Sobering, But Hilarious Appraisal!!

Two days ago, I delivered this note - "Folks, don't shudder.....no blogpost is attached.  I have been seeing a general diminishing of interest in reading during the pandemic (very surprising, I would think people would read more for want of other forms of entertainment).  Readership of my blogposts is no different.  So, I thought we should all take time off.  I, from spewing out my kind of stuff and you from suffering through those pages.  This is a temporary pause - sorry to disappoint those among my readers who would rather see a permanent closure.  Shall regroup after the new year, whenever spirits look up.  Till then, taken care and stay well.  Thanks.  Varad"

When I sent out that 'excuse-me-for-now' note to all those to whom I usually and dutifully send my blogposts, I expected to receive some neutral responses from a few friends, tut-tutting profusely.  Please note, I am carefully avoiding saying `sent to all of my readers' because while I surely send them out, reading them is obviously a choice and many might choose to swipe left to banish the posts out of existence.  Believe me I am not complaining, not at all; instead I am happy that I have retained a large part of my reader-base (I am not disclosing how big that is!!) even after some 12 years of what some merciless recipients would consider a monthly nuisance.  But, I am overwhelmed by the deluge of messages received in response, ranging from a somewhat dejected `Oh, No' to a solicitous`Varad, stay well'.  In between there were many other shades of feelings I deciphered in the messages received and then this thought struck me.  Why not make an absolutely unscheduled and bonus blogpost of this event before all of us take a break.  I hope you don't mind! 

A few people wrote with emotion, to convince me that their lives seriously depended on reading my blog.  That it provided the sustenance they require to wade through this existence without too much pain. That bereft of the `sahara' of my blog, they may struggle to make sense of their lives.  I am, of course exaggerating, but there were quite a few like that. If I were a sucker for good words, I would have immediately felt the weight of my ego growing on me and would have readily imagined I have gained a halo too! 

Then there were those who completely ignored what I said was the reason that prompted me to opt for the break - that readership has reduced somewhat and generally people seem to be reading less and less; I perceive some fatigue in the masses! They precipitously concluded that something is terribly wrong with my psychological or at least physical health and assembling a few decent sentences successfully as I used to, is for now beyond my capability.  So those questions have come in a flurry - `Are you okay, please take care'; `Hope whatever is wrong does not affect you much, God bless';  `Praying for your recovery and return to blog-writing' and so on.  So, I am gratified to see that some have at least read the `pausing' message even if they do not habitually read the blogs and what is more, responded too.

There is this group of `readers' (they do read the blogs, I know), who apologetically told me `Even though I might have missed a couple of blogs of yours, I promise I read all of them; so don't take the fall in readership to heart.  Continue to strangle us with your words'.  This group of friends was pointedly telling me not to place the guilt of diminishing readership at their doorsteps and they wanted to be absolved of that responsibility pronto.  I am waiting for a few comments on some on old blogs from such people to reinforce this sentiment. That would definitely make me feel good.

Some others even went to the extent of questioning my judgement that less people were reading the blogs of late. They forcefully said that cannot be true - such reassuring darlings!!  A few reasoned that just because people refrained from commenting, it does not mean that they were not interested in the blogs.  They seemed more offended at the prospect of my losing readers than I myself would ever be!  I am touched and with such a protective and massively encouraging group of people around me, I do not have to worry about ever becoming completely `reader-less'.  And, if ever I want a trolling group from my readers to go after `non-readers' or anybody else, I know I can turn to this group of avid consumers to get the job done.  Some small comfort.

One set of people advised me that even if many readers drop off, I should not bother about that and continue to write because others are going to be with me. They have taken the high moral ground, saying `you write - that is your karma, do not worry about who reads'.  A couple even quoted Bhagavad Gita and readily assumed the role of Krishna to my Arjuna. I am truly humbled, friends.  I am reproducing a message verbatim here - `Your writing does not need some dumb audience to justify its existence.  Aap karm karte jao, phal ki chinta mat karo... Krishna says... also remember, ur writings will remain in ether for ever. There will always be a very long tail. Many great works got recognition many years of their creation..'.  This writer has been a dear friend for a few years now and has just become dearer!!

A few sent emoticans like 😑,😒,😡,😢,😊 -- succinctly teaching me that one does not have to waste so many words in a blogpost to express something.  I have made up my mind to one day write a blogpost with more emojis and less words.  That day will also come, I am sure.

One well-wisher just asked `Are you travelling'?  Many just said neutrally `Take care, Varad'.  This is the group which knows me well enough to have decided that nothing could be wrong with the chap, `he is just sparing us temporarily, God bless him and let us leave him alone'. A few said with glee that this short message was even funnier than a full blog, may be thereby obliquely suggesting that I should restrict myself to short messages!   

Net, net -- I am glad I sent out that excuse-me-for-now note. It has given me the rather unexpected opportunity to write a blogpost on next to nothing!! In the process, I got to know my readers better and also saw a groundswell of support for me (if not my writing), which is very comforting.  I thank all my readers (and non-readers) for sustaining me for 12 years and reassure you I am not going away!  And it is not that I cannot write a few more pages every month, but it is just that the author senses that the reading public needs some space and a break.  I respect that a lot.

Au Revoir, not good-bye.

  

    

   

This Obsession With Cinema

It is common knowledge that an average eight-year-old in Thamizh Nadu (for that matter, this is probably true of Andhra, Telengana and Karnataka also) would be better informed on movie matters than other fields of knowledge.  This inherited and infectious wisdom is derived from being associated with front-running elders. These worthies are so steeply immersed in cinema and are exposed continuously to its concomitant effects in their daily lives, that most people within a radius of fifty kilometres cannot escape their ubiquitous influence. Thamizh Nadu politics has been dominated by film people -- heroes, heroines, writers, producers et al -- so much that invariably it has become difficult to distinguish between politics and cinema as they run concurrently in the state. The aspiration of any actor with a reasonable fan base is eventually to enter politics and hog the limelight for some more years, because such actors would rather continue to `act' in politics than lose their halo progressively and fade away.  Acting is an inevitable, major ingredient in politics, as we know, since most of the politicians are just play-acting much of the time, whether it be delivering fake promises, hugging old men and women in a display of boundless affection, seemingly listening with all sympathy to the down-trodden people intently, even as they are planning the next scene somewhere else.

