experiences with ML and I am sure most of you can identify with the situations easily.

My first known tryst with ML was even before I knew that some such thing existed.  My middle school days.  My brother had a bout of pneumonia/dyphtheria and was just in the process of recovering.  At such times, we know the victim is banished into a `virtual' dark room where he did not hear or see anything good, especially relating to food, lest he be tempted to partake of accompanying goodies.  So was my brother. I was sternly and categorically instructed by both parents (and a few uncles, aunts, grandparents et al who were part of the scene) that he was not to be allowed so much as a sniff at anything half decent to eat or drink, especially if brought from outside. This coaching was imparted to me repeatedly because I was suspected to be the only possible potential violator of the edict.  You will see, this was not without solid reasons.  Out of boundless brotherly love, I had already smuggled a few assorted prohibited items like pieces of onion pakoda, vegetable puff, salt biscuits, jamun fruit etc (everything sourced from outside of home) into a mutually agreed foxhole, from which my dear brother retrieved them gleefully when he was not under surveillance. I took the risk because there was a very clear agreement about the expected quid pro quo in future, should the shoe unfortunately end up on the other foot.  My father was very punctilious with his own and our lives and followed some hard-coded habits - like leaving for work at 9 am.  My brother and I left for our school at 9.30 am and we never met our father on the way to school, even though all of us took the same path for the first 300 metres.  One day during his convalescence and not attending school, dear brother developed this urge to have this `javvu mittai' (the vendor can shape the raw material of sugar and a stretchable dough into some shapes) or he graciously offered me an option, the stick ice cream. I was very aware of the fact that either of those obnoxious things could have actually caused his illness in the first place and refused to oblige at first.  But the pathetic look on his face melted me and with a sense of adventure, I took him out with me for a walk, for some fresh air.  Time 9.30.  The stick ice cream was available on the way to school and we were both watching our home, not far off, to check on any snooping relative.  The coast was clear and we were quickly devouring the delicacy when I felt a rather firm hand on my shoulder.  I had a sickly feeling immediately in my gut and turned to look at our father, his face flushed with anger, glowering at both of us.  Even in that delicate moment, my brother was happily licking the last of the ice cream, without realising the parental presence and this enraged the father more.  Soon we were hauled back home, I got a severe thrashing while my brother got an earful (he was recuperating, so no beating for him and also being the elder I was supposed to be the beacon of light guiding him!).  Our father was never in that spot at that time in the previous decade or more and never again in the future, but he made his only guest appearance on that fateful day to catch us in our act.  That was the first application of ML in my life!

Context:  Cricket Test, India vs England in Madras.  After a lot of begging and cajoling, my father had arranged for tickets for himself, my brother and myself.  Train tickets booked.  Two days before departure, my brother unwittingly invited chicken-pox to hobnob with him.  His ticket was instantly cancelled.  My father and I left by train, after everyone at home subjected me to close checks under microscope to see if any symptom of chickenpox lurked on my physique too.  After three hours of journey, a man who was sitting next to my father and opposite to me, was whispering something into my father's ears softly.  Then I was scrutinized by 3-4 elders collectively and it was declared that I too had chicken-pox and expert opinion was I should not travel further. So, we got off the train to look for return passage, when my father's cousin came beaming to us, happy to have met.  He was going to my town. So I got transferred and got back home without getting anywhere near a cricket test.  After 7-8 years, ML played another nasty one on me when I tried my luck again when Australia played India in Chepauk.  This time, two days before departure, some typhoid like pestilence took an immense liking to me and thwarted that trip. I had to wait another 3 years before making my debut at a cricket test venue. ML, indeed.

All of us have had trying times waiting at bus stops.  Did you ever notice that if you are waiting for, say bus 27D going towards Mount Road, even as you waited for 45 minutes not one would come your way, 27D to Santhome came to the opposite bus stop about 5 times in those 45 minutes?  And this would happen on a day when you are supposed to be present somewhere about an hour ago.  So, what do you do? You jump into an autorickshaw, literally feeling the hole being burnt into your pocket.  Two minutes into the ride, you turn back and see two 27Ds chasing you.  You curse your luck (that was what you thought it was, without knowledge of  ML) but worst was to come.  One 27D turns a corner breezily and knocks your auto.  Minor collision but major fracas - bus ceases to move, auto had been nudged to take a position in the middle of the road, blocking all traffic. Verbal abuse follows and then some fisticuffs. Great, free entertainment for the willing public, but you are stranded for longer.  Story ends with you still being far away from your intended destination, wringing your hands and waiting for 27D all over again.  No better example of ML.

