Corruption Institutionalised and Nationalised

Some time back, the Supreme Court (SC) had advised the government to see if corruption can be legalized, no doubt agonized by the endemic presence of the malady in India.  Reactions within my household were different -- my father tut-tutted, shook his head in sombre acknowledgement, but did not want to waste any words on a situation which he sees as beyond redemption; I was simultaneously amused by the judges' dig at the politicians and ashamed as an Indian; my son smirked and said that SC judges had not lost their sense of humour.  Dripping sarcasm notwithstanding, the comment probably reflected the thinking of a good chunk of the right-minded and corruption-stricken  population, which could not see a way out of the quagmire into which various government departments have descended over the past few decades.  While being acutely aware of the utter seriousness of the issue and the distress this causes to people at various levels, this scribe attempts to see a set of bizarre and ridiculous outcomes, should the government choose to pick up the gauntlet thrown by the SC.

The Scenario:  Indian Parliament legalizes corruption by unanimously approving a new law.  Not a single member of the combined Houses voted against the legislation.  When a voice vote was done first, the speaker thought she heard some 3000+ voices in favour, whereas the combined strength should have the maximum decibel level supported by around 750 people.  Confused, she resorted to checking the numbers via hand vote and found that it was still almost double the total strength of the houses; she found out that was because almost all the members, carried away by their enthusiasm, were holding up both hands and some feet also.  Finally it was concluded that all those present were fanatically in favour of the new law - only because they harboured this pious hope that India will finally be rid of corruption!!  No other ulterior motive in this, they vouched!!  There were 56 absentees, ironically due to the fact that those MPs were in jail, facing criminal or corruption charges; there was not an iota of doubt as to which way these worthies would have voted.

Coming down to the nitty-gritties like `fixing' the legalised charge, while seasoned seniors in the hierarchy advocated a `whatever the traffic will bear' dictum to drive the collection into the kitty, the more `disciplined' lot wanted a ceiling to be prescribed.  A cap of 5% on the amount payable to the government was fixed for ad valorem computation of Speed Money (SM) in the cases involving individuals.  Oh, this writer forgot to record the fact that the lawmakers jubilantly removed the word `bribe' from the lexicon of the government and administration in India and smugly substituted it with `Speed Money'.  10% was the corresponding cap prescribed for transactions involving companies/business.  Some sources indicated that some Ministries, especially the Telecom ministry, were not amused with the low cap and they argued that they can rake in almost 300% of the value of the contracts currently, with their deft manoevres.  Their legitimate question was why should they give up that lucre for a mere pittance??  But for now, their voices seem to have been suppressed with an iron hand by the powers-that-be!!   There were some murmurs among sophisticated government officials that there should be an `economy' rate and a higher `executive' rate to differentiate between normal and expeditious service, but this thought process is yet to gather momentum.

Speed money payable in each case will be finalised through negotiation between the payer and the government officials, subject to the ceiling prescribed.  The mandarins reasoned that if a specific rate was fixed and paid by everyone, thereby eliminating any scope for pow-wows with the public, the entire government machinery would lose touch with people completely.  This was a major concern amongst the public-service-oriented officials and they opted for a ceiling and negotiations, as in old days. Receipts will be issued for amounts inclusive of speed money, thereby maintaining a high level of integrity and transparency in the deals.  Parties can resort to a pre-determined arbitration process to break a deadlock.  Other details were left to the Ministry of Speed Money Oversight -MSMO- (yes, a new Ministry has been formed, with a Cabinet minister in charge, to monitor the functioning of the government in this critical area) to implement.  Last heard, the four senior most ministers in the central government including the Prime Minister, are lobbying intensely to grab this position, since they believe that this ministry will make the most stellar contributions to the society, politics and life in general in the country, going forward.

Some expected consequences:  Indian polity and public will see a paradigm shift in the process of selection of candidates for elections to the Municipalities, Corporations, Assemblies and Parliament.  Election Commission is expected to come up with a set of new requirements that prospective candidates should ostensibly meet before their applications for contesting the elections will be accepted.  All those who profess to be `clean' and have no corruption case against them will be disqualified summarily and they will not be eligible to even obtain the application form.   This is deemed necessary since elected representatives are expected to use their experience to be innovative in  taking the legitimized speed money regime to greater heights in the new environment, which will be somewhat restrictive due to the legal provisions.

Courts will have no jurisdiction in future, over cases involving disputes regarding speed money payment.  MSMO will be the final adjudicating authority and will have administrative offices in each district to provide effective oversight in this matter; this will definitely reduce the number of cases ending up with our judicial system currently. Vigilance Commissions (VCs) at the Centre and in the States will be completely revamped because their roles will undergo a sea change.  Their primary role will be to investigate if any government officer is acting against MSMO's directives; they will look for culprits in the ranks of the bureaucracy and its minions, who try to stymie the carefully crafted structure by omitting to collect speed money or collecting less than the optimal amount.  This obviously requires that all honest and clean officers in the VCs be cashiered forthwith and `suitably speed-money oriented' officers roped in.

The most surprising and significant fallout of this new law has caused consternation among all central and state government employees.  This tribe, which is used to a steady income in the form of salary, even though it was a small portion of their overall compensation, has been stung by the proposal that the government will no longer be `responsible' for the compensation (salary, allowances etc) payable to the employees.  While the scales of pay and allowances will be determined by the government as is done now, the various departments have to defray this expense directly from their speed money collections.  This master stroke by the government will ensure that the entire government machinery flexes its muscles to maximise the collections (because their take-home pay will come out of this) and there is no scope for weak-links, who are drags on the overall efficiency of the system.  While excess accrual of Speed Money (over and above the compensation) can be distributed among the various employees, short collection will not be made up from the government coffers.  This means there is a clear incentive for all the government employees and departments to pull, as a team, in the same direction.  People realise this is something which has never happened before and are excited about this development.   Also, various officers in the hierarchy will be kept honest by the need for sharing the speed money with everyone else in the office and this will serve as an in-built mechanism for control and audit. The clear advantage for the public is that all revenues received by the government will be used for development work, without any portion being swallowed by the officials.   Various third world countries are so impressed by this model that they are waiting to see how India successfully implements this, before asking for help to import the same.

All agents will be completely eliminated and all dealings will be directly between the citizen and the government.  What more can one ask for from a government?  Imagine walking into a document registration office, where you have to pay Rs.130,000 as registration charges.  You pay some Rs.5200 extra as speed money and pronto, the job is done and you are out of the place with the registration done.  Sounds like the epitome of efficiency to this writer!!

Sorry, what was that question??  `What if some officials demand a `bribe' over and above the prescribed  limit of speed money'?  Oh, damn, well, hmmmm, errrrrr, you mean to say that is likely to happen?  Just because Indian government officials cannot envisage a life without bribes?? Are  you saying we will be back to where we began, despite all the good work done with this new legislation??  Does someone have a solution??

Indira Gandhi remembered

 This is in response to an article on Indira Gandhi, her assassination and her imposition of Emergency
in the 70s.  Brief comments on some aspects of IG:
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The article on IG is excellent, I must say.  While you have talked about her assassination, you have
not identified the reason leading up to that sad event as another case in point, demonstrative IG's
courage and determination.  She would have probably applied the same rule to deal with Kashmir
and Maoists.  But it is also a sad fact that she had as much to do with the creation of Bhindranwale
as anyone else, so she sowed the seeds of tragedy herself.  Now, going back to our Literature days,
it is pretty easy to identify IG as a Shakespearean tragic heroine, in the same mould as Macbeth,
Hamlet et al.  She had everything in her  to become probably the best PM we have ever had and achieve
much more during her life time, but she did have the tragic flaws you have talked about, which limited
her accomplishments.

Re emergency, I am walking out on a limb, I know, when I say that probably Indians deserve a somewhat
benign dictator.  While we can boast of being the largest democracy and of holding successful (??) elections
frequently, the fact remains that ours is a flawed version of democracy where the politicians are running
rampant with their dens of corruption and lawlessness, bringing all institutions into various degrees of
disrepute.  It has come to such a pass that we feel ashamed that we dont have a good candidate we can vote
for, most of the times.  You have to choose among the evils and settle for the least evil demon to vote for.
Under the circumstances, if something like an emergency is clamped by a benign (this is indeed the operative
word) dictator and he/she works towards cleaning up the mess we have created in the name of democracy,
I would be all for it.  Yes, some of the `extreme' liberties one has today (like destroying public property during
protests, throwing mikes/chairs inside an assembly, accumulating personal wealth by lining one's pockets with
public funds, going on strikes for the flimsiest of reasons etc) might be
taken away or dealt with more severely, but then such things dont matter to law-abiding men-on-the-street
anyway, so long as the ability to protest lawfully is not withdrawn.