What is rather sad is that the gullible population (a good portion of that, anyway) also takes the bait more often than not,  emotionally recalling a few flashy, socially relevant dialogues or lines from songs the actors had delivered in their various movies, with the specific objective of encashing the goodwill on some future poll date. Ageing actors in Tamil Nadu, during their last decade, start cultivating the audience to receive them as their future political leaders sooner or later.  Their films are full of dialogues and scenes, which depict them as saviours of the common man, protectors of women and small children and generally the do-gooders for  humanity at large.  Modern actors believe that just because one MGR and one Jayalalitha successfully transformed himself/herself thru this process, they can all do that. Fact is, very few succeed to even scratch the surface, but this has not discouraged a succession of actors from trying.  Some older heroes are testing the arena even as you read this and are getting scalded in the process.  There are a few somewhat sensible actors, who desire the aura, but decide they may not be up to it.  They dodge the issue by forever staying on the sidelines and rolling out justifications and excuses for not taking the final plunge. None of this knowledge seems to dampen the adulation of the movie-crazy populace, which fervently hopes that such actors hold the panacea for all their ills and see them as leaders who can wave their magic wand and solve all the problems. When elders in the population go this way, what chance do the impressionable young ones have? They dutifully pick up the signals early enough and follow all the way.

Thamizh TV stations are full of film stuff, you will know if you have surfed stations for just a few minutes.  If it is not a segment of film songs or films themselves,  (there are stations which do this 24/7), there are interviews with actors/directors interspersed with clips from their films or with playback singers/music composers, peppered with their abbreviated songs and so on.  Otherwise there are these all-pervasive TV serials, which mimic films in all ways.  Of late, in the name of innovations, they have progressed along cinema lines to include action and dance sequences too. While TV actors do not have the chutzpah to attract the same kind of viewership as movie actors, they manage to occupy people's mind space simply by appearing on TV every single day for a few years continuously, through those so-called mega serials.  And then there are those panel discussions about something or the other, in which at least two film personalities appear, only because the subject matter has some streak of a connection to films.  Even if there is no real or imagined relevance, it does not matter because movie people are always welcome, anytime, anywhere.  When stations think people would have had enough of movies, TV stations 'innovatively'  replace them with Super Singer programmes, which laudably aim to bring out young talent by making them sing all those memorable old and new film songs.  And of course, they are judged by a fixed panel of erstwhile playback singers, complemented by a rolling stock of film stars.  So cinema world does not give you a inch of space to breathe freely, but hustles you everywhere.

TV is so obsessed with cinema that even when some events worthy of reporting occur, such events get a passing mention and stations are back to their favourite pastime forthwith.  I am sure,  regretting the loss of those two minutes which they spent on the serious newsbreak!  Even when the China-India border skirmish was on all national TV channels, Tamil TV stations seem to swat the subject aside to focus on what they prefer to do. On all holidays, including Sivarathri, Krishna Jayanthi, Mahatma Gandhi's birth day, Teachers' day, etc nothing changes and all the channels are full of movies, more movies and special screenings of movies.  And, of course, the movies do not pretend to be recalling any specific occasion.  

Take a look at all the Thamizh periodicals (weeklies, fortnightlies) and you will get sure-fire proof of the film craze that stalks Tamizh Nadu. And this burning fanaticism and the need to satisfy that as felt by the magazines is made starkly evident if you casually turn the pages. Even erstwhile cultured publications, famous for their quality output involving history, arts, poetry, tradition, values etc have now been forced to commit pages to filmy content. If you count the pages dedicated to cinema stuff, that invariably amounts to about 40-50 percent in most magazines.  Including interviews with actresses who have just been signed up for their first movie and the shooting is yet to start. Now 'what can they say to edify any reasonably intelligent man or woman?' is a legitimate question, but then the publications do not make the mistake of assuming that all their readers are intelligent.  You cannot blame them because that is how the herds have been behaving, I guess. Their take would be that this is what sells and they just pander to people's current tastes.  Add to this, all those adverts which show film folks trying to sell various products, by doing everything from wielding brooms, chewing pan, walking in dhoties, selling dog food to plugging for new housing projects 'which are veritable heavens-on-earth' in god-forsaken locations, some 100 kms away from Chennai.  It will definitely be a challenge for anyone to read the bulk of the magazines (it wont take too much time, given the triviality of the stuff published) for a few weeks and come out confidently and say that he/she learnt something useful, unless of course, it involves the tinsel town!  Even quizzes are there, with readers' questions answered by, who else, some film director or actor. Given their expertise and domain knowledge, all the questions chosen are also about films, especially about film actresses. Sample this - `Which actress is the better dancer amongst A, B, C and D' (answer is - the type of dancing they have to do in films, anyone can do) or `Which actress delivers dialogues the best among X, Y and Z (answer is - none of them because they are not good at Thamizh and have others dub for them) and so on.  If at all there is a news item about a scientist or sportsperson or classical musician, that only appears in a brief, single column short, after the person has achieved an Olympic medal or Nobel prize or something of that magnitude.  Of course, occupying the rest of the spread is the photo of a starlet, trying to spread her wings.

Daily life in Chennai, as in other southern metros, is dominated by all those posters - small, medium, large and extra large - which are propped up by poles on the ground (which are stumbling blocks for walkers) or hoisted up on advertising platforms (which could fall apart and kill a few one day), in all nooks and corners. From where heroes and heroines strike all those popular postures enshrined in their respective movies.  It is clear that filmdom won't leave people alone even after they step outside their homes.  On the roads, there are gigantic cutouts of famous heroes, looking literally down upon people and smiling benevolently even as they are preparing for their political future.  Poster culture is so strong there that anyone who wants a bit of mind space of people has to find literal public place to park his posters, with a massive dose of inappropriate and mostly fictional self-praise. This can all be done easily and is par for the course only because the funding comes from the subject himself.  The truth is, not everyone who has erected cutouts - actor or otherwise - becomes an adulatory object of the people. Thank God for that.