I am sure each of you have had delayed flights in your travel life.  Once my dear wife and I were at the airport 3 hours ahead of schedule for a flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo.  Everything was hunky-dory till about 45 minutes to departure.  Then came the blaring ML-induced announcement that our flight was delayed.  I looked at the Departures board and out of some 60 flights shown there, only one was delayed.  Ours.  When finally we took off after 5 hours, we heaved a collective sigh of relief - prematurely it turned out.  Just about an hour from Tokyo we were told a storm was brewing and we could not land.  So, fly all the way back to Hong Kong we did, as if we were taking a non-geosyncronous circular orbital flight.  Not without some more drama too.  With one hour to go for landing in Hong Kong, we heard that the same weather system was creating havoc in Hong Kong too.  With just about enough fuel to land and no mid-air-refuelling possibility and a very turbulent weather to contend with,  our pilot was wondering whether he should divert to some other airport when he was ordered to head to a god-forsaken Chinese city in the interior, which had a shack for a terminal and nothing else.  We had to spend a miserable half-day there - no food, no water, no toilet facility, nobody to tell you where you were -  before we were mercifully flown back to Hong Kong and home, which were very, very wet with a deluge, caused by a typhoon. One helluva trip (can we call it that, since nothing was accomplished and we did not go to the intended place at all?), indeed.  My dear wife talks very fondly of this trip because with that she deems to have visited China.

One of my friends, who is a movie buff, wanted to see Come September very badly, bunking college classes. I very wisely refused to be party to such a scheme.  He went with a few others.  Those days we could not afford anything other than the lowest class, within touching distance of the screen.  So, there he was enjoying the movie from close quarters.  During the interval, his uncle who was visiting from another town and was in the privileged balcony class, spotted him (and unfortunately my friend did not notice him).  In the night, when the congregation was stuffing its mouth, the uncle blandly asked my friend `so how was the movie'?  Shrinking like a chicken on which some ice-cold water was thrown, my friend tried to blabber his way out but his uncle had the ammunition ready to nail him - the names of all the other friends with whom he graced the movie.  My dear friend did not know where to look and had to confess to his parents he bunked college and went for a movie - not the outcome he desired.  All the time cursing that malevolent uncle who was not supposed to be there.

So far in life, ML has played truant with me many times, but without any disastrous consequences, thankfully.  My dear wife says hopefully future ML inflictions will be as mild as we have had so far. 

Thank God and Thathastu!!  



  

  

Monday, February 27, 2023

This Mobile Phone Is A Pain In The .....

Recently some worthy-- his wife had presumably left him for good and he had joyfully married his cell phone instead without any fanfare -- was singing paens celebrating this versatile instrument of dubiously mixed value. He rightly pointed out that it has replaced multiple gadgets/props we use in our daily lives, ranging from alarm clock thru radio, tv, calendar, calculator, torch, banking assistant, payment gateway, dictionary, newspaper to its ultimate avator of information provider -- well one can go on ad infinitum.  And he is right. What is more, I for one would not be surprised if the ubiquitous cell phone is also enabled to cool your drink, cook your meal and flush your toilet in the years to come.  But not everyone thinks it has all been a joy ride without frequent bouts of pain.  Literally.  For instance, when you forget you are joined in the hip with this twin brother of yours, the phone in your hip pocket, and plonk down heavily collapsing into a seat, ouch, it hurts the bone there.  But that is not all.  A bum call goes out to someone you have been avoiding for years or worse, an awkward message is shot out to a friends' group instantly.  Every member of the group would gleefully remember and recall this gem invariably in a group so that this embarassing information ripples out uncontrollably, ensuring that you remain the butt of jokes for a long time to come. 

Some phones come with a plethora of proprietary apps and these make life miserable for you at unexpected moments.  Having no interest in such apps, you ignore them completely. All of a sudden, when you are in the middle of a business exchange, there appears on the screen a totally unwanted casino game and throws you off.  Try as you may, this leech of a game refuses to go away and exasperated, you perform that one panacea-act for all ills in a mobile phone, `reboot'. And lose whatever data or content you had been working on.  With a painful explanation to follow to the counterpart who has been waiting for you to get back on line.  Or some strange You Tube like app suddenly blares out an absolutely cringeworthy hiphop song featuring zombies of various denominations, which you cannot get rid of despite valiant effort. Again `reboot' is the only action you can resort to.