This is like talking of political discontent in Singapore.  I was chatting once with a couple of Singaporean
Members of Parliament (one from a Tamil party and another from Lee's party).  While the Tamil MP was saying
Lee was a benign dictator, who meant well but did not allow for complete freedom for other parties to `express'
themselves on some issues, the other MP said with the kind of education levels prevailing in Singapore (at that
time i.e. around the early 80's), they needed very stringent guidelines for people to follow.   Some guiding hand
was necessary so that people dont go berserk in the name of freedom and democracy.

That is exactly what we need in India and I long for someone like IG with a lot more faith in himself/herself to come
through and be that guiding hand for Indians.  Otherwise, we will get completely overwhelmed by the corrosive
greed of politicians and others of their ilk.

I know journalists like you and others who want democracy to be completely absolute will not subscribe to the above,
but then I am a common man who desires that the cancer afflicting our country gets excised and quickly.  Do we know
another, more effective way of achieving this??

A R Rahman

I dont know how many of you have listened to the songs of Endhiran.  I, for one, was absolutely baffled by
what Rahman has come up with.  As with Ravanan, in which album I struggled to identify one song of
passable music interest, Endhiran music is an unmitigated disaster (unless, of course, I have missed something). Amidst all the noises produced by the instruments and the singers, something more seems to have been
forgotten than just melody, which has been the casualty more often than not.  As Rahman gets more seasoned,
one expected him to juggle with various expectations and still provide tunes which had a nodding resemblance
to the ones he surged into the music world with.  But he seems to be focusing more and more on techno music
and all the moans and screeches that are expected to be pleasing the `youth'.  I can assure you that the `young'
in me is far from pleased and I would like to know how others feel.  I am coming around to believe that those who say Ilayaraja was much more consistent all through his career in delivering hits/good tunes, have not lost their marbles. Unless Rahman does a reverse musical somersault to go back to what worked with most of us till some 5 years ago, he might as well stick to the western world and produce more of the instrumental cacophony that he is getting to be identified with nowadays.

Learning Golf

I lived in Jakarta for almost 6 years.  During that time, despite what was inevitably perceived as a crying need as well as a business protocol and despite having performed that ritualistic abomination for over two decades elsewhere, a soundless shudder went through my spine every time an invitation for an event landed on my desk.   Of course, the disadvantage with that kind of a shudder is that my colleagues and the secretary could not feel a thing because it was silent.  They went about  their chores, enviously mumbling `Lucky Mr.Varad - he gets to go to all the glitzy events'.  If only they knew!!  The primary reason for the activation of that minor quake was simple - within 45 seconds of meeting anyone i.e. even before he lets go off your hand, the first question popping out was `How is your golf?'.  And I didnt play the game!  I had no problem not playing the game because that was a very conscious choice, but it was terribly upsetting that I had to confront those arched eyebrows, tilted heads and vague smiles, which were simultaneously patronizing and distancing, if you know what I mean!  As if one did not belong if one was not a golfer.

Members of the the expatriate community, especially Indians, initially sounded as if everyone was part of the PGA Tour and was a practice partner of Tiger Woods (he had kept all his shenanigans still buried under those `greens' then).   Even after getting to know each other much better, during group conversations, they would turn to me and reconfirm that I had not, by mistake, commenced golfing.  And all those patronizing signs would shine again, like high-beam-headlights.  I quickly learnt an effective counter.  Having been conspiratorially told by a good friend that most of these were pretend-golfers and had handicaps in 4 digits (they probably reached the green after a few days, that too with considerable help after losing their way), I put on my own condescending look and innocuously asked these chaps at an opportune moment, when everyone in the group was listening, `Oh, good....you must be very good?  What is your handicap?'.  With that one query, most people did feel deflated enough to steer clear of me, towards neutral territory.  But I had nothing against golf and was determined to take it up, but in my mind it had its time!

The reason I chose not to play golf then was that I spent all my Sundays in the cricket field, being active in Jakarta Cricket League games.  My rationale was - when I could still run about, let me play cricket and when I could only walk with a stick in hand for support, let me take up golf - more or less.  I did see golf as very slow and that opinion has not changed significantly today, after I have commenced playing.

So, when I finally arrived at a course in Bangalore, along with another former University level cricketer friend who had a similar, healthy dislike for the pace of golf during our cricket days, I was apprehensive about not lasting long.   The coach sized me up, asked me why I was taking up the game so late.   I could see he had made up his mind that I would live forever with a 4-digit-handicap until I breathe my last, still in search of my first green, actually any green, with a pitching iron in my hand.   He did not seem impressed when I said I was playing other games, so did not have time for this august sport.  The baleful look in his eyes told me he was thinking of `marbles', `gilli-danda' and the like, that too during school-days.  He shrugged and physically moved me some distance from the other, fit-looking youngsters, swinging golf clubs in the range, as if he would want to hide me away.  He explained the posture, the permitted and prohibited movements during the shots and left me to swing my free arms for the next half hour.   That half hour seemed, to me,  pretty much like what grim-looking doctors, doubtfully looking at complex panels, call the `most critical half hour' that will determine whether the patient has a better chance of after-life than life-thereafter.  Nothing in hand, bent into an unnatural and therefore uncomfortable slouch, swinging my hands in an arc from back to front, with the upper and lower limbs struggling to keep their required positions and the ankles assuming some weird final angles at the finish - I was ready to acknowledge that our friend Woods was fully entitled to all his skirmishes and more as perquisites,  if he was doing this for a living for years!!

After what seemed an eternity, the coach materialised with an `iron' and a bucket of balls, indicating that it was not yet time to trigger his plan to abandon the sinking ship.  He asked me to pay attention, placed a ball in front of himself, used the club to hit the ball sweetly some 100 yards without any seeming effort, even before I could get a look at how he was doing that; repeated this ritual a few times - I could still not manage a complete look at a single shot - and smiled very pityingly at me as if to say `It is that simple, but am not sure you can do it'.   But he mouthed some encouraging platitudes, to acknowledge the coaching fees I had paid earlier and gave the club to me and said `Have a go'.   Then he took a position behind me, resigned to the anticipated outcome.

The first ball I hit - no, that is not an accurate statement from an honest scribe -
rather, I tried to hit, stayed firmly and stubbornly exactly where it always was, even after I had finished my stroke.   I was confused because I knew I had hit something with a thump and that flew in front of me in a lump.  I looked around and found that my first golf stroke had dislodged about 0.5% of the grass that the golf course owned and that chunk had flown a few feet in front of me, leaving a crater about one foot behind the obstinate ball.   The coach looked at the crater, assessing the damage to the real estate and whether it was prudent to collect the penalty after every stroke or at one go after the session was over.  He seemed to conclude the later option made more sense and asked me to try again, helpfully moving the ball a bit away from the man-made crater.  Somehow, I felt he was just ensuring that the crater did not get enlarged.  This time, boy, I was exhilarated by the fact that I connected alright.  I looked ahead, up in the air, to locate the ball and realised that I had played what was probably the straightest of straight drives, all along the ground - something I had been trying to do in vain for over 35 years in cricket.  What do you know, the coach seemed more relieved than me and was almost convinced that I could continue at least for the rest of the session.

Then various shots flew in all sorts of unintended directions - there were inside out lofted drives over deep point, lofted cover drives,  on-drives through mid-wicket and mid-on, you name it and I had hit the shot that day.  "Spraying"  is the word that comes to mind.  It was almost as if the `iron' had recently acquired a mind of its own, apart from its head, and was working independent of the intentions of the golfer and was out to prove who was in control.  I was no match for it and was beaten hands down.  Another thing that happened repeatedly was that while there was adequate space around the ball, I was bent upon  hitting the top of the ball (pretty difficult, you know, even if you actually `try' to do that) with the bottom of my club.   Instead of soaring up, the ball kept sinking deep into the mud. The coach was grimly commentating all the time -`back swing is not coming down straight', `upper body is moving', `look at your feet, not where they should be', `you are not looking at the ball when making contact', `you are lifting your head', etc etc.  And all those about 250 things had to be co-ordinated for every stroke. If about 10 are not right, one played a handsome, Sehwag-like lofted cover-drive, except that the ball was unfortunately very different.  I understood why one should start early with golf, kind of.

Well, I think I hit about 150 balls in that session and got some 10 or 15 to go where all of them should have.  Very depressing it was, to me.  But the coach seemed very satisfied, not with my game but with his own prognosis having been on the coin.  Then we moved to the putting green.  After the usual demonstration and theoretical explanation of the posture, the movement etc by the coach, I tried my hand in that too.  I felt that whenever I had pushed the ball towards the hole (and it was no further than 18 inches away) and it was almost in (let me assure you that was not frequently), I swear the hole shrunk significantly, having received direct communication from the approaching ball.  Obviously, the result was the ball, which was 18" away from the hole earlier ended up about 18 feet away.  The ball, the hole, the putter - they were all in cahoots to embarrass and humiliate the first time golfer and sap his spirit.  And the coach must have orchestrated all this during the half hour I was swinging my arms wildly. 

