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!

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!!!

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!!  

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?

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!!

Rising Intolerance!

Those readers blessed with elephantine memory and tremendous power of recall may just manage to remember that recently, all of three months back, there was a raging controversy in India about the country having suddenly become very intolerant.  If they wonder how and why the hue and cry dissipated as quickly as it emerged, probably there lies part of the solution to the puzzle.  There was no spectacular effort from any quarter to effectively douse the fire, but still doused it was - one does not hear newspaper headlines and TV channels scream the stuff at you non-stop.  There was an election around the corner and various political satraps and their bands of excitable followers found it convenient and profitable to keep the pot boiling with all kinds of theories to keep their own vested interests going.  One was reminded of the witches in ancient tales, avidly stirring the inevitable bubbling potion in a cauldron, symbolic of cooking up something nasty.

Accusations of the government of the day abetting growing intolerance flew thick and fast, with opposition parties waking up with new instances of intolerance every dawn.  While the government made noises and tried to ward off the aggressive pitch of opponents, unfortunately the surfeit of  moronic elements on its side just fermented the broth further, virtually unchecked.  Such elements should have been permitted to open their mouth occasionally, only to imbibe something for sustenance -- while this scribe is saying this out of political correctness, he is yet to be convinced that even this allowance is necessary. That too only if long term intravenous feeding was declared unsustainable for huge numbers, for justifiable reasons like endless cost of catheters and medical supervision!  This illustrious group had an open field for a while and contrived to exacerbate the situation effortlessly until the government got burnt by a surprisingly stinging blow-back in the said election and decided to clamp down, obviously too late after heavy damage was done. All these divisive elements have since been probably herded into well-fortified subsistence quarters in the nether regions and given enormous license to bawl out as they please, on the condition that  no one else is around to pay heed.  Last heard, these people are hugely enjoying their new-found `power'.

Into this prickly and significantly politicized debate, waded a small section of the intelligentsia and a bunch of well-meaning, smart individuals.  Each one had his or her own edge of angst and agenda and the witches' repugnant concoction in the cauldron quickly got rancid and acidic.  Dozens of authors of various hues took umbrage and condescended to return awards they had received up to a decade or more earlier, not from the government but from a literary body.  Nobody has explained well why this group  imagined that such a gesture would seriously highlight the disenchantment with the current government, especially when the awards were given in the past during the tenure of another.  So much for impact assessment, if any, done by that eminent group.  If they thought this would galvanize public opinion, one could fault their collective wisdom because the majority populace was blissfully unaware that these writers and awards even existed.  You cannot blame the callous public, because these awardees dwelt in an esoteric domain, far removed from the popularly recognized movie and TV awards our men and women usually thrive on!  So all that happened was the literary body sardonically whimpered that it is not in the same business as Amazon or Flipcart and these awards, once accepted, cannot be returned and there was no procedure to even receive the scrolls back!  This scribe's guess is that the scrolls were accepted by the authorities (because they preferred to avoid further courier expense in sending them back to folks who anyway resented the awards) and might be reused in future in some way.  The avalanche of public protests the authors hoped to instigate ended with some eighty authors (out of 1.3 billion people in the country) forming a close-knit rebel band, with a sprinkling of support elsewhere, no doubt.  That these authors were castigated by others as representing a motivated anti-government platform, with an ulterior political agenda was to be expected.

Enter Amir Khan, with an uncharacteristically shambolic confession that his wife was worried about bringing up their child in such a vitiated atmosphere and was wondering whether they should move abroad.  For someone who has always been seen as intelligent and balanced, this was more than an error of judgement, considering the fact that if he shifted residence, he probably would never do even a TV commercial again in India.  He is not a mutt to throw the baby with the bath water.  Why, then, for god's sake, make that bloomer and take a bed-room conversation public in this context?   Apparently, a few days back, Amir has sheepishly and inevitably resorted to that amorphous weapon of shameless skulduggery usually employed by motor-mouthed politicians -- denial of his own statement by saying he was misquoted or some such banality, just to salvage vestiges of whatever! Though, Amir found huge resonance with the original statement closer home.  My dear wife asks me twice a year if we can move to USA, not because of rising intolerance, but because she loves the idea of proximity to our boys who live there.  As is her wont, she ignored my pointed query as to what she would do if they move to Africa or Argentina with their next jobs.  Forgive that digression.

Once all the frenetic breast-beating by aforesaid individuals, groups and the hyper loquacious TV news anchors subsided without any apparent change in the level of intolerance in one direction or the other -- which happened after the Bihar election --  a bemused lay-man was left with some basic, unanswered, troubling questions:

**Did all those who returned awards and held up an angry flag against rising intolerance have any statistical proof that things had gone amiss?  Yes, there were reports of a man being lynched for keeping mutton-masquerading-as-beef in his fridge, some cows looking for old-age homes for want of options, the usual rant about Ram Mandhir in Ayodhya etc.  But, as a common man, this scribe (it cannot get any more common than that!) did not encounter a single incident personally that made him feel that religious or social or gender intolerance had changed - whatever was there, was there always!!  This was confirmed by almost everyone who was asked this question.
** How does a small group of intelligentsia develop such an inflated opinion of its own power of persuasion to assume it could change history by protesting on its hind legs when the numbers were negligible and voices terribly feeble in the overall scheme of things?
**Why did the rebellion completely vanish the way it did - without a whimper and who did what to put a lid on that?

