Outside the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a hospital

Obviously no one in his senses would expect Holi-like colours and riotous festivities outside the ICU of a hospital.  But that fact should not deprive one of the right to be dismayed about what one gets to experience.  It was about 9 pm.  Family members of patients in ICU were just recovering from the utterly clinical and sanitized lecture-demonstration given to them by a seriously matronly `sister' who emitted strong signals that she had seen it all and had neither belief nor interest in interactive sessions with her audience.  Her icy cold tone, curt demeanour and stony visage, which was completely bereft of even vestiges of emotion, made for a compelling spectacle and no one even stirred during the 4 minutes, which actually seemed like 40! Come to think of it, everyone suddenly seemed to have developed amazing breath control and was breathing in and out at half the normal pace, just so that he or she did not inadvertently become the target of wrath of the presiding authority.  The lecture part of the performance sought to sear into the minds of listeners the rules of play for the duration of their stay outside the ICU; the demo part involved the protagonist and a superlatively submissive minion, who enacted the role of an `attendant' (meaning, a patient's family member or friend).

Nothing was left to guesswork and even the exact locations from which the attendant should execute chores were identified on the floor with circles painted in white.  Finally, the drama ended with the dire warning that no attendant could ever move away from the immediate vicinity , because the 'shout' could come any time; 'if the attendant was not around to answer ...............' - the rest was left to the imagination and mine ran riot thinking of an entire hospital bed, with all the paraphernalia (oxygen cylinder, array of drips, monitors etc), with the hapless patient still strapped and attached,  being sent crashing out of the ICU for the attendant to take care of, whenever he/she chose to be present again!  When the matron flashed one final glare and left, there was a palpable lifting of the chill which had descended on the scene, pretty much like what Gregory Peck experienced in the presence of you-know-what, in the movie The Omen.  Still, no one dared utter a word for half an hour in the aftermath!

The prognosis neither looked nor sounded good and we are not talking of what was happening inside the ICU.  Let me make this clear since the medical attention given was consistently excellent.  It was made clear that the attendants had the choice of `resting,' even though the hospital staff were programmed diligently to avoid that crucial word in this context and their general drift was something like `do it if you can'.  Support for this proposed activity came from some stone benches and rickety chairs strewn about.  The chairs especially merit a full sentence.  It was one of those arrangements whereby four chairs were clamped together, joined at the hip as it were, and seemed innocuous when a family sat down.  But God forbid if the sitter on either end suddenly decided, without notice, to assume a more vertical position by standing up. When such an abrupt transition occurred, his end of the sitting arrangement swung up pretty much like a see-saw, causing serious disruption in the working of the vitals of those who continue to be sitters.

Or the attendants could retire to another room close by to await the `shout'.  One look at the specified lodging convinced this scribe that the  hardship outside, perceived and real, was a bed of roses.  There was an abundant supply of mosquitoes everywhere - one wondered whether the hospital authorities were breeding them as pets, with some ulterior motive! Some very diffused lighting could be felt rather than seen  (as if the management wanted to impress the clientele with their effort at creating a dimly lit entertainment area but abandoned the idea halfway through), which discouraged any attempt at reading anything.  One could identify the outlines of  a couple of very ancient pedestal fans of monstrous proportions.  They seemed more adept at producing a constantly loud `whoosh',  frequently punctuated by loud crackling noises indicative of their inclination to take off sooner or later, than being successful sources of air circulation.  The hospital no doubt installed them to further their stated objective of  keeping everyone awake.  Frequent `shouts' for attendants from staff members ensured that even `trying to nod off' became a pronounced Sisyphean activity.  Remember that Greek hero who is part of mythology for his endlessly futile effort? This scribe's grouse is that this glorious tradition seems to have ceased; such gutsy but fruitless activity is no longer given due credit.

The process of a staff member shouting the name of a patient and calling for the related attendant itself provided some comic relief from time to time.  The hospital did not necessarily screen the names of the patients for eligibility for ICU - not part of the criteria - and this gave rise to some occasional confusion, petulance and mirth.  When the call was for `Rafique's attendant', `Ravi's attendant' went bleary-eyed and half-comatose to receive instructions, his only mistake being he was relatively more awake.  He unquestioningly bought medicines worth a few thousand rupees from the pharmacy, paying cash, without realizing he was procuring medicines for a stranger.  When the drugs reached the ICU, they were administered promptly and correctly to Rafique, thank God, because the ICU staff was vigorously trained to focus on the destination of the drugs rather than the delivery channel.  A few minutes later, `Ravi's attendant' was again jolted from stupor with instructions to haul another load of drugs and other consumables.  When he saw the list, the only identifiable item for him as a half-awake layman, was 'Inspection Gloves-50'. He querulously told the sister he had just delivered 50 gloves, among other things, ten minutes ago and asked whether that item formed part of the night-time diet for all inmates of the ICU including the staff! When the mystery was eventually solved, Rafique's attendant got admonished for dozing off and gave an IOU for the cost of the medicines to Ravi's attendant because the former's treasury situation did not permit such an outflow immediately.  Hope was that the final settlement would happen to everyone's satisfaction.