So, inside homes or outside, if there is such an over-dose of cinema related pounding from multiple directions, how can a child or youngster escape the lopsided influence of that fictional world?  The one thing that has changed for the better in movies now is that unlike yesteryears when only a fair and good looking person could usually become the hero or heroine, now anyone can assume the mantle, regardless of complexion, looks, ability to act etc.  One only needs a financier to back you and mostly the parents take on that role avidly since no one would volunteer for that.  People like me will have to just sit moping around, ruing the chances we never had!

  

Where Has That Family Doctor Gone?

(With due apologies to all the doctors in my own family as well as those who are good friends - no offence, please.  Kindly take this as the usual random read for 5 minutes and do not abandon me as a patient when I come to consult you on my vulnerable days)

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This is not a one-man-experience.  This is the distilled wisdom gained from the nightmares of various friends and relatives, without any reference to specific hospitals or specialists. Instances are galore when we have heard of people going into a big city hospital with what seems to be a minor complaint to see a doctor, urged by wives like my own dear one, who is reading this piece now. Being forced to see ten other specialists in six hours and coming out wondering what serious malaises they have developed suddenly.  Because nothing conclusive is disclosed and judgement passed by the end of the day and they have to be subjected to another battery of tests the next day. You enter the room of the General Practitioner (GP) for a solution to the nagging head/body ache you have lived with for the past two years with no major discomfort. You think you will be out in fifteen minutes with some reassuring words and a comforting prescription from the good doctor.  But the whole proceedings spin entirely out of your control - not that you had much of that to begin with - during the next thirty minutes and soon you are left wondering if your days in the world are numbered due to some serious, unidentified malignance afflicting you, with no one making you wiser.

First up, you have grown up with such mild niggles bothering various body parts all your life, you should know when it is serious enough to warrant a visit to the doctor.  Never to succumb to the badgering of that worthy who drives your life all the time. Secondly, if you have the option of visiting a doctor who practises in a small clinic of his own somewhere, be smart enough to choose that option.  And avoid like the plague, that big hospital with all the specialists in all the disciplines and all the bells and whistles, required by the medical care experts and health insurance companies.  If you ignore these warnings and enter a corporate hospital with a big brand name, then be prepared to be sucked into the following whirlwind of a routine in the next few hours.  You go the GP to get rid of the mundane muscle spasm or sprain in your leg. There is a possibility that a junior doctor, who is learning the ropes from the senior, screens you first.  Once you have answered all the questions multiple times and a fact sheet is filled up, your file is forwarded with you to the senior.  When the senior asks the same or more questions, there is a chance that he discovers that the junior goofed up somewhere and insists on having an inquisition right then and there in your presence.  All polite and seemingly harmless, of course, but nevertheless the junior goes through the extreme discomfiture of being grilled in the presence of the patient. But the overbearing senior has no qualms because he always does this in the presence of patients for that extra bit of satisfaction and fun derived.  Once this process is over and the junior is suitably chastised for assuming he is the same as the senior in terms of prowess, the problematic location in the body is examined collectively by the junior, senior, a nursing assistant and a couple of even more junior interns, apart from any paying spectators if they are interested. Nobody gives a damn if you are feeling like a worm under a microscope and would rather shove all the attention away, so you put up with that circus with you serving as an object of instruction and edification. Just as you are hoping that a prescription will be given and you could be on your way, you realise that what is transpiring is only Act 1, Scene 1 and a whole lot is yet to follow - picture abhi bhaki hai dost!

After a rapid-fire exchange amongst them, the senior tells you that you should see a Physiatrist (read the spelling carefully, there is definitely no artist hiding here, but a muscle specialist) for further examination and opinion.  Fortunately there is one just two cabins away for the convenience of sacrificial lambs like you and thus begins your grand tour of the various nooks and corners of the hospital facilities. Of course, the GP and the Physiatrist are good friends and this kind of mutual passing of the patient happens frequently for whatever reasons.  Now, the same scene which played in the GP's cabin is replayed in the Physiatrist's domain.  After fifteen minutes of talking and examination, the judgement is given that the problem is not with the muscle.  Your file grows a bit fatter with a couple of more sheets, being the contribution of the Physiatrist and you return to the GP and wait for the file also to make the same journey through official channels.  After listlessly waiting for half an hour for the busy GP to see you again, he beams looking at the file as if he has found the panacea for all your current and future ailments and declares `I knew it was not the muscle, that is why I sent you to the Physiatrist.  Now, I recommend you meet the Orthopaedic who is on the first floor'.  

The Ortho is even busier than the two previous doctors put together (it is obvious that bones are made a lot flimsier by God nowadays thereby making the ortho a flourishing line), so you wait for an hour more and watch the endless procession of  people in casts, just plain limpers, some on wheel chairs and some really serious cases brought on stretchers.  Your mind is whirring about, wondering which category you will soon be put into, without realising it is not so simple.  The ortho looks at the body part and asks you if you have an x-ray.  When the response is negative, he just brusquely nods to the nurse, who prepares a prescription to be signed him, asking for an x-ray of your leg in frontal and side views.  The radiology department is on the 5th floor and you wait for the lift to avoid straining your leg even further.  There are six lifts but all of them arrive full, you run jostling among the people to enter but for some strange reason, they depart without taking anybody in or ejecting anyone out.  After a repetition of this tamasha for the next ten minutes, you get fed up and climb the stairs.  Here is the nub. If your foot was okay to begin with and there was just a small swelling, this entire ordeal would have aggravated the problem quite a bit and provided some fodder for the ortho.  In the X-ray room, you wait for another forty five minutes because all those limpers, wheel chair occupants, stretcher dwellers and other assorted people in casts have already camped here before you, gaining seniority over you in the order. When your turn comes, you undress partially and get your legs twisted in five different ways for four exposures to x-ray.  They would examine the film and invariably find that one of them is not really the piece of art that they expect their work to be, so they will go through the rigour once again.  X-ray personnel would tell you that the films and the report will be ready in the evening and can be picked up from the reception.  When you dumbly stare at their faces and mumble that the Ortho is waiting for the films, they will hum and haw, stage a mini-conference of sorts and make a huge concession to say they will send the films and the report to the Ortho eventually (please don't try to fix a time) and you should go back to him and yes, wait longer.