And what is the current status, you ask??  Well, it has been a few months now.  I still hit some balls on the head and some go to deep point, cover and mid-wicket, but generally am able to move in the direction of the green.  I suspect the course authorities, after my first few sessions on the driving range, widened everything for people like me and the holes were also apparently made larger (since they had no control over the size of the ball and anyway this was the easier option) so that people like me don't feel discouraged, slighted and frustrated.  But, I realise one thing.  When you play for fun, it does not matter when and after how many strokes you reach the hole.  I don't even count most days.  It is indeed a great walk in the vase expanse of green and the Bangalore weather is a great bonus.  The smell of grass is absolutely sensational, especially after the overnight rain and the gentle breeze is so soothing.  What is more, you don't need anyone else to play golf with.  You just take a caddy and go along your own way;  let people in a hurry pass; take your own time over your shot.  It is a journey for a few hours and that is what matters.  I enjoy that alright.

But, what about cricket??  You know what, ready for that any day!!  And I am glad I played club level cricket until the state of the body pushed me to the driving range.  Instead of running, I am walking now, but I have old friends bellowing to me `Atta-boy, so, finally you are ageing gracefully, with golf'!!  Yes, indeed and I am happy.

Lost and never found!!

Seven of us in the gated community we live in (Vista) were pilloried for a couple of weeks - they called the process persuasion.  We were being coercively-cajoled into being members of the Management Committee (MC) for the coming year.  In February, even before the nebulous contours of our potential responsibilities got a semblance of definition, we got bulldozed into a `unanimous election process'.  In short order, we were led like lambs for slaughter to a platform for the community to hail the outcome.

While various other initiatives have been worked on with the knowledge of the residents, we kept one from their prying eyes till now and recently we decided to share this info with them.  The following communication was the means through which the dissemination took place:

"We think it is time to share with the community this information, lifting the curtain on a rather secretive project that has been undertaken by some members of the current MC.  If a member of the team was caught snooping around late in the night, during what looked like a regular post-prandial stroll or a couple of members were found suspiciously inspecting nooks and corners no self-respecting member of the community would have been seen in, there was always a good reason for that.  We have been doubling up as sleuths, voluntarily taking on the undeclared responsibility of restoring lost items to their rightful owners.  We thought we would keep this under the wraps and see the joy on the faces of the `missers' when we restored their 'missings' to them.   While the intentions have been very good, the results have not been very heartening, we should admit.  And herein lies the rub.

One of the things we did on priority when we took over was to check the email database and tabulate all the items mentioned as lost during the past few years.  What we found was staggering, to say the least.  Here goes:

-- Cricket bats which could have been used by about 5 full teams were reported missing.  We suspect that the bats have become part of a sustainable fuels related project, at the behest of someone who is partial to football.  I am sure he thought that the bats were being put to better use, after having seen the quality cricket games in Vista!! (Villas 1X7, X1, X3 and all the others,  take heart; we have not given up; we are made
of stronger stuff than that).

-- A couple of villas reported duplicate key bunches were missing.  It has been a few years since then.
Our immediate endeavour was to ensure that the owners were not standing outside the front door, stranded and waiting for the keys to surface.  Of course, we realised Vista residents are smarter than that - they must have quickly resorted to other solutions. (Villa X3 was one of the two, I think.  The other owner one probably moved residence!).

-- Quite a few people had lost umbrellas, shoes, slippers, sandals.  The team found, to its dismay, that information on the missing items in the database was neither adequate in terms of size, colour, brand etc nor graphic enough to enable differentiation amongst a whole lot of umbrellas and footwear we found invitingly lying around or attached to various residents.  (Sorry,  Villas XX7, X8, X1  - while we pursued
our search vigorously, there was very little hope because such items didnt seem to carry distinct identities, without which, you will agree, we were helpless!)

-- The most interesting missing item I personally identified was some `thread'; owner of Villa X5 had reported this.  Since the date of reporting was very close to Aavani Avittam, we patted ourselves on our backs for our sleuthing abilities and went about looking for `that type of thread'; but to no avail; we do hope he found the thread and did the right thing on that and subsequent Aavani Avittams.  Kudos to owner of V X5 - way to go, it takes courage to report this kind of loss!

-- We found that the owner of V 14X was identified with at least 3 different missing items; a cycle, a blackberry and something else.  We are asking her to hire her own detective team, for her past and future requirements, due to the inviolable rule that we cannot devote too much time on one household.

-- Now, we found some very baffling statements, in the process.  Mrs. S was missing children's play area; somebody was missing the `blue swimming pool' (I know that during our reign it had turned a bit green for a while, but we are saddened by this tendency of people to go to the extreme); someone seemed to indicate that he/she was missing the lake (we understand it was covered by water hyacinth but we swear we could see water here and there.  And, with Mr.N as the custodian, any attempt to physically transplant the lake would be a non-starter, you will agree!!).  We confess, we did not even go around looking for these items. 

-- Then came the absolute impossibles; these various items were listed in the context of `missing' things - `energy and enthusiasm', `human relationships and interactions', `big picture' (this was very dicey; we could not make out whether a very big picture was actually involved in this) etc etc.  While our smart team could hope to put its arms around `real' missing items, even we could not look for abstract things like these; so, we diligently and wisely excluded these items from our list, right at the beginning.  We did the next best thing to finding these - discussed this threadbare in a meeting for about 3 hours and concluded with deep sighs and huge headshakes.

-- There were a couple of inexplicable items with references to missing paras from some email message and the missing page of a passport with a visa stamp.  Well, well - when we reached these, we figured what faced us was a daunting and uphill task and decided to wind up our expedition, without further ado.  The only thing we could do was to write this note, so the community at least came abreast of our intent.  We agree, we do not have too much to show for our efforts. 

Signed by PV
Not on behalf of the MC

PS:  As usual, my severest critic of all times , who lives in my household and goes into the `teacher' mode with me whenever she gets an opportunity, told me that it is inappropriate to indicate the age of people I have named.  She had just passed me by (that is very normal), casting a look at this note and catching the vague outline of the numbers against the names.  Before I could clarify that those are villa numbers, she had deducted 10 marks from my score for the day and gone to work!!

Interested in this retainer contract??

`Arre, tumhara naam Varadarajan hai ki nahin; mai khali number confirm karne ke liye phone kar rahaa hun' said an oily voice, with a hint of impatience because, as usual, I was trying to dance around the periphery

with the call from an unknown number, prompting the caller to repeat his query for the third time.  By now, I was not only irritated with the intrusion but was galled by the rudeness of the individual.  I disconnected

without answering the question and started to read through the article on the betting scandal haunting the Pakistan Cricket team.

I had just returned after the Sunday cricket game inside Adarsh Vista, the community in which I live now -capped by a last ball win I had personally handed over to the opponents.  I had the ball in my hand and had coolly run 5 yards towards the wicket and was close enough to crash the ball into the stumps with the batsman nowhere in sight; and at the last moment, had tossed the ball to the beckoning wicket keeper, who seemed keen to receive the ball and do the needful.  But, lo and behold, just as the ball left my hand, the guy stood up and let it float away.  I felt like a fool because, between us, we fluffed a sitter, thereby converting a certain 'tie' into a frustrating loss for our team.  Some seven pairs of eyes, to which my team-mates were attached,  balefully glared at me, as if my stupidity had resulted in the first ever defeat for them.  Their angst, as that of all the unseen spectators, was perfectly justified.  I was responsible for the loss and was immersed in a healthy dose of self-pity, when the above call came.  I am sure the readers can comprehend my reaction, even though the caller probably was livid!

Two hours later, another man called; this voice was suave and pretty cultured and the caller desired conversation with me after confirming that I was who I was supposed to be.  But the opening gambit from his side had the potential to derail the discussion right-away --- he offered a retainer for me to be on his roll.  I did not realise that my consultancy work had acquired such a global reputation that strangers would offer deals over phone.  So, I  balked at this and the caller smartly figured out I was confused.  He offered to elaborate.  He said the retainer was for aiding a start-up betting company in Bangalore, especially for subtle collaboration during future cricket games.  He wanted to leverage my standing in the community and my proven ability to screw-up easy opportunities, as evidenced during that morning's game, to spread the tentacles of his start-up betting company.  He said he heard from his head-hunter about me after the last-ball bungling of mine that day and made an immediate, board-level decision that I was immensely qualified to be on his roll. He even offered to rename me ---choices were `Walajah Raja'  (just to let me retain a semblance of dignity and a bit of my name)!! Or something totally off the wall his Board would decide.   Citizenship of Pakistan could be organized and I could be settled in pretty quickly, once I graduated from Sunday Vista cricket (no, not in cricket skills; he hinted there was no hope of that at all; but in terms of improvement as a furtive collaborator) to higher planes within the organization.  I was told that being a wicket keeper, I had the incredible opportunity to be a direct understudy with Kamran Akmal  and climb up the rankings in their domain, if I fulfilled my promise as a bungler.  I was even told that I had the good fortune of hobnobbing with some of the Pakistani greats - past and contemporary -  in the entire gamut of activities from spot-fixing to throwing matches, so that I picked up the intricacies of the trade quickly.