A smart attendant, quick on the uptake, became acutely aware that even if no `shout' came his way, he could neither read nor sleep during the tenure outside the ICU.  While the tendency to blame the hospital for the state of affairs was inevitable in the attendant-victim, a clear thinking individual could definitely rise above the mundane and see the process as well as outcome for what they truly were - masterstrokes in achieving desirable social behaviour.  Obviously,  the authorities were creating genuine empathy in the attendants for those inside the ICU, without too much dance and drama.  When their near and dear ones were lying in the ICU, either semi conscious or in pain, how could the attendants shamelessly seek creature comforts, as if everything was hunky-dory?  This state of deliberate deprivation, carefully organized by the hospital through well-orchestrated moves, resulted in the attendants suffering a bit themselves and thereby forced to dwell on the trauma of the inmates of ICU.  There could be no denying the fact that if the attendant stayed in an air-conditioned room with 400 TV channels and music for company and was able to read Steig Larsson's `The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest' (I was honest when I reaffirmed to my wife I read the book during the daytime) or sleep for 8 hours like a baby, forget about empathy, not even a fleeting thought about the ICU inmate would have crossed his mind.  So, the hospital's superior motivation and well laid out strategy to help people achieve the goal should come in for praise rather than criticism, according to this scribe.

If, in the process, some attendant unfortunately developed malaria after a few nights' co-existence with the hospital's invasive mosquitoes or if continuous stone-bench-sitting-and-sliding aggravated one's sciatica or if the `uplifting' contraption of chairs caused grievous physical injury or if mere sleeplessness for a few days culminated in disorientation bordering on dementia in some dainty darlings, the positive aspect was that they were in the right place! The venue was luckily a hospital and one could  undoubtedly count on very prompt medical attention.  What more, one may, with some good fortune and help from the hospital authorities, gain entry into the same ICU as a patient and (a) make others outside go through the meticulous course in empathizing that the hospital had designed and (b) satiate one's baser instincts by gloating over revenge on the society at large!

PS:  With profound apologies to and prayers for all those inside all ICUs!!

Psyche of a rabid Indian Cricket Fan

Year 1967.  I was given my College Cricket cap by our Physical Education Master, a very good man - God bless his soul - who also doubled up as the `Manager' (I deliberately steer away from the epithet `coach', since he never pretended to be one during my 4 years with the team) for all sports teams.  His edict to the group was very simple and stern.  `You should win everything in front of you', he said, as if he was in the league of Alexander the Great and Napolean Bonaparte knitted together, marshalling the best army around to conquer all.  That he was gentle and soft of speech did nothing to support such comparisons. But we knew he was a good college-level cricketer of his time, so we refrained from smirking.  He had a very uniquely strange mannerism. Every five minutes or so he used his elbows, whether he was talking to someone or was by himself, to firmly hitch up his trousers; as if they (trousers, not elbows) were inexorably going out of control by slipping down,  making him vulnerable to potentially malignant charges of indecent public exposure!!  Knowing what was imminent when we were in his presence, we could not help paying greater attention to the much-anticipated and wagered-on next hitch-up move of his, to the detriment of any wisdom we could have gleaned from his exhortations.  But, we need not have fretted much, since we heard substantially the same content delivered umpteen times during the next four years, before the commencement of every match we played.  In essence, he averred that every ball we bowled should fetch a wicket and every ball we faced should be hit for a boundary, no less, opponents be damned!!  Very simple rules to play by, eh?  He knew it was a tall order for any team, but that did not prevent him from laying it thick on us every single time. And, if you thought he was just kidding, forget it. He had the gall to admonish us whenever we failed (time and again, obviously) to implement his carefully crafted, straightforward strategy!

But he was/is not alone.  I know many other seasoned cricket aficionados, otherwise known to be mature,  balanced and serene individuals and judges of life, consistently exhibiting rabidly one-sided views when India is involved in a match.  Such people cannot bear to watch the best batsmen of the opposite team cobbling together a reasonable partnership against the weakest links in the Indian bowling attack; they cannot sit patiently and watch three overs in a test match pass, if India does not get a wicket.  Some of them are known to switch off the TV in a real huff, when what they want to see is not happening on the pitch.  Once a friend, frustrated by the unsatisfactory proceedings in an Indian innings, actually threw the remote accurately enough to break the TV screen and had to go into hiding for the next week to escape the wrath of his cricket-averse father.  Others scream at the Indian team members from the comfort of their homes and condemn them summarily for their inability to get the upper hand.  It is almost as if the opposition does not exist or is just waiting to be rolled over, swatted aside by an Indian team, which is not really at its best.

My own dear father, who is otherwise the quintessential guru for us in life, is a personification of such an India fan.  He is normally so judicious about everything else in life but unfailingly indulges in this strange behaviour when things do not go well for the Indian cricket team.  He just shreds all those in the team and their ancestors for their past and present, real and imagined `sins' mercilessly (he readily activates his mental archive to cull dates of abject batting and bowling failures, recall pathetic fielding lapses etc) and petulantly shuts off the TV (earlier it was the radio), forcing others to scurry in search of alternatives. This phase is momentary, as one can guess; when someone informs him of an Indian success sooner or later, he rushes back to the TV like a kid and transforms into the vociferous supporter again, having no qualms being all praise for the batsmen and bowlers he had abused earlier.  Cricket does that to Indians, I guess; nothing rational about it.