Having said all that, the same lay-man in me does appreciate a few signs of intolerance emerging in India:

**Cricket selectors getting intolerant of some old war horses because these keep stumbling too often.
** Prime Minister's intolerance of bombastic and obnoxious extreme right wingers in the party, who could, with mindless statements, undo months of serious and critical work.
** Bangalore residents' intolerance of the pathetic governance and maintenance activities of the City Corporation, when it comes to a bit of road among potholes, mounds of garbage and the like.

This whole episode helped this author to solemnly undertake that he will not return any award, if any was ever to be given to him even by mistake, for whatever reason and make an ass of himself.  But a personal pinnacle was reached when my dear wife's tolerance level snapped with a vendor who was outrageously leveraging his non-existent goodwill with me for a few years now, much to her chagrin and he was shown the door - one way for exiting.  Now, I am spared the weekly harangues for his repeated misdemeanours, from the most tolerant of individuals I have come across.  God bless her!!

Business Of Competition!

If one wants to capsulize the most perturbing trend in contemporary life in two words, this author's vote is for `Unbridled Competition'.  Even if you are not looking out, what hits you in the face unfailingly whenever you step into public domain (even if that is a group of two including yourself) is the strident and naked aggression displayed by competing forces in all spheres of life.  Be it media/TV channels or e-tailers or political parties or educational institutions or your own family and friends.  Just look up and you will see Bajirao Mastani is head to head with Dilwale; Sharukh Khan is jostling with Amir Khan always; Arnab Goswamy is crying hoarse competing with himself and Rajdeep Sardesai simultaneously.  Ours is a society wherein parents and educational institutions bully children to compete ruthlessly, right from lemon and spoon race to IIT exams and torment youngsters if they do not live up to their (parents') own skewed expectations.  If a school is perceived not to be aggressively competitive enough in its ways, parents have no compunction in pulling out the kids, even if the latter are really enjoying the school time.  Very seldom does one get a reprieve from this onslaught and one cannot hide indoors from this menace since our belligerent TV channels compete to serve huge dollops of this during prime time at your own home and one's own kith and kin are avidly and unabashedly involved in this pursuit.  So, instead of peeking around the corner apprehensively, this scribe, fortunately blessed with a huge dose of pragmatism, decided to leverage the meta-data in his own possession to see who is competing with whom, for what etc.  Here goes.

Countries are competing heavily in the global arena, obviously.  Russia, for instance is perking up of late with Putin, being a man heavily shorn of subtleties and readily abrasive, rattling the sabre rather violently at USA and the West in Ukraine first and then in Syria.  While harking back to the pre-Gorbachev era when USSR was a super power could ostensibly be a reason, some collateral benefits might also be in the cross-hairs.  One, with oil prices going down convulsively, Putin might have decided wisely to use surplus unsold stocks for his own air force and navy instead of selling below cost to disrespectful renegades, who have joined NATO with unseemly haste in the past decade or so. Two, while in Syria, he may also decide to bomb a few oil fields (allegedly producing or selling oil for the benefit of ISIS and also a few guiltless others, to be explained as collateral damage) out of existence in the middle east - that will mean reduced competition in oil in future.  If, in the bargain, after the US led and Russia led groups cause adequate mutual destruction, they manage to scratch the offending ISIS ultimately, both competing sides can indulge in macho chest-thumping for having saved the world -- all those who suffered due to their own actions be damned!

India and China competed, till two decades ago, only in the area of exercising the loins of their men and women, resulting in  population explosions in both countries.  But the latter has since moved ahead in terms of economy, manufacturing etc thanks to its military-style do-or-die political structure (this is not referring to the spirit of the Chinese) embracing capitalistic communism (??) India, in the meantime, as the most lawlessly democratic of democracies, has been mired in its own native version of internecine squabbles, losing myriad opportunities to catch up on economic progress.  But now, interestingly India wants to compete with China in the area of Bullet Trains. Not in manufacturing them but in running them wherever it can.  True, India should logically focus on running all its ultra-slow trains without any accident for a decade before increasing the speed even marginally.  But logic be damned, for some inexplicable reason it wants to leapfrog to three times the current peak speed of trains at a massive cost and with fervent prayers, hopes to run the bullet train effectively, aided by the Japanese.  So, India's bullet train will compete (not literally) with China's and this competition will be born of the intense rivalry between Japan and China to set up the bullet train technology in India with the former winning the mandate.  So, now China will seek to set up Bullet Trains in Pakistan, where they are more critically needed!

