A Few Minutes With Rahul Dravid

I dont remember the year, but it was one of those in which Rahul Dravid had a great time in tests, as was usual those days. And it was the time when Ipods and mobile phones had not substituted larger devices like radios and cassette/CD players. I remember this distinctly because the CD player which Rahul was carrying was the reason I got to exchange a few words and spend a few minutes with him.  He had something like a small kit bag on his shoulder, was holding a tote bag in one hand and the CD player in the other.  We were walking out of the Bombay airport terminal at the same time towards the bus that would take us to the plane.  Something fell out of Rahul's hand. As he was struggling to bend and pick it up, hampered by all the hand-carried baggage, I picked it and handed it back to him, with a `hello, it is a privilege to meet you'. He was in his mid twenties then and was somewhat embarrassed by his predicament as well as my words, the humble and down-to-earth guy that he is.  He smiled shyly and told me as much with a simple `that is high praise indeed!' and then asked me about myself. As we chatted, we got into the bus.

I was curious about the rather large CD player he was carrying and asked him whether he lugged

it wherever he went.  He said `yes' and proceeded to explain that acoustics was something he put a premium on and he preferred that high quality CD player in the evenings to listen to music.  At one point, in the bus, near my foot I found a boarding pass on the floor and picked it up and stuffed it in my jacket pocket, obviously thinking that was mine.  Rahul smiled and said to me `now we are even, even if I did not pick it up for you'.  When we got down from the bus, some guys were waiting for him and he said bye to me and went to chat with them.  I boarded the plane, took my seat and was looking for him to come on board.  Even after 15 minutes, there was no sign of him and when I peeked through the window, I saw he was walking back to the terminal, after leaving his baggage near the plane, with someone keeping watch on them until he returned.  I wondered what he had forgotten and the airhostess who was watching me looking at Dravid, came and said `looks like he misplaced his boarding pass and would not let us go fetch a replacement for that.  He has gone himself to do the job.  We will take off when he returns'.  The mystery having been solved, I sat back and started reading the book I had brought.   Dravid returned soon and took his seat two rows in front of me and we took off.  Some 30 minutes into the flight,  I was trying to retrieve something from my jacket pocket and out came this boarding pass, with the name Rahul Dravid, Seat 2A, screaming at me!!   I reeled a bit and stared at the boarding pass, wondering how it reached my pocket.  When I figured that the boarding pass I picked up from the floor of the bus was not mine but Rahul's, I felt bad that a small lapse on my part in not looking at the name before putting into my pocket had made him go through some trouble.  But I also smiled because we were not even after all, as he suggested.  The boarding pass he had dropped twice within 10 minutes and we always thought he did not drop many!!

I walked to him, handed the boarding pass to him and conveyed my regret in having been responsible for his extra trudge to and from the terminal .  When he realised what happened, he smiled and apologised  for having been so clumsy and causing inconvenience to me!!  That kind of summarizes the guy for you, I think. Come to think of it, I should have kept the boarding pass for some bragging rights!!  Did'nt strike me at all at that moment.  My dear wife has always teased me endlessly after this,  saying I could never exploit an opportunity, even when it comes begging!! I assumed she said that with a hint of approval.

Turning Sixty

Till recently, I was quietly proud of my own track record of never having submitted to the ordeal of cutting a birthday cake, not once.  When we were young, that custom was not prevalent in our circles - most probably because egg was taboo at home and eggless cake was not even work in progress.  The celebration, if one can give it that nomenclature, started with the classic pink coloured cotton candy and abruptly ended after a merry-go-round ride, if one could be found.  Mind you, not in a party with the other kids, but just by yourself, accompanied by some frowning elder, who was mortified having to do what he was doing .  Elders could not be blamed because they never partied either.  By the time I was 10 or so, even that small bit of fun ceased because my little brother caught diphtheria after indiscriminately stuffing his young face with cotton candies, especially made for him with a heavier dose of bacteria than what his body was accustomed to.

Since that time, whenever there was an attempt to drag me, even kicking and screaming, to cut a cake, I had always dexterously found some exit route.  For someone who had grown older with such serious aversion to cake-cutting, my pride was dented recently, not once but twice in quick succession, within a ten day period.   My mistake was just that I turned 60 and none around me was willing to concede it was a natural process beyond my control; that it was not some monumental achievement I had worked for, with enormous skills not commonly identified in humans.  My protestations that even animals dumber than me age every year did not cut much ice and I was forced to go through two parties.  Don't get me wrong, the parties were enormous fun alright and the friends who put them together were so loving and thoughtful; but the cake cutting was not a joy! 

The first party was a surprise, absolutely so.  Usually with surprise parties, the only individual who lacks the critical knowledge that the person who is not supposed to know (let us call him/her the birthdayer, for want of a better term) about the party is actually in possession of this priceless information, is the party organizer.   This happens because an obtuse invitee chooses to call on the landline phone and without any preamble asks `So, what time are we supposed to meet for the surprise party'?, not realizing that the person at the other end is the birthdayer.  Or, a dimwit among the invitees meets the birthdayer a couple of days earlier and blurts out something about looking forward to the fun party and moves on without even realizing that he has given the game away.  In my case, this one was a genuine surprise because I had no clue, despite the fact that closer to the date, as a practice, I consciously deploy additional, ultra-sensitive antennae to catch all signals in the ether around me because I am always suspicious of a conspiracy to bring me and my cake face to face.  My dear wife had quietly outsourced the entire process of organization to some friends, with her own singular contribution regarding all the goodies I am fond of.   On the appointed day, I was feeling a bit under the weather and was taking things very easy.  My wife, unusually I must say, wondered why I had not even shaved and that should have sharpened my instincts.  But lethargy induced by the feeling that one was unwell had clouded my antennae completely.  A couple of friends called and tried to pull me out of the house, so that they could create party ambience without my knowledge.  I inadvertently threw a spanner into their machinery by declining because I did not feel like stirring out, without realizing I was inconveniencing a big crowd of 50 people already assembled somewhere else.  And actually went to sleep!! The next thing I knew, this group of people carrying all kinds of eats and drinks, marching into the house an hour later, as I was trying to nap.  There was a shower of confetti by some 10 kids and I was shocked out of my wits, still not any wiser about what was going on.  I was forced to shave, shower and then, horror of horrors, cut a cake, with a knife pointed at my ribs!!  It almost looked like it was either the cake or me, and I wisely opted for the cake to be cut.