If one pauses to think about it, one would find the above credo echoed by about 80% (may be more?) of India's cricket crazy population, with reference to the performance of the Indian team.  The general expectation seems to be that India should thrash any opposition in any condition anywhere in the world, despite empirical evidence staring in our face to show the team is struggling, rebuilding and is in fact near the bottom of the pile in terms of capabilities. Put it down to the manic fervour generated in India for the game or sheer irrational partisan behaviour of the followers, but that is the way it is.  When India struggled and lost against England recently at home, it was amusing to find that all those fans, including some former players-turned-pundits, did not spare a thought to the collective departure of Laxman, Dravid, Ganguly, Zaheer Khan and Kumble from the team in the recent past, the startling decline in the form of Tendulkar, Harbhajan Gambhir and Sehwag and the consequent impact on the overall balance of the team as well as performance.  Even the most pollyannaish supporters of the team should have realized that the newcomers were not a patch on the experienced campaigners India had lost and it would take time for the fresh combination to mature and transform into a winning one. That India was expected to roll over a resurgent England which had a couple of top spinners who could exploit Indian conditions was in itself indicative of the madness prevailing amongst Indian fans; but the chorus of wails that rent the air when the inevitable happened was nothing short of comical.

Why else would we have this spectacle of Dhoni's credentials as a good captain being questioned as soon as he loses a few tests, only to be restored with greater fervour when his team hammers a limp Aussie side, which is itself going through a major transition? Or take the case of Sehwag.  Whenever he goes for one of his expansive strokes early in the innings and gets out, hordes of arm-chair critics vilify him for not being paitent enough to build an innings.  These are the same people who usually applaud and urge Sehwag in a frenzy, expecting him to complete a triple century in one day.  When he fails to click, their verdict is `lack of patience'.  Cruelly ironical, is n't it?  Or how else would one explain Ashwin being celebrated as a worthy offspinner when he takes wickets by the bucketful against a lowly New Zealand side, which has historically and consistently displayed a woeful inadequacy in dealing with spin, only to be reviled as a third rate bowler when he fails against a much better equipped England team?  That all these flip-flops happen within a three month period should tell us there is a serious dearth of `balance and equity' in what the fans think and do.

Then there is a similar extreme behaviour provoked by personal  biases, carefully nursed over many years with utmost irrationality.  The most recent demonstration of this came through today as we were watching the second day's play of the Mohali test between India and Australia.  This friend of mine, probably one of the most passionate and clear-headed analysts of the game generally, was all over Dhoni as a wicket keeper or batsman or captain for, well, everything he did or did not do!  No exclusions here, even though the friend did grudgingly concede that Dhoni is indeed a decent, albeit ungainly, batsman.  Improbable nudges going through gully or short leg became `very easy chances' for the wicket keeper when Dhoni was keeping and the vehemence with which he was pilloried was simply frightening.  To drive home the point, my friend kept telling me `even you would have taken that in your heydays' without realizing that it did not come through as a compliment.  The hyper-critical state deprives one of tact, I guess. To bolster this point of view, time and again, he brought in his mother-in-law into play, a la Boycott, saying she would have done the job better than Dhoni, as if that good woman had an extended wingspan of twenty feet.  The withering looks his wife gave him from the next seat did nothing to stop him.  I guess he has done this before and reaped the consequences when he goes home!!  Quickly I banished all attempts to defend the poor skipper (no point, really) and asked the gentleman why he disliked Dhoni so heartily.  Dinesh Karthik is or was a better wicket keeper, so Dhoni is a usurper, was the answer.  Aha, as simple as that!!

The question that hounds me is whether football enthusiasts from Argentina or Portugal are as abusive of Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo if either does not score in a match or occasionally fluffs an opportunity. Is this kind of behaviour something all pervasive regardless of sport and country or is this something insanely unique to Cricket and India??

After-Shocks Of Vishwaroopam, The Movie

When the pyrotechnics set off by some Muslim organizations had ironically covered Vishwaroopam in dark clouds, I was just about getting into the first flush of having found an enthusiastic producer for my own first script.  But that high was very ephemeral.  Even if he was troubled by the delay and all the cacophony around the release of Vishwaroopam, Kamala Haasan (KH) seemed relatively unperturbed; my potential producer, a first timer like me, (let us call him PP, for brevity's sake) was absolutely petrified, as if he was already losing millions per day, even before he had spent one penny on the venture.  Just because he had a vaguely sinister hunch that my script may attract similar vibes.

He was acting extremely skittish, like someone being hauled over extra-hot coal routine, specially made-to-order for him by me.  He decreed in no uncertain terms we had to `smartly' gauge public reaction to my script before he would even go looking for his wallet.  Otherwise the deal was off, he declared with a finality that sounds the death knell for a fledgling-going-aspiring scriptwriter.  Given the facts that even the most wizardly of trackers would have been hard put to locate a more unknown writer than this scribe and people were not really jostling outside my door offering to produce the movie, I had to agree with the PP even if I deemed the idea outrageously quixotic. Only because my story had no ingredient to inflame communal passions (my guess was that it was not going to inflame anything, but obviously I would not dream of sharing that bit with anyone); and the PP had dug his heels way into the ground, displaying not a sliver of intention to budge. 

KH encountered objections from one quarter which was apparently miffed by something most of us failed to notice in the movie (probably written or said in Arabic or some other alien language??) and most of us thought that the film just showed, in a truly cinematic way, what we have all read and seen in the media for a long time about terrorism - art reflecting life rather than warping something out of shape; so what was the uproar about?  But that is neither here nor there, because my problem was I had no clue where to start my quest to satisfy the PP with representative public responses to my script.  I reasoned with him that he should at least identify a few pockets of `opiners' he wants to hear from. But he was so paranoid that he thought the whole world was going to gang up against this yet-to-be-made movie, so was of no help whatsoever.  I was left to my own devices and therefore had to blunder along.