The direct line from the radiology department to the Ortho's cabin would take four minutes to cover, if the lift blesses and accommodates you and ten if it does not.  But the film would not arrive for another hour and a half, as if it was transiting through the International Space Station.  Invariably, this means you would make at least one additional trip to and from the Radiology section to remind them, by now limping a bit and putting additional strain on the already doddering leg. When the film finally arrives and the Ortho takes a peek, he would shake his head dubiously such that you wonder if you require an amputation forthwith.  But that head shake was indicative of the fact that the Ortho did not see much more scope for extracting anything from you, based on the x-rays.  He declares suavely, pointing you in the direction of the x-rays on his well-lit screen, `I cannot see anything wrong with the leg in the x-ray'.  So, if you thought of jumping in joy because your ordeal has come to an end and you can go home, you should hold your horses - he grimly says `it is better if you get a scan done.  Sometimes we can see things in the scan which are not visible on x-rays'.  Interestingly, if you were carrying an MRI film and no x-ray, there is one hundred percent chance that the Ortho would feel that x-rays would be more helpful than the MRI film.  Either way, you are stuck without an immediate exit route, unless you are peeved enough to turn your back on the entire dog and pony show.

Now, Hamlet kind of decision time for you.  `To do MRI or not to do that'.  Apart from the fact that it costs a bomb, it is a very spooky experience, when you are completely cut off from the rest of the world, shoved into and incarcerated within a tomb like structure, which makes a hell of a lot of rattling noises of various types and decibel levels. Your initial apprehension as you are moved into the machine will soon grow to panic as you imagine that all the others leave you inside for incubation and go away for the day and there is no way for you to get out of the machine. And it is a thirty minute joy ride.  The left side of the remnants of your brain will initially tell you `no need, go home, they are making a sucker out of you'; followed by `what if there is some serious problem in the leg which can be identified only through MRI, so do it', thereby creating a serious conflict you need to untangle.  Not wanting to come to the hospital again, you go through the MRI, repeat the x-ray film experience and finally meet the Ortho with the MRI films.  Now his well-lit screen is fully occupied by the films and he points out various segments, explaining something which you don't get any way.  Finally, he says ` I will give you a prescription.  You see me after 10 days'.  Just like that.  It is all over.

You numbly stare at the prescription, which says `Dolo 650 1-0-1 x 5 days, Any pain relieving spray - twice a day'!! You wonder whether to laugh in relief or cry in despair.  The whole hospital experience involving 8 hours and 15,000 rupees for just that, you may wonder.  Yes, you could have done that yourself without any GP or specialist looking at the problem.  The situation would have been somewhat better if you had gone to a neighbourhood doctor practising in his own small cubicle.  He would have, at the most,  wanted an x-ray and the whole issue could have been resolved with that, hopefully.  That too, only because the Physiatrist or Ortho or other specialists are not available in the vicinity and there is no MRI available on the premises for him to refer you to.

Either way, you would go home, do hot water fomentation twice a day, take Dolo twice a day and do the spray joyfully twice a day.  Phew, what a tour of the hospital to get that pleasure!!  When I describe the whole process with a healthy dose of scepticism to my dear wife, she looks at me with sympathy and says a big hospital is better any day - no explanation offered, but to be understood. 

Some Conundrums In Life

I learnt about serious conundrums in life quite early.  My father was a pretty easy-going individual, who let his children be.  We all studied well, got good marks and the parent and educationist in him was happy he did not have to intervene often. He played cricket with us (my brother, myself, a couple of his own friends and lots of our friends) and was more of a senior advisor cum friend than a typical parent. But even he had to behave differently in certain situations which, in his opinion, demanded a slightly different take for the sake of other elders in the family.  In such contexts, he would rave and rant about our misdemeanours for a while and stop to look at us, as if he was expecting our response.  And here lay the conundrum.  A couple of times I earnestly tried to put forward our side of the story, thinking a very reasonable man like him would appreciate the why of it, even if the logic was a bit warped childishly.  Then I was shut out brusquely with a reprimand `Why dont you accept your mistake?   Instead you are talking back to me and other elders, trying to defend your lousy action'! 

Having got that rap in the knuckles a few times, subsequently when the same scene was re-enacted for some other juvenile error, I used to clamp up and steadfastly look down on the floor, determined not to respond and invite chastisement.  Now, a few times, this boomeranged too.  My father or mother would get angry and say `I am raving like mad here, trying to seek an explanation, there you are standing like a statue and not opening your mouth'!  The last thing one should do in these situations is to take the bait and aggravate emotions by pointing out one's dilemma whether to respond or not.  So, I used to let it pass with stubborn silence and took the verbal slaps gracefully.  When we all were grown up and there was no need for any shouting match or reprimand, we used to sit around with our parents and joke about such situations and have a good laugh, in which my parents joined heartily.  My father used to laugh the loudest, probably he never took any of these seriously; he was indeed a theatre actor and a good one at that.

Such conundrums repeat themselves all through our lives.  Whether to respond with this action or that or respond at all in a particular context, when there is something onerous in all options, is baffling most of the times.  

Recently one of my apartments, rented to an expat company fell vacant.  When I rented it a few years back, I was asked by my broker to put in some furniture pieces, some equipment etc. to be competitive while also being attractive to expatriate renters.  My thinking being conditioned by all those years of expat living, when we had our own furniture and equipment,  I gently turned him down. Knowing fully well that this is a situation when you are damned if you did and damned if you did not. I wanted to avoid this additional headache of worrying about the stuff I put in,  every time there is a turnover.  If you did not comply with such requests, it is likely that the apartment will not be rented for a while because as your luck would have it, all the expats streaming into Bangalore and looking for rental seem to want equipment and furniture to be included.  It does not work even if you are willing to take lesser rent so that the renter can hire furniture etc. on his own.  Simply not convenient for them, unless they have a single, all-in deal.  This means loss of rental for a few more months, until someone after your own heart comes forward to rent the apartment only, because he has his own furniture and equipment.  

My reluctance to include some furniture/equipment is not a bull-headed resistance to a fairly common request from renters.  I had done this earlier for a tenant.  Lo and behold, when he vacated the next chap who came along said `I like the apartment and pay the rental you are expecting, but please remove all the furniture and equipment you have in the apartment because I have my own stuff'.  Now, I was not in the furniture rental business to shove all the redundant pieces into a warehouse and move on.  If you put the items into storage, rental expense would be involved and after a few years when you take the things out, you will find that nothing is in the same shape or condition it went in.  Probably more money would have to be spent in restoring them than in buying new ones.  Which means a write-off of the remaining value of the stuff, taking a financial hit.

