Friday, December 23, 2016

Life Is Different For Kids Now!



The last fifty years have seen a transformation in the way kids live their childhood days, if you think about it.  Children of the 60's/70's grew up differently, compared to the current pack, in several ways.  This author would not venture to hazard a statement to the effect that one is better than the other because that is a matter of perspective and personal experience; and also, he knows what is good for him.  The safest way of describing the situation would be to fall back on that TV commercial about Maggi sweet and sour sauce - `it is different'.  To reiterate, this is not an attempt to pass judgement on anything relating to the different generations figuring in this essay.

To begin with, do kids have to go to 'school' at the delicate and vulnerable young age of 3, when they are just attempting to differentiate between home folks and strangers?  This diabolical oh-so-early-to-school conspiracy must have been hatched by a bunch of harried working parents with no family support for managing life's chores, so that they can park the kids in some seemingly safe place for the better part of the day.  We are all sympathetic spectators to the sight of the wailing and flailing child being stuffed into some vehicle which is built to hold only half of its current consignment.  As a post-script to this morning ritual, a concerned parent jogs along the wobbly contraption, administering the final admonition to the driver:`Ensure that she does not fall off in transit'.  With that the lopsided journey into `development' begins for the child and symbolically the vehicle is so overloaded that it is at least entertaining vague thoughts of tilting to one side.  Would the kid be happier to be playing randomly with other children in the neighbourhood, learning a bit in the natural environment, as was the case earlier?  We will have to wait for some elite market research company to publish an investigative  report on this, as there is no known record of kids' preference on this particular issue.

During the later years in school, a veritable rat-race inevitably takes over and all parents are compelled to participate and children are left with no choice.  Earlier, if a child went for tuition, that meant he/she is marginal in a specific subject; today, however good he/she is, tuition classes after the school are de rigueur and are akin to an insurance policy the parents gladly elect to take.  They baulk at the thought of a cynical neighbour or interfering uncle laying the blame squarely at their door if the kid has sub-optimal marks  in a critical test and consequently misses out on, err..... whatever.  Coaching classes for competitive examinations are an incremental burden for the children to carry, making their already bustling lives hectic.  I would love to decipher if these kids miss flying out of homes after  school, playing two or three different games serially every evening and spending a lot of time in the open with friends??  May be not, because they don't know better and they are likely to be satisfied and comfortable with their video games and other in-home entertainment.

When children are a bit more seasoned, say at 5, they begin to take buses to `international' schools (the only determinant factor here is the hefty fees, one would think) which are suitably located farther away.  They spend some 3 hours daily in the commute in some cities, shrivelling in the heat, pollution -- go to school half asleep, bleary-eyed and return almost unconscious! I wish somebody would do a study to see if kids who begin schooling only at 5 or 6 (if this tribe is still around) are any less `successful' in adult life.  It is entirely possible that due to the later start and lack of early use of the brain, they will be something other than software engineers - how bad can that be??  We were able to walk/cycle to school, come home for lunch and be free by 4.30 pm.  This is not to suggest we turned out to be geniuses but at least life definitely was not so painful.  `And that explains a lot', one can hear a representative from the later crop, smirking a bit more than usual.  And my dear wife seem to agree, going by that smile of hers!

The previous generations' males, even the alpha-ones, to the chagrin of their spouses, often betrayed this child-like weakness, a heart-wrenching yearning for their mother's cooking from time to time.  This was the inescapable result of being tied into mom-cooked delicacies consumed avidly till one moved out of home. While there may still be some lingering signs of this now, it may not be as prevalent to be a serious point of friction between the spouses as it used to be.  Obviously the older trend was primarily due to the home-bound eating habits of the family those days.  Restaurant meals were frowned upon, considered unhealthy and it was also an avoidable expense -- except on very rare, special occasions.  Children being blessed with pocket money was a rarity.  Today, kids thrive on restaurant food, aided and abetted by tired and willingly collaborative parents (who themselves are forced to eat out) and they grow to like and prefer that fare.  No blaming the working parents, who understandably have genuine difficulty in catering to all such requirements, while they hurtle back and forth like the shuttle in the weaver's loom.   With due respect to those moms who still engage in cooking for the children without the intervention of external agents, let me say that a majority of the grown-up children living away from parents today are likely to beat a straight line to a favourite restaurant of theirs in their home-town, directly from the train station!!  The good thing is they think that is par for the course.

Take festivals now.  Deepavali always was synonymous with a plethora of sweets and crackers for the earlier generation.  Today, one can see the ironic sight of middle-aged fathers going berserk with explosive crackers and smoking rockets, while their children, big and small, keep protesting from the sidelines about pollution of all sorts and the resultant damage to the earth.  The kids are absolutely right, no doubt, in their `child-is-the-father-of-the-man' behaviour and in thinking that the older generations have actually brought things to this pass.  Having said that, one wonders if even some rejoicing in the traditional way on Deepavali is taboo for these kids!  Dietary restrictions bellowed out by mothers to kids kick in when it comes to consumption of sweets on Deepavali or any other festival day, even as we see fathers nursing bellies of varied sizes, stuffing their mouths with all the goodies.  How life has changed!

One other facet of life has undergone a metamorphosis and that is the family reunions that kids used to enjoy during holidays.  All members of a family enthusiastically congregated every year at the native place and spent a few days in a celebratory and convivial atmosphere; renewing relationships, with the kids enjoying the warm and somewhat exaggerated attention of the elder relatives.  A lot of mirth was on offer during the helter-skelter of group interaction.  Reality today is that many kids sadly do not even know the existence relatives somewhat removed.  Honestly, where is the time when the children are busier with their school schedule than the elders?  When it is time for a vacation, families settle on a fashionable venue in a distant land rather than converging at the native village or town every year.

It would be fantastic to gauge whether kids of today would prefer the other kind of childhood.  But that is going to be well-nigh impossible to fathom.  So, the easier alternative is for the older generations to chew the cud on this and determine whether they would have preferred to live their childhood like today's kids. What say??









  

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Online Shopping - Part 2


Dedicated to my youngest reader, who lives around the corner - Anjali Mallena. Thank you, Anjali.
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Preface:  We are all ageing by the day in modern world, so to help those who have become victims of partial or complete amnesia or other related maladies in the intervening two months, here is how the earlier serving on Online Shopping ended: "To be fair, we (meaning, the author's family) do order a few things online nowadays and not many have gone wrong.  (To be continued in Part Two)".......Now, with that bit of restoration having been done, we can move along.

A few months ago, about that time in the morning when this scribe usually enjoys his best sleep, he was shaken up with a fair degree of violence (granted, that was unusual) by his dear wife.  When he woke up all bleary-eyed and flustered, he saw the lady standing by the bed-side, arms akimbo and eyes flashing - a typical posture assumed to signal that all was not well, especially for the individual trying to stir up.  Empirical knowledge oozing from accumulated wisdom and very swift analysis of the stored data relating thereto made the author recognize pronto, the unfriendly environment for what it was, even though he was still coming abreast of the fuller details of early morning existence.   Without a cheery`howdy' or other preliminary niceties, she opened the proceedings in that deliberately 'controlled' (those who are sympathetic to the author may choose to substitute `menacing', without straying too far from the truth) tone she employs to barely conceal irritation and/or disappointment (like Aunt Agatha did with Bertie Wooster).