I decided to commence the experiment on home turf.  It was indeed very logical.  My immediate family has adequate population to do justice and more, to any new product launch survey and if I chose some ten of the members, I would undoubtedly have about twentyfive opinions to deal with.  Arithmetically confusing, but true; you know what psychoanalysts say about thinking with the right or the left side of the brain at different junctures and the consequent contradictions?  And - this is my theory, no one else to blame -  sometimes both sides are so tired of overwork or have depreciated heavily, a blissful emptiness is created and that is when probably the best and most rational responses come through. So, about two to three opinions from each on the same issue seemed par for the course. And, the best part is no one feels embarrassed about changing positions. 

My wife being my severest critic, I started with her; put it down to masochism!  She took three days to devour the script and came to me with a grim, stricken look.  She shook hear head in that especially hopeless way she reserves for some of the worst judgements on things to do with me, wordlessly dropped the script on my lap and walked away.  I opened what I thought was my magnum opus to-date  and was aghast to see serious sacrilege committed on the pages. Every second sentence (alright, I am being defensive --  every sentence had suffered some wringer-effect) was mercilessly slaughtered, cut, crossed out, with a river of `red' notes flowing alongside.  I realised that she had completely overhauled and rewritten the script, instead of giving me pointers about `offensive' content!!  PP might have preferred her version but that gave me no joy at all. Even as I was still writhing in agony, she came bustling back with that offending instrument, the red pen, and added with surgical precision and some flourish, a few more lines on pages 96, 114 and 176 and said she had forgotten a few things!  Talk of the thoroughness of some teachers!

As for the others, my mother and mother-in-law (who unsurprisingly agree on everything every single time because they steadfastly echo my wife) said they were offended by my characters always gorging on pizza, pasta, noodles or sandwiches but never once eat the ethnic idli or dosai or avial or puliyodarai.  And, because I never once make a mention of a temple in the whole script, they deemed the whole thing soulless!  My father bristled and admonished my hero for his mindless support of T20 cricket and the latter's scathing criticism of those who sit back and waste precious time watching test matches through five boring days.  He thought such childish attempts to besmirch an august institution like Test Cricket would never succeed and I would probably attract a couple of court cases for this part of the script.  My niece came out punching my heroine for opting to dump a promising but passionate career as a Carnatic musician for the sake of cohesion in the family and part time work as a fashion designer.  She strongly opined I was being retrograde and against the idea of women making meaningful choices to enhance their own lives.  She was going to complain to some women's organizations unless I removed the slur forthwith.  My brother and sister-in-law, both doctors, rebelled against the idea of one of their tribe in the story unethically prescribing all kinds of expensive and superfluous tests and medicines, once he knows the insurance company is paying for them.  Their take was,  while that practice is endemic in the industry, a movie should not highlight that and exacerbate the situation! They said the Indian Medical Association would definitely object to that.

 I decided to gamely move on to the domain outside my family and met a state government minister, who was also a leader of a political party.  After reading just the specific portion I had marked out for him, since he was a busy man, he categorically told me he would ask his party to protest against the way a politician is depicted in the story.  When I pointed out that my politician was a `good' one and worked for the well-being of people, he said that was indeed the problem because such a politician did not exist in reality.  He was worried that my movie could `corrupt' his partymen by showing them a fully functional, idealistic leader in the movie.  He might end up losing followers and consequently his ministership, all due to my stupid effort.  He did not mind the script coming out as a novel because he was assertive that his followers never read anything, so that did not matter.  He also had violent objections to a scene in which the minister takes immediate action to cancel a misguided project on the same day he becomes aware of serious issues associated with it.  He said that was a travesty of truth and no minister realistically would take any such action and endanger himself and his party.  By the time he finished, he was copiously frothing at his mouth, just as he normally did on party platforms and left me in no doubt that if my movie ever saw a ray of light, he would provide the requisite darkness and gloom to suffocate the light.

My former English professor was very critical of me for not including a couple of references to Shakespeare as well some scenes lifted from his tragedies.  When I politely pointed out that my story was a Thamizh comedy, he retorted all heroes have flaws, some tragic and some comic, regardless of what language they speak.  He asked me to resubmit the script after complying with his instructions for his review and appraisal.

Since my PP still craved for incremental inputs, I soldiered on and collected opinions over a period and made a compendium which was about a hundred times larger than the original script.  Industrialists, leaders of religious organizations, social activists, bureaucrats, union leaders, labourers, students, were all contributors and everyone seemed to seriously dislike something about the plot or a character or some part of the dialogue.  I realised that if they jointly or severally filed suits against the movie in courts, it might take some fifty years and two generations of judges to clear all the hurdles and I would be 110!!  When I pointed this out to the PP, he sheepishly said `may be, we should have just gone ahead and produced the movie like KH did, without making the populace aware of all the 'objectionable' things in our script'! Come to think of it, almost all the potential litigants against the probably-still-born-movie, would have watched it and gone home without remembering a thing (as is the norm with most movies nowadays), if we had not alerted them with details in writing!  On top of it, my PP said that this exercise of collecting opinions had cost him so much money, he probably would prefer not to venture into actual movie production, ever.  He was very logical in his stance that most of my potential audience, people known to me, have already read the script and may not want to watch the movie!! If they did, it would only be to ascertain if grounds still exist for blocking the movie and for potential litigation!