The other party was not a surprise in that I knew about the arrangement.  The friend who graciously hosted this one knew me well enough and was afraid that I might just decamp on the day, if I was not told upfront - wise man! But I did not expect such a congregation of friends of a few decades from various cities; but the niggling thought that there was a cake hidden somewhere and would make its menacing appearance soon, was smothering all the joy bubbling up at the sight of old friends.  The fact that I share my birth date with a very dear friend, who was also present,  was a  great consolation because I was not going to face the ordeal alone.  This friend is a shameless, avid cake-cutter (he looks for knives to cut cakes on display in bakeries and his wife has to physically restrain him!) and I knew he would take over without a pause, if I were to prove unequal to the demanding task.  When those tiny wedges were cut off the whole cakes, my friend was beaming from ear to ear, while I felt mortified for a second time in ten days at the sickening thought of my track record having been besmirched irredeemably.

It was so funny, seeing other grey-haired men breezily calling me`old man', just because they had a few more strands of black hair (actually it did not matter, some had no hair at all!) and were two weeks behind me in reaching the milestone of sixty.  Even that is dubious because some of them are very capable of a shenanigan a la the Army Chief - have two different birth dates, one for seniority in the office as well as special situations which demanded `elderly' bulldozing; and another for going around calling others `old men'.

While I was not the least bit uncomfortable about being sixty (I was more worried about the cake-cutting!), some cheer came my way in the next few days.  First, I went to the Indian Railway's website to reserve tickets for travel in May.  Even with three months to go, the chart, as usual, mocked at me screaming `berths not available'; but wait-listing was possible.  So, I went ahead and sought to wait-list myself.  When I hesitantly ticked the box to declare for the first time that I was a senior citizen and hit `go', I had a pleasant surprise.  It looks like there is a separate quota for senior citizens (this is not disclosed upfront for some reason), from which I got a lower berth allotted pronto, that too at a concessional rate!!  Considering that there is not much difference between say fifty eight and sixty,  I wished I was the latter two years earlier, to reap these fringe benefits!  How many times had I been rebuffed earlier by the same reservation system with that foul, stern message that `even wait listing was not possible'?  And then came the biggest surprise - when I half heartedly asked the cashier at my golf club whether there was a concessional rate for `senior citizens', he glumly disclosed `Yes sir; it is less than 30% of the normal rate'.  He knew it was a big cut that my game did not deserve, but could not do anything about it!  That was the icing on the cake, you will agree.  I only hope I don't have to cut any more cakes, ever!  Unless of course, they would let me into golf clubs and trains completely free, gratis!!

Short Story - Accidental Resolution!

The grey Innova, crawling along in the peak morning traffic, surged forward as if it was suddenly administered a booster shot when it was looking elsewhere and rear-ended two auto-rickshaws.  The latter bunch collided into a group of two-wheelers in front and took everyone into the path of the oncoming traffic, with a Volvo bus leading the parade.  The Volvo driver braked hard and swerved, to avoid pulping those in its way and rammed into one, two, three, four cars and managed to distribute the damage further.  A disturbed Bullet rode into the moving phalanx of bicycles, scooties and pedestrians on the opposite side of the road.  The two traffic policemen manning the junction were part of the debris somewhere and could not extricate themselves to be immediately of any assistance to anyone.  Miraculously, there was no fatality, the bullock-cart-like speed of the vehicles ensured that - a silver lining indeed!

Raghav was on his way from home to the service apartment where he had reluctantly parked his parents for the past two days, after  his wife of 2 years, Anusha, served the oft-repeated `The choice is yours - between me and them' ultimatum, but with a finality that sounded, well, very final.  His mother, had had ongoing run-ins with the daughter-in-law on various earth-shaking domestic issues ranging from the quantity of milk to be bought every day to the quality of the current domestic help who was brought in by Anusha as a replacement for the mother-in-law's candidate.  Of course,  the major bone of contention was the primary right of ownership of the domestic pet - that is, Raghav, himself.   The fireworks, which commenced almost immediately after the wedding as the gentle rustle of the sparklers and flower pots had, over the months, obtained the explosive traits of bombs with immensely higher decibel effect.  The women, all said and done, were both somewhat civilized and had so far refrained from going for leather at each other, with all limbs flailing.