PM Modi has India's competitive position globally in his mind all the time.  That is why he is competing with a lot of over-worked long-haul commercial pilots to log the most air miles in a year, in his attempt to make the world realise that India is seriously competing for global attention as well as a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.  So that it can really begin believing that it has started competing with China in the world fora.  Modi is also encouraging USA, Russia, Japan and European countries to compete fiercely in bringing those things to India which either they do not want in their own countries (like Nuclear Power Plants) or their military would rather manufacture at lower costs in other countries for re-export (like armaments, missiles etc).  But, our PM cannot be blamed since he has very little political wiggle-room to legislate in favour of local manufacture, so going global seems to be the most productive alternative in order to manufacture locally. Undoubtedly, he is doing better business with foreign governments than in India, thanks to the hugely disruptive, suicidally inclined and pathetically breast-beating Congress party.  That single reason is good enough to justify all his travels.  And at the end of it, our military import bills might come down significantly in the next few years, even if nothing else is achieved.  Which may mean we will not be in competition with Pakistan, but that should be fine.

What should baffle us in all this is this conundrum.  China did not develop all the technology for things on its own; it reverse engineered most of it, learning from products of Western or Japanese manufacturers, be it the nuclear power plant or bullet train.  Now, why cannot India compete with China by doing the same thing?  Are we suddenly shy of something? Or we cannot even copy?  But then we did complete a successful Mars mission. I get it, it is somewhat like Modi's travels.  We can do things well, so long as we take off and go somewhere else but not in our own place.

Who else is competing?  Flipcart, Snapdeal and the like.  They are fighting viscerally to dole out filthy discounts on everything they sell.  Such favours are not coming out of their own pockets but that is all the money investors have sunk, in the fond hope that they could see some profits a few centuries later.  But, then the primary lure for the fiercely competitive investors is not the immediate profitability of the companies itself, but the truly bloated valuations done in the minds of hotshot financial wizards, who are very good at playing with others' money. Who are they competing with?  Each other and all the brick-and-mortar retailers.  While many of us might still want to visit a store, touch and feel before buying whatever, there is a horde of people, who spend oodles of time online, whether at home or at work.  Actually, it is practically impossible to differentiate between this tribe's work time and shopping time because it is all done on the same device.  And these people are vying with each other to avail more cashbacks, coupons, freebies from the etailers, probably buying things which they may not need or would not actually buy at a brick-and-mortar store.

Then there comes the list of competitive businesses which have not managed to damage the rivals seriously but have not done badly themselves despite all the newfangled competition.  Take, for example, Cafe Coffee Day, Dominos, McDonalds and the like.  Their arrival on the scene and growth has not changed the turf for small and big Udupi joints. Actually Adyar Ananda Bhavan has flourished in the last twenty years, precisely the period of growth for the fast food giants.  All those grocery chains and supermarkets have not been able to obliterate the neighbourhood Kirana stores, which seem to be as determined and well-built for endurance, like the indomitable cockroach.  My mother still calls one of these stores for all her groceries, the same way it has been for over four decades and things get delivered better and faster (managed now by the next generation's youngsters) than any online grocery store.    This has transpired, principally because each segment has predominantly catered to its own clientele with the customers crisscrossing periodically from one to the other without any serious issue. Sure, some very small Kirana stores might have suffered, but the casualty may not have been humongous.  My dear wife is raising that questioning eyebrow again and asking `how do you know'?  I don't, am just guessing - that is my usual muffled answer, when the query comes from that particular incisive source!!

Driverless Cars

Even as Google and Tesla are racing towards proving the technology used in their Driverless Cars or Self-Driving Car (let us call it DC) and commence commercial production of these contraptions, this scribe has a few gnawing doubts.  While such cars may be more suitable to the driving conditions and roads of USA and some advanced countries, they are bound to compound the chaos on Indian roads, should they be introduced here too.  And, given the penchant of the moneyed and the class-conscious Indians to mindlessly mimic those countries, such cars will arrive on Indian roads sooner or later, regardless of their suitability to our conditions - just because we like to show off.

Imagine DC handling some unique challenges posed by Indian roads.  An officer, miffed with his wife after an especially trying session of viscerally verbal pyrotechnics, may retaliate and decide to unilaterally convert a two-way street into one-way, without any notice to anyone.  A traffic light which normally works well as it is programmed to, will get manually over-ridden at the busiest hour by an egotistical officer who entertains enormous aversion towards anything automatic evading his control, just to demonstrate to himself who the boss is.  A senior politician's visit to a member of his harem may trigger a sudden two-mile long traffic snarl on a usually somnolent road. Or a convoy of slow-moving cows with their numerous progeny in attendance, might deceive the unsuspecting system in DC and cause a malfunction. The intelligent and perceptive readers of this blog may undoubtedly bring up umpteen other similar India-manufactured intricacies in traffic conditions, which will bamboozle the best structured platforms of the expensive DC.

Then this scribe came across another article detailing how the DC will exercise its choice in case of an accident, resulting in danger to the occupants of the car or to those outside.  Simply stated, such a decision will be preordained by the car-maker and hard coded into the DNA of DC, of course following some logic.  Meaning, the occupants, in the absence of a driver, will be at the mercy of the algorithm built in, which may be coded to save the lives of people outside in the path of the DC rather than its own occupants for some `moral/ethical' reasons.  Well, one may argue that this is probably no different from a situation where the driver will have to decide quickly which way to go, but the fact remains that the driver will probably choose to save himself along with the others in the car, whereas the algorithm may have no such predilection!  In India, road accidents being an almost government sanctioned device of attrition to whittle down population to some extent (that explains why driving licences are given out indiscriminately, sometimes to even non-existent people, against bribes), such a feature may not alarm the public or discourage sale of DC.  So, the focus in the following sections are on rather non-serious aspects of DC in India, as and when that happens.