Now, I have to do a new script and find a new ally for production.  But, I am wiser for the experience and would insist on making the movie even before the producer reads my script, if that is possible!

Travails of a Vegetarian

Whenever a strict vegetarian steps out of his comfort zone in India into the big bad world, there are sinister elements lurking around every corner, waiting to sabotage his philosophy and practice regarding food.  It is true that the chances of this person remaining unviolated in terms of his intake have improved significantly over the decades; but that does not mean he will not be compromised at some point.  So, it is best to be on guard always, as my experience vouches.  I see that while things have changed, they have remained the same in some dimensions.  Choices of vegetarian food have multiplied in all parts of the world, no doubt.  But an unsuspecting vegetarian might momentarily end up being a carnivore, if he exposes the chinks in his armour even a wee bit and displays suicidal carelessness in matters of consumption.

We were recently in a Thai restaurant on the 2nd Avenue in Manhattan.  I had just ordered a vegetarian Pad Thai for myself.  Experience had taught me to be very specific in communicating to the waitress what does not constitute `vegetarian' food, while placing the order.  No meat, no fish, no bird, nothing that ever lived and died, I had explained to her and she had smiled what I optimistically interpreted as an `understanding' smile, giving me comfort.  When she was just about to turn away to execute our order, I remembered another crucial edict - `no shrimp paste' in the food, please!  Invariably, Thai vegetarian food ends up smelling of shrimp because that ubiquitous ingredient finds its way into some ready-made base used for many dishes; I have had to pay for two orders of a Thai meal due to the omission of this important footnote, even though more often than not, restaurants tend to magnanimously replace the order without fuss.  My wife was pretty sure that something would go awry with the order, even though we were at that specific restaurant for the umpteenth time in the last few years.  Well, we could only wait and see what the harvest would be like.

When the food arrived, my wife relished the first spoonful of her Tom Yum Goong, commiserating with me because that particular item, even in its vegetarian avatar,  had been a serial offender in my case with its strong shrimp paste flavour.  Then my Pad Thai arrived and I was all ready to invade the plate.  When I scooped up the first forkful, I was almost elated at not being assaulted by the shrimp smell but my spirits drooped since something vaguely unfamiliar did offend the nostrils.  After a full scale investigation involving smelling the food from various angles as well as using the fork for a near-forensic analysis of the dish, my dear wife proclaimed that it was safe for a vegetarian's consumption.  My heightened sense of smell being refined to the extreme, I was not very convinced and called the waitress to seek an explanation for what I knew was an hitherto-not-identified alien smell in the vegetarian Pad Thai.  That worthy swore that all the forbidden materials have been diligently kept out of my order and the dish had been prepared without using any ready-made base.  Left with no other alternative, I had to reluctantly ask her to smell the food and identify the offending material.  She did so and triumphantly declared `Sir, that is not non-vegetarian, it is just our oyster ....... sauce'!  Those dots between `oyster' and `sauce' represent the stutter in her delivery stride, as she realised the goof-up.  `Oh, but you cant have oyster sauce either, I guess'?, she said, commencing her retreat with the plate.  She was very apologetic, so was her manager and they replaced the order dutifully. I must say I enjoyed the meal because under such circumstances the final dish is always prepared with extra care. Now I have added one more item to the ever-lengthening list of `forbidden items', to be communicated at the time of ordering - Oyster/Fish Sauce!

It was not always like this.  Was far worse! When I arrived in Manila for my first overseas assignment in 1983, one of my first chores was to explore all avenues to get a fix on `somewhat edible' nourishment for lunch at the office, since I was forewarned by knowledgeable colleagues of the severe pitfalls I was sure to encounter.  After all, I was in a country which prided itself on its all-beef-and-pork routine!!  Armed with telephonic exhortations to the cafeteria from a Senior Vice President and physically supported by the Head of Administration, I had an extended meeting with the lady running that respectable institution.  I still clearly recollect the unadulteratedly baffled expression on her face, after I read the riot act to her in English regarding my food preferences and this was enunciated in Tagalog, the local language, for clarity and effect, by my companion.  Shell-shocked by this appallingly strange species that had invaded her territory, she asked softly `So, what exactly CAN you eat'?  After another huddle for half an hour, we finally narrowed down the options to vegetable noodles, vegetable fried rice and french fries, provided they were cooked without any lard or meat stock. She was so harassed by then, she probably needed immediate sustenance in the form of buckets of beef stew and pork cutlets by the dozens! After a couple of months of feeding me, this lady Cori, my `annadhaathaa' in Philippines, openly expressed her admiration for my perseverance in eating those two dishes she had long got terribly tired of making! She actually asked me to teach her to make a couple of other vegetarian dishes, in a massive display of sympathy and goodwill.