A month back, I was aghast when my dear wife asked me to clean up her phone.  Being a hoarder par excellence, she keeps everything received and sent in the phone for years, as if all content is sacred and precious.  Then it takes a month for me to bring it to some semblance of current state when I am tasked with cleaning up.  This time, I found that she had apps for all kinds of things - one for ordering Avakkai pickle, one for paruppu podi, one for appalam, three for different fruit vendors (each one gives good banana, apple and oranges respectively, so three is the minimum required), some sixty seven undeleted groups which are no longer active and many members had already escaped from this world. This multiplicity of groups also meant some thousand messages were retained and approximately 75% just had a thumbs up or some other emoji.  Earlier you could ignore these easily but recently, one messaging system has thought it wise and appropriate to draw your attention the emoticon with the message `Reacted to your message' as if that is a historic accomplishment!  I carefully avoided shaking my head in frustration because her phone is so, so, sensitive that my simple nod might have resulted in unpalatable, mysterious gyrations which would eventually bring my intelligence into question when my dear wife reviews the phone after clean-up.  

They make these phones ultra-sensitive nowadays to score some brownie points and deliberately programme some wrist or finger-tip movements to initiate specific actions, to satisfy some weird market segment. When one is warming up to some spirited argument and becomes all palms and fists, gesticulating feverishly to make one's point, all of a sudden the cell phone reacts, goes berserk and does something as if possessed, which you cannot decipher for the next few hours.  If the all-purpose reboot option works fine, otherwise you have to visit a phone clinic, where a tehnician breezily pushes a few buttons and resurrects the phone.  You end up looking very stupid and clueless.  All because two shakes are programmed to mean the phone does one thing and one and a half clockwise jerks mean something else.  You have to go through the phone manual in the smallest possible font before you figure out the various involuntary/deliberate actions and complicated results thereof.  Older people would fine typing difficult because contrary to what they intend, the phone uses the senstitivty index to type out its own message, add the lottery aspect of auto-correct to complete the task.  Most of the time, people do not check, assuming that what is going out is what they intended.  Those people who have the habit of touching the screen all over instead of specific buttons, find that they have to do multiple iterations of the same exercise before they give up in frustration or succumb to the phone's dictat and send out whatever is there, hoping that the recipient would call to clarify.  The problem is compounded if it goes out to the wrong recipient.

One of the most inconvenient things with the cell phones is you cannot evade any active seeker saying `I did not receive any call', or `I did not see any missed call' or any such inane lie because there is evidence in your phone that a call was indeed received and some people are not beyond checking your phone surreptitiously! They take the liberty to examine your phone and then you are discovered for what you are!  Or worse still, all those not-so-charming faces which you have been happy avoiding for some time and have blissfully forgotten in the process, pop up suddenly in unannounced video calls to bring back all the nightmares of yore.

So, my take is the cell phone is not an unmixed blessing.  It is great in many respects but there is significant downside too, like the hurt hip bone.  Considering that, I would rather call this instrument an `anukoola chatru'!  And to think that, some people carry two phones, each with two sim cards!!  God cannot help them because they have gone beyond the pale!!



 


Saturday, January 28, 2023

Opposites Attract! Do they?

How often have you admired Saurav Ganguly's cover drive?  And thought that he executes that more exquisitely than Dravid and Tendulkar?  I know I am not the only one to think that.  Even though, technically there may not be any difference in the way the three greats played that shot and all of them were flawless with that.  So, then why that feeling that Saurav did it better??  The simple truth is it is only because his was a left hander's cover drive and the other two were right handers.  Am not being frivolous about it.  We are so used to seeing right handed batsmen wading into their shots, once a good leftie steps in, we think he is much more delightful to watch, his shots are more fluid and he does it, well, better.  It is just a case of the opposite attracting you.  When the field is full of right handers, an occasional leftie seems more attractive.  Plain and simple.