Those who buy DC in India would want it primarily for a trophy, but may not entirely go driver-less because of the depreciation dent that brings in their status.  For instance, when the owner gets down, the driver has to come around and open the door for him or his wife, since most owners would have, by now, forgotten how to open car doors.  While having a DC may enhance self-esteem in these people, being driver-less would peg them back a few notches, which would be unacceptable.  How would this conundrum be solved??  Simple.  The driver would metamorphose into `Transportation Manager' and would occupy the front passenger seat!  He cannot anyway be dispensed with, since the master would not deign to perform the menial function of punching in co-ordinates, trip data etc into the system.   The primary difference this would make to others on the road is that the door which the driver opens when the car is in motion and spews spit on the road will change!  Also, the status conscious DC owner would hate to park the car about hundred metres away and trundle to the destination, since that wound unnecessarily burn some flab in the carefully nurtured body of the owner.  One may argue that it is possible the car would be wired to probably automatically find a parking lot and settle down, if the owner so desires.  That may be so, but after dropping the owner, if it happens to be a ten-level parking lot in a mall, how would the owner know where the car is?  Can he summon it like he would summon his dog?  Dogs have exceptional sense of smell, through which they interpret their whole world, but DC will have such extraordinary connectivity to the owner??  Hopefully Google is thinking about that.

Can software glitches make the DC run amok??  Come to think of it, this is something akin to a driver having a heart attack and passing out while having to control the car on the road.  If something untoward results, who is responsible? Under usual circumstances, the driver cops the punishment, even if the boss was driving the normal car by using the proven-through-the-ages proxy rule, in exchange for some booty to set the driver up for life.  But in this context, there is no driver; the boss does not steer the car; car is self-driving, for god's sake.  So, the car goes to jail??  May be the software engineer, who is deemed culpable??  Or just the software?? This author's hope is that a case should be filed to determine this rather crucial matter before the government allows DC in India.  That should do for the next two decades, knowing how fast cases are concluded in our courts.

Some other sundry thoughts:

** DC will be made so sensitive (equipped with powerful sensors) that it probably would stop every time some other vehicle cuts into its path.  This will result in the ridiculous situation of the DC being stationary more often than mobile in our environment, since most drivers in India cannot move hundred yards without dangerously veering sideways.

**In the first few months, there would be numerous reports in the rural areas of ghosts driving expensive cars and a special police team would be required to assuage the anxieties of the folks.  Tantriks could smell an opportunity and make a pile doing the assuaging after the police team has finished.

**If a non-driver is tasked with ensuring that the DC follows the desired route and this person falls asleep, what happens?  A driver is less likely to doze off (at least theoretically so), but someone with not even a wheel to grip and turn around might easily fall prey to `innocent sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care', with some undesirable consequences.

**Is it likely that Uber would run some DCs as cabs?  This possibility opens up an entire vista of scenarios and this author has no intention of insulting the intelligence of the readers by dwelling on them.  Best left to imagination.  Having said that, driver-less auto-rickshaws would be very welcome, unless the crooked but ingenious owners manipulate the manufacturer to programme the vehicles to refuse to take passengers, charge multiples of metre fare and generally behave like their `driven' tribe. But any attempt to let the driver-less auto-rickshaws use the footpaths should be summarily rejected, to optimize the benefit to the populace.

** Some would rather enjoy the DC experience - those who are inveterate back-seat drivers (men and women) and those who constantly educate men how to improve their driving - as a force of habit - without having driven a car themselves in their lives (women only).

** It looks like the DC would not have a steering wheel or pedals for brake and accelerator.  In order to sell in India, the makers should take care to provide at least a horn somewhere in the car.  Without the toot, DC will not sell, market research would hopefully tell them.  Cars without brakes are okay, but without horns are a strict No, No, in India.

By now, one should be disoriented.  Just as this author's head started spinning uncontrollably at an `rpm' hitherto never experienced, the lady who brought light into his life, his dear wife came to the rescue one more time and shined a torch on an absolute gem of a redeeming line in the article about DC in general -- the technology in DC cannot yet recognize pot-holes on the roads.  Hurrah!!  Three cheers!!  India will not see DC for a few decades at the least, since a pot-hole-less Indian road is just unimaginable, against our tradition and Vedas, a stark violation of the order of creation; it might even be prohibited under the Constitution.  Who knows, the local government in Bangalore may unanimously decide not to fix any pot hole on the roads, just to keep the greater evil of DC at bay!!  Personally, given the general quality and skills of drivers, I prefer `car-less drivers'  to DCs!

Note:  The author's knowledge of DC is at best shallow.  So, those experts who are bristling to email expletive-laden comments may want to hold the horses and let this piece pass!! 

Wife, Husband and Contradictions!