Office parties overseas were another certain source of trepidation for me because extensive pre-party confabulations with the hosts did not guarantee that I would not end up eating peanuts and drinking orange juice through the evening, much to the consternation of my colleagues.  I still remember one Christmas party, where the pride of place in the table was given to `lechon', a Filipino speciality which I had not encountered till then.  When this distinguished national dish of the country made its grand entry, carried by two bearers, I wished I did not have to make its acquaintance.  Lechon was, and still is, a full, charcoal-roasted pig in all its glory and was brought to the table in its `stretched-out-pig' form. When they started carving it with a saw and then a knife, singing and clapping all the while, I headed straight to the restroom, not to return in a hurry! Similarly, when we were at a seafood restaurant (yeah, I know; why did I have to go there and then complain, you want to know.  Protocol demanded that I be there and I just could not wriggle out, if that satisfies you) in Singapore and the order was delivered to our table, I cringed to see it was a shark-length fish. Unfortunately, the waiter had parked it on the table in such a way that one of its extremely dead eyes was scrutinizing me relentlessly, making me fidget.  A very good Chinese friend of mine, sitting next to me, felt my discomfiture and asked me whether the aforesaid silent communication process was upsetting me. Even before I could respond, he took a fork, dug the eye out along with some flesh and swallowed the stuff, with genuinely appreciative clicks of his tongue.  Later he clarified that was indeed one of the tastiest parts of the fish!!  Well, I did not have anything to eat there or elsewhere for the next couple of days!

I could go on.  About the time I was served a specially prepared 9-course vegetarian Cantonese marriage banquet in Hong Kong, when mushroom, then bamboo and later mushroom+bamboo appeared in different forms thrice each and I was close to puking by the 4th course.  Or that time in Taipei, when I had to eat a specifically-made-to-order (after intense struggle with the store manager, I must add) McDonald's bun (I don't want to dignify that with the title of burger), with a couple of pieces of zucchini pickle inside, served with french fries, apple pie and orange juice as lunch for 45 days at a stretch, because no restaurant in the vicinity had anything remotely meatless to offer!  Or that time in Korea when, despite my best efforts in faultless ordering, I got fried rice with a dozen shrimps and assorted meat pieces.  When I protested, the owner came out with a angrier-than-normal-scowl and yanked the dish to the kitchen only to bring it back in a jiffy, after deftly removing the shrimps out of the rice.  Obviously I lost confidence in the joint and declined further consumption in that establishment.  The positive fallout was that thereafter I had two Korean bank officers accompanying me like bodyguards,  for lunch every day, just to ensure that I got something to eat and that great country did not wilt under a true vegetarian's hungry curse.  Or that time when the entire lot of us went to Tokyo Joes, a crab and lobster joint and the restaurant had to actually send somebody out to fetch something vegetarian for me.  A whole lot of inedible salads etc came and true to legendary Japanese hospitality, Tokyo Joes footed the bill for me - the first time in their history they ordered food for a guest from outside and paid for it too, I was sure!

But this one should take the cake and everything else with that.  An American colleague of mine and I went to a European restaurant in Amsterdam for dinner. Since he knew my predilections regarding food very well, I left him to order for me and stepped out to take a call.  When I returned, this beaming friend told me he had ordered two portions of the same meat dish, which came with portions of salads and fries as sides.  He convincingly said `You know I hate vegetables and I know you don't eat meat.  So, this smart order means I take both the portions of the meat and you take all the salads and fries'.  Touche!!

My dear wife is acutely aware even now, of my extreme discomfiture in venturing into any intensely       un-vegetarian restaurants like a steak-house or a sea-food orgy of a place. So, she tries avoid all such invitations but we cannot be evasive all the time.  So, taking  a leaf out from my past experience, we do that you-take-all-seafoood-and-I-eat-all-salads routine whenever required.  What to do??

Festivals in India

Heart aflutter, like a student anxiously scrutinizing the notice board for examination results, I made the customary call to my mother in Madras one week before Deepavali.  Between them -  she and my dear father - they sift through a dozen almanacs, consult a couple of spiritual gurus; talk to a bunch of relatives (who are completely retired, yet stressed out due to overwork involving such critical issues); and also strain their well-calibrated antennae to trap information floating in the ether - all in an effort to fix the exact date on which our family is to celebrate Deepavali.  So, invariably this is what transpires. My dear wife, going by the very straightforward announcement by the government that 12th November is the holiday for the festival, organizes the mornings and evenings for a few days to the T, well in advance. Then her mother calls and tells her that the Mangalorean Deepavali is on the 13th, no questions asked and the commotion begins.  Neighbours who are true blue Bangaloreans (please observe how that one letter at the beginning changes things drastically!) vociferously advertise their intent to celebrate on the 11th because, well, their mothers told them that IS the day. Finally our matriarch imperially decrees over phone that we should unequivocally uphold our Iyengar heritage by doing the honours on the 14th morning between 4 am and 7 am.   An ancient uncle, a rabid Vaishnavite offering extreme advice on such matters gratis, calls and categorically tells us that we should diligently avert all traps set by the scheming Iyers, who want to celebrate on the previous day; as if he is marshaling troops to out-manoeuvre the enemy in battle.

The whole scheme of Deepavali in India is so dynamic and varied that once, when I called a friend in Mysore to wish him, instead of being cheerful and pleasant - true to the spirit of the festival - he barked at me on his cell phone and told me to buzz off; the angst was not my doing, but caused by the fact that his organization had decided to declare Deepavali holiday two days later, depriving him of the joy of being with his larger family and friends on that day.  So I learnt that it pays to be sensitive to regional differences in these matters and send email messages out instead of calling to greet.  To confound the confusion, celebrations are in the morning in some parts of South India (other parts seem to have rebelled sometime earlier and broken away from that tradition, because my wife swears that in Mangalore it has always been in the evening), while the North and West deliberately get out of bed a few hours late on that day, to make a point.  We really don't know whether they celebrate anything except Durga Pooja in the East-- blessed people.  May be they can add Mamata Pooja from next year??  That would be unique and noone else in India would probably want to celebrate that.