Disoriented by this direct assault without any preamble, I was stuttering wildly just as Wodehouse made Lord Emsworth stutter whenever the latter was confronted with a perilous situation involving his favourite pig, the Empress.  That, this man decided was the result of dilemma on my part and went on a `convincing drive',  to apply further pressure by stating that I would not be alone in this recruitment drive.  A captain from that Sunday's game, who completely 'forgot'  the presence of an ace-bowler in his team till the last over and thereby contributed a good chunk of runs by over-bowling himself and that man who was pretending to be the wicket keeper to me during my last ball gaffe, were both on the list and were being approached as we spoke.  This captain had the markings of being a good deputy to Salman Butt, he said. Actually he had a good point.  He challenged me to explain why I, being a regular wicket keeper was fielding at square leg and the `pretender' wicket-keeper, who was from the batting side, managed to displace me at the crucial time!!  Obviously I had no explanation.  And he chuckled with the satisfaction of a man who has done a good day's work and said that his talent-spotter had done a great job of rounding us up for his company.

It did'nt look like those guys would take a `no' for an answer.  I am scurrying around to find out what the others are doing, so that our collective response is appropriate!!

PS:  Just heard on Radio Pakistan - `Now, on to Sports News.  First, we will look at all the results of tomorrow's cricket matches.........' (I borrowed that from some other source).

Mutthiah Muralidharan and Malinga

Recently, there have been many an eulogy of Mutthiah Muralidharan, in the context of his 800th test wicket as well his audacity in almost fixing the date for his achievement!!  A rather innocuous write-up by a friend on Murali just managed to needle me into expressing my thoughts on this record-holder.

I know there are many ardent fans of Murali, but I must confess I am not one of them.  While I have no problem in recognizing all the hurdles he had to jump over to attain his record (which may not be broken for a long time) and therefore his grit and passion for the game, I am not able to reconcile what he peddled as off-spin bowling with `classical spin bowling,' as we know.  Bedi might have crossed the rubicon of civility  when he called Murali a `javeline thrower' rather than an off-spinner, but I must confess I share Bedi's sentiment when it comes to Murali's action.  I cannot think of any other player in the history of cricket who has had such an `unusual' action and was permitted by the establishment to go the distance.  While many have pointed out the fact that this unfortunate bowler has gone through umpteen tests, most imposed and some voluntary.  I dont think Murali becomes a hero just because he submitted himself to all the tests required of him -- he is the cricket equivalent of an `accused' in the legal parlance.  I believe he had no choice, if he wanted to continue and he was not doing any favour to anyone except himself.  And, to his credit, those who scrutinised him, thought it best to let him go on.  That blessed him with legitimacy alright.  While I am not even interested in going into the details of the tests and results thereof (obviously because I am not an expert in measuring bent angles and reasons therefor).  But, as a fan of classical spin bowling of bowlers like Prasanna, Bedi, Venkat, V.V.Kumar, Doshi, Shivalkar, Shane Warne, Underwood, Benaud,  (and we can go on, I guess) and their great actions, I do see why Murali was lucky to survive in first class cricket after those calls by Darrel Hair.  Murali got called for his off-breaks, then the wily fox he is, he bowled a few leg breaks to complete the over and again got called for chucking.  Gleefully he smiled and told his team-mates `look, this is all pre-meditated; otherwise, how can he call me for chucking when I bowl leg-breaks in between??'.  It is indeed almost impossible to chuck a leg-break, as we know, due to the grip and the position of the wrist.  But that is neither here nor there.  The dye was cast and many cricket fans across the globe, who were bewildered by the action of this bowler earlier, nodded and muttered `I thought so!', agreeing with Hair.

Believe me, I am going by what I can see with my naked eye and I dont need the crutch of a Hair or any other umpire.  The problem is, as medically certified, that Murali had a deformity in his bowling arm which did not permit him to straighten the arm as much as normally would have been possible without the deformity.  The authorities devised tests and agreed on a 15 degree angle by which the bowling arm can be crooked by the bowler at the time of delivery.  Where the exact number came from and why might have been explained somewhere, but that was never going to be satisfactory.  Now, if another bowler comes along with a greater degree of deformity and he had a crook his arm even more than Murali to complete the delivery, would this other bowler also be allowed to continue, after a minor adjustment to the 15 degree limit?  Medical certification may state a fact, but the question is whether the permitted degree of crookedness of the arm can be adjusted endlessly to allow bowlers to become something less in the bargain??  Unfortunately, in my opinion, the answer should be a resounding `no' and should have been the case with Murali also.

The other lame argument in favour of Murali has been, well he is not a pace bowler, so even if the action is not completely good, so what.  He is not going to fell anyone with the ball.  Now, that is a diabolical argument.  In my opinion, it is not a coincidence that Murali probably is able to extract more out of any pitch, even the most unresponsive ones, than any other spinner.  One can test this easily by `bowling' a few off breaks and then slightly crooking the arm and `throwing' a few.  The turn and bounce are very different in the latter case, to the significant advantage of the bowler.   If Murali and Prasanna have bowled together at any time, I can bet my bottom dollar that Murali would have got much better turn and bounce than Prasanna on any wicket anywhere!! 

Having said all that,  Murali is the record holder and kudos to him.  He is a respectable man, who overcame humungous difficulties to achieve what he did.  My only wish is that he had reaped that harvest with a sickle less crooked!!

While we were talking of unusual actions, someone asked `what about Malinga?'.  What about Malinga? Yes, his action is absolutely unconventional, but that is not what we are talking about when Murali is the subject.  I hope the difference is clear. Actually,  when I look at people with round-arm
action like Malinga, I wonder how they ever manage to land the balls in the right place, especially at that pace!!  I believe it is much easier to bowl in a particular area, if you have the conventional over-arm action.  Think about it, when you are bowling round-arm, a-la Malinga, the wrist while delivering the ball, is so far away from the head/face, that it requires a lot more skill and practice to sling it to land in a particular spot and manage the pace and direction too.  Try throwing the ball over-arm Vs round-arm and you will know which is more difficult.  So, Malinga's action makes it much more difficult for him and there lies the skill in managing to do what he does, rifling in those toe-crunching yorkers he bowls with unfailing regularity.  I think he is a wonderful bowler, albeit with a different type of action. But his arm is still straight at delivery and action is still legal!!

Airport Musings

A couple of weeks back I took a flight out of Mangalore to Bangalore.  Right through the cab ride to the airport from the city, the monk-like driver maintained a stoic silence, as if he had sworn to his mother that he would not speak to me at all.  That was fine with me because I was still groggy.  As we neared the airport and had the full view of the sloping sides of the hillock on which the airport sat, I was very comfortable in the cocoon of my taxi - until the silence was shattered by the driver, who obviously had decided to communicate!  His right hand shot out of the window as he pointed out a slope and said something in Tulu - he assumed I knew the language.  I didnt but the words `plane accident' were good enough pointers and I was jolted up; he was pointing in the general direction of the slope down which the Air India plane tumbled in flames some 2 weeks earlier.  There was no trace of the accident or any remnants of  the plane but I could recall all those horrid pictures beamed across TV screens for a few days.  I wished the driver had continued  his `mute' status and had not broken me into this significant piece of information just before I was myself taking a flight.  But then, the damage was done and  the driver relapsed into the state advocated by his mother, with a satisfied expression on his face.

I stumbled out of the taxi into the airport, still hassled by the single sentence the driver had spoken during  the entire journey and the reaction that it had evoked in me.  But that did not last long.  The first person I saw when I got into the airport was a foreign woman, wearing a T-Shirt screaming `Math is for uglies.  I dont do math'.  Well, she should have! If that dictum was right, she would have done well.  I wondered why people sport T- shirts with slogans which either dont fit in with their personalities or just dont make any sense at all.  May be, they have never read what is on the T.Shirt.