There are those male chauvinistic husbands who relentlessly exploit their bread-winner status, even in this day and age and imperiously order their wives around to perform menial chores for them.  Such husbands do not hesitate to use their anger as an instrument from time to time or all the time to browbeat the wives even in public, completely ignoring the embarrassment their childish behaviour causes all around.  Then there are wives who masquerade as women but are actually cast in the same mould as the aforesaid husbands or worse.  They do not even pretend to mask the hardness of their personality for the sake of appearances.  There are those wives, more subtle in their nuanced approach, who can exercise enormous control over every breath and pulse of their husbands, without so much as displaying any effort.  This they do with a nod here, a nudge there, an arched eye-brow (I am sure the husband is trained to interpret based on which eye-brow it is) or a stare that goes through the offender like a spear through fish.  No one except the skilled practitioner may even notice these fine signals; because he has undergone the rigours over the years to look for, spot and respond to these patented signals faithfully.  He knows the price of ignoring the silent edicts (this happens when the husband is dumb enough to get sozzled unintentionally) and recoils from the thought of going through with the consequences.  This is not about any of these types.  This is about all those couples who are normal folks who have their quirks and preferences, who do not think of consistency or predictability as virtues, who tend to spring surprises on each other and create situations for squabbles, when the natural flow in that stream is stemmed due to seasonal warmth and good sense.  But there should be no denying that a major contributor to this entire process is an inherent mismatch in likes and dislikes.

There is this husband, who will remain unidentified for security reasons (his, obviously), who was confronted by the wife one evening with a couple of highly priced tickets for a Shakespearean play and a rather brusque order to get dressed and march.  This chap is a bit weird in this respect because he defies known logic and he says does not like `watching' plays.  He would rather read them.  This, despite the fact that he was a student of English Literature (he insists it is precisely because of that), which minor qualification almost seems to load him with the unenviable responsibility to see every play visiting town.  The inevitable argument ensued, with the lady's taunt as to how anyone in his right senses could prefer to 'read' a play!  But her coaxing skills yet again won over the demurring husband (bad mistake!), who reluctantly was led by the nose.  In the theatre, the man made such a nuisance of himself to the lady and all the other play-watchers, whining about the seating arrangement and the poor lighting, which prevented him from seeing the emotions expressed on the faces of the artists; about the terrible audio system, which had the bass very high and so on.   Back home after a few hours, the wife launched into a tirade and reduced the chap to jelly, but he managed the final word edgeways - `that is why I prefer to read  plays; because the lighting, the audio and the distance from the stage do not matter!'  That was happily the last play they went together to.

Connoisseurs of travel would agree with this author that while it is easier to plan a long trip to a place farther away, the shorter ones (upto 350 kms, about 6 hours by road/train or 1 hour by flight) are always dicey.  Such short trips come upon you suddenly, almost unannounced when you are least prepared to cope with them, because of  this rather unsubstantiated belief that shorter trips are easier to plan and execute.  And there is this lady who revels in surprising her husband with short-fused requests for frequent short trips.  Obviously the chap goes first into a flutter and then a tizzy, trying to look for non-existent tickets, while the lady nonchalantly pirouettes and shimmers away, humming with satisfaction.  The husband has his reasons for feeling overwhelmed with frustration - the wife does not like travelling by car, which would have been the easiest and most logical alternative, given the short notice.  He suspects this is so because then he will not have to do any wasteful searching for tickets - which, the wife probably thinks is an undeservedly easy way out.  So, after spending the punishment period looking at trains, flights and whatever other means of transport, the husband formally arrives at the anticipated conclusion - that tickets are not available for trains and flight tickets are prohibitively expensive.  When these facts are communicated to the wife with the obvious remaining option of travel by car staring at her, she chooses to ask him if overnight bus service is available!!  For god's sake, why would somebody refuse the comfort of own car with your known exceptionally skilled and very well known driver and choose to travel in an overnight bus on the same road, knowing the latter's tendency end up in all sorts of crevices?   But experience has taught the husband not to seek logic in this situation, but to look for an overnight bus!!

What is good for the goose is never good for the gander between husbands and wives and any such assumption on the part of the husband will definitely be detrimental to his mental and, sometimes, physical well-being.  This middle aged man the author knows, is a hard-hitting snorer ( would have won any competition hands down, if based on consistently high decibel levels for longer periods without interruption) and is fully aware of his unique strength in this area.  So, he plots his sleeping (and snoring) time such that he commences after his wife is fast asleep.  Just so that she is not awake when his concert of guttural symphony gets under way.  Very honourable of him, I would think, to be charitable to the lady and to be applauded unstintingly.  But on the odd night when he hits the bed early and enters the blissful stage wherein `he that sleeps feels not the tooth-ache' (that state must be pretty close to being moribund?) as the bard goes, firing on all cylinders with his snore, his otherwise considerate behaviour does not help him.  The wife just cannot muffle the roar that assaults her in continuous waves and cannot help waking the thundering machine up and evict him from the room till she herself sleeps.  When the poor chap returns stealthily to take his rightful place in bed, what is the scene??  The female version of the same roaring snore, admittedly somewhat weaker (he triumphantly claims) than his fills the room.  But he knows that if he protests he would have to listen to a discourse for twenty minutes on the difference between good snoring and bad snoring (pretty much like the good and bad Taliban!).  He knows there is no scope for even a marginal victory there, so he maintains the dignified silence of a tolerant man!