While Anusha and her mother-in-law were the prime antagonists in the running battle, Raghav and his father fell foul of both sides because they repeatedly made the mistake of advocating to the ladies the desirability of somewhat rational behaviour and mutual accommodation.  As things stood, Raghav's father had recently been silenced effectively by volleys of verbal onslaughts from his wife of 30 years and consigned to a dark corner in the house to practice the two head movements on which his future depended - one, up and down and the other side to side.  Even with this limited repertoire in which to accomplish perfection over an extended period, Raghav's father got into trouble time and again, because he shook his head the wrong way in response to his wife's forceful demands for support on specific issues, accompanied by Kali-like glares.  That was primarily because a minor disability prevented him from hearing properly any sound below a certain decibel level; and unfortunately, most of his wife's push for support came in the form of hissing noises, driven by her passion for sibilants.  Chastened by recent punitive sanctions against him in the domestic arena, Raghav's father had decided on a brilliant, if somewhat suspect, strategy to minimize disasters with his wife.  He would, in future, closely observe the head movements of that formidable woman as she menacingly urged him to stand by her and replicate the same movements with his own head.  After all, he had searched through his memory bank for empirical evidence and concluded that there was no way she could be shaking her head up and down when she wanted him to say `no' and vice versa.  For a man who invariably resembled a bleating goat, which was cruelly cornered and helpless, that was nothing short of a stroke of genius and he only hoped that his wife would not change her declamatory pattern without appropriate prior notice to him! The irony of his wife's demand that her son be more loyal to herself rather than fall into the `clutches' of her daughter-in-law, even as she herself had been relentlessly bludgeoning her own husband into submission for so many years, was not lost on the old man; but then, very early in wedded life he had embraced the tenet of Tennyson's The Light Brigade and passionately acknowledged that it was `not his to make reply or to reason why'.  He chose to be a martyr-in-waiting!

Raghav, being a resonable man, did not want to take sides and got punished for 'being the veritable, indecisive mamma's boy' by one party and  'a disappointingly spineless son whom the new wife was twirling around her eye-lashes', by the other. He was reaching the end of the tether in terms of patience and tolerance when, two days back the family's own Hiroshima occurred.   He should have known when he sat down for dinner that there was an eerie calm, the kind that prevails when the warriors were busy choosing their weapons before the impending breakout of war.  Being a man of peace and prompted by a good day at work, he was in a jolly mood and was trying to make light of things.  Very juvenile of him, one should agreee; but he had no clue that he was way out of his depth as he tried some verbal jousting with his father first.  That passed without anyone in the audience party displaying the slightest enthusiasm.  You see, he was the only one who did not have the advantage of knowing what had preceded dinner. He had returned from office, had a quick wash and walked into trouble at the table.  There had been a major skirmish for over half an hour between the women, as Anusha opened multiple fronts and ended with the issue of  `excessive use of butter, ghee etc' by the mother-in-law, after which the antagonists had retreated to their quarters for some rest and recuperation and also to replenish their ammunition, should there be resumption of the war.  When they re-assembled at the table, Raghav mistook the calm for nothing worse than the usual, tense atmosphere and he proceeded to spar a bit with people.  Then he turned his attention to his plate and picked up the roti domiciled there.  All he said was `Aha, this one looks and feels like its major constituent is rubber; dont we have any butter or ghee to mix with the dough to make softer rotis'?  Innocuous, you would agree - only because it came from Raghav without the benefit of a life-saving flashback.  But he was aghast at the fusillade of words that erupted from the women simultaneously and engulfed him; all the more so, because only a minute back his attempts at humour passed without extracting as much as a grunt.  Anusha thought the mother-in-law had complained to Raghav about the earlier fight and went on a rampage with the usual accusations about him being under his mother's thumb etc.  When her protestations did not help, the mother-in-law went on an over-drive, raking up all the insults she had suffered during the past few months in such a perfect chronological order that others suspected she had a separate tab in her diary for Insults by Anusha.  Both the women left the table abruptly in a huff, but timing it well for simultaneous departures.  Shakespeare would have noted `Exeunt ladies'!  Being a perceptive observer and blessed with innate astuteness in matters affecting the stomach, Raghav's father stuffed a couple of rotis into his mouth in hurry and vanished.  Would you blame him?   He was very skeptical about the source and timing of the next meal, under the circumstances!  Raghav was left in blissful isolation, to ponder over the exact meaning of the dozen or so catastrophic words he had uttered, which had triggered this nuclear fallout.

Raghav could hear phone conversations from the other rooms, which was customary after every seismic event in the household.  His mother was talking to his sister, who was a marginally more sophisticated version of the termagant his mother was.  True to the strict grooming and development efforts at the hands of her mother, the sister was a very capable long-distance advisor the mother leaned on whenever she, the mother, wanted to hear she was in the right, even when what she had done was totally bizarre!  And, Anusha was getting some expert guidance from her own mother, who as a rule did her best to keep things on the boil for as long as possible, for want of any other pastime.  Raghav was hungry anyway, so he proceeded to finish his dinner; tactically the wrong thing to do when the wife was sulking without touching food, but then his mental state was not conducive to rationalization of the situation.  He then embarked on a search for the essential `truth', in order to determine the next step.  The next hour of cajoling, begging, arguing and gently persuading yielded nothing from either his wife or mother.  Both were well entrenched in their positions that they did not and could not do any wrong whatsoever.  And that was when Anusha categorically told him that he needed to choose between herself and his parents.

He was initially disconcerted but eventually reconciled to the idea of transferring his parents to a small service the next morning, hoping to head off any further unseemly confrontation with Anusha.  During the next two days, he had been going to the service apartment in the morning and evening on his way to and from work, to meet his parents and mull over the long term arrangement.  In this period, there was very minimal meaningful communication amongst the dramatis personae in this story.  Everyone was getting fidgety and irritable - Anusha because she realised that running a home added significant demands on her time and a lot more pressure, but was too proud to admit that she missed the support system provided by her parents-in-law.  She was even more perturbed in the context of her own feeling that she was pregnant  and with the new arrival soon, she would require all the help she could get.  Her mother-in-law was at a loss in the alien environment and had already started worrying about the consequences, financial and otherwise, of setting up a separate home.  Raghav's father found himself in the odd situation where he did not have to agree with his wife all the time, because his wife was too despondent to even talk.  For once, silence reigned in her vicinity.  Raghav had a nightmare of a time, shuttling among the office and two homes and was keen to end this all chaos soonest.  He was on his Bullet, riding while wallowing in an ocean of self-pity, when the accident occurred.