While I was checking in I specifically asked the girl at the counter whether I could carry my shaving razor on board.  She checked and told me it was  okay.  But as I was going through Security, the personnel there behaved as if I was trying to smuggle a  Uzi in my hand bag.  I was made to open the bag and 3 people  converged on it to inspect the heavy artillery I had concealed in my shaving kit.  I asked them what  the issue was and with the brusqueness that is typical of airport security people  who have identified a `problem passenger',  one said `please open the shaving kit, sir'.  I did and he pulled out the Mach 3 razor stem and the blade, with a gleeful smile as if he has had his prized catch for the day.  He called out to his superior (this worthy's moustache was an inch longer, so I presume it was his superior; or it could be that he is the specialist with razor blades!), who pompously got up after he froze the monitor in its current position and lumbered up to me.  All the four microscopically analysed the razor; the one who joined the group last kept looking  up from the bag at my face as if my visage was a montage of swiftly changing pictures and he did not want to miss any clue!  Then, he said to the others in Malayalam (nowadays nothing prepares you for the specific language you will encounter in an airport Security) that what they deduced was right and they should go ahead.  Now, I was all the more puzzled.  Even as I was wondering whether I was going to be jailed for carrying the razor, one of them peremptorily ordered me to move to one side and turned around to rummage a drawer close-by for some implement.  He brought a note book out, asked for my boarding pass, entered the details on that and asked me to sign.  The notation read `9Wxxx-Seq No.26-Razor blade'.  I am still trying to figure out what really happened there!  If that was the high-point of the Mangalore Airport Security personnel's life on that day, phew - what can I say??

Mangalore airport lounge has the capacity to hold about 100 passengers, waiting to board flights.  The airlines and the airport authorities, in their infinite wisdom, had decided that about 30 minutes would be adequate buffer between two flights and accordingly just as one set of people move out of the lounge towards the aircraft, another set begins moving in.  But, as it happened that day, two flights were delayed by over an hour and the lounge was already choc-a-bloc.  So, there was some intense scrutiny at the boarding pass while one got into  the lounge area, just to ensure that you were on the next flight out.  You could have got admission into the parliament a little more easily.  I managed to squeeze myself into one of the three seats strategically located between the coffee vendor and the water dispenser.  Obviously liquids were flowing generously all around and some of it splashed on to the seats closeby.  The other two seats were taken by a gentleman in white dhoti and shirt and his wife in a Kanjeevaram   After a few minutes, the wife expressed her desire to get a cup of coffee, after wondering whether it was as good as what she made at home.  The gentleman must have thought that this was a good opportunity to pass subtle judgement on the quality of coffee at home, for he promptly procured coffee in a paper cup and handed that over to the wife.  The coffee vendors at airports do not pretend to be adept at matching the heat of the liquid to the ability of the paper cup to contain the  same.  While the transfer from the vendor to the husband and to the wife thereon took place swiftly, the wife had no one to transfer to, since she was the ultimate user.  Now, she was stuck with a very hot paper cup, which she juggled from one hand to the other for 10 seconds before muttering under her breath to the husband `what the hell have you done??  How am I supposed to hold this??'.  Husbands, as a species, do not have the genius to resolve such problems quickly, so this one just looked at the wife bemusedly and blinked a few times.  So, the wife barked at him -no longer under the breath - to get another paper cup, even as she looked for a place to park the scalding offender.  But the airport authorities would rather have provided another seat for a harried passenger than space for a paper cup, as you know.  So, she continued to juggle, a couple of drops of coffee splashing on to her Kanjeevaram, evoking a suitable amount of horror in her expression.  At this juncture, the husband returned with a pathetic look on his face, which screamed 'no extra paper cup'!!  He explained or tried to (the repeated movement of the jaw up and down was the indication, a la Robert in Everybody Loves Raymond), that extra cups are not freely doled out by the vendor.  But before he had finished, the lady was at the coffee vendor's throat in a flash.  I think that guy got what he deserved.  After a very concise dose of dignified shouting, the lady returned to her seat with not one but two extra cups.  She pleasantly asked her husband whether  he wanted to have a sip!!  Her way of driving home the point, I guess.  All the husband could do was to turn to the vendor and glare at him in disgust!

While we sat in the lounge, I heard an announcement that an Air India flight from Dubai has been diverted to Cochin because of bad weather at Mangalore airport.  I was aghast because exactly at that moment, a Jet Airways flight from Bombay was landing and moving towards the terminal.  And then a Kingfisher flight from Bangalore.  Now, why was it that what was good for the goose was not good for the  gander?  Obviously Air India was being economical with truth and this `we-do-not-land-unless-the-weather-is-perfect' posturing seemed like an excuse for some subterfuge.  A few Air India passengers with high energy and low IQ levels (this, you would agree, is a deadly combination) promptly started the usual yelling session, without any specific audience in mind.  But Air India personnel have perfected the art of handling such situations over the years and they did very well by being conspicuously absent from the scene. While this commotion was on, two other flights announced their departure and just flew away!!  Just at this moment, the announcer came on and said Air India regretted that they could not even give a time of arrival for the diverted flight because the weather continued to be bad in Mangalore airport.  Instantly, the decibal level of the yelling exercise went up by a few notches, still without anyone  paying any attention.  It has been over two weeks after my departure from that airport and I hope the Air India passengers have since left!!

Cut over to another  airport, another time.  This was a week back, on our way from Madras to New York, at the Brussels airport.  Those who have flown Jet Airways in this segment would have noticed that Brussels airport, during this stop-over, has a very strong resemblance in parts to an Indian airport or at least Singapore/Kuala Lumpur/Colombo.  The reason for this is that six Jet Airways flights from India and North America (moving  in the opposite direction) land at Brussels at the same time and for about 3 hours, the airport has around 1500 Indians recreating the `home' ambience on alien shores!!  At any point during this time, one can throw a brick in any general direction and hit about 10 Indians.  The consequence of this should also be clear.  We, Indians, have our own way of travelling and using transit time/space and nowhere else is this more evident than in Brussels.  During the transit security check, one could hear some 20 different languages being spoken, still some basic instructions from the Security pesonnel being misunderstood or ignored/flouted totally.  Queues with Indians take their own shapes and sometimes branches are formed organically even as the main trunk struggles to stay in some form of control.  Here, space for 4 queues were visible and but I could count some 7 different lines having formed.  Belgian authorities, I guess, have started managing Indians during this transit period in a very Indian way by ignoring all transgressions and hoping that nothing goes wrong.

Nocturnal debates

`Appa, Appa, get up!', hissed someone by my bedside, even though it must have been almost impossible to do the hissing without the help of sibilants in the words hissed!  I was groggy, as one would be if one had  gone to sleep very late and obviously was not able to figure out who was addressing me with such filial affection in the dead of the night.  The hazy form in the not-even-diffused-light zone that our bed room is, did not betray too many clues to the identity of this intruder into my sleep.  I got up with a start, sputtering a jumble which was meant to convey the profound question `who is it?'; but due to the mixed feelings of surprise, a bit of fright and anxiety, served straight from the blender of half-sleep, my question did not come out right and the unknown intruder was not impressed at all by my delivery capabilities.  He (even in that highly unsteady state, my sleuthing skills had not deserted me and I could divine that it was a male, from the voice) vented his displeasure by yanking my arm and bringing me outside the bed room.  He said `amma is sleeping, let us not disturb her', as a helpful footnote.  Very considerate of this mysterious guy, I thought, who is chivalrous enough to want to leave `amma' undisturbed, even as he uses reasonable force to get me out of the same bed!!  In the living room, with some feeble light seeping through from the street, I could see a very familiar face looking at me with a mixture of irritation and impatience.  Oh my God, this looks like my son from the US, I thought.  Well, that was good enough to trigger memories of a chain of recent events, which began with the son's arrival late in the night and culminated in our going to bed inordinately later.  I came out of my somnolence with a shudder, realizing fully that he desired urgent conversation with me.

`How can you guys sleep so soundly when there is such pandemonium around?' was the question my son posed after he ascertained that I was no longer more half-wit than usual.  Now, you will agree this is very rich, being asked this when I had gone to sleep almost 5 hours behind schedule.   I almost flared up, but restrained myself when I remembered he must be jet-lagging.  But that still did not explain the pandemonium bit, because people in the community I lived are so decent that they never get verbal or vocal expressing their displeasure; they prefer the silent weapon of email; so I sought elucidation.  He said `listen to that....that babel of voices'.  I harked and then yes, I heard.  A chorus of about 286 dogs and half that number of puppies, barking their heads off.  I could even tell that a majority of the canine fraternity were females, from the way they barked (I don't care to explain that further; I am smarter than you think!).   `Oh, that.  We have had this accompaniment to our sleep for the past few months', I explained.   `Nowadays, I find it difficult to slide into slumber, if the yelping concert is not presented at the usual time; tonight it seems to be delayed'.  My son did not hide his disgust and gave me that look which suggested that I should have my head examined without further delay.  I sat him down and laboured into a patient explanation.