Ever since the Fitbit mania has taken hold, another area of serious contradiction has opened up between some younger couples.  Earlier, during daily walks, if the sprightly wife pleaded for a ten minute extension of the walk to make up for some shortfall somewhere - real or imagined, the rather withered husband flatly refused, citing the distance already covered.  Now, the same husband looks at the Fitbit counter at the end of the walk and demands that they go for another 367 steps to meet his quota for the day.  It is a different matter that when done, he is that far away from home and has to retrace all those steps!!  Even if the daily walk is along the same roads within a gated community (and therefore the distance walked is public knowledge), the oracle inside Fitbit has to speak before the couples can retire with that smug satisfaction.  Hail, Fitbit!

Let us wind up with this story of a wife who makes fun of the husband for visiting the same restaurant for the past 25 years to have his idli-vada-pongal fix, with what he holds to be the best sambar in the world.  His take that the high quality of food in that restaurant has been unfalteringly maintained all through the years is always swatted aside by the wife.  He continues to be perpetually ribbed on this point, despite what seems to be reasonably sound justification.  When this couple visits another city, the wife forcibly drags the husband along some 30 kms, to a specific joint serving what she considers the best gol-gappa/paani-poori anywhere.  No quarters given for any argument or for innocuous teasing.

Now, this scribe knows what the  fall-out of this post will be.  Some friends and their wives are going to bristle and promptly call my dear wife (after reading this, assuming they do) and seek clarification on the identities of the couples written about.  There may even be subtle attempts to accuse this author of unauthorised disclosures and insinuate that the wife in some anecdotes is his own, just to introduce some tension in an otherwise blissfully happy family!!  All I ask is `Would I dare'?  She knows!!  For my part, let me only say that all the persons mentioned in this post are real and any resemblance my astute and knowledgeable readers may see to anyone they know, is probably true.

    

  

Where Are All Those Epistles??

Letter-writing, even as a casual exercise has long been forgotten and as an art form has faded from memories eons ago.  But it was not always like this. Times were, when even the most self-serving of that unfathomable species called Poet, would not have dreamt of entering for league-table honours without one qualification.  That of having written at least a few epistles!  For all the preening-like-peacocks they indulged in, poets took to epistles as avidly as modern-day-politicians to corruption. Be it besotted love, visceral hatred, snooty indifference or rib-tickling hilarity, all emotions and subject matters were couched in epistles by poets from time to time, just to prove that they have been there and done that.  This was de rigueur even if some of the stuff was deeply personal and need not have been for public consumption.  Just to demonstrate that they could excel in that ubiquitous medium called `epistle'.

Take, for example, `Epistle to Dr.Arbuthnot' by Alexander Pope.  That king of satire was looking to ambush all his opponents who were hyper-critical of his satirical ways.  He could have elected to hire a podium, get a megaphone and berate heartily all those indulging in hostilities.  But shrewd as he was, he was not going to let a great opportunity pass.  He chose to write this epistle to his dear friend Dr.Arbuthnot, who was so seriously ill and was so delicately poised on the precipice that even a minor gasp could have nudged him on his way, leave alone an emotionally charged epistle!  Still, an epistle it was, for Pope.  Why?  This author realises that his readers are also getting impatient as to why this epistle bit is being belaboured so much, so here we go.  Because, 'epistle' as a literary form had a special aura of romance, elegance and grace, depending on the writer, even when the contents were bordering on the vitriolic or foul-mouthed.  John Keats could have walked across to his brother's home, patted him on his back and poured out his heart for ten minutes; instead, he chose to write `Epistle to my brother George' and God knows that it was a more arduous task!! Robert Burns and George Byron  were also guilty of repeatedly using this art form, primarily because of its compelling stylistic charm.  You will be surprised to hear that P.G.Wodehouse wrote epistles to his friends, co-authors like Agatha Christie. Whether or not these were all meant for the public domain, eventually they did show up and generations of readers were the beneficiaries.  Even Jack the Ripper paused between murders to write letters (the so-called Dear-Boss letters) to the head of a news agency, very appropriately in red-ink, graphically describing his last kill and cruelly contemplating the next target.  To be precise, the authorship of such letters was never clearly established and one does not know who the author was. Nasty they were, not nearly epistles, but still, letters.

Till around three decades back, letter was still mass-medium, for lack of other channels of communication. Some of my contemporaries who could not put pen to paper without suffering birth pangs (somebody had once famously said that such boys would more easily deliver children than a decently-written letter -- don't ask me who) regardless of the language involved, were forced to write letters to express their puppy-love as students.  This author had the hilarious experience of translating verbatim, that immortal song from the blockbuster Hindi movie, Sangam - `Yeh mera prem pathra padhkar' - that classic love letter in epistle form, for the benefit of a friend in need.  Obviously the latter had no capacity for a good sentence, nor respect for copyright.  He was the type whose idea of a letter always began with `As I was suffering from', but fancied his chances with a blatantly plagiarised flowery letter to a girl in his neighbourhood, with whom he thought he was desperately in love - never mind what the girl thought.  But, I am digressing.  That iconic song as well as the Thamizh song from the movie `Kuzhandaiyum Dheivamum' - `Anbulla Maan Vizhiye' - represent the best of love-letter-songs that have enthralled posterity.  Apart from love-lettering, leave-lettering and job-seeking-lettering, people had gradually been conveniently weaned away from the epistle form over the years.