Raghav felt a surge of pain on his ankle as he raised himself from among the clutter of cycles and two wheelers he was forced to plunge into.  He wailed and collapsed in a heap.  It was another half an hour before humans were separated from vehicles and other debris and some medical help became available.  When Raghav opened his eyes again, he saw a pretty, young woman examining his ankle, while someone else was cleaning his bruises and wounds with dettol.  He was groggy due to pain and was in some la-la-land with eyes half-closed; he could not see the woman properly nor could he hear her exclaiming `Oh, is that you Raghav? Do you recognize me'?  No, he could not; actually he would not have recognized himself in a mirror, in that fuzzy state of excruciating pain.  He relapsed into his la-la-land.   When he came to, he was on a hospital bed, with his ankle heavily strapped and in a sling, just like his life was at that point of time, he thought bitterly.   That was when that pretty doctor came in and he immediately recognized her as his high school class-mate, Swathi.  They used to be part of the same group of boys and girls who hung out together for more than 4 years at various homes, malls, games etc  He had not seen her in 10 years and had no idea she was also in Bangalore.  After some chit-chat, she asked `Who is Anusha?  And where is your mother?  You were deliriously urging them through the night to stop fighting'.  Raghav did not require too much stimulus to share his woes with Swathi.   At the end, she said `you cannot use band-aid on such a fractured relationship as the one between your wife and mother; it is a case for surgery and has to mend slowly; I had the same problem in my life and had to deal with it firmly last year. Anyway, what do you want to do'?  Raghav's response was simple.  `I just want to buy peace at home'.  They talked about options and arrived at a conclusion, after which Raghav asked for a phone to call Anusha and his parents to inform them of the accident and his whereabouts.

Raghav was discharged the next day; he told Anusha curtly, as if he was not ready to brook any argument, he would spend the next week at the service apartment with his parents. He would require help to walk around and do his chores and she would not be able stay away from her work.  Anusha was crestfallen but had no better suggestion to offer.  Her pride militated against the idea of visiting the service apartment and meeting her mother-in-law; for the next week, she could not see her husband.  Raghav petulantly made exaggerated shows of unhappiness about the state of affairs and ensured that both his mother and wife understood he was emotionally down in the dumps, thanks to their childish behaviour.  He also reiterated time and again that the accident was entirely due to the pressure the two ladies put on him.  By the end of the week, both Anusha and her mother-in-law were very remorseful, were malleable and ductile, ready to be hammered into final shape.  They were in constant touch with their consultants to identify a dignified way out of the `guilt corner' they were both painted into.  Dr.Swathi accentuated the feeling of  guilt in the women by firmly indicating after an examination that Raghav may have to undergo surgery, even after which he may have a permanent limp - all concocted to help reach the desired climax.  Raghav piled the misery on to his shattered mother and wife, by directly holding them responsible for the sadly limping life he was going to lead for ever.  These bombardments had the desired effect.  The erstwhile antagonists sat down, talked rapprochement, decided to sink all differences and live happily under one roof.   They went together with this resolution to Raghav, who promptly shot it down, to their utter bewilderment.  He grandly announced that he would not commit hara-kiri by restoring status-quo-ante and revisit Kurukshetra.  He was bent upon finding a smaller apartment nearby to house his parents and they all could visit each other, whenever they wanted.  Of course, there would be stressful additional financial burden on the family, but he said he was ready to pay any exorbitant price for buying long term peace at home.


Last heard, Raghav was fighting a two-pronged battle with his mother and wife, against the idea of reunion.   Ironically, the ladies were pushing their case with new-found fervour, standing on a common platform.  Raghav's father was unable to cope up with the demands for support from not only the two ladies, but also his son.  He was reported to have developed a permanent crick in the neck and had ceased all movements of the head and neck.  But would you believe it, he seemed ecstatic about this disability!!

This circus called TV News!!

Times were when TV news bulletins in India were pretty uncomplicated; read by grim-looking men or women, as if they were always on the alert to effortlessly announce a national mourning for 7 days due to the demise of someone.  They seemed to have been chosen especially for (a) their inability to shock the viewers of the day in any way, by deviating from the mandated path (b) their determination not to betray any emotion during the half hour bulletins, regardless of the content of the news and as if invisible guns were being held to their heads to ensure that (c) their ability, at the end of the bulletins, to consistently and painfully pretend to ease their faces into a fleeting grimace or a twitch, indicative of a desire to smile reluctantly!!  Whatever they used to do over the radio without inflicting their physical appearance on the listeners, they continued to do on TV, except that highly unappetising visuals were added.  The most exciting news was delivered in an unwavering monotone, with a tombstone-like expression.  Grainy, low-resolution photographs which stubbornly yielded no clues as to what they were about until you read the captions below, (thereby enhancing the mystic value of the experience), were on offer to provide clinching evidence to the viewers, lest the absence of emotion in the news-readers prompted disbelief!  Why am I into this yarn about the virtues of TV news of 80s and 90s now??  Well, the circus that goes on in the name of TV news nowadays, on private channels, accompanied by noises from the veritable Tower of Babel, is making me wonder -no, I am more or less convinced - if some very farsighted sage in Doordarshan in the early days designed the news that way to save the viewers the present day agony!!
 