This huge vacant lot behind our house has, of late, become the daily conference venue for all stray dogs in the neighbourhood.  There are a few huts in the lot, in which some workers lived with their families, the total population being around 30 or so.   We always wondered how they could ignore all this nuisance created by these strays in their midst and go on with their lives, as if the significant intrusion did not exist.  But then, we knew, as a community, the difficulties in dealing with a single stray and appreciated their inability to deal with a battalion of the species.  Invariably, the nocturnal debate commences around 11.30 pm, just about the time I had come to the conclusion that I should draw the curtain on my rather busy-doing-nothing special-routine and hit the sack.  I can always hear the clarion call coming from what I visualise as a senior dog, with the pretty guttural voice.  Whether it is the time of the day that prompts this call or some other unseen event triggers it, I have so far not been privy to, because I refuse the invitation to get close enough to observe the process more minutely.  And whether the dogs are assembled already when the call pans out, signalling the commencement of the debate or it is just that - 'an all-hands-to-the-deck' kind of call to the registered members of the association.  Whichever it is, I strongly believe the strays have a more effective medium of communication than humans do; as you can see, their way completely eliminates complaints such as `I dont see our email more than twice a day, so get real!'. You see, dont you, that by going public with the first set of howls, the senior dog leaves absolutely no room for any lingering doubt in the minds of the public.  Even some people might be somewhat tempted to participate; the call is that effective.

Now the activity begins in right earnest.  Initially, there are intermittent barks, as if the delegates are exchanging pleasantries like `how was dinner?' and `oh, dont ask; some awful offering at Vista; I just cant imagine how PEOPLE can suffer through such food'.  This relatively harmless pow-wow goes on for a few minutes.  Then,  two or three more senior dogs let out relatively placid but extended barks, as if they are setting the topic for the day and the tone too. This marks a change in the intensity level of the proceedings.  The tone of the debate gets testy, there is an edge of nastiness to the exchanges and there is some animated, group discussion; the problem is this invariably resembles the daily durbar that Arnab Goswamy holds (Times Now 9pm), where between Arnab and one so-called expert, they do not even let the other experts say a few words edgeways.  The consequence is nobody can hear even a couple of words properly till everyone realizes that the end has arrived when Arnab,  with terminal finality, pronounces that all the time he had has been used by four people talking concurrently and he will now move on to the another similarly lively discussion in 2 minutes, please dont go away!!  Indeed, there are lulls in the canine debate also, as if some voiceover-less commercial is running there (I wish I could look at the scene and validate this, but the light does not help) and then you can tell that the next bunch of experts have joined Arnab, going by the sheer cacophony that follows for the next 15 minutes.  There is not much variation from now on, until at some point, the senior dog orchestrates the crescendo and everyone pitches in and if your imagination is vivid enough you can visualise some dog heads falling on the ground due to some serious barking and howling!!  Then, there is silence, as if someone has switched things off...all at once.  It is almost like the cricket games we have in our community, with people appealing for something or the other every ball towards the end, play being stopped after every single ball to count the runs scored, right from the first run, in order to reconcile the number for both the sides, a few more shouts and loud pronouncements and then there is the quiet breakfast, instead of just silence in this case.  Could it be that the strays are eating a late supper at the end??  This is when I drift off to sleep.

Despite my best efforts to play out the scenario as truthfully to the original as possible, my son was ostensibly unconvinced and barked to me (contextually, everything sounds like a bark at this time of the night to me) to listen carefully.  He was not talking about dogs.  When I paid some attention, I could hear some voices, yes, voices shrieking away.  Oh, this was some vicious fighting going on at the back, as if people wanted to compete with the dogs for attention.   Men, women, children, everyone had something to say and the common denominators were the anger in their voices and the very high decibal level employed.   `This is very distressing, son; we had made our best efforts to tell these worker folks living behind our house to sort our their differences at a reasonable hour and in an amicable way (that means not more than 50 blows exchanged during one session); but they just dont seem to understand that other people need to sleep.  Last week, we went across, called the whole group and told them to appoint a Management Committee to resolve issues and if required to mediate between groups.  We were told that they had managed to set up the committee and people were happy that things were going well.  I wonder what has changed all of a sudden that tonight they are back to their best bickering selves.  We will check tomorrow, now you go back to sleep or enjoy your jetlag or whatever', I said to my son and re-retired to my bed.

Next day, a few of our wise men went to the back-lot to talk to the workers and my son went along, at my invitation to see how wisdom and experience are best used in mediation.  We were told that some stray dogs 'belonging' to one group were stoned by another group last night due to the unscheduled howling session, leading to viscerally verbal volleys.  We asked what happened to the management committee route for resolutions.  One young guy told us `sir, yes, that would have probably worked normally.  But in this case, there was no chance'.  We asked `why?'; he said `the management committee itself was split vertically and the two groups were at each other's throats to signal the start of the fight, due to their allegiance to specific strays.  After that the rest of the residents split according to their preference and joined the fight. You did not tell us how such cases can be sorted out!!'.  The only sound I could hear was my son laughing away like a mad man, despite all the others glaring at him malevolently.

How, indeed, to solve such predicaments ??  We are still searching for answers....

An elite restaurant in a small town!!

During student life sinful living for us was only in the realms of fantasy and what was in the pocket supported an occasional binge at a road-side eatery where food was good, so long as we were not finicky about the ambience and cleanliness. I dont believe any of us had seen a five-star hotel or a really upmarket restaurant in a good city.  So, the range of our gastronomical imagination never took us beyond what we could actually see on Thuthukudi streets (or may be Madurai), in terms of the class of the restaurant.  In that context, Indian Coffee House (ICH, for short) was probably the equivalent of a 5-star eatery for us those days.  ICH was located, as most people know, next to Sridhara Vilas and that suited most of us since that fell smack in the middle of the town when we criss-crossed from one end to another for whatever inane reason.  Year 1970 and place, Thuthukudi!!

They had nice tables with chequered, red-white table cloth and comfortable, low chairs.  The waiters wore white trousers, white cotton coats and white `Gandhi' caps made of thick cotton.  This ensemble definitely elevated the ranking of ICH a few notches in our perception, because those were the days when waiters in more humble restaurants moved about with veshti in half mast, a shirt and a napkin on the shoulders, with the ubiquitous pencil daintily poised behind one ear.   The ambience in ICH was much better than any other restaurant I had visited those days. As a result, for most of us, ICH became the benchmark insofaras our vision of fine-dining was concerned.  Those were the ways of the uninitiated and callow youth that we were, who had not seen better; but what was in the domain of the unknown did not affect us and ICH retained the prime slot for long.

Much as I try, I cannot recall having eaten anything else in ICH, other than their iconic Masala Dosai.  The dosai itself was just outstanding, probably one of the best I had eaten. But the way it was presented and the camaraderie with which it was done by that little rascal Ramadas (he was our Aasthana waiter, whenever we visited) enhanced the whole eating experience, as to-day's marketing guru would have opined!  Ramadas was all of 5 feet, chirpy as a bird and he knew how to keep a customer.  I would have gladly certified that `he was an asset to the establishment' if anyone had asked!! While dealing with Ramadas one felt as if he was your personal valet for the limited time and the very idea made one euphoric, especially considering the fact that the depleted coffers at one's disposal boasted all of about 1 rupee or so.  I dont even remember
Ramadas going to another table when we were around; he would chat about college; about tennis (he knew we played at the club nearby, often); and cricket (most of our celebrations of victories were at ICH).  So the rapport was absolutely brilliant.  And a few times a few of us had fallen a tad short of dough and had to request him to `adjust' the bill accordingly and he obliged without blinking an eye-lid.  You
could expect that kind of `service' if you were a heavy tipper, but he knew we were just about scrounging the bottom and would give him a small tip when we could.  That endeared him to us for ever.  But, whenever we ate with my friend's brother (who was into business at that time), we ensured that Ramadas got a heavy tip
and that kept Ramadas going for some time.

Now, going back to the presentation part, ICH was the only joint where the masala dosai came quartered,  in 4 pieces.  It had a crisp, golden brown crust, just so right, with a filling that was partial to onion and chillies rather than potato and tasted very different in some indescribable way.  And it would come to you in a plate, cut into 4 pieces, with a hint of butter lingering somewhere inside.  And the crust/mavu was a bit thicker than the other restaurants and that made the whole dosai a bit heavier and easier to carve into pieces.  Now, even
though the dosai came with the usual accompanying suspects, chutney and sambar, one never really needed those; almost as if the dosai was arrogant enough to tell us `you dont those silly crutches to enjoy me!'.   We just succumbed to the appeal earnestly. And Ramadas was always there till the first few morsels glided in and the verdict was pronounced.  Despite that one being our 256th dosai, he was still anxious to know whether they got it right!!  I believe that made for the consistent quality of the product in ICH. 