That was a good example of why opposites attract.  When someone marches into the scene and seems very different, even odd, compared to the bunch one has always known or moved with, an immediate superficial interest is ignited, without too much personal effort from the new comer.  Only because, like Maggi sweet and sour sauce, s/he is different.  Curiosity is piqued by the `strangeness' factor and where it proceeds from curiosity depends entirely on the individuals involved.

Let us look at the physical aspects of such attraction.  A tall person does not necessarily go looking for a short one to be the partner I think.  A six-foot-two-inch man marrying (or dating) a five-foot-nothing woman is nothing outrageous or rare.  You see such combinations frequently.  Even if the woman has to whisper something to her partner, she will have to climb a few steps up the man to accomplish that feat.  Similarly if the man wants to plant a peck on the cheek of his woman, he has to show considerable humility through a significant bend.  The man can probably cover two and a half steps of the woman with his single stride and this inequality is not without its own problem.  Left to their natural strides, the man might leave his lady way behind when he reaches the destination much faster and the lady is not going to be amused by that.  Unless of course, one of them changes the normal stride - either the lady accelerates herself huffing and puffing; or the man drops his speed to a first gear waddle to be in line with his lady.  Of course, the physical aspect alone would not have forged the connection initially in such cases, there would have been other personality traits which come into play.  But, the fact remains that neither the man or the lady was wondering how s/he would cope with the above and other similar myriad issues that might crop up in their life together.  Or, may be they did and thought nothing of these things because of instant attraction!

One of the primary reasons why Laurel and Hardy always scored in their hilarious shows is the physical size of the two in relation to each other.  One instance of how the bulky and the reedy work well in a partnership.  But is that workable in a marital scene?  Not sure.  There could be many reasons why such a marraige could come about, without either of them fancying the other one initially.   Also, some people tend to `blossom' liberally in life and bloat whereas the other one can shrink despite being a glutton.  What could have begun as a normal match-making decision could have gone out of shape literally due to extraneous reasons, like harmonal problems.  So, most of such combinations would probably be due to people accepting the cards they have been dealt with rather than actively selecting `attractive' opposites.

How about a voluble, incessant talker of a wife and a silent, monk-like husband?  We have come across many such.  This works well probably because one is a talker and another is a listener (may be he does not pay attention at all, but is a pretender non-pareil).  The garrulous and boisterous woman goes about filling the ears of all those present on every social occasion, whereas the reticent man, whose mouth may have to be forced open violently even for a morsel of food, seldom utters a syllable to anybody.  While it is possible that the woman chose her partner calculatedly, paying attention to his being her opposite in this aspect, one cannot imagine a man willingly walking into a deadly trap like that.  But there are men who like to be bossed over (one cannot imagine why, but there are) and it is highly likely that this man unconditionally surrendered to the booming lady in their first meeting!  Opposites attracting each other??  Possible, but the marvel is that the relationship endures in many cases (typically the husband does not dare act even if he hates his plight) with the parties staying true to their characteristics.  The guess is that the man gets so completely subjugated after some time he probably does not even care and develops complete indifference.

An-angry-man-and-a-submissive-woman template is something very common.  Temperamentally the two people cannot be more antithetical and are yet together.  Probably because their parents cynically decided they are good for each other for some strange reason.  But there is no doubt that the lady who suffers through torrents of angry outbursts day in and day out would not have fallen for the `opposite' trait in the man.  How can anybody??  Unless there is a strong streak of masochism in the lady and she liked being ridden roughshod all her life.  This serves to tell us that all such `opposites' together are not attracted to each other, but many are compelled into partnerships and decide to just painfully tolerate the show.  Truer of the previous generations than to-day's youngsters, who work with very different yard-sticks when they decide to marry.

If both partners are very alike in their appraoch to life, likes and dislikes how would existence be?  Could be seen either as very peaceful or boring, depending on who you talk to.  This combination is a rarity, I think.  It could be the external manifestation or masking of the angry-and-the-submissive relationship, wherein one always is acquiecing so that friction is avoided at all costs and a display of false harmony is what others see. 

So, in balance, I am not sure this theory of opposites attracting will hold good everywhere.  My dear wife strongly agrees and believes that in every marriage one person tends to be a bit stronger such that firm decisions are taken as they should be without too much blood-spill and use of bulldozers.  I refuse to say who takes the firm decisions in our home!!   