"What flight did you book my mother on"? she queried.  Even as the victim was mildly bewildered as to why on earth her mother - always calm, kind, truly grounded and soft-spoken - had to take flight, the portends slowly sunk into his brain, which was still crackling out of slumber.  His distressed demeanour, akin to that of the veritable deer-in-the-headlight, must have broadcast his confusion with FM clarity --  that the intake rate and comprehension levels were way below par. For she proceeded to clarify by crisply adding: "Flight from Mangalore"?  Now, you must admit that your author is smart as needles otherwise and vividly captures the picture once adequate pointers are provided by the counterpart; but here he was, labouring below peak form under foggy conditions as he was shifting posture from horizantality to perpendicularity for the first time on the day.  Despite all those handicaps, it all came to him in a flash and he remembered that his mother-in-law and brother-in-law were to fly that morning to Bangalore on tickets booked by himself online earlier.  Masterfully suppressing the trepidation that was rising from his stomach-pit, he managed to mumble  "Why, what happened"?  The response was clear, cold and like the knife gliding through soft butter - "They are at the airport and have been told that their tickets are booked for the same date two months later".  All you need to know is they had to buy fresh tickets at an exorbitant price to fly that day and the author's perilously positioned stock nosedived even further on that side of the family. 

That fiasco came about only because this author did not follow the rigour that online booking of tickets demands, without giving one too much leeway to correct mistakes.  Especially if one had looked high and low for tickets for flexible dates and did not conclude the booking process for some reason.  When you return later to triumphantly seal the best deal of the day, you should not assume that the dates of travel you had in mind are captured correctly on Kayak or Jet Airways, whatever.  Remember, two decades back all this work was thrust on the travel agent, who earned his commission doing this for a job.  Now we tend to go over the top, over-analyzing available options online, simply because the entire airline schedule is at our finger tips, literally.  By the time you experiment with all the permutations and combinations of airline, departure time, date, pricing, auspicious day for travel etc, fatigue sets in and you tend to overlook something critical.   For some reason, while booking this ticket, the wrong date was picked for one leg and the rest was misery for one individual, the booker! It was another story that I had to write 100 times, reminiscent of the imposition in school days - doled out as punishment to atone for some misdeed - that "my mother-in-law was obviously welcome at our home any time"!! 

I had no defence the second time this happened, when at the airport we found that our tickets were again for the wrong date and we had to take an unplanned road trip to Madras. I can assure you that had not even the remotest resemblance to the one Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif enjoy in `Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara'.  Another disaster that strikes when some smart alec tries to play the system endlessly to get the best possible deal. A friend lost the last remaining seats for USA on a good flight because he was avaricious enough to wait overnight.  He ended up paying some 60% extra for the same seats when he woke up next morning.

If that was a date-related goof-up, venue-related hiccup is not far behind.  I booked tickets for a movie recently and we presented ourselves at the box-office at the appointed hour to collect the same.  We were flabbergasted to be told that the movie was not showing in that multiplex at all.  Bristling at this nonsense that they would issue tickets for a no-show, I was preparing for an onslaught when something deep inside me demurred. Before my belligerence got the better of me, I checked the ticket and lo and behold, it was for a multiplex with a similar sounding name belonging to the same group, about 15 kms away.  We grinned in embarrassment and bought fresh tickets for another movie and enjoyed it too.  The redeeming feature was that the loss this time was only Rs.200 for two tickets since it was a morning show!!  It was my imbecility alright, lulled into a comfort zone by the oh-so-familiar online platform; I swear it would not have happened, had I gone to the theatre and booked my tickets like in the good old days.  But, let this scribe declare in unequivocal terms that the immense convenience of the new age process beats the old one hands down, no doubt (especially in booking train/event/bus/airline tickets), so long as one is not averse to face up to the occasional discomfiture resulting from errors of commission and omission.

One thing I intensely dislike about some e-commerce portals is the way refunds are handled, assuming clients are dummies.  Even if you had paid by a credit card earlier, they try to take the mickey out of you by crediting the refund to your account with `them' instead of crediting the card account.  That way they believe they are doing smart business because you have to buy something from them again to use the refunded amount and they are not out of funds at all - dual benefits for them.  Somewhat like the practice of toll booths on highways trying to pay you the balance (change) in `chocolates', when one is not even sure whether you are getting the right value back.  Once, when I got 4 chocolates as change, I tried to give them to the next toll both (belonging to the same company) for the same value.  I had to argue for 5 minutes before they got accepted, not because the attendant was convinced by my argument but because of the persistent honking of the drivers behind!!

Now, let me go back to the first mishap mentioned in this blog, the Mangalore-Bangalore ticket for my mother-in-law. When all the hubbub had subsided and I imagined I was clearly out of the danger-zone, I ventured to politely ask my dear wife as to why none of them (she herself, her brother and mother), who had checked the ticket after booking, picked up the error and got it corrected.  Valid question, you would think?  All I got was a benign stare like the one she usually reserves for one of her less-gifted and errant children in school and she asked blithely `Now, trying to shift the blame, are we'??  I knew better than to answer, because all the people involved were from the other side of the family! 


Thursday, October 13, 2016

When God Is Out Of His Depth!!


All of us have probably sympathized with a friend or relative, who has gone through a rather prolonged rough patch in life for an inordinately long time, without any sign of remission on the horizon.  To such an extent that the `patch' seems to expand and envelope the land mass around the victim.  This happens, for instance, when an individual builds a house on a lake-bed which has been bone-dry for half a century just in time for incessant rains and a deluge to destroy it. Then he invests in a transport business, hoping to reap the reward of moving grains after a bountiful harvest, but an unusual diesel shortage and an enforced ban on movement of trucks ruin his chances.  When he decides to sell umbrellas there is drought for a few years and when he chooses money-lending business because he had been a good borrower, he ends up with 50% bad loans. Add to this a weird accident which comes visiting without advance notice and in an unscheduled illness afflicting someone near and dear.  My readers being intelligent and perceptive, would have grasped the lay of the land by now.  There is no reprieve for this chap and when he cries in desperation `Oh God, why are you doing this to me', we tend to soulfully join in the sufferer's bleating plea.  There are only so many blows on the snout that a man can take, you see.  But what if God is in a similar plight?? Where does He look for succour?

During the recent Ganesh Chathurthi festival, as we were stranded in traffic due to that ubiquitous procession with an idol, this author's mind wandered to the aforementioned scenario and his dear wife gave the usual sympathetic and understanding ear to his ramblings.  In that context, he wondered how big the Ganesha idols would end up in about ten years, having grown from 9" in height during his childhood to a mammoth 12' now.  This was an absolutely thoughtless remark, which turned out to be a red rag to the bull of an ecological warrior in my wife and she turned an impassioned orator for one, for the next half hour.  The car was completely stationary, providing a good and helpful platform for this and readers should imagine what happens to a captive audience in such circumstances.  She was almost hoarse by the time she concluded her denunciation of the entire process of the so-called-immersion --recklessly dumping the huge idols in lakes, rivers and miscellaneous water bodies, thereby causing irreparable damage to the ecosystem. There is really no way of knowing whether it was the physical exhaustion or the incapacitated larynx or the emotional drain, which brought the proceedings to a halt, but let us say they cumulatively silenced her then. But I got to hear the left-over, two last paras of the declamation at home in the evening, when she picked up the strain exactly and effortlessly where she left it in the afternoon -- an uncanny ability indeed, you will agree!!

That night I had that strange and bewildering dream! A huge Ganesha idol, lying on His side, half immersed in sea water, some body parts badly damaged in the process of providing entertainment to man during the festivities, was crying out in anguish as to why people do this to Him year after year.  He was carefully holding his trunk aloft above the water level, to avoid inadvertent intake of salt water  -- understandably that was not His favourite beverage either --  just as we do while snorkeling. But doing that for long hours can be physically taxing and so traumatic even for the Gods apparently and Ganesha was close to breaking point....errrr....actually He was pleading to be broken up completely and immersed properly, so that He could get home and rest in peace rather than in pieces. This state of limbo in which He had to dwell for a few days (until people finished with revelry, help arrived and all the idols were disposed of some haphazard way) was roughly the equivalent of people being left struggling and gasping for breath, deep down in the debris of a collapsed building, He said. He wanted to avoid the same nasty predicament in future and looked like he was soliciting ideas.  I must have blabbered something in my sleep, to the effect that if as God He did not know the way out, as a mere mortal, I was damned if I had a clue!! Very cogent for a sleeping man, you would agree.  At this stage, the game was over because my dear wife was shaking me up violently, predictably wanting to gather information as to who I was in conversation with, why and about what.

Really, think of what we do to Ganesha in the name of a celebration.  This spectacle of pandals, processions and immersions are way out of line as far as religion is concerned. They seem to be social manifestations of man's desire to impose his will on God. Otherwise, why would the simple ritual of a half-foot Ganesha idol in clay being piously moved from one's home to the well in the backyard for immersion in 10 minutes become such a farce?  This cannot be called evolution, obviously because everything around the festival has only degenerated over the decades.  Every part in this modern spectacle -- the unreasonable size of idols, the pomp, the collection of money etc, the drunken revelry, the blaring music and the contorted dance movements (the same dance as performed during marriages, funerals and festivals) and finally the damage caused by the immersion process -- should strike a rational community as woefully deviant, if only we pause to think.  One is certainly not against the festival or celebrations but is sad as to how things are done.  Nobody should be surprised if even the Gods are complaining actually.

I remember a story I read somewhere.  Three friends of three different religious denominations, who do not know swimming, go out boating.  In the middle of the lake, the boat suddenly springs a huge leak and begins to take water in.  Everybody prays to his personal God.  Two guys, whose Gods arrive promptly, are saved forthwith from drowning and taken ashore.  The third one, predictably a Hindu, seeks the help of Ganesha.  Lo and behold, Ganesha arrives and begins dancing to some blaring music, on the water around the sinking boat, much to the consternation of the devotee.  When the frightened man questions Ganesha as to why He is not playing the saviour, Ganesha merely says `I am just doing what you people do to me every year'!! The story was not taken to conclusion, but being Ganesha, I am sure He did not let the devotee be `immersed' painfully slowly.

Yes, this author can empathize with Ganesha and fully understand His sentiments. Hopefully people would not wait till He decides to show his anger in some form!  


Friday, September 2, 2016

Online Shopping - Part One

One was not seeking the Holy Grail, which might also have been available online for the seeker with the right kind of profile and thirst!   My quest was for something very rudimentary -- to usher some new kind of light into our lives.  To state simply, to buy some LED bulbs, after being bombarded with messages through multiple media sources about the Modi government's initiative.  Whether the Light Emitting Diode bulbs eventually become the rage to brighten our Prime Minister's face or not,  the mind-boggling process I went through did emit reasonable quantum of weariness to stir me.

As one who prefers the conventional touch-and-feel as well as show-and-tell kind of shopping, my first attempt was to pull out one of the normal bulbs and show to the chap at the electrical goods store and ask for an LED bulb to replace that.  He peremptorily dropped a couple of customers he was handling, with a thud too and came rushing to me.  His over-solicitude made me wonder if I was myself emitting some irresistible halo!  It turned out he hadn't had too many people hankering after the stock of expensive LED bulbs in which he seemed to have tied up sizeable capital.  When he saw a window of opportunity opening ajar, he pounced on me and laid it on me thick.  But the price he quoted for various brands, ranging from Rs 230 to 650 for one bulb, not only confused me but made my antenna shoot up sharply in defence.  No wonder, he was unable to reduce that particular part of his inventory, I thought and beat a hasty retreat.  Where is Rs 20 for a normal bulb and Rs 500 for this novelty -- sounded outrageous.  Just because the latter is likely to last 25 years; (the 650 one boasts of longevity beyond that) -- neither the seller nor the buyer (in this case) may be alive to even validate that exalted claim!!  When I later voiced my disappointment to a younger, technology-driven friend, about not contributing to the government's effort towards a laudable cause, true to his age and approach to life, he suggested I go online to shop for LED bulbs cheap. I should have known better; that was the beginning of my problems.

One essential prerequisite for a successful e-commerce experience is thorough and absolute knowledge of what one wants - including minute specifications.  In the absence of that, the buyer is asking for a rude awakening and will only get frustrated with the run-around he gets, as can be evidenced by this one.  Going to that amazing e-commerce platform, I chanced my arm to buy LED bulbs - straightforward enough on the surface.  What I saw in response to my input of  'LED bulbs' beggared belief - there was a flurry of activity and there were 348 items displayed.  The first 45 had something to do with LED bulbs of assorted descriptions.  What followed were not even remotely connected to bulbs!!  Realisation quickly dawned that it was just not adequate to differentiate between screw type and pin type bulbs, because the site angrily demanded further edification regarding E14 or E27 - specs relating to the size of the screw that goes into the holder.  One felt shrinking further with embarrassment because one had no clue about the basics of the particular bulb being used for decades; and the bulb itself coyly refused to divulge where it belonged! Extensive research and visual reviews of actual bulbs and pictures from the site, induced in me the feeling that I was stumbling from terrifying wilderness to somewhere in the bewildering ballpark.  After a few more hiccups in deciding the wattage (suddenly all the known wattages were being rapidly diminished to single digits), the colour (cool white or yellow?) and other paraphernalia, the moment of truth arrived as the order was placed.  The buyer was over the moon thinking the ordeal was over, only to discover it was only baptism in the first stage of the ordeal!

Are you crazily interested in knowing whether your bulb is somewhere between two localities in the city, the names of which you have never heard before? Or do you really want the 16-digit tracking number the e-commerce site keeps throwing at you via email or SMS, just so that you can find out whether the first bulb of the four you have ordered has moved a couple of feet in a day?  As if the spam one gets in the in-box is insufficient! Then came the personal touch - a very pleasant and beaming voice over the phone announced that the light of your life would be arriving the next day between noon and evening (that helps!).  Being our first LED bulbs, my dear wife and I parked ourselves near the door and waited with bated breath, to be blinded by their unconcealed radiance.  To our chagrin, the same pleasant voice soothingly told us later that the bulbs had lost their way and would be delayed - we were almost devastated as we moved away from our stoic positions for the afternoon.  The next day brought unadulterated joy in the form of the bulbs ordered.  My dear wife quickly extracted the bulbs and examined them.  Alas, she found to our collective dismay that as against the order for 4 yellows we got 2 yellows and 2 cool whites.  She had categorically and unequivocally stated `cool white' was anathema.  She glowered at me as if  she was accusing me of having appended an offending coded signal to the supplier, altering her command behind her back .  And when her anxious attempt to use the yellow bulb in one of our table lamps turned out to be a miserably failing engineering feat, we realised that the two yellows were pin types, just the opposite of what we had ordered. So, still there was no new light!!

If you had noticed, all the e-commerce sites boast that they have a superlative `return' policy and process.  It seems reasonable to ask them whether handling returns was their primary business since they are highlighting that with such pride.  But the way our first order went lucidly explained the mystique behind the hype about the `returns handling' prowess of the e-commerce retailers to a wet-behind-the-ear shopper.  It almost seemed they were trying to demonstrate to us why it was more important to show chutzpah in dealing with the returns than take reasonable care to make the right delivery in the first place!  After another iteration of the latter part of the above process over the next few days, we finally got a few of our lights lit up with LED bulbs. Something we could have done in five minutes after that shopkeeper offered to sell that high priced bulb to me, if I had gone with the conventional option, my dear wife said with a smirk.  But one learns!!

 To be fair, we do order a few things online nowadays and not many have gone wrong.

(To be continued in Part Two)

                  







Sunday, July 24, 2016

We Indians Are Always In Touch!


When we were young, we eschewed contact sports -- football, hockey, etc. since we were just about alright with our own sweat and were averse to sponging off others'.  So, we focused on all other ball games and favoured cricket, tennis, table tennis, badminton. Ever since, during all these years, as a cricketer I have never had any body contact with another cricketer (except for hand-shakes and the like) -- well, almost never. I will be less than honest if I do not record the major exceptions.  Once in college, as I was standing up to a leg spinner as wicket keeper, the burly batsman used his brute force to take an exaggerated swing with the bat after stepping back deep inside the crease and made successful contact with the bridge of my nose.  A similar instance recurred recently in our weekly community cricket game and my glove was the beneficiary of contact this time. Needless to say, in both cases, the batsmen did not touch the ball but were nevertheless hugely satisfied with what they thought were better results.  I can visualise some of you shaking your heads in disagreement.  Yes, technically, these were not body contacts.  But you know what I mean.  Those days, we were too young to read any other major significance into our choice of sports.

 Now, after 40 years, this author harks back and sees a great message and a massive irony in that.  Without displaying this on any psychedelic panel, our youth was preparing us for a future full of contact -- unrelenting, unavoidable and frequently unpleasant at that -- with our tribe at every single turn of life, right and wrong. We were being shielded from too much of contact then because a gigantic dose of that `contact' was awaiting us in a bustling existence, with maddening crowds and sobering queues being hallmarks.  Only that we did not recognize the signs then and thought we were engaged in gentlemen sports, by choice!! You dig??  Let us revisit some normal, day-to-day experiences to illustrate what this scribe means.

You are in a movie theatre, in a line waiting to wave that omnipotent cell phone at the clerk there, which act would materialise the tickets.  You are third or fourth in line, even though there is a larger crowd milling around the counter space, because each person in front has some four friends jostling around.  Why are they in the queue? -- aha, there lies the rub - literally.  To provide that inevitable contact experience.  You derive some solace from the fact that there is none behind you, but not for long.  Soon, a couple joins the queue and the experience gets more intense forthwith.  The guy behind is talking to his girlfriend and he has to turn some 75 degrees to do this.  He is loathe to provide that tiny space required for him to turn without touching you and this is not for want of space behind him. So every time he has to do some koochikooing (this happens some 30 times in 5 minutes) he will nudge your back - left side first for a start and then to restore balance and equity, right.  All the time, blissfully unaware of the discomfiture he is causing.  When you have had enough, you turn around fully and stare at him after the 10th nudge.  He smiles at you benevolently and says a pleasant 'sorry' but still does not make the necessary allowance in space to avoid further unpleasant contact. This goes on till you tell him testily that you are not waiting to be touched.  Then he looks at you as if sympathising with a loser and responds patronisingly `I told you, I am sorry'!  Your experience might be enhanced qualitatively if the pre-movie ritual for such guys is a good meal of dishes generously laden with onion and garlic.  In that case, when they are finished with you, you have a had a glorious time bathing in that exhilarating smell and your shirt will have to go for dry cleaning (preferably with you in it!).  Sounds familiar?

Someone pushing a trolley at the airport is another scenario, loaded with immense potential.  Even as you are careful to avoid bumping into the person in front, the one at the back will, after some preliminary manoeuvres,  run the trolley's front wheels generously between your legs.  Making you go wide-angled suddenly and also making it difficult for you to steer your own trolley properly, resulting in your jamming the guy in front.  Others are somewhat considerate and avoid pestering you with the trolley wheels, but they have billowing suitcases spilling out of their trolleys which do the job.  So, when they push forward, that extra large suitcase is always in contact with you (yes, all this is not direct, but vicarious contact), caressing you now, nudging you a little later and then when they lose it a bit, hitting you behind the knee and making you buckle.  Through this process too?

One boards the aircraft after the customary jostling in the aero-bridge or the bus + ladders, as the case may be and feels somewhat relieved.  The tension abates.  But then one forgets a couple of scenarios, which are likely to resurrect the pain.  Inside the aircraft, moving along the aisle you are forced to notice that the lady in front of you, travelling alone with an infant in hand, has sprouted bags all around her.  In the Indian scheme of things, excess baggage payment is an insult to intelligence and therefore taboo. So, whatever cannot be stuffed violently into the checked-in bag, will be strung around the persons boarding the flight.  More so, if you have an infant, even though the cabin bags cumulatively have 50 gms of milk and two diapers intended for the kid and nothing more. This scribe can venture into a guess as to what the rest of the baggage is but will pass so that he does not incur the wrath of women, represented by, you know who!  Now, this lady has to move to the end of the aircraft, some 28 rows down, with the infant wriggling in one hand, a trolley bag on the other hand, a tote bag on the shoulder and her own personal bag hanging magically from somewhere.  And no, she does not know her seat number and has her boarding pass somewhere inside one of the bags.  Now she will swing to this side looking for it, hitting you gently in an introductory attempt. Then to that side, to the other bag, hitting more of you.  Even without the excuse of an infant, there are people who carry backpacks and tote bags big enough to hold another passenger inside and bulldoze their way. When such people are passing, if you happen to be in one of the aisle seats, you may possibly get a couple of bruises when they find that either they can pass or their bags can, but try to make it all go together nevertheless!!

We can go on and replicate the scenario in a wedding hall, waiting to bless the couple or be blessed with a meal.  Or inside a lift when people are seriously trying to prove that the maximum capacity indicated is wrong.  This happens all the time in India but outside you do not see much of this.  My tut-tutting wife says `less people and more space', is the reason. May be. But I still think this has something to do with where we come from and our ethos. Recently, my dear wife and I were returning from Sri Lanka. At the Bangalore airport, behind us was a foreigner (turned out to be Britisher) who surprisingly was behaving like he fulfilled all the `local' requirements, pushing the trolley quite aggressively into me.  He apologised when I asked him to stay back a bit and he did.  Later on he disclosed that he had been living in Sri Lanka and India for a long time and loved the climate, people and the bustle.  That explained a lot, my smiling wife told him pleasantly with a smirk!







Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Force Majeure, Indian Way

During childhood, we used to be vaguely amused by a neighbourhood dog starting a barking concert whenever the moon appeared large in the sky, closer to full-moon days. This conductor-dog commenced the music with a few others soon joining the chorus and the orchestra had a raucous run for about thirty minutes.  Then, drained by their effort and absolutely baffled by the unyielding moon, which refused to acknowledge them in any way, they curled up and went to sleep. That was a ritual which recurred with amazing regularity for a number of years and we sought some edification from our parents once.  We were told that probably the lead-dog had been witness to some tragic event earlier, which took place when the moon was shining in all its glory.  What we were frequently witnessing was apparently a visceral reaction to something from the past.  Someone else told us that the reason why a dog chases speeding cars, all the time barking the head off, is that a mate might have been killed by one such car.  This hot pursuit is an act of retribution, even if it does not affect the car or occupants in any way, much like the moon in the other episode.

Why this random talk of dogs and their sporadic acts of angst??   Recently, that erudite gentleman and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor who famously said `My name is Raghuram Rajan (RR) and I do what I do', decided to walk away from a possible second term.  This, despite his stellar first tenure of three years which saw India gaining stability and respect in the eyes of the whole world.  Not being privy to all the cloak-and-dagger action behind the scenes, pundits nevertheless generated all kinds of scenarios and dissected everything in sight, to arrive at their own concoction of what happened.  That was inevitable anywhere, but mandatory in India, where absolutely inane and puerile utterances by even low-lifes become eminently newsworthy.  Such bilge tends to occupy prime TV space for a week in some ten channels in multiple languages, keeping a bunch of otherwise unemployed and self-appointed celebrities pretending to be very busy!!

One very observant friend opined that all those loose barbs and unsubstantiated accusations by a senior ruling party member must have got RR's goat and he must have said in disgust `enough is enough'.  But, when one accepts a political assignment (the RBI governor is appointed by the Prime Minister), one cannot be super sensitive to criticism because you are in public domain; with all kinds of quasi experts mindlessly churning out their home-grown theories and palliatives while you are trying to prescribe some effective antidote to a real malady.  One should also be acutely aware of the powder keg (political pressure and consequent unpredictability) that is strapped to one's back for the duration of the assignment. Not being cognizant of that would be naivete bordering on stupidity.  RR, being neither naive nor stupid, was not decamping because of some loud, insane barks here and there -- he would not have expected unadulterated adulation sans any criticism for all his actions as RBI governor.  So, why was he not being the veritable moon, glowing down indifferently on the source of all the commotion below, unperturbed??  Running away like a wimp due to the vicious carping of a few, RR was not - that clearly militated against the personality involved.  Something more at play??  The choice of the specific high-decibel critic (not a petty politician, but another scholar and a respected individual in many quarters) and the fact that there was no serious effort to rein him in would lend credence to there being, what else..... Force Majeure??  More importantly, was there a moon-dog kind of relationship between the protagonists of this drama?  One never knows.

Another dear friend, who does not dole out opinions loosely, helpfully added that meritocratic bureaucrats like RR (not being pachyderms like seasoned politicians), deserve to be nurtured and protected by the political establishment instead of being exposed to random allegations as RR was.  That is required, if we want to see the rise of meritocracy in the government.  No doubt.  This implied that the Government itself was not keen on retaining RR for a second term, so it did not make any effort to shut down the shrill critical voices, exacerbating the situation and resulting in the current imbroglio.  The fact that the government wasted precious little time in saying adios to RR and began its search for the replacement pronto suggests that the vicious campaign in public might have been orchestrated from elsewhere.  Obviously RR was aware of the various sub-plots boiling and the build-up to this denouement must have started long back.  That would explain his gentlemanly exit on to the high ground.  But this author does not support the `protection is needed' theory.  People like RR are in position because of their ability to lead with their intellect and skills.  They invariably end up doing things their way, even if they are out of whack with the political managers' expectations and compulsions.  RR would have got protection if he, like a loyal political appointee, had probably moderated his focus on inflation to let interest rates fall earlier and more, because then he would have done the bidding of the government.  That would have helped the government to gloat that `good days are back'.  But, that would have been out of character for RR!!  By the same token, he would not have expected protection either??  So, Force Majeure, it probably was??

Talking of protection of a meritocrat who was intent on hacking his own blazing path forward, this scribe is reminded of the former Chief Election Commissioner, T.N.Seshan (TNS).  This gentleman was so focused on leaving his own individual stamp and imprimatur on the way elections were conducted in India, he did not think anything of turning against the same party (and all the other parties that were part of the system) which appointed him in the first place.  His rebellion against his political bosses was so severe in the context of elections that the latter pushed for a couple of legislations aimed only at bringing him to his heels, but did not succeed.  Could RR have followed that path?  Well, he is not cut out from the same cloth as TNS, when it comes to pugnacity, belligerence and a devil-may-care attitude, even though betterment of the system was/is their common objective.  RR, being suave and classier, reacted in his own way, by taking himself out of the scene whereas TNS continued to bulldoze the system against all odds.  May be the options were just not there for RR - Force Majeure definitely?  Then there is the case of Manmohan Singh - a supreme meritocrat, if there was one, in his earlier avatar.  But he contrived to compromise himself so seriously at every turn subsequently that all the lustre (and may be, a bit of his skin too) came off by the time he ended his career as the Prime Minister!!

Well, the damage is done and the goose is cooked, as my dear wife says, in terms of an embarrassing spectacle for the country, while simultaneously asserting that nobody is indispensable (meaning RR) and the politicians were always botching things up.  Pithy summary. She supports RR clearly in that development should not be seen purely in terms of generation of new jobs but it should also ensure that those struggling with god-given and man-made poverty at the bottom of the pyramid do not get stricken further by rising costs spiraling out of control.  Now, this author, even though not as smart as RR, knows what is good for him and he agrees completely, since this is a known Force Majeure closer home!!!










Saturday, May 21, 2016

Sheeple!!

History is littered with products which were launched with great fanfare and hoopla, but ended being wet squibs, some of them so soggy that even a conflagration would not have enabled them to take off.  Companies behind such failed products went through the usual rigmarole of consumer surveys and pre-launch blandishments with smug corporate smiles, not sparing any expense because they thought they had a good thing going.  But little did they know.  Two good examples are - in the interest of fairness, from competitors - Crystal Pepsi in the 90s and The New Coke in the 80s.  As we know, both companies habitually splurge on advertisements and try to smother consumers with an avalanche of commercials in the media.  And they are no spring chicken when it comes to judging the tastes of the public.  So, why such massive failures, where their fizz evaporated even before the cans were opened?  Obviously they were presumptuous based on precedents and were wrong in imagining that people could be manoeuvred towards their own corporate goals.  Their market research etc did not manage to unearth the reality, in this scribe's opinion; the primary game changers for the companies were the ones this author would call Sheeple.

Dictionaries define `sheeple' as a portmanteau word combining sheep and people and naively paint them as people who behave like sheep in that they can be easily led by the nose.  The more intelligent people might object to this forced union with sheep, while ironically the latter themselves might stand on their hind legs and protest this rather unsheeply insult!  This scribe, being neither too smart nor too sheepish, has a different take on the meaning of the word - "that crowd which can be herded down any desired path nonchalantly by a `leader' half the time; while for the other half, it quietly rebels without oozing any indication, such that the same leader is paralysed by the surprising outcome at the end."  So, in short, sheeple is half herd and half muscular majority, which combine can turn out to be lethal in delivering knock-out punches, when they so desire.  Ask those two-faced politicians, who grin like Cheshire cats on finding cream cheese during election time and are singularly bereft of vocal chords when results are announced!!  Usually because their perch has been removed from under their backside without any notice, in a startling fashion.

But the mature observer is one who does not pile up all sheeple in one single stack.  There are fine variations among sheeple. Only the most avid followers of the group, with a penchant for deep-dive research and relentless perseverance can appreciate the various nuances and raise above mediocrity to hope for podium finishes.  The casual critic, going by the characterization associated with the name, - sheeple - will be impaled sooner or later, thanks to his/her practised, superficial knowledge.

First set of sheeple we look at are the ones, while going with the herd up to a point, display sharply deviant and unsheeply behaviour beyond, causing immense grief to the unsuspecting leaders.  Take the example of the Anti-Hindi agitation in Thamizh Nadu in the 1960s. This author, as an impressionable school boy,  was an amalgam of an under-duress member (because he was not really against Hindi and was part of after-school Hindi classes for years, but was threatened with reasonable violence to body parts) and willing participant (because it afforded an opportunity of throwing cricket-ball sized stones at various targets randomly designated by the glorious leaders!).  The roaring irony was that the progeny of the respected teacher-couple who conducted the after-hour Hindi classes were also coerced members of the mob, but enjoying the outing nonetheless, for aforesaid reasons.  As always, going staunchly with tradition and well-defined opening gambits, public buses were the primary targets and the cricketers in us enjoyed impressive strike rates as our throws ended with clattering glasses.  But then a few diabolical ones among the sheeple also accurately lobbed stones into the police posse, stationed as audience to appreciate the skills displayed by the mob, unless provoked.  And provoked they were, being used as targets contrary to the pre-violence agreement; they resorted to their own counter-violence and most of the senior coercers and leaders were severely beaten up and incarcerated for a few days, while those sheeple who astutely engineered that outcome were smirking away to glory!

The next sub sect which quietly causes significant diversion from the preconceived outcome is that which refuses to show its hand when surveymonkeys and exit polls are happening, but reacts at its own pace and trajectory almost malevolently, at the least opportune time for the leaders.  Market surveyors and exit poll specialists are yet to fully grasp the fact that the specimens they coax opinions out of are exactly the ones who like hearing their own voices and fancy themselves as opinion-makers.  The ones who actually swing the ultimate outcome one way or the other are in silent majority, watching without even a twitch, the brash and the bumptious making asses of themselves.  Just because these low-key, quiet sheeple are not seen clamouring, those who are loud become the mistaken voices and alas, the result is disastrous for the exit polls and surveys.  Members of this group imbibe all the opinions swirling around in their neighbourhood, on TV, in print media and elsewhere. They hold incisive, individual, internal debates in their own minds and get their fix unerringly, without so much as betraying a sign of being rebellious, inevitably subverting the grandiose plans of the chosen few!!   

Other sheeple decide purely on the basis of their affiliations to those they consider their mentors, even if the latter have neither reasons nor pretensions to being that.  Accordingly this group stays on the sidelines, indifferent to the end.  Another section may just look at the alternatives and be influenced by the most strident voice -- be it the wife or father-in-law or an impudent friend, even the choice is diametrically opposite to the popular one.  There are sheeple who make their picks and reject someone because that person stole his favourite marble during a game or she was hugely resented during childhood for her beautiful, long hair.  In essence, sheeple come in all forms and shapes, the underlying and unifying factor being their unpredictability, which ends up thwarting popular choices.

As I was firming up the above thoughts, I decided to send a trial balloon up and asked my dear wife for her valued opinion on sheeple.  She said she was in complete agreement (this indeed was alarming and I thought she was just getting my goat).  She smugly continued that she intimately knew one prime specimen but this one, even when seemingly being led by the nose, was inherently rebellious and was capable of, nay, was almost always going to steer the leader the wrong way.  She wanted to know whether my definition of sheeple covered this too.  She would not elaborate and till this day I am looking to solve the riddle!!  















Thursday, April 14, 2016

Quotas, Quotas, Everywhere!


In the recent past, India convulsed through two violently damaging agitations resulting in senseless loss of lives and public/private property, apart from huge inconvenience to the populace and severe disruption of routine life.  Both were community/caste driven and incited by the literally incendiary behaviour of the usual vested interest groups and vote-bank politics.  One by the Jats in the north and the other by the Kapus in the South in Andhra Pradesh.  Both sought to coerce governments to concede quota-based goodies for the respective communities through intimidation.  Since the instigators of the day are the power-brokers of tomorrow,  governments tend to capitulate, as the Haryana Government did with the Jats and further extended the list of approved quotas. 

(What?  People are already grumbling and preparing to post sharp comments like `very serious blog', `totally unlike you' etc.  Come on, folks! The idea is not to be serious for too long; please bear with me for one more para!!)

There is no denying the fact that in a country like India, inherent and institutionalised social iniquities compel the poorest to continue wallowing in their misery generation after generation. Without any genuinely structured attempt to provide short term succour and longer term livelihood solutions, quotas are the easier way out and absolutely necessary.  But, economic backwardness, measured by annual household income or some similar yardstick, should be the sole criterion for quotas, since it can subsume all other pertinent considerations like backward caste, tribe etc which are invariably the drivers today.    But this is anathema to (surprise, surprise!!) exactly those who have grown out of poverty from those segments, using the same quota system and are relatively better off now.   These bundles of avarice just refuse to move aside on the basis of economic backwardness but want to perpetuate their quotas, leaving in doldrums those unfortunate souls way below them on the ladder.  Because economic backwardness is not the basis for the current quota system, there is ample scope for undeserved sections of society to exploit crevices and muscle their way to quotas with the connivance of scheming politicos.  Consequently, the whole quota scene in India could be seen as a terrible joke perpetrated on the citizenry, but for the havoc it wreaks from time to time. But what if it were a joke??

(Whoa, that took a bit of effort to bring this back to the track readers are familiar with).

The Supreme Court has now asked the authorities running the game of cricket to implement various reforms, one of which is to have a three-member Selection Committee.  This is in lieu of the current five members, who are picked from each of the five geographic zones, with the chief being appointed by rota from one of the zones.  Typical of the quota mindset we have.  What if these five zones were mandated to contribute three players each to the team of fifteen, with the zonal selector appropriately playing God?  Obviously, talent, form and performance will be damned and the physical location of the player and his equation with the zone's selector become the overriding qualifications. Cases of a waning player choosing to uproot himself from Koodankulam to Kurhukshetra to exploit zonal quota will be commonplace.  Climax will be when an expanded bench of the Supreme Court is again forced to select the team itself,  some 12 hours before a crucial match, to negate the shenanigans of the regional selectors!! 

This scribe always wonders how our naive netas have failed to spot glaring opportunities to supeficially help their vote banks while lining their own pockets, using the much-maligned quota system. One easy route to solving the unemployment malaise among the downtrodden will be to fix a quota for the allocation of all reserved  railway, airline and bus tickets to the various castes/communities.  This way, all genuine travellers will be at the mercy of the quota class and the latter can run legally sanctioned and officially protected rackets employing thousands of `quota-entitled' people to manage the secondary sale of those tickets at premium.  Actually, this same formula will work for seats in schools, educational institutions of all hues including management schools, thereby expanding the field of opportunity multiple times.  One realizes this is being done by enterprising school and college managements now, but the lack of governmental approval inhibits the system from achieving its full potential, without a doubt.

Another area which has not been fully explored with reference to the quota system is the practice of medicine.  There are doctors passing out of medical schools, with barely any knowledge of the human body (granted, they can identify body parts as easily as the rest of us, but that is probably it) and their only focus is to milk the sick in the society to become rich rapidly.  This author does concede that this is a conundrum -- not being a good doctor and having such a lofty ambition to amass wealth in the short term.  See, if a doctor has a tainted reputation (inevitable if he is barely knowledgeable) or no reputation at all (he has to do something to develop one), one doesn't need rocket science to divine that he is going to be bereft of patients and earnings.   If only the politicians and the government think shrewdly and implement a quota system here, such doctors will benefit immensely.  All patients should be forced to join a queue and should be allocated to such pretend-doctors entirely based on a quota for each doctor. This allocation should be done through a lottery, just so that the system and government are not unfairly accused of targeting a particular individual to be sent to a low-life doctor.  This adroit step would also stop the opposition from holding the parliament to ransom on this count.  Yes, somebody requiring urgent repair his bowels might end up with an absolutely raw and untested dentist or one screaming for attention to his gall-bladder may have to deal with an orthopaedic struggling to distinguish between  fibula and humerus,  so what?  Tough luck, that is the way the quota works, don't be too stuck up about that, patients!!

Frankly, even as I was writing that, the endless possibilities struck as a bolt from the blue.  Not all enterprises do equally well, obviously due to the (dis)abilities of the management as well as the lack of quality products/services sold.  But, a government thirsting to apply that great socio-economic roadroller-leveller called the quota system can thrive in this fertile area, with only imagination to limit the scope. To sustain and mollycoddle those incorrigibly and chronically inefficient institutions, compulsory diversion of clientele can be a facile and satisfactory solution, as has been proved in the case of majority of public sector units in India.  For instance, a lousy restaurant, which prides itself on serving absolutely inedible food, but perceived by the socially and politically correct as deserving a good chance and a long run, should be given a number of customers for every meal.  Of course, the by-now-well-established lottery system should settle who should be favoured with such meals.  One can see that this quirk of lottery also makes for excitement and suspense, apart from upholding the principle of neo-natural justice, which is enshrined in the dictum `For the sake of quota-beneficiaries, the rest should all grin and bear'!!

True to form, many politicians are asking for quotas in private organizations now.  Why not, this is their benevolent contribution to the principle of dispersing the goodies far and wide.  This author's suggestion is that all those in the political spectrum and their cronies, who have gone from Zero to Billions in 5 years (sounds like competition for Aston Martin Vantage N24) should first use their wealth to set up new companies with the sole objective of aiding the quota-drive.  Some kind of amnesty programme can be run to shut the doors on all those cases involving disproportionate income/wealth, in litigation for ever, and all such shenanigans can be forgiven so long as such new enterprises  are entirely populated with our quota-entitled brethren.  Employment and reasonable salaries should be guaranteed for at least twenty years, regardless of the way the companies perform.  Those who want such entitlements only on very narrow caste/community grounds, should be compelled to hire only those castes/communities in managing their companies.  Once this experiment is conducted for a decade or more and the results are found favourable,  the next step of dipping into the state's ink-pot can be thought of.

The mounting of the quota flag on the social summit can be something like this.  Quota-based job rotation for everyone, could be the literal clincher. Certain percentage of forward communities should periodically be assigned jobs like coconut tree climbing, pig-rearing, garbage clearing, construction site work etc to teach them empathy and the meaning of dignity of labour.  Anyway this will come about logcially if we continue to provide quotas for others to do other lucrative jobs mentioned above; no specific effort in this direction may be required.

With the way the quota basket is sought to be expanded and extended,  we may soon arrive at that watershed moment in history, when it might dawn on the powers-that-be that it is far easier to list the few castes/communities which are excluded from quotas.  Easier to track and maintain. This may be the only reform we will see in this context in the near future.  My dear wife has patiently read all this and has one question: `What is the one thing that might change things in India, with reference to quota-regime'?  My guess is the only antidote is the possibility that India will end up worse than Pakistan in all spheres of life, with the continuation of the present system.  Her real concern is that someone up there, who is as seriously hare-brained as the author, may happen to read this post and decide to launch an experiment.  She refuses to believe that this author is only mimicking reality, it is not the other way around!!

Rumour has it that Harsh Bhogle's exclusion from the IPL commentary team this year is also due to the quota problem??  Sony has removed its quota of one they had - for an Indian commentator reasonably sensible, refreshing even in the routine, humorous when the opportunity comes through, extremely incisive, cohesive and erudite to the extent one can be in this sphere.  With the abolition of that quota, out went Harsha??  Is this true?












Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Bans!


Ever since the age of ten, this author has watched with fascination, governments banning something or the other, completely ignoring their ability, or the lack of it, to control or predict the outcome.  He had grown up in a very 'lively' town in which petty rivals used machetes and sickles liberally and whimsically to separate chosen limbs from bodies, over-ruling objections of the owners, who obviously preferred to stay whole.  Consequently, the earliest ban he was blessed to witness was under the oft-used Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which prevented unlawful assembly, including that of dangerous urchins lurking with deadly weapons like marbles, plastic bats etc.   Sec 144 was always the topper of monthly charts by a long distance, as bans went those days and one must admit that there was a woeful lack variety in bans in general.  Probably because the governments of the day in the 60s had to do some real work and also were not as imaginative of the current ones.   People who fancied consumption of mouse-meat or monkey-meat (now, please don't start a riot, this author is just being creatively fanciful!) were at liberty to indulge in their favourite gourmet dishes without riling Ganesha or Hanuman devotees and the authorities had better things to do than monitor the dietary habits of the citizenry.

There has been an electrifying transformation in the `ban' scenario since those days and the repertoire has widened in scope dramatically (tracing this important historical development has to wait for a while because the body of research into this entertaining subject is still work in progress due to severe funding constraints) with multiple parties being added as regular 'ban'ners, besides governments.  Any political outfit which has mustered three goons and thirty aspiring goons under their tutelage or any unknown disgruntled group from a sub-caste of an obscure religious sect or just a band of an aggrieved community demanding (of course, unreasonably) immediate relief for something festering for a couple of decades, can declare a ban and enforce it much better than the government agencies. Such bans, when declared and orchestrated without any accountability for the consequences, by seemingly non-state actors, are called 'Ban'dhs - as you can see, it is just a small variation.  It is rumoured that various such organizations desirous of pursuing the high-profile business of bans, have hired full-time-equivalents with a wealth of relevant prior experience, speciously designated them `Event Managers-cum-Mentors' and tasked them with successful execution of the weirdest of bans.  Now, the timid and innocuous lay-man can probably comprehend why there is a sudden spike in bans - against a particular scene in a movie or a dish in a restaurant or thirteen isolated words in an eight- hundred-page-tome,  protesting a commercial ad, objecting to a pseudonym used by an erring author, whatever.  Mind-boggling variety has arrived.  This sowed the seeds in the feverishly creative mind of this author, of an urge to experiment with a ban of very limited proportions within the confines of his own home, so that violence is limited, if not completely averted, knowing fully well who the eventual victim would be!!

Nobody is perfect when it comes to eating vegetables; some like this and some avoid that.  There is no shame in owning up that as a mere mortal, this scribe also has his aversion to one vegetable, which shall remain anonymous as a measure of abundant caution.  Leveraging the intervention of our housekeeper who sources vegetables, with some astute molly-coddling, I contrived to impose an unannounced ban - I smugly decided that it paid to be subtle about these things.  After a couple of weeks of deprivation, my dear wife who just loves that vegetable, wondered about its mysterious disappearance and was given some excuse by my wobbly co-conspirator.  After a month of agonizing over this, she brought in the supply herself and I persuaded the housekeeper to cook that after five days when I would be out on a trip.  But disaster struck when he retrieved the stuff to improve its edibility - it had rotted in parts. All hell broke loose when he, stripped of all flimsy defences, pointed not only one finger but a whole fat hand in my direction accusingly.  A sinister, withering look from that mother of all sinister-look-deliverers and a few chosen admonitions later, the objective of my attempted ban was stood on its head effortlessly! I was forced to eat that abominable vegetable some twelve times in the following two weeks - some kind of a record I was told by the pleased-as-punch housekeeper.  Moral of the story: Do not think of ban, if you cannot enforce it!! If only other `ban'ners are administered such swift and merciless retribution, why would the next ban come about??  If only there is a way of bulldozing the law enforcement agencies to come around for some coaching classes!

A senior American colleague of mine, who was a strict disciplinarian and an avid enforcer of rules was very annoyed by the employees eating their lunch in the open office.  The result, the entire space constantly smelled like the interiors of a frontier restaurant which prided itself on its meat specialities, prepared with generous doses of butter, onion and garlic.  A peremptory order was served, banning the office from doubling up as dining room.   During the next two months, overtime ballooned and unfinished work piled up because most of the mule-headed old timers decided to go for long lunch breaks outside and cited crowded restaurants as reason for delays.  Obviously, a very meek surrender occurred, no different from that notorious case of the ban on an undesirable vegetable.  I have also heard that similar overturning of thoughtless bans was required to quell unarmed rebellion in other places - (1) An insensitive foreigner-manager questioned and banned multiple visits to the prayer room daily in a Muslim-majority country; he was hyper-critical of females taking additional time, without realising that they had to remove their make-up before praying and then restoring status-quo-ante.  (2)  An almost puritanical Englishman decided to impose a ban on the leisurely Spanish practice of merienda, that enjoyable filler of time between two meals and triggered a revolt and (3) An ignoramus of a boss banned employees from their visits, armed with toothbrush, paste and towel, to rest rooms after each snack or meal; he was completely clueless about the damage to the quality of air in closed spaces in the office, resulting from people's love for abundant garlic in their meals, which could be countered only with periodic brushing of teeth!!  So, never ban something without a clear understanding of the reasons why your predecessors have never attempted that.  You will be the unfailing target of the boomerang!

Those who were in Madras in the 70s would recall that it was very fashionable for students to hang out of buses, hanging on the railings near the entrance and exit.  No denying the fact that there was no space inside the bus to accommodate the spill-over, but students, as a class, also wanted to enhance their macho appeal to the girls in the bus, by doing some circus en route.  Doubtless, this resulted in a few accidents and some casualties; so the police promptly banned what was euphemistically termed `foot-board travel'.  But, when each bus during the peak hours had some twenty reckless youth perilously attached to the railing by a crooked finger and resting one toe on the foot-board, what can the police effectively do?  When one bus was stopped and twenty students booked for the offence, some twenty more buses went by; the booked students screamed blue murder because others were going scot-free.  There ensued student strikes with the usual assortment of soda bottles and stones being thrown about and colleges being closed for a few days.  Finally and tragically, `good sense' prevailed among the top brass of police and they lifted the ban, letting the suicidal tendencies of the boys continue to maim and kill themselves.  Sad, but again, a case where implementation of a well-intended ban going awry.

But there are a few bans which will be appreciated by the public at large, will be of immense relief to long-suffering people and will be welcome measures to enhance the image of India and Indians:

@Ban all political activity, especially the mindless and painful bandhs, hartals and all other disruptions, in public spaces used by others.  Set aside specific arenas (grounds far away from the city/town) and specify times for participants to hold their protests there, nowhere outside.  Video-tape the activity and show to admirers and followers who longed to but could not be present.
@Ban all religious activity outside temples, mosques, churches, other specifically denominated religious places.  Not even a single loud-speaker should be facing outside from these premises to broadcast anything; if required, let those be turned right back into the faces of people inside, who love high decibel preaching.  Let them enjoy.
@Ban all disruptions in parliament, assemblies etc  Stop the rot which has set in amongst parliamentarians who besmirch the idea of democracy with their repugnant actions.  Ban them from breaching time-honoured protocols and traditions and punish them if they refuse to fall in line.

You see, this author is not against Bans.  Just that he prefers to pick and choose the good ones!!











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...