The other problem I encountered was that while the previous American tenant had demanded Whirlpool fridge and washing machine, the incoming Japanese expat wanted Mitsubishi or Panasonic equipment.  Nothing else would do. So, it became my responsibility to cater to their nationalistic preferences, as if I was running a high end equipment store.  No one was interested in dealing with the earlier equipment I had on hand.  Having gone through this a couple of times, I made the Solomon-like decision that future rentals will be shorn of furniture and equipment, come what may, even though my dear wife made faces every time we lost a good deal due to my intransigence.  So, in order to avoid more serious domestic discord, now I have an arrangement with my real estate broker that I give the apartment and if equipment is required, he rents or buys that for the renter and takes rental for that.  There are issues with this rather convoluted arrangement obviously because the broker is not a just a good Samaritan to pander to such requests and extracts his pound of flesh by demanding a sizable refundable security deposit and one year advance rental for all the supplies.  This financial cost erodes your rental income, but I still think this is preferable to being saddled with a sofa set, tables and chairs,  fridge, washing machine etc every time one tenant moves out (and one never knows which company expels which expatriate when), while you await the next one with trepidation.

Another context in which one does not know which way to go is when you are confronted with an option to invest in a start-up.  Especially, if the opportunity is brought to you by a good friend you consider financially savvy.  Not that anyone compels you to invest, but one feels left out if such an opportunity passes one by.  The tricky question is if such an investment will make any money any time soon, since most of these companies deal with untested ideas and have fierce competition in their domains.  Again, no one can answer this since this is akin to intensely peering into the crystal glass and  predicting if monsoon will arrive in Bombay on June 15th some five years later.  If you are investing in the initial stages of a start-up, even if you know the promoters and are somewhat familiar with their idea or product, there is absolutely no guaranteeing the well being of the company a few years later.  Which is why all such investments come from angel investors (angels do not worry about returns?) or venture capital companies (they have a greater risk appetite).  Even evaluation of such ideas, products and companies is difficult because one is more comfortable with conventional companies and the new ones are all so heavily skewed towards new or evolving technology. So I have taken the easy way out generally by letting them pass, preserving my hard earned capital.  But, after a few years, someone can rub it into you that there was an chance given on a platter to invest, you let it go and now the company is worth a hundred times.  That is the nature of the beast and there is this inbuilt conundrum with these always. 

My dear wife tells me that the best way to avoid all these is to sell all other holdings, invest in some bank FDs or Treasuries or tax free bonds and forget about all the hassles.  She cautions that I should look for solvent, good banks and avoid co-operative banks which offer one percent extra interest but are very likely to put the principal at great risk.  I thought may be she is right when yesterday my son called and asked me to look at cryptos to invest in.  Another conundrum to grapple with for the next few months.  That is life.  

Hair Care

 Over the years, I have been convinced that hair styling or hair care has become hugely critical for men and women.  Probably because one can do pathetically little to patch up the face one is born with, but hair is fair game for changes from time to time.  When we think that, we have to forget for a moment the `straight-out-of-the-bed' type men represented by the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.  He has no qualms appearing with disshevelled, unbrushed hair on global TV and has a following too; he did the same for his wedding photo also - so supremely confident or arrogantly indifferent.  Let us just talk of ordinary mortals who always labour under the belief that they can augment the appeal of their personality by tangling with their hair from time to time.  Men, even those with just two strands of hair on their pate, carry a small comb in their hip pocket and use it to bolster their confidence from time to time.  Women, of course, have to touch their hair a few times in a short span and do all kinds of assorted moves with their hair to feel comfortable in their space. 

During my younger days, there was one time when a particular hair-style was the rage - medium crop with a buff in front, as if a provision has been made for a small sparrow to build a nest there.  While we admired the Hindi film hero, Biswajit singing romantic songs to his heroines in the movies, not one of us had the courage to emulate the style in real life, for fear of retribution from the fathers.  But one really intrepid friend did try and asked the barber to cut his hair accordingly.  As he got back home, unfortunately the guardian angel was present near the gate with a keen desire to scrutinise the harvested head and decide if appropriate value for money has been achieved.  Fathers those days would have probably preferred to get back the cut hair to be brought back home as evidence of a satisfactory job done, but they could never be sure of whose hair was being presented.  The friend got down from the cycle and tried to move towards the entrance, when the father asked him with an impassive face `whom does sir want to see'?  The tone was so terminal that there was no mistaking `the absolute refusal to recognise' in that.  Without a word, my friend had to cycle back to the barber shop and convince the artist to do a repair job; and cajole him to do that without further compensation.  The barber got a verbal thrashing for his share from the father and the friend lost his abysmally low pocket money for a few months as punitive actions.  The friend and many of us could never `style' our hair as we wanted, because by the time we were independent enough to do what we wanted, the quantum of hair had dwindled rapidly.  Now this friend is completely bald (so are all of us), but any time we get together, this episode is retold with gusto and mirth, to the merriment of the assembly.

Ladies tend to splurge a lot more time and money in salons to tend to their hair.  My dear wife smilingly retorts that it is all in proportion to the hair people have.  But she is easy enough to laugh at herself saying `ladies with curly hair want a straightening-up job done, at a great cost'.  This actually involves nothing less than a dhobi's ironing machine among other things.  `And those with straight hair want to get it somewhat curled up'.  No wonder all the salons and beauty parlours are always busy because no one seems happy with the current state of hair for long and they keep changing their minds, keeping the salons blissfully occupied for ever.  There is a splendid opportunity for a swap operation here, but no one has divined a way of doing that without the intervention of the salons.