Today, when one switches on the TV during evening prime time and favours private news channels, one cannot but flinch in the face of the frontal assault and quiver in one's sandals.  Every news channel produces a barrage of words and the news-reader or the anchor is not the only person using high-decibel lung power.  The TV screen is invariably divided into a few boxes, ranging from three to eight (I am actually waiting for the day when the boxes further multiply to accommodate only thumbnail sketches of some 24 people) and filled with faces.  Faces of an assortment of politicians from different parties, legal luminaries who are not hard-core politicians, but might as well have been, actors who are a bit more intelligent than acting out dumb roles according to the director's bidding, loud-mouths who have arrogated to themselves the right to comment on any event and other chosen `experts' in `general vacuousness'.    If you are not familiar with your anchor's mug shot, you might wonder whether he/she has been nudged out of the screen sideways, by the invaders!  Actually, no need to worry; the anchor is the king and he/she keeps one box on the screen permanently tenanted and lets go only when it is time for him/her to occupy the whole screen between news items!

Do you blame me for being nostalgic about the TV news of the days of yore?  I believe that barring a small percentage of the population which has masochistic tendencies and wants to go through the panelists' collective babel on every news item, most people would be happier if news is given to them without any attempt at interpretation or analysis by experts.  Most of us are capable of interpreting or understanding what a statement or an event means and yes, a couple of sentences from the anchor to put things in perspective are most welcome.   But the chaos that inevitably erupts on the screen when the panelists are identified and the first question is asked, reinforces my theory that the old-style DD news was qualitatively streets ahead. 

Let me explain:
Many of the so-called panelists invited by the anchor have absolutely no sympathy for the viewers and are intent on grabbing attention by offending sensibilities.  They remind me of Mayflies or Onedayflies, which have a very short life span of a day or so - 'here is an opportunity and I will say what I want, whether it makes sense or not and others be damned'!!  Some completely lack basic debating decorum and very seldom one hears a single voice speaking, at a time.  Rude interruptions are the order of the day and the anchor does not seem in control, except when he is ready to shut down the programme. 

Politicians appearing on the panel indulge freely in `newspeak'.  A lot of words are uttered, cliches used and verbal jousting takes place, but do they say anything meaningful or significant?  The good speakers have mastered the skill of saying a lot without meaning anything while the others dont merit attention anyway.  Moreover, in these days when even the senior-most politicians lack clarity as to what the stand of the party is on any issue at a given time, what can be expected of these minions who walk into boxes on TV screens for a couple of minutes?  Even when such politicians are cornered on screen with some evidence of duplicity or something otherwise wrong, they mumble some inane justification without betraying shame.

How many times during one evening can you see the same set of people, holding forth on the same or similar news items, in different channels??  Unabashedly one or the other appeals to the anchor, when interrupted by an encroaching co-panelist, `Arnab, Arnab, Arnab (they have to repeat this because even the anchor does not recognize them otherwise!), either let me speak or I might as well leave now because I have to go to another channel'.  I do wonder if the news channels pay the panelists for appearance.

If you watch BBC or CNN News, you usually see an anchor and another roving correspondent on the screen discussing an event or news item.  If experts are required, to the extent I have seen, one or at the most, two people are asked to provide their inputs, which they do civilly.  There is no attempt on the TV screen to engineer a street-fight kind of scenario involving the panelists.  However, this is indeed the norm in Indian news channels.

`All panel discussions are bad' is not my case.  All I am saying is that there is no need to interpret and analyse every single news item with a panel of about 8 people.  If the event or the news is significant enough, move such a panel discussion away from the news programme and provide a separate platform for that discussion.

I am glad Doordarshan is true to form and is chugging along with pretty much the old format most of the time.  If only they are a bit more lively!  But, who said one can have everything one wants all the time??

Are we going to be like this only, for ever??

Not infrequently, while you are driving or walking or just idling, watching the goings-on in the vicinity, you observe some uncouth, uncivilized and senseless behaviour and wonder `Why are we like this and why do we do this??  Don't we realise that what we are doing is causing problems to the others'??  Your mind automatically clicks back to somewhat similar situations you have encountered in another country and wonder why there is this manic desire in most Indians to knowingly and willingly abuse our public spaces, inconveniencing people around us and themselves, more often than not.  We are not talking about the age-old issues of spitting, throwing waste or urinating in public spaces but many other ways of offending sensibilities.

There should be a strictly enforced rule that small restaurants, tee/coffee shops and the like should not operate out of any street-corner site.  How often do we see cycles, auto-rickshaws, motor-cycles and even cars parked haphazardly on narrow roads which the joint straddles?  They occupy 70% of the space meant for movement of people and vehicles, forming some unbreakable `vyuha',  just so that the owners/drivers of these vehicles enjoy their cuppa, a smoke and leisurely chit-chat?  All this, while just a few yards from them, there is mayhem and people are milling and jostling to squeeze past the parked vehicles.  When tempers flare and  fights break out on the road among road-users, these worthies snigger and stare insolently at the scene, relishing the commotion they have caused.  If you expected some semblance of regret or apology, forget it.  Obviously you cannot put this down to thoughtless behaviour of the juvenile variety.  There is this deliberate desire to cause offence and pain and that is what is galling.

Take the case of getting into elevators, buses etc.  While 15 people are waiting patiently for the elevator/bus to empty out, the first few people who rush in from the sides are the few mad men who have just arrived on the scene.  Not only would they push through, but also park themselves at the entrance of the elevator/bus, blocking the way for the rest.  Why?  They have to get out earlier than the others!  This could be in/near a hospital, where there are the sick and the elderly waiting to use the lifts/buses, but these offenders dont care.   For some reason, a well-intentioned queue, which had formed before the bus arrived, dissipates into a melee immediately on its arrival and a free-for-all follows, in which the ladies and the infirm are absolutely helpless!