Similar confusion reigns in the case of many other festivals in India, since mothers, uncles and pandits (am not specifically mentioning fathers because they are, by default, folded into `mothers' as is well-known) are at this game all the time.   Take Janmashtami or Krishna Jayanthi, God Krishna's birthday, for instance.  Going by the Hindu calendar and knowing Krishna's birth star, the day could come only once a year, one would think.  But, people are simply averse to any unanimity regarding that one day to celebrate.  When I was a student, once I essayed into a rational exercise with all the elders ganging up to protect their turf, to find out why our neighbours were celebrating Krishna's birthday one day before we did - you guessed it, they were Iyers.  As is inevitable in these fuzzy matters, when they realised there was no way their distilled wisdom was going to be adequate to win the day, the conversation abruptly ended with my grandfather sternly declaring in that special tone which brooked no further argument and indicated an immediate shutdown of democratic debate, that I was too young to comprehend such weighty issues.  I am sure similar problems exist with the birthdays of whole host of gods in the Hindu pantheon, like Subramanya, Ganesha and Rama.  Perhaps Shiva and Dasaratha, as devoted parents, deliberately misrepresented birthdates of their progeny, to persuade the rishis at the time of their intake into the gurukul!  Thereby creating multiple birthdates for their wards?  And perhaps, that was the genesis of the subsequently prevalent practice of parents initiating their children into school with a lie - a modified date of birth for convenience!

If we have such difficulty in having a uniform date for festivals, is it surprising that the lore, mythological and otherwise, attached to a festival like Deepavali, is also different in regions?  I grew up in the South, listening to the story of Narakasura, a rampaging demon being killed on that day by God Krishna and the latter enjoining the populace to celebrate the day as Deepavali, with rows of brightly lit lamps.  When I moved to Delhi, I realised that Diwali was being celebrated there to commemorate the return of God Rama from his arduous life in the forest for 14 years, after overcoming the evil Ravana.  With the change in the spelling, the underlying reason also shifted - tectonically by a whole yuga, from Dwapara to Treta! The saving grace is just that both the interpretations stress that the celebration is for the demolition of evil forces by the good ones.  Thank
God that good sense has so far prevailed to retain that overarching reason.  Similarly, the story behind Dussehra also differs from region to region.  Generally the festival glorifies Goddess Durga, who annihilated evil in the form of Mahishasura and in the East, this theme prevails.  In the North, God Rama again makes his presence felt by getting the nine days celebrated as Ramlila.  In the South, contemporary Dussehra has become more social and cultural, with the religious significance receding a bit.  Of course, most of the Hindu gods find their place in the Kolu in miniature form.

Look at the western world's calendar for festivals; they have set dates for Chistmas, Thanksgiving and Halloween.  There has been no attempt by any faction to celebrate these festivals on other days for whatever reason, I presume.  Provides for simplicity and takes out the confusion factor completely.

Do I sound like I would prefer a uniform date for our festivals also?   Nice, but I think that would be too pat for India.  We do enjoy and thrive on the confusion caused by such inconsistencies in life.  No, I would stick with what we have and be buffeted by the unpredictable variations that come along with the festivals.  They augment the fun.  And, I definitely do not want to miss calling my mother to find out when Deepavali arrives at our home - there is some thrill in that.  And remember the mothers, pandits and uncles - they have something exciting to do for a fortnight and I would hate to deprive them of that fun.

Garbage Dump that is Bangalore!

No, you read it right; there is no mistake.  The title is intentionally that.  The reason is probably pretty obvious to those who have made Bangalore their abode, but others will require elucidation, which begins NOW.   During the past two months, Bangalore's politically driven and absolutely useless administrative set-up is so mixed up with garbage that it has become conveniently redundant to make any distinction between the two.  When the news media got tired of the saga of politicians' shameful shenanigans - small, medium and big (one size does not fit all in this field because hierarchy is critical) - they thrived on stories of garbage lying around in the city, uncleared for weeks.  A lot of like-minded people agreed with this scribe that they could not figure out what caused the more offensive part of that all-pervasive stink, the garbage piles or the political and bureaucratic classes (let us refer to this group collectively as Masters of Garbage or MoG, for the sake of brevity and convenience) tasked with keeping the city relatively clean.  As we go to press with this, suspicion is gaining ascendancy that there has been an effective and silent merger of the two parts - the garbage and MoG; the latter seem to be voluntarily and comfortably hiding somewhere under the mounds of garbage to escape the wrath of the public.  To boot, courts are sniping at MoG to act immediately, with some dire legal threats.

As is customary in India in matters relating to public funds, garbage disposal also provides immense scope for MoG to exploit for personal gains.  This group is tickled pink by the idea of using their own acolytes and sycophants as designated contractors and making a `clean and healthy' profit out of garbage. Of course, MoG diligently ensures that the best qualification such contractors have is virtually no experience or expertise in garbage disposal.  MoG's nexus with such contractors who actually pretend to clear garbage once in a while, pocket increasing amounts of money from the local government as charges and share a sizable portion (no, not of the garbage but the money) with the former, is a fool-proof mechanism perfected over the years by `public servants' in government for all kinds of contract dole-outs.  The problem is, as usual, that not even half the sanctioned funds get used for the assigned purpose because of leakages. That also means the contractor has far less resources to do the job and reluctantly does a quarter of the required work.  Accountability is non existent simply because this is a classic case of `fence eating the crop'.