The only other thing we had in ICH always was the cuppa!  Very good filter coffee it was and we always felt like Wooster after a sumptuous Jeeves breakfast, when we were done!  And we paid something like a princely 1 rupee for this whole orgasmic experience!!   The only time when the fare varied was when the aforesaid friend's brother, after a game of tennis at IOC, smilingly told me `Raju, you played well today;
so take me to ICH'.  I had absolutely no hesitation in saying yes, because despite the way it started, the friend's brother paid up the bill always. On those occasions, the only change was we had 2 masala dosais each, instead of the usual, since Mani could support a few more of those!

Once a couple of friends,  Mohan, Raghavan and I were already inside ICH with our cycles parked out.  We had seen Kannamani, another friend, breezing past us in the opposite direction in a hell of a hurry; we did not know whether he saw us or not and we were a bit perturbed because we had money only for 3 dosais and coffees and there was no way of stretching things even a bit.  So, as we sat down, Raghavan said `ippa Kannamani vandhudaporaan' and chuckled.  We chose to ignore that warning at our own peril. The dosais had just arrived, and lo and behold, Kannamani did make his appearance with an effusive `Kannamani Vandhachu'!  We were flabbergasted and asked him how he knew we were in ICH. He said to me `with your horse standing outside, how can anyone not know you guys were here'?  He was referring to my cycle from the 1920s (my grandfather's - it had a Royce dynamo and other attractive `imported' features),
which was a foot taller than all the other cycles and had an imposing presence anywhere!  We had to scrounge and ask Ramadas to make some `adjustment' once more, for Kannamani had all of 25 paise on him for the repast!

ICH shut down sometime soon after I left, probably.  I dont know exactly when.  Also, I heard that Ramadas became a rickshaw puller and was finally involved in a murder case.  Ramadas and a murder??  I wish I could find out where he is now...would love to take care of his requirements for those simple, but lovely gestures of his during those fantastic visits to ICH.

The best tribute to ICH was that, as long as it was around, some of us refused to step into Sridhara Vilas, despite the latter being touted as a better family restaurant by our parents!!

Cricket???

Let me confess, I am not a fan of T20, whatever the entertainment value is.  So, these are undoubtedly the views of a prejudiced man.  I am willing to be pilloried, all for a good cause!

If you come to analyze the game -- I would warn against taking too long or being too clinical, since this is a capsule version and would not bear great scrutiny -- clearly Cricket as we know has been bastardized (forgive the language) badly in order to create this huge rigmarole, which is supposed to keep people on the edge for 3.5 hours.  Only because anything less than a four or a six every ball is below par for the course! This is a game in which, in order to succeed s a batsman, one has to remove the left leg (if a right-hander) to clear the way and assume a positively ugly posture to heave the ball over the fence, contrary to whatever we have learnt. A game, wherein, we see batsmen crawling (sometimes on all fours) all across the crease in an attempt to play a crass, cross-batted cow-shot-slog or play what has become the most artistic shot of this form of cricket, a convoluted scoop from way outside the off to the finest of fine legs; a game in which, many a time, a batsman looks like he is going to use the bat as a spoon to move the ball into his own or the wicket-keeper's mouth and succeeds in scoring boundaries; a game which makes all the commentators agree that `it was a good/genuine cricket shot' about 4 times in a match, thereby confirming that the rest of the proceedings was obviously not cricket, as they know.  And they should know!! And, oh, a game in which the bowler is just expected to provide as little fodder to the batsman as possible,  with the least support in the field,  little else.

A game which can make a heroes of batsman who would probably find it difficult to score 10 scratchy runs in other, more probing forms of the game, if he is lucky to escape with the chances he offers to get out;  a game, in which, a good bowler like Ashwin has to bowl alternately with his regular and round-arm actions to `deceive' the batsman.  In essence, this version of the game is all about getting runs, regardless of  how crude the methods are.  The end is all that matters, the means be damned!  Considering that, what else could we expect from those managing this game than sleaze, corruption, absolute disregard for laws of the land and willingness to share the ill-earned millions with others of their ilk??  Why are we surprised??  May be, by the extent of the disease; looks like in every turn in the administration of the game, someone has benefited from the devious actions of the crooked bosses and that virtually mirrors which happens on the field.

May be, the jury is still out on that.  But, I can tell you, it is all bemusing.  Do I watch the games?  I do,
once in a while, to check if anything has changed!  Yes there is change, but not for the better...but can never sit through the whole 20 hours of one side.  And believe me, I am the kind of guy, who used to hang on to Radio Ceylon, broadcasting the commentary on a game between University of Colombo and University of Kandy (or something similar), just to feel the flow of the great game, however obscure the names were, no matter one did not know anyone amongst the 22 players!! 

Like so many other things  in modern life, this version of cricket has come to pass and we just have to put up with that, I guess.  Probably because this game also requires a set of skills and pays the players rather well for a short day's work.  And some people don't seem to mind and are willing to be entertained this way.  But, for god's sake, don't expect me to love and embrace it.

That Species called Security Guard

During the past week, we have had two known occasions of security guards nodding off on duty.  No,
this is not just sitting at the security post with closed eyes for a power nap, but consciously preferring
horizantality to perpendicularity when they were required to take care of our lives and possessions.
These offending men took the avatar of Sri Ranganathar, with a slightly modified posture (the heaving belly facing up,  lifeless arms akimbo), snoring away in the hope that they would frighten the black-and-white dog at least when they were asleep.  And they were nowhere near their security posts, but snug inside a room to which they had retired for this exercise!!  I am sure all this sounds very familiar to a lot of us, who have lived in independent houses elsewhere, because security men, as a tribe, are wont to do such things for the entertainment of their employers!
 
One of the nice things about reaching a particular level in the hierarchy of big corporations, especially
the ones which wake up and smell the money every morning in multiple countries across the globe,
is that you are almost forced by your company and peers (not many people need this external force, though) to look for large, independent houses to live in.  What that type of accommodation invariably comes with, is the burden of your own posse of security men.   At a minimum, one had 3 guys, going through 8-hour shifts each, covering the day/night routine.   Apart from making you feel highly insecure (after reducing your company's profit somewhat), these chaps invariably were the continuous sources of entertainment with their `professional' antics.  Here are a couple of vignettes from my own experience:

-- In Madras during the early 90s, we had the usual quota of security men for our house.   We had just moved into the house and my parents were with me at that time.  My father, being a Gandhian and strict disciplinarian, frowned upon all the excesses of life and this concept of hiring one's own security to guard one's possessions (which were anyway overwhelmingly superfluous beyond 3 dhotis, 3 jibbas, underwear and a pair of chappals-if you insist!) got his goat.  He tried to persuade me that such outrageous display of whatever does not behove us but '4 out of the 5 houses in that very small area had security guards and how can I be beneath them' was my sound argument, which obviously did not impress him.  Distressed though my father was, he realised the latest appendage to our lives is for the long term.   He is the kind who sleeps early, so he never had the occasion to shake hands with the night duty security guard for a brief period.  One day we returned from some function late in the night and my father immediately seized the opportunity, finding the guard fast asleep. He clanged the gate with extra vigour to wake him up.  Next day began my ordeal.  My father decided to keep a vigil on the security guard in the night!!   He used the alarm to wake up 3 times between 11 pm and 4 am to record in a notebook, the times during which he found the security guard asleep.  His nocturnal movements were of greater disturbance to us (because he woke most of the others up during his sorties, unlike the guard who slumbered nicely without causing any inconvenience to us!).   My secretary and the office administration guys were kept busy during the next month when we changed security personnel 8 times, when it dawned on all of us that there was an inherent contradiction in the expectation that a night guard should be awake to do his job!  This rigmarole continued - the new guard slept and Appa played the `watcher's' role perfectly. Then Appa ratcheted up his activity to the next level, he started waking me up to present irrefutable, ocular proof.  He would knock on our bedroom door, purr at 1 am `come and see this' and sleep-walk me to the window downstairs. From there he would gleefully point to the guard who was
sprawled in some part of the portico!  Soon, all the inhabitants of the house were up in the night frequently and taking turns to document the misdemeanours of the guard, under the able stewardship of my father.  It took about a month for me to wonder why we needed security guards in the night, if all of us are going to be awake anyway!  So, my father won and I lost but at least, we all got to sleep after that.

-- One of the guards my father spied upon, was told by his office to go around the house in the night, tapping the danda on the floor, so that the noise could be heard.  My father was a bit disappointed about this development, because he thought people had found a solution to keep the guard awake.  He need not have worried.  This guard, ingenious as he was, developed a habit of sleeping, while his hand involuntarily moved once in 5 minutes to knock on the ground and produce the necessary sound to delude the household.  But, he also got snared eventually by the ever-watchful super sleuth of our home!!