   


Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Conscientious Ruling Class

A friend of mine has been diligently sending to me one Kural daily, with succinct meaning included. Recently, one Kural got stuck in my mind for a few days and I just did not know why I was unable to get past that one.  Then it dawned on me that this particular couplet was directly showing the torch on the behaviour of the contemporary politicians in our country.  Who would have thought?  That classic crown jewel of Thamizh literature, Thiruvalluvar's couplets, 'Thirukkural' being the guiding light for the current crop of political leaders in the country, in conducting their affairs?  Yet, that seems to be so, going by how diligently Thiruvalluvar's edicts for rulers are being adhered to today.  I know it is beyond belief and the interpretation of the ruling class today could be warped by their own crooked objectives, but they seem to try to abide by the teachings of Kural in their own weird way.  Let us see how.

Kural 382 is one of the best examples.  Thiruvalluvar lays down four fundamental tenets for rulers to follow for success in their endeavours - - fearlessness, giving/sharing generously, wisdom to prevent harm and relentless energy while facing problems.  We know what Thiruvalluvar had in mind when he laid down the four guiding principles, but our politicians definitely know differently and have brazenly taken the contents out of context to completely twist the lines to their advantage.  

Absolute fearlessness - once one is part of a leading political party, especially one of those which is likely to be ruling in some part, the politician does not need to fear anything.  He contemptuously swats aside all those institutions one normally respects and fears - like justice, law and order, right and wrong etc and proceeds to loot public wealth with single minded dedication and commitment.  He does not fear the courts or police because he knows they are all on the take, powerless against bull-headed political leaders and that he can buy his way out of any and all troubles that are likely hurdles in his way of amassing wealth for himself.  By personal leadership, he also instills this fearlessness (and also lawlessness) in his minions and cronies as well as political and personal heirs.  

Giving generously - taking off from the previous trait, this comes as a necessary corollary for successful politicians.  All the loot they collect is shared with the contractors they select for all works;  with the party seniors who can otherwise cause immense harm, if deprived of their rightful share of the booty; with all those ever-willing and sycophantic relatives and friends who become recipients of corrupt money as benami holders.  The last tribe may not get to usurp all the wealth so ill-gotten, but will enjoy a decent share to ensure that they live well and perpetuate the terribly obnoxious practice.  Helping in this devious enterprise are professionals like tax practitioners, lawyers, government officials, whose palms are all eagerly awaiting grease all the time.

Wisdom to prevent harm - This is where the ruling class excels in ingenuity and combine that with their ability to make undeserving people unduly rich. While Thiruvalluvar meant preventing harm to the general population through righteous rules, current crop of leaders gleefully focus on a few segments of the same population which are helpful to them in conducting their evil business fearlessly.  They nurture hooligans and vicious gangs of all stripes in order to mercilessly pummel protesting people into submission, without compunction.  In that sense they do protect the offending people from harm of all kinds including threats from opponents as well as action from law enforcing agencies.  They are very clairvoyant in preventing harm to themselves by resorting to dubious and even outrageous techniques to escape jail and punishment.  There seems to be enormous wisdom available to cook up new designs to violate all rules with impunity and still be free from punishment/action.  Even before the affected party goes to court, the offending guys have got anticipatory bail for all kind of offences including capital crimes.

Relentless energy in dealing with problems - Politicians have a separate corporate set up for this essential feature in their industry, as we know, as mentioned earlier.  Problems there will be since most of their entrprise is entwined in illegal and nefarious activities.  But then they also have a regular, well-trained supply of ingenious professionals like lawyers, tax consultants, corrupt judges, public relations team,  press people et al whose only responsibility is to subvert the system and keep the leaders out of trouble all of hues.  They are ever ready to deny all accusations even before they are made and are ten steps ahead, like seasoned chess players are, of their opponents at all times.  And once a well manufactured solution is cast for a specific problem, like a well oiled machine their system replicates it  ad infinitum.  Because it has all the same crooked web to work with.

Avaricious and warped men's interpretation of Thirukkural and their implementation of its edicts may be entirely different from the original intent, but our intrepid politicians will shamelssly cry from roof-tops that they follow the Kural diligently, if given a chance and a platform.  Only God can tackle them!! If He wanted, he could have made short work of all these specimens in no time, so we have to conclude He does not want to touch them with even a barge-pole.




   

 

20th Century Breakfast Experience!

A friend was visiting Bangalore from Bombay.  A rather innocuous suggestion from my dear wife that he should grab a bite at one of the anted...