But the real killer is when men and ladies go berserk trying to hide greying hair. Initially this is done by plucking the grey strands, when there a only a few. But as grey inexorably encroaches on black, colouring becomes the way of life. Some men tend to do this in-house, using easy to apply colouring material; it is cheaper and also not many outsiders, including friends who visit the same barber shop, need to know that behind the jet black hair lurk grey linings. But, ladies don't seem to like the in-house treatment because it is very messy.  After the ritual is over, residual black stains are all over the bath room and the cleaning is not easy.  So, ladies prefer to leave the grey hair as well as the stains in the salon.  My dear wife argues there is no secret in sixty year old women having grey hair, right?  Actually, it is almost jarring that a seventy year old woman sports jet black hair, they know. Older women do not hide the grey hair story from other older women, because they exchange salon stories all the time; I guess they do this camouflaging to convince themselves they still feel young.

Another intractable problem faced by 50+ men and women is hair fall, which is a universal affliction.  Memory fades (we forget some very obvious names from time to time), brain fades (all of us do stupid things once in a while just because we did not think enough) etc don't matter and one does not run to a doctor for treatment. But hair fall is seriously damaging and scars your psyche badly. All kinds of dubious oils with unknown or unproven antecedents, are liberally used on the recommendation of friends to prevent or reduce hair fall. Some people soak halim seeds overnight and drink the water as if it is fertilizer to irrigate the hair.  After bath, people try to count the number of hairs that have fallen and compare notes as well as maintain historical records, in case posterity is interested. Until the count becomes something difficult to absorb, then they cease and desist. Whatever they apply or consume, most people invariably find that hair fall is a relentless ongoing threat without a known cure, but the effort to apply extraneous solutions persist for long just to support the rather persuasive hair-growth-products industry.

Men gradually come to realise that they can stop all pretence when salt-and-pepper hair continues its stoical march towards all-salt-and-no-pepper hair. Then starts the stage in life when almost-bald men carefully arrange two or three strands of hair along the sides of the head and across the head.  This is just a feeble attempt at displaying the bravado of men who used to have full crop of hair.  This also would normally pass, when they decipher that their unshaven moustache sprouts more hair than what is seen on the head and then it is the end. Soon all they have is a bald pate and all of a sudden, there is nothing to worry about.  They go around behaving as if they never had any hair ever and the best state of affairs is the current one.  They even try to assure themselves that they look more handsome with a hairless head.  No one else seems convinced though and they continue to sympathise for a few years that such a travesty of justice has come to pass for the man in question. 

During covid times, all world has gone topsy turvy and so has hair care.  Salons are closed, but being an essential service (who wants to see millions of Boris Johnsons on the road suddenly?) many are sending experts to homes to tend to the growth.  The snag is a covid premium of about 50% over and above the normal tariff.  If you wonder why would people spend more to look the same when they cannot even go out due to the restrictions, here is the answer.  Zoom calls.  It is not only hair that is on display, but what you wear is also under scrutiny.  Men change shirts even if they may be wearing only a towel below.  If there are multiple zoom calls on the same day and there certainly are, the scene at home is reminiscent of a Hindi movie song sequence.  Different hair styles (one has to manage with whatever little is left at this stage) and multiple dress changes take place. Afterwards everyone, my dear wife says, complains that there is so much additional work when you are working from home -- obviously there was no intra day hair styling or dress changes in the office, or at least in most offices.

Nirvana for men is when people joke about their bald head and they respond that `what is inside the head is all in tact and that is more important'...something they never acknowledged in all the years.  For ladies, it is when they get too tired and could not care less, let themselves age dramatically by 30 years one fine day and emerge from the bathroom with a plait of chalk white hair. With all the prior knowledge at their disposal, the husbands do get frightened out of their wits at the sight of the apparition and go around for a whole week speechless, afflicted by the spectre. I recommend that the ladies also have a heart and start `greying' gradually, much the same way men lose their hair gradually, instead of implementing an overnight unilateral decision and run the risk of a husband with a stroke or heart attack for the rest of their lives.

Taking Flight Again

The title is reminiscent of an incapacitated, stricken bird trying to fly again.  Desperately.  But I am talking about my dear wife and I boarding a plane almost after 16 months, during which time we had all developed a morbid fear of getting into a flight due to the raging pestilence.  While we, like hordes of others, were immobilised by overwhelming paranoia, we did notice that many others were indeed flying around as if things were very normal - be it for work or a vacation.  When we spoke to such people and wondered why they were being reckless, they looked at us in a very leering and mocking way to convey their contempt for lily-livered folks like us, for just being cautious.  Just before the breakout of this Covid 2 menace, we decided to loosen up a bit and take a flight ourselves, even though our mindset was that of one negotiating a minefield.

Seemingly the precautions being taken by the airlines were thorough and impressive.  But as usual they turned out to be only on paper, literally so.  While booking tickets, we are made aware of the need for a E-pass for travel, to be printed and kept ready for verification while checking-in.  Same was the case with a self declaration about flier's current relationship with Covid - to confirm that he or she does not suffer from the virus.  We were even advised to register the plate number and name + phone number of the driver of the vehicle we would use to get away from the destination airport.  Very pleased with the strict monitoring being done, we got everything ready and submitted the papers along with the single sheet boarding pass usually handed in.  Got a rude shock when the airline representative almost threw all the papers out, taking only the boarding pass.  She sweetly smiled and said she did not need anything else, since they were not asked to check them. For that matter, even at the destination airport nobody would have bothered even if one was carried out on a stretcher with a couple of oxygen cylinders attached to the nostrils.  So lax was everything, we just breezed into the outside world and our car without a soul asking us for any shred of document to verify anything.

The check-in line, as usual, had the normal bunch of eager beavers, jostling because there was not enough space for social distancing - three sets of passengers standing in a 6-foot line. I guess the airline staff were jut focusing on the 6-foot-rule without worrying about how many people were being packed into that space. People were pretending to be aware of the requirement but simultaneously trying to push their way through check-in quickly.  The chap directing people was very peeved when I refused to move closer to the counter, to stand two feet behind the previous passenger.  He probably found my conduct extremely inimical to the interests of the airline and passengers.  Some people behind us in the line were also expressing their discontent with my fussy behaviour in a well orchestrated chorus of murmurs. The security area was a better controlled because it was less crowded and the police khaki was omnipresent. 