What about this?  Every day, when we drive from home in the morning, we are treated to the sight of two small trucks involved in a messy transfer of stuff to a larger truck, right on the road.  What kind of commercial transaction is being done?  The smaller trucks are transferring all the garbage collected from about 2000 houses in the locality to the bigger truck.  It is bad enough that people without even the protection of gloves go through the garbage, sifting for useful nuggets; but this is done in full public view, with the accompanying stench violating your nostrils.  You get a full demonstration of this activity as you wait to overtake the parked trucks to proceed on your way. It should not be difficult to move the offending trucks to a remoter location where all the sorting is done, but do you think they care??  Their thought process seems to be that `if we have to dig into this mess for a living, you prudes should not be too sensitive about having a glimpse'!!

In case you thought this `offensive' tendency is individual, think again!  Institutions dont lag far behind.  Corporation's workers are laying some pipes or repairing something on the road.  Familiar scene, happens daily.   Knowing fully well that the narrow road has to have at least one way traffic flowing without hindrance and they have to manage this well, what do they actually do??  With a supervising engineer around, the mud, debris, pipes to be laid are all stacked on the road in such a way that the road is just not usable in any sense.  And to add to this misery, they just refuse to regulate the traffic, with the result, on about 40% of the normal road, two way traffic tries to edge past everything and you know what happens!  Men and women in a continuum of  snarling matches; frayed tempers and abusive language; some fisticuffs and general despair -  while some radio is providing musical entertainment - `abhi na jaao chodkar' is playing, ironically - to the 5-6 people digging deeper, with the sole intent of causing incremental grief.

I am sure you have experienced this while driving or riding in a car.  You are at a signal-less, unpoliced busy intersection, trying to turn right.  Traffic is coming from your right and you have to get past that stream to turn right.  You have waited at the intersection for more than 5 minutes, hoping for a gap in the traffic.  You nudge the car forward slowly, hoping to break through eventually, because the traffic from the right is just not stopping.  (I used to ask my driver why he has to slowly insert the car into the oncoming traffic and risk the possibility of being hit and his wisdom was simple - you cannot wait for the waves to abate if you want to have a dip in the sea!). You have come most of the way and just a bit is left before you can heave a sigh of relief.  You look to the right and see three cars coming about 100 meters away, switching on their headlights, firmly indicating their intent not to let you clear  the next 10 feet, so that you can do your turn.  Those cars will go further right, to move around you, almost hitting a couple of vehicles coming from the left, but they will not let you pass.  If the traffic from right stops for one mintue, you and the others waiting with you could turn and be done; but no, that would be far too simple and equitable,  you see.  What causes this??  Ego or something else?  And all the people indulging in this thuggery are not uneducated drivers!!

Similarly, if it is a junction where four roads are converging and the traffic police, in their infinite wisdom, have switched off the lights (that is another mystery I have not cracked yet - why, for heaven's sake??), you can bet your bottom rupee that within 15 minutes there will be a situation where cars, buses, two-wheelers and other assorted vehicles have all come to a halt, with no space to manoeuvre.  The vehicles are at all kinds of weird angles, making it impossible to guess which one was heading  in which direction.  It will take a policeman some 45 minutes to untangle this mess, while all those who created the mess in the first place generate more chaos by blaring their horns and yelling belligerently.  Why did they get into this situation?  Because they did not have the patience and good sense to wait 10 seconds and let somebody else pass and move in an orderly manner.  They would rather waste the next hour, struggling to get out of the ensuing unholy mess!!

Will we ever change??  Or are we destined to be like this only??

One more on Mosquitos!!

Another one on mosquitos; it is revenge, pure and simple - they are not letting go of me and I am reciprocating!  In the context of mosquitos revisiting our community, Vista!!

Varad

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Those unwanted visitors, who intermittently force Vista residents to turn hostile and keep their doors shut, are back.  Theyhave invaded the community in hordes and seem intent on doing a limited Taliban on us by enforcing a stricter dress code.  While there is no official communique from the assailing force about the edict, people have been coerced to abandon their shorts and tees in favour of trousers and full-sleeves even during evening walks.  That seems to be the only way of keeping the attackers at bay.  Vista residents using open spaces are also forcibly taught a few nifty dance steps due to the absolute need to keep shifting their feet to avoid damage; and sources indicate that such coaching, imparted in short bursts in a few minutes, is far

more effective in teaching Waltz, Bollywood, Bharathanatyam, Odissi and other rather unknown dance forms, than all the classes regularly conducted in Vista put together.  

The surprise is in the fact that this is happening in October, after the routine, first dose was administrated in the summer! Are mosquitos getting agnostic to seasons??  It appears so and obviously there is a crying need for some defence which the hapless Vistaites can use to protect themselves.  I searched high and low and have identified a brand new, as-yet-not-on-the-market product which the manufacturers claim will help people ward off the buzzing menace effectively.  They have not found a suitable name for this wonder-antidote yet, so let us tentatively name it BuzOff! Read on!  The substance is from the manufacturers, but in a synopsis of mine.

BuzOff is a Coil for the outdoors.  Unlike other coil-remedies (at the last count, the number of such products in the market being only slightly lower than the number of mosquitos in the neighbourhood!), this one scores with its mobility!  A mobile coil??  Yes, and since it is designed to protect you, mobility is supported by, what else, you!  These coils come in different sizes and shapes; they can be worn on your arms, legs, waist or head (this flexibility should score high in the mind of the users, since it provides them with the option of using

it closest to that specific part of the body they feel is the most vulnerable in a particular location).  Don't fret, the ergonomically designed coils do not burn the body (during the initial phase of usage, as is the case with everything else in life, one may get a couple of scalds, but the discerning would appreciate that is part of the learning and a small cost one pays for a bite-free future).  One can buy these coils of mixed sizes (the closest packaging we can think of is the multi-shaped-and-sized adhesive plasters) for various parts of the body.  After this the only trouble you need to take is to attach the coils to the body, light them up and go for your outdoor activity, glowing all the way. Once you are decked up properly, your childhood fantasy about being a miner deep down in the womb of mother earth, will also be partially fulfilled. You will look like a miner, only better, because you will have lovely glows emanating from the multiple coils.  So, obviously, the more coils you use simultaneously, the merrier!  The operating manual clearly states that lighting the coils should happen only after all the coils have been attached to the body; otherwise the number of scalds you suffer in the process will be proportionately higher.  Avoidable!