Upto this point in time, people never complained of snail-mail, simply because there was no other alternative in sight and an`Express Delivery' sticker on a letter, with a hefty incremental charge paid to the Post Office comforted senders that the missive would eventually shimmy across fifty miles in one week or so.  And people were delirious because it worked almost always.  Then lightning struck - email happened.  For all the convenience it brought to us, email killed the concept of letter-writing.  I would just make one point to settle any argument in this context - has anyone ever seen anything like `An Anthology of Great E-mail Messages' by any author in the last twenty years??   I have not.  It is not impossible to use the medium of email and still write good letters or even epistles because what has changed is the means of delivery not the form, artistic or otherwise.  Notwithstanding this, there is barely any desire left for epistling today.  Logically all those lovers of epistles should be penning more often because delivery, turn-around-time etc have tremendously improved.  But no, the majority of us have lost touch with the art-form so badly that we do not even remember it existed.  And the bulk of us do not have it in us to make that extra effort which is essential to produce something that wholesome.

But, wait a minute.  This is not to denigrate the present generation about their writing abilities.  I will be prevaricating if I do not acknowledge the fact that there is a lot more interest in writing amongst youngsters today.  Simply because the media and platforms for expressing themselves are much more readily available, easy to access and use.  One just has to look at the plethora of blogs being written on all subjects under and over the sun, with much less inhibition and much more openness than ever before.  So, the beef here is not with youngsters' getting into writing, but specifically pertains to the moribund art form of `epistling'.  Obviously the querulous question will surface from some quarter - `why should we be writing letters, when we can communicate in other ways'?  Just because the movie industry today is technologically way better and very appealing, we have not jettisoned theatre completely, have we?   Just because new songs arrive on the scene, we have not forgotten the old melodies, have we?  Just because pizzas and empenadas are available aplenty today, have we given up on our dal, roti, idli, dosa?  So, why cant we preserve something beautiful and elegant from the past, even as we employ newer and slicker media to facilitate that?

So, where are we heading?  Further degeneration in this context, seemingly irrepressible, has gained serious momentum with all the short messaging platforms (SMS, Whatsapp, Messenger etc) going berserk.  Some very bright nephews and nieces of mine almost  believe that `the' has always been spelt `da' and I am not surprised because they are all engineers writing codes, not sentences!  Language is being brutalized so badly that the mangled version is beyond recognition for the bulk from the older generations. Youngsters from this generation are immersing themselves more deeply in abbreviations and acronyms, not even wanting to write full words, forget sentences.  A typical conversation goes like this:

-- R u k? (Are you okay)
-- CTN (Cant talk now)
-- Y (Why)
-- PAW (Parents are watching), POS (Parent over the shoulder)
-- NTIM (Not that it matters)
-- TTYL (Talk to you later)
-- CUS (See you soon) 

No, I am neither conversant nor comfortable with this language, but used the internet to collate a few gems for edification, ably assisted by my dear wife, who is way ahead of me in this game (I can see many of you who know us both nodding appreciatively and asking why only this game!).  If effective communication today has come to this, what are the chances of revival for epistles?? RIP, Epistle, is all this author can think of. 

I have a bad feeling that I will get a few belligerent emoticons for this and the crowning glory could be a fist with one finger sticking up, definitely not the thumb!!  Mercifully, that emoticon does not seem to be around; must be under construction!

Some Apps We Badly Need

Whenever you visit an old friend, especially if his family had been blessed with a longish respite from you, one scene plays out without fail.  The patriarch would demand that all the hapless youngsters in the family line up to apprise you of personal developments and answer your inane questions. Just like the military parades held for visiting Presidents, who go about the job with a crick-in-the-neck bearing, trying to look for curry stains on the uniforms or a random unzipped fly!  Even the rebels amongst the children decide to co-operate, out of pity for the entreating father, on the condition that no such parade is held for another dignitary for one year.  This scribe was the beneficiary of such an honour recently.  During the informal pow-wow that ensued, one felt empathy welling up for the Duke of Kent coerced annually into having significantly meaningful exchanges with ball-boys/girls at Wimbledon.  It always looks like the Duke has been warned to keep his hands to himself and not pat any boy or girl on the back, the Royals' reputation being what it is.  So, the Duke's already strained demeanour is further stressed as he mouths banalities like `grass is green eh?', `Slazenger balls are good, right?' etc.  I felt I was in a similar plight. The friend's offspring seemed gainfully employed, but fashionably unhappy about their jobs - as every youngster nowadays is.  One kid, however, caught my attention when he said he worked for a company making apps for mobiles.  Ah, the neo-normal!  It looks like every lane in Bangalore has an app-making start-up, with every family in the neighbourhood contributing to the manpower required for the ubiquitous endeavour.