All the seats in the waiting areas near the boarding gates were fully occupied, without any concern for social distancing and we realised that this was just a trailer for the seating inside the plane.  In the South Indian restaurant fliers were cramming idlis, dosas, assorted vadas etc into their mouths, as if they believed that meal to be the very last one of their lives.  Boarding process was very normal, a congested line waiting on the jetway to get into the plane, people scrupulously avoiding to leave even one foot space between them.  As we entered the plane, we saw the cabin crew clad in PPE gowns and they resembled personnel in a nuclear facility which has recently been decommissioned, but was rumbling to get rough again.  They generally stayed away from the passengers as if every one of us was thoroughly infected, to be best kept at as good a distance as the plane's interiors would permit.  I guess only they were trying to practise social distancing to the extent practical!

During the transfer from the terminal to the plane, somewhere along the line we all got face shields and PPEs for middle seaters.  The quality of the face shields coupled with our own breathing ensured that within a minute, our entire outlook became very hazy and misty.  Almost as if we were airborne with all doors and windows open.  The middle seaters who got the PPEs early, wore them grimly before occupying their seats.  Those who did not think too much about the process, tried to get away by waving the PPEs in the face of the cabin crew, without even opening the package.  When told to wear them, they had to do some acrobatic wriggling at their seats, sitting or standing, to squeeze themselves into the gowns. With space being scarce for a dressing room, some thrashing about wildly was inevitable, guys inadvertently hitting (or may be deliberately) the neighbours on both sides a few times in the bargain.  Some neighbours reacted angrily and the rest of the flight saw simmering tension throughout.  To add further discomfiture to others, the middle seaters invariably had the knack of boarding late, forcing the aisle seaters make way for the moon-walkers in white gowns.  

The cabin crew made the announcements much more rapidly than usual, being in a hurry to move away from the contaminating looks of passengers.  Not even a gulp of water was served.  And the flight itself was over quickly. The crew seemed to smile inside their PPEs for the first time, glad to be free of company.

My dear wife's assessment was that the only differences in a Covid flight were the face shield and white gowns.  And both those features caused more strain to the passengers.  We concluded we desired no more flights for a while.  Safer and more comfortable on the ground. 

 

 

Healthy Eating

 A month ago, when I met this recently-retired friend of mine, he had the glow of  ultimate contentment on his face and a genuine `life is good' attitude about him, as he was enthusiastically humming an old film song in his own chaotic tune.  He was clearly transmitting signals of all being well with the world and God was in His heaven - to borrow a line from Browning.  I was very impressed and somewhat nonplussed because this man was perennially subjugated to pulp by a domineering wife, which made any sign of even casual exuberance absolutely unwarranted.  The lady nonchalantly dictated the terms on which their lives should run without ever  including his feelings or requirements as necessary ingredients for the way forward.  She always treated all those peripheral things including the husband himself as unavoidable appendages to her own vision of life.  Whenever her bullying image crosses my mind, with her arms akimbo and a stern glare on her furrowed face, intent on cowing own all opposition, I immediately remind myself I should build a temple for my own dear wife soon!  But, the man, with unbelievably mature and complete wisdom of what was good for him, had fully surrendered and followed the grand dame in all matters like Mary's own little lamb. That was how I found him, in a supremely happy frame of mind, a month ago.

But, when I chanced upon him a couple of days back, there seemed to be something amiss; the happy glow was conspicuously absent; the man was distraught, agitated to the point of getting aggressive in his behaviour, a trait which he was never guilty of earlier. I offered him a cup of his favourite coffee and he reacted with violent horror, as if I was forcing hemlock down his throat.  He continued to flail and look around wildly as if a disagreeable ghost, which was haunting him, had nudged him hard as a reminder of its presence.  After a few minutes of small talk and then some persistent cajoling, to my simple question as to why he was behaving strangely, he just said `health food'.  Some time passed and he nervously emptied all his agony on my coffee table and in summary, his disquiet has been brought about by the recently acquired penchant of his wife's -- an unrelenting obsession with health food of all hues, not only for herself but for him too.  What compounded the matter, he confessed, was the fact that his wife was influenced by myriad opinions on health good, with an abundance of cheap advice and was unable to make up her mind as to the most desired items for consumption.

The first simple problem my friend encountered was that he was unable to consume everything that was shoved in his direction as wholesome food or good for health. It all began with a glass of warm water with honey and lemon at first, to be taken on empty stomach, which he gladly gulped down, least realising what he was in for.  After a week, the wife received another input about the goodness of chia seeds/flax seeds with water on empty stomach.  Now, this mix cannot be taken technically on empty stomach, which already was sloshing with honey and lemon water.  This logical point was dismissed rudely by the wife who insisted that this second glass of water also went in forthwith in close pursuit.  Now came solids -- a mix of six almonds, six pepper corns and six raisins, soaked overnight in water, to be taken on the same empty stomach, which was already half full with liquids.  Once all these are pushed down the plumbing system, there was sadly no space for any breakfast after that, was the primary complaint of my friend.

The lady had also seen sponsored ads about the goodness of eggs.  She, like a lot of us, was confused about the acceptable number, one or two daily.  In her wisdom, augmented immeasurably by sustained discussions in social media with her friends (one realised that there was a widespread experimentation with guinea pigs of  husbands, by the group), she decided to err on the side of surplus and stuck with two.  All protestations on his hind legs by my friend that eggs (he hated them, he confessed) can cause cholesterol excess, in which area he was already super-rich and was under medication, were swatted away disdainfully. With the appearance of eggs on the menu, all his favourite breakfast items like idli, dosa, upma, vada etc were peremptorily banished without notice or any other consideration, causing immense agony to the true South Indian that my friend is.  To help him wash down the eggs, the wife sweetly made fresh orange juice, sugarless obviously, too sour to some extent.  That being the third or sometimes fourth glass of liquid before 8.30 in the morning, the man was beginning to feel like a barrel of liquid.

To my friend's horror, rice was summarily reduced to twice a week during lunch and that too measured originally in spoons for quantity but grudgingly amended to small bowls after unprecendented domestic warfare broke out on a few occasions. The vacated space was given to soups and salads of all sorts, some meant for horses, my friend felt.  Even the fact that the uncooked salad ended up in food-poisoning of some sort for both of them a couple of times did not deter the lady and she just rode roughshod in her path with extreme zest, having no regard for the whining of our man.  Someone planted the idea in her mind that olive oil was better than home grown oils.  This meant that on the odd occasion when something was shallow fried at home, the end product did not taste as good.  When it was pointed out that she was spending twice the money on olive oil as against sesame oil, she cleverly justified that by saying they were saving enough by not consuming rice daily. 