When you are in open spaces, the coils start behaving like chimney exhausts - they are designed to.  A good volume of smoke is generated to envelope you.  This is the primary defence mechanism and the idea is to hide you from the offending mosquitos.  They cannot bite you ifyou are behind a thick pall of smoke, right?  For full effect, the manufacturers recommend that you walk in `unlit' open spaces, thereby rendering the task of the mosquitos even more difficult in the dark.  If some egregious ones dodge the smokescreen successfully and break through to identify you as a desirable target, don't worry, they will have to locate some part of the body open for business, to apply proboscis to skin, that is, to bite, very quickly while you are on the move. Since your body is covered by the coil straps at various locations, the mosquitos will face a challenging task and will have to really earn your blood. Hence the recommendation to attach as many coils to your body as possible,

so that the reduced space limits your exposure.  The fumes are not noxious, actually they are just plain fumes and you can enhance the experience by choosing one of the premium coils aptly named RL (for Ralph Lauren), JL (for Jennifer Lopez)  or DO (for Davidoff) to enjoy a medley of smells (the word `fragrances' is eschewed by the manufacturers for some reason). 

As everyone knows, mosquitos abound around stagnant water bodies.  So, if you have purchased a `luxurious' villa located close to what was earlier a beautiful lake and has since been converted by criminally indifferent humans to a cesspool of sewage (this does sound like Vista!), the company offers you something more exciting.  By fitting a few boats with higher-capacity, heavy-duty coils (the quantum of smoke produced equals that from mid-sized factories) and by automating their movement across sections of the lake during evenings when people are likely to be outdoors, temporary eviction notice can be served on the abominable creatures for a couple of hours.  It is absolutely incidental that hardened individuals with fully blocked nostrils can also use the boats for rides on the lake, in a spectacularly miasmatic ambience, at no extra charge!!

You have surely heard about collateral damages like the kind Afghans suffer daily due to the war on terrorists.  Here is an opportunity to reap some collateral benefits from BuzOff. 

 -- If a good number of residents take to using BuzOff regularly, all the lights used for open spaces can be switched off for two hours or so, thereby saving electricity charges for everyone, since the collective glow will be adequate for people to stumble along without permanent bodily harm.  And, do recall that the overall effect of BuzOff is enhanced in the dark.

 -- During festivals like Deepavali, Karthigai and Halloween, people with coils can be manoeuvred into any creative configuration, to mirror the effect of arrangement of diyas, lights etc.  Imagine using intelligent diyas which will move when you so order.

 -- For any occasion involving firecrackers, BuzOff is especially useful since it makes candles, agarbathis etc redundant for lighting up crackers. You would love the unmatched convenience of lighting up from any of the coils attached to your body.  Smokers will also benefit in the same way, but this is not being advertised to    prevent the anti-smoking lobby from derailing the product.

 -- BuzOff is an admirable tool to help you jostle through crowded areas to have a ring-side view of any road-side activity (a very Indian trait).  But manufacturers caution that this be not used hyperactively.

One thing I dont understand is why the manufacturers are bent upon adding an absolutely useless footnote to their packaging - that `only female mosquitos can bite'.  This does not seem to have any relevance to their aim and could actually be counter productive.  But they insist.  Suicidal, you think??

Contemplating retirement, are you??

You are around 55 and nowadays frequently you find yourself lapsing into reveries of post-retirement possibilities, even as critical meetings you are supposed to be chairing are afoot.  You seem to care less and less for corporate shenanigans and many things official which you thought formed the fulcrum of your life, no longer seem to hold the same significance.  The year-end bonus number does not exhilarate you any longer. Well, you are beginning to contemplate retirement, are you??

You began a career at the age of 23 or so and have worked your backside off (happens if it has always been a desk-job and all the flesh seems to shift gradually and inexorably to the front during this period of sedentary existence) for nearly 35 years.  A reasonably hard diurnal toil for 12 hours or more all through.  You have provided for the family well and have accumulated more wealth than you imagined possible even midway through your career.  Your progeny is educated and employed well; daughters have married nicely.  You have a lovely house to live in and all the material comforts you need at this time of life.  And you believe you have adequate resources to protect  your current standard of life without killing yourself with work.  You look around and ask yourself the fundamental existential question as to why you need to slog any further.  You wonder why you cannot take it easy now and make time to do all those fantastic things you wanted to do, but could not because office work always cast a huge shadow over your life.  You also know that your colleagues have not started wondering when you will go, not yet.  Remember, the maxim in this context, as in cricket or films, is `go when people ask why now' - as against doing it when the overall sentiment is `good, about time'! or `long overdue!'.  You mull over this for a few months and consider all the pros and cons of bidding adieu to full time employment.  You bring your rich professional experience and personal judgement into play in making the decision in ripeness of time - 'yes, it is time to walk into the sunset'! But, my friend, it is not so simple; your decision is just one small step in the direction you want to go.  Getting those around you on board is going to cause some sleepless nights for you.