My dear wife recently admitted to me that in her work-place, populated mostly by boys and girls in their early 20s, she felt a bit odd primarily for one reason.  This is an earth-shaking admission coming from an individual who is seldom willing to be outdone in anything reasonable.  This major oddity tending to make her feel an outcast, was the number of apps she had on her mobile, which was a single digit number, whereas the other kids averaged a few thousands.  She elaborated that there were some sixty apps per head for ordering breakfast (different apps sourced bulls-eye and scrambled eggs), one hundred and fifty for lunch and some two hundred for dinner.  Obviously every commercial establishment feels the floor-boards slipping under its organizational feet, if it did not have an app at the minimum.  The youngsters happily labour under the wrong impression that they are milking the mobile phone for all they can, while the truth is that the mobile phone is quietly running all their lives, more so, with all the apps.   What struck this author was that in all this bedlam, there should be some really useful apps the industry could conjure up and offer to the society for overall betterment.  So, he has made an attempt at thinking up a few.  May not be the best, but here goes.

The most useful app, as traffic-harried city-dwellers would vouch, would be the one which helps untangle the Gordian knot of jumbled up vehicles at chaotic junctions.  The chaos is compounded by the infinitely wise authorities, who strategically leave such junctions unmanned and without traffic signals, just so the general populace can indulge in some gas-fume-filled-fun, as a token of gratitude from a government collecting huge amounts as Road Tax from the citizens. We Indians have this irresistible urge to unifocally wade into any traffic tangle where vehicles from all directions inexorably converge and stop only when physical contact becomes unavoidable thereafter, the point of no-return having been reached.  The idea is never to let anyone get out easily, so every inch of available road space is taken, the last bits by the leanest of two-wheelers.  Now that there is no wiggle-room for anyone,  all the satisfied participants smugly sit back and start gazing around, waiting for a messiah to emerge.  Some villains in the piece spoil the fun by shouting generally or by honking repeatedly.  Now, the app screaming to be developed, should be able to use the strategically placed cameras on the nearest tree-top or light-pole top, analyze the confusing mass of vehicles below, identify which one should move first, by how many inches in which direction and communicate this via a public address system, so that people can start wriggling out of the mess of their own malevolently willful creation.  It is entirely possible that people, with their inexhaustible penchant for fun on the roads, will jostle and the wrong vehicles might move in the wrong direction, further complicating the mess, but that is a chance we have to take, you cannot blame the app for that.

A couple of other useful apps relate to the food-delivery mechanism, involving the restaurants and the seemingly permanently-starved segment of the population.  One app should be able to track the delivery-boy on his vehicle, using GPS, right from the time he departs from the restaurant, through the maze of bye-lanes he has to traverse, till delivery.  This ensures that the hungry customer does even less work than before (because some thirty minutes are spent in looking at the mobile phone, deriving immense vicarious pleasure from the sight of the delivery boy in a real-life race situation, racing against time and, for good measure, violating a few traffic rules like riding on the pedestrian side-walk if not a few pedestrians), while all the time he or she has the food in sight and mind. And salivates.  A truly satisfied customer in all respects, in the end.  A related app could be that which a pedestrian, who would otherwise end up being a fatal statistic in the above cathartic meeting of the food supply and demand sides, could use.  This app will keep him out of harm's way, warning him to stay in-doors until all the menacing delivery boys move elsewhere, leaving the erstwhile killing fields safe for navigation on foot.

Two other apps are mentioned here; neither of them probably can avoid loss of some kind to the user, but is of immense informational value and could also bring the balm of solace in times of stress.  One should use all available historical data relating to delays in Air India flights taking off and predict what could be the next three possible hilarious reasons for delay.  We have to accept a wider choice here, since narrowing down to one single reason might be too difficult even for the most intelligent computer.  Who could have guessed accurately that one flight would be delayed because the engineer and the pilot were fighting a pitched battle inside the cockpit??  Another somewhat similar app could be for telling investors why the stock market really went down suddenly, immediately after they invested.  Otherwise, these poor sods not only lose money and sleep, but suffer the ignominy of remaining clueless as to why.  Currently all kinds of reasons are bandied about - from Euro zone crisis to ISIS taking Palmyra to a bunch of people urinating in the Himalayas thereby melting the snow a bit.  Losers, there will always be in stock markets because otherwise the less gullible cannot make money; but clueless losers suffer a double whammy and they deserve somewhat better!  Another app could try to predict which of our eminently bright politicos would come out with a gem to hugely embarrass the party, the country - well everyone, except the `gemmer'.  This will be very useful to the party managers as well as family members, to either start building up defenses or to seek hiding places.

If you thought all these apps mentioned above are disappointingly frivolous, what about this one?  An app, which could use past behaviour of a spouse and indicate the possible reaction to yet another stupid situation of one's making??  This could help prepare the erring party to either stand bravely up and smartly deflect the attack or scurry into a rat-hole for the next few days.  What?  You are saying past behaviour can never be the basis for prognosis, when it comes to an angry spouse??  That rings true. That would mean this will probably be the most sought after app, if it could be rigged because the application for this app is universal, no??