-- In Jakarta, Indonesia, we had a slightly different kind of experience.  The guard on night duty got changed for some reason and the incoming worthy was a sprightly, good looking, young man who wanted to play the field.   He boasted that he is a specialist in doing night shifts and explained he studied a bit during the day.  We never figured out about the day part, but in the night he wooed the maids in the various houses around ours.  He was probably the only guard I saw fully awake during most nights, but he had his incentives and reasons.  Before I could muster the wits to tell the Security Agency to change him, another neighbour who had the same agency did the complaining and the guy was shunted out, much to the chagrin of the adoring maids. Here was one guard who was willing to remain awake and we would not let him be!!

-- Another of our Jakarta guards was a slip of a man, all of 5 ft, waist size 28 or 30, about 50 kilos - a description that defies the logic of his being hired as a guard.  But there he was;  and he was such a good soul that even if people were not impressed with his phyiscal attributes, he was a huge hit in the household as well as neighbourhood.  A do-gooder, generally.  He had no family, so the maid took him under her wings and fed him most of the times from the house, which we did not mind at all.  The hilarious part was, after about 2 months, he was cleaning the maid's room, washing all our vessels, cleaning the kitchen and doing all assorted duties, while our maid (a woman, more sizable in all respects than the guard himself) was sitting at the gate as the guard.  That was a reasonably beneficial swap, we thought!!

Well, we will continue to look for that elusive guard, who does his night duty diligently and does not sleep.  But, I feel we are chasing a vision, the veritable chimera!!  Unless we select only those guys who are suffering from insomnia and test their efficiency levels, we may never find our hero!!

Quality of current film music

I have always wondered why the melody has more or less vanished from our film music now, barring infrequent exceptions here and there.  I am not necessarily wallowing in nostalgia, completely ignoring the good parts contemporary music.  However, it is probably irrefutable that melody is conspicuous by its absence in a majority of the film songs belted out today.  While some wonder why this is so in spite of the arrival of many more talented singers and music directors---courtesy the plethora of music related TV shows and the availability of highly sophisticated technology, others would blame precisely the same phenomena for the degeneration in our music today.  It is indeed a fact that most film music directors and playback singers (in their stage shows) are driven by the market to cater to the overwhelmingly loud and noisy musical tastes of today's youth, majority of whom care more for beat and techno-frenzy rather than melody.  Sad, but true.  The only hope is that as their hair grey gradually and people grow old, the same segment will probably opt to listen to the older and more melodious film music from the earlier era!!

In my view, one of the primary reasons for the drastic change in the type of film music we get these days is that in a very oxymoronic sense,  music has become highly `visual' today.  Let me explain that.  30, 40 years back, all we had was the radio with  lovely programmes like Binaca Geetmala, Radio Ceylon and Vividh Bharathi and the cassette tapes; all we could pay attention to and enjoy were the melodious tunes in fantastic voices.  There was no compulsion for anyone to be distracted by what is going on the the TV screen all day long.

Compare that with today's scenario.  Almost 2 months before a movie comes out, the song is `seen' on TV - some 20 times a day in various channels.  And today's youth prefer to `watch' music, which means the less than artistic thrusts and jerks that stand for `dance' today, which is supposed to be an accompanying feature for the song, has indeed become the priority rather than the actual melody in the music.  It is a clear case of the tail wagging the dog!!  This shift to watching music videos than listening to songs, as an everyday habit, has damaged the music scene irreparably, in my opinion.  Unless there is a mindset shift and  a majority of the people openly express the desire to go back to genuinely 'listening' to songs and look for the melody therein, I am pessimistic of a change for the better.  We just have to settle for the `compromise' some music directors make to assuage their own artistic conscience by inserting one or two reasonably good, melody-based songs in a movie otherwise replete with loud, thumping music with violent physical movements of some 50-60 energetic youngsters.

The above also explains why sub-optimal voices and talents are masquerading as play back
singers today and are able to get away by screeching through a 4-5 minute rendition of some gibberish (very rarely one can understand the lyrics and when one does, one is invariably shocked and bemused!!) in the name of a song.  This is not to say there are no good singers or songs today; just that the frequency of their surfacing for our benefit has become less and less.

I am sure that genuinely artistic music directors and playback singers feel pretty awful about the state of affairs.  I hope they get to fulfill their artistic ambitions, at least in the gaps between the loud and popular numbers!

A dog's life

Disclaimer: This piece is written without any trace of intention to make fun of, hurt or otherwise cause harm to anyone in or outside vista. Despite this, if someone is offended, my sincere apologies.
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Jan 4, 2010

I was having my evening cuppa, listening to Lalgudi Jayaraman, when my wife conspiratorially whispered to me `look at this!'. I peeked out of the window at the back lawn of Badri and Geetha (V 181) and lo and behold - what I saw was a dog, white with black patches, prancing around, trying to catch a butterfly. I knew my neighbours did not have a pet dog, so turned to Praneeta for clarification and also wondering why a dog should arouse such curiosity. Was told in a hushed tone (the wife was thinking ahead, she did not want the dog to bolt, hearing the voices) that was the same dog, which nonchalantly has eluded the chases by some 50 different security personnel of Vista at different times and sighted by 100+ villa owners (bless them) during the past 6 months or more (remember those messages reading `Yes, I also saw the black and white dog near villa 43 at 11hrs22mins43secs. Wonder why the Maintenance is not catching this dog' or `I thought it
was a black dog with white patches, saw it rummaging the dustbin in front of V 16X at 11.23.01, so it couldnt have been near villa 43 at the time mentioned' or something similar in content). Well, since we were observing the dog having fun, without being under any
pressure of a chase, we got more than a fleeting look at the dog and can confirm that the white on the dog was more prevalent, so it is a white dog with black patches. Only, if you want to take my word for that - then one controversy can be closed as resolved!

Now, my wife has seen her (I dont believe a `he-dog' can ever have the intelligence, speed, skill and tenacity to evade the dragnet for so long and live to play with butterlfies! Hence the conclusion that it was a she-dog) walking gracefully on the wall dividing our villa from the property behind. My admiration for her (the dog, I mean - not the wife) scaled new heights, because that wall was about 12 feet tall. Then came the depressing notification from the MC that there was a dump on the other side, which made it easier for her to climb to the top of the wall; that made the scales fall from my eyes insofaras her leaping prowess was concerned. Nevertheless, the grace and the elegance with which she balanced herself on the wall (one more proof; most he-dogs have problem walking straight on the road, even when they are not drunk!) before jumping over to our side, meant my residual respect for her is significant. I dont think the daunting blue plastic
sheets which went up on the barbed wire on the compound wall deterred the dog for long. Here she was, responding to the catch-me-if-you-can fly-about by a butterfly.

I am sure we would all agree (just a very rhetorical, optimistic statement - dont take it too literally and start another email chain as to why you dont. Let us at least pretend this once we agree) that this dog is special. We have collectively spent more time in sighting, tracking, reporting, devising plans to catch and repatriate this dog than we have spent on speed-breakers, guests-only policy and dog-poop put together in 2009. And that is saying something!! And the time spent in hot-pursuit of the dog by personnel gives a healthy heft to that number. Considering this, I propose the following:

-- that we give the dog `resident' status. That would automatically reduce the amount of time and resources spent in following the dog (who is interested in an ordinary resident?).

-- the other advantage is once it is a resident, the dog can participate in a lot of activities. Like cricket. There are a couple of old men, who, despite their age-bordering-on-senility, pretend to be active cricketers but are unable to physically cope with the speed of the others. This dog can be a substitute runner for such old men. Or squash. Being a resident for the better part of 2009 also means, the dog qualifies easily to get games like any of us, without interpretational issues creeping in.

-- more importantly, it looks like despite its much humbler upbringing and lesser grooming, this one has not bitten (or otherwise seriously offended) anyone yet, causing uproarious exchanges in high decibel email communication. Which means lesser visits to the dictionary to check the meaning of specific words to find out whether they were offensive or marginally abusive or whatever.

-- the dog is also useful to find out which villas keep their dustbins outside overnight. Sooner or later, we would have hired a specialist firm to do this for us, right??

Now, for the denoume of the recent sighting; Praneeta continued in her whisper `keep an eye on the dog, let me call the security to tell them she is here'. She did call and a battalion was being readied, no doubt, but this is what happened. The sagacious dog pricked her ears up, as if she was listening to something (her antenna received some signals I am sure), cocked its face towards our window, bared her teeth a bit (I swear, it seemed like she was laughing at us), sauntered towards the front of villa 181, FRONT - believe me, and strode out on the main road, as if challenging the prospective chasers to undertake one more futile effort!! If that does not deserve residency in Vista, nothing does.

Varad