`What?  Are you nuts?  I know something in you was coming unhinged since you have been sporting that cross-eyed look for the last couple of months' - is the mild, initial response of the spouse.  You wish you had a camera on hand, that could have captured for posterity the look of absolute horror on her face, as if you are proposing a `streaking' venture during lunch time, along MG Road, with a couple of pilot cars blaring their sirens to announce the spectacular event!!  But then even if you had a camera, you may not have either the courage or the astuteness to get the job done because the response would have frontally assaulted you into a state of inaction, because you were pretty confident that you had covered all the angles well.  Now, the spouse's riposte could have been prompted by the mortal fear that she might also be forced to quit her job, thereby depriving her independence, financial and otherwise .  Or if she is not employed anyway, the prospect of the painful conversion of a part-time bug (in terms of limited exposure to you) into a full time pestilence could have justifiably produced that reaction.   Any amount of persuasion about spending more fun-time together, travelling the world etc is not going to pass muster with the wife when weighed on the balance with having you like a permanent millstone around her neck for the rest of her life.  If it was earlier the very logical argument that you `have to work till the kids are all settled', now it is a more emotional bleat - `what will you do sitting at home all the time?' that is popped at you.  That the `settled' in the foregoing sentence actually meant all your children successfully going through life towards grand-parenthood, with the expectation that you would continue to slog till then might have been unspoken but if your fuzzy brain did not register such subtleties, whose fault is that??

Given the above realistic scenario, your only choice is to retire from full time employment, but simultaneously enter into that banal world of part-time consulting work.   This single stroke of genius, never associated with you normally, enables you to position your `retirement' as something less sinister than what the spouse is conditioned to perceive.   This way you continue to remain a part time bug as far as she is concerned (actually this is not true; there is a small shift in the status to part-time pestilence, since your wife knows that the time available to you for causing inadvertent hardship to her and the society at large is much more). You continue to bring home some bacon  - not a whole lot, but that is never a serious bone of contention in this context whereas your being a permanent resident and homebody is; and the enigmatic world of consulting is so pliable and agnostic to age that you never have to contemplate full time retirement ever again!!  There are nonagenarian consultants hobbling around on crutches or carried to their assignments on stretchers in ambulances, simply because the world has forgotten how things were done 50 years ago.  This vanishing knowledge is in such stupendous demand, just to facilitate comparison with the current state of affairs and to help people gloat on the technological and other advancements achieved!  Bottom line is that you need to soften the blow on the wife by becoming a consultant, holding out the promise that you will not be a permanent fixture at home.  While this ploy may not ensure permanent peace on the home front, it will give you a temporary reprieve and enable you to get over the huge hump of the spouse's intransigence in the face of your imminent and disastrous `retirement'.

Now that your status in life has changed to that of a `semi-retired' person, how do those people who have only seen you as a workaholic all these decades deal with you??  Invariably, it is a mixed bag.  Those of your colleagues who have never really `worked' in life but are well-versed in ensuring their own longevity with exemplary `survival skills', will look down on you for seeking retirement outside the office instead of following their shining example.  They would believe you have made a bad bargain of a good situation by letting go of the monthly compensation which could have been yours for the next few years, with virtually the same `retiring' kind of life!  Other hard-working colleagues, would tend to feel envious of the fact that you could afford to retire while they still have to continue their struggle with sour-faced and bloody-minded bosses for personal financial reasons.  But the question that would surface every single time you meet an incredulous old colleague would be `But, tell me, sir, how do you spend your time'?  What they are actually asking is `what on earth do you know other than office work?? You have never had a hobby, were never involved in sports or games, did not have even nodding acquaintance with music or books; so their concern is probably very genuine.  You will be hard pressed to convince them that you are actually going to indulge in all those esoteric activities  from now on.  The odds are in your favour, though, because the prevalent belief is that you are going to vegetate out of real existence within the next few years thereby merging with the woodwork at home. When you tell such friendly souls that you are planning to be a consultant, doing some part-time work, the looks you get should realistically be interpreted to say `Ah! That! All we need is one more ruddy consultant'! 

Don't rejoice yet over your retirement.  You have only crossed half the hurdles and some of the toughest are yet to be conquered.  The immediate need, after you have given yourself reasonable resting time, is to first snag that consulting assignment without further ado.  This is the single crucial step that will redeem your retirement and prevent it from going over the precipice down into the cluttered valley of doomed and failed retirements.  Why?  Because this is the one talisman that is going to help ward off all those schemers in the family and neighbourhood from invading your time and space on the pretext that you have nothing to do and so are generally `available and at their disposal'.   With the 'Part-time Consultant' halo around you (evidenced by the presence in your vicinity of one or two mobile phones, a land-line, a lap top which is open all the time, a couple of tomes on the subjects you 'specialize' in and a pen poised on a half written page of a notebook), you can create a forbidding defence around you, which will deter people from trying to take advantage of your time with inane requests.   And if you add to your repertoire a couple of hobbies like reading or listening to music, gardening or community service (if you are a decent actor, for the short term it may even be adequate if you can pretend well to be doing any of these, but I would suggest truly cultivating some hobbies for the longer term), man, you are set!  Your wife cannot then send her full-time housekeeper or driver away to her uncle's brother-in-law's sister's cousin's friend's relative to do some chores; citing your endearing presence at home as the only reason).  Nor can the young couples around your home expectantly seek your help in entertaining their whining and snivelling two year olds for a few hours while they catch a movie or a concert.

Soon people will start wondering how mysteriously you are so much busier after retirement that when you were full time at work.  If this happens, yes, you have arrived as a successful retiree. Once you have crossed this rubicon and have survived about 6 months without descending into the pits of depression or hurrying back to full time employment to salvage self-respect, sense of purpose etc, of course goaded by jealous family and friends, you can start the celebrations!!  As a dignified retiree! Do it quietly though, lest people take notice!