The above situation is further complicated by health-conscious villagers around Bangalore suddenly developing the temerity to ask the government why their villages should act as dumps for Bangalore's garbage.  How can they?  The city has given them so much (!!), what is a daily dose of  some hundred tonnes of garbage in return?  While MoG is roiled seriously at this revolt, they cannot openly retaliate; not because their collective  conscience has woken up from the perpetually moribund state and their minds' eyes have suddenly been opened to the physical and moral wrong being perpetrated on the villagers; but because ultimately they need all the votes from all those surrounding villages.  Urban dwellers are probably not going to vote anyway for the party in power because garbage is not being cleared, among other things; it is not politically savvy to be bitten from both ends!  The only prudent thing to do is to look for another set of unsuspecting villages further out, which will be suckered into receiving `the wealth of garbage' with open arms, using, what else - bribes to the village chieftains and other important folks and an one-time-bonus of toddy and trinkets for the general populace.  This works better for the MoG because with the garbage moving out to the next concentric circle around the city, distance increases from Bangalore and garbage disposal can justifiably become costlier.  Who do you think benefits??

A somewhat optimistic, brave, new officer was indeed put in charge of the utility that oversees the garbage disposal.  He started in earnest by going around the city early in the morning, talking to workers and encouraging them to do the needful.  He seemed enthusiastic, despite the stink associated with his rounds and our hearts warmed to him.  Agreements with all existing contractors were to be cancelled and companies with expertise were to be brought in for garbage disposal.  Simultaneously he also pushed the city government to put out rules regarding garbage segregation at the source, that is, at people's homes.  Well begun, we thought.   But, within a month or so, this officer has sought a transfer out of that, errr, garbage!  We do not know the exact provocation for this request, but we can surely hazard a good guess.  If the steps taken are allowed to fructify, the racketeering in garbage will reduce significantly and clearing might truly happen.   Companies with expertise, especially the foreign ones, may not `participate' in the established `you-line-my-pocket-and-I-line-yours' routine, thereby depriving the MoG of serious cashflow.  They may actually do a good job, instituting proper recycling processes etc, which will shut down this avenue for MoG forever.  More critically, if this succeeds, what about all those other dysfunctional areas like road-repairs and other civic work?  Could there be a clamour for change in all those too, thereby accelerating the deprivation of the MoG?  With so much at stake, would the MoG permit such good officers to succeed?  Obviously not.

Now, Bangaloreans themselves do not come out smelling like roses, from this garbage crisis.  A very simple mechanism to segregate dry, wet and other wastes was communicated to everyone.  Each household was to hand over segregated waste to the cleaners.  Instead of doing this bit diligently, mixed garbage was handed over, rejected by the cleaners and dutifully dumped by our own respected fellow citizens in the usual place, the street corners.  Actually one serious lady cleaner told the media `if educated people like these do not segregate properly after all the instructions, what do we cleaners do'?  We can conveniently blame the cleaners, the system, the city government and everyone else in and out of sight, for various things like lack of training, poor communication, absence of infrastructure etc.  But, ultimately we are not talking rocket science, but garbage, for God's sake.  How difficult is it to adhere to some basics and ensure that we do not provide any excuse to anyone to dump the garbage back on the roadside??  If we cannot even do that, do we deserve anything better than what we get now?  Without the active involvement and co-operation of the people at ground level, no such initiative will succeed and despite all the hullabaloo created by city dwellers, as of now we are part of the problem, not the solution.

It is funny that legislators and city government officials from Bangalore regularly do foreign jaunts to exotic locations to learn governance and management but things seldom get better and quality of life in the city goes down a few notches annually.  There is a city in Gujarat, which almost got overwhelmed by plague a decade or so back - Surat.  Today it is very clean, thanks to the work of a couple of administrators, one of them is a resident of Bangalore now, I believe.  So, the city need not look elsewhere to get a blueprint of a possible solution.  But, is there a desire to do that?  If there is, city officials could have learnt temporary solutions from neighbouring cities like Chennai, whose solution for garbage disposal may not be ideal but at least it seems to work.  But given the political and chauvinistic sensitivity, that would be anathema, I am sure.  So why not Gujarat, which is politically aligned to Bangalore and does not need Cauvery water from Karnataka? Ultimately, if politicians, bureaucrats, contractors and people themselves do not collectively rise above the garbage levels we have all sunk to, in order to find lasting solutions, who is to blame?

Beyond Shelf-Life

`Let me serve the public for a few more years', the reporter can barely decipher, through an educated guess,  what this once-eminent orator-politician is whispering hoarsely, hampered by ill-health.  The former was granted a thirty second interview with the ailing leader. The guardians of the party shrewdly concluded that anything longer would expose the all-chinks-no-armour condition of the leader and the reporter too was hoping only to confirm that the leader was breathing still. The leader's verbal output is an incomprehensible jumble of sibilants and plain hot air, mingling with strong vapours of onion and garlic from the breakfast. Lip movement is of scant help in determining what he intends to convey.  