Coffee was now with skimmed milk and the man, an avid South Indian filter coffee afficianado, was getting increasingly rebellious by the day, just wanted to skin the woman.  The lady's relentless pursuit of her new found objective meant dinner was oats porridge or something lifelessly similar (with skimmed milk, of course) and my friend saw no relief or end to his daily privations, after one long month.  By then, he had not only lost some three kilos but also most of the will to live such an abysmal existence.  The savage woman took all the money off him, to deprive him of any chance of eating any interesting food outside the home.  That was how I found out how health food was aggravating him no end - when he, bleating like a hungry lamb, asked me for some money, just enough to buy vada and sambar plus coffee in a restaurant. 

Why can't the women have all the health food they want and leave the menfolk alone?  Logically everyone would be happier with that kind of arrangement, right? But then, health food or otherwise, the higher objective always seems to be to make the man fall in line with what is judged to be good for him!! Since he cannot think of such things himself.  God help him, poor chap.             

Nostalgia Afflicted Elders (NAEs)

Nostalgia is good, especially if the person indulging in it is a good raconteur. Many a time, such a gifted and acerbic story-teller can enthrall a group with rib tickling tales from the past, as a part of his nostalgic visits. Nostalgia is a balm too, especially for lonely elders, who physically cannot and do not want to grapple with the complexities of current lives.  My take on nostalgia, especially when pining older people are involved, is that people resort to nostalgia not only because life `then' was nicer and they themselves were happier. But also because they just don't want to adapt to less appealing conditions, which they find unseemly. They have consciously erected this mental block of an aversion to make changes in their own attitude towards daily life and cope with simple but new demands.  While everyone is entitled to a bit of nostalgia now and then, if people tend to take refuge in it and make it a permanent nest, it only means they would like to ignore reality and live elsewhere, in a space they were comfortable, long back.  What such people fail to comprehend is that there is a definite limit to the quantum of their nostalgia others can digest. 

Some elders have this compulsive habit of recollecting bits of their own lives about four/five decades ago, given any excuse or opening; this has youngsters around them invariably scurrying to all available exit routes.  They disperse like marathon runners when the gunshot is heard - only that they scoot in any direction they can find, with the sole intention of avoiding the elder chewing his cud.  Even grandchildren tend to make faces when an old man begins `You know, in our school days.....' and try to decamp.  While this kind of recollections are eminently suitable for peer sessions in which all participants are known to each other and they share knowledge of the subject matter, they invariably repel other audiences.

Nostalgia Afflicted Elders (NAEs) have this tendency to screw up their noses at many things contemporary, including current movies.  They would rather be watching some 1950s movie, where people stood rooted to one place and delivered long dialogues (actually monologues mostly); that is, when they get tired of singing a few songs at a stretch. Five minutes into the new movie on Netflix which the family sits down to watch together, the NAE would make appropriate noises and detach himself from the group rapidly and recede into nostalgia.  Later on he would be kind enough to explain that he found the goings on in the movie too fast, too bizarre (he is probably right, I have no beef with this) and it was all beyond his comprehension.  Truth is, the movie was not as slow as the old ones he likes, in which you could miss twenty minutes completely and come back to find that the two characters have just moved sideways about one inch each, while incessantly talking.  Even if you take an NAE to a movie in a multiplex, chances are bright that fifteen minutes into the movie, you would receive some input like `you see, in our days we had only touring talkies and they were so much more enjoyable' as a preface before he passionately launches into the merits of old cinema halls, preventing others from enjoying the experience. 

If you take an avid NAE to a restaurant, even one which serves all-time favourites which they too enjoy, as soon as a plate of idli and vadai makes its appearance on the table, the nostalgia bomb which had started ticking minutes ago goes `boom'.  There will be a painful comparison of the idli and vadai - shape, size, colour, softness and other attributes - to those served in some restaurant which had ceased to exist some five decades back.  There will be critical comments about the service, extolling the virtues of the server in that old restaurant which had passed into oblivion.  Of course, prices of the dishes would be a constant issue on all such occasions, as if inflation is something irrelevant to life and should be totally ignored to keep prices frozen. Wonder if all NAEs would have accepted salaries paid to people in 1960s, even at their prime or before their retirement in 1990s or 2000s.

Once a friend, who had bought a new BMW too his visiting uncle for a ride. To the mortification of the friend who just wanted to give the old man some good time and also show off a bit, the NAE got hit with a serious bout of nostalgia, as soon as he settled in his seat.  He looked at the all the dials, panels and gadgets inside the car and his sensibility rebelled immediately, preventing him from even understanding what is what.  He promptly declared that in his days, life was very simple with only Ambassador and Premier Padmini as the cars available.  You selected one or the other, if you wanted a car and that was uncomplicated.  Nowadays, he lamented, there are fifty cars to select from; as if wider choice of cars is a negative factor.  He just ignored the quality of the cars and the technological improvements that have been brought in.  I thought this NAE was a classic example of someone who cannot come abreast of developments at least to the extent necessary.

Such an NAE is most likely to say, with an air of dismissiveness (a) Vijay Manjrekar's cover drive was more delightful to watch (when Virat Kholi has just done a majestic cover drive on TV); (b) Rod Laver had a fluidity in his strokes that is unmatched (looking at Roger Federer moving around the court and demonstrating his artistry with the tennis racquet); (c) Ashwin or Nathan Lyon cannot hold a candle to the off spinning abilities of Jim Laker.  No doubt all those worthies from the past were brilliant performers in their own right and people have every right to recall their greatness.  But, the problem lies in the fact that the NAE would just not recognize the virtues of contemporary sportsmen or life in general. That is the nub.

Don't get me wrong.  Nostalgia is good as a release valve and works like one of the restoratives Jeeves makes for Wooster, so long as the time and context is right.  But for anyone, nostalgia cannot become life.  Surely, there are plenty of old people, who enjoy contemporary life as much as their nostalgic recollections and that is probably a much better state to be in. 

When my dear wife finished reading this, with a sarcastic smile she told me `let me look out for the next time when you start ruminating about your school days in Tuticorin',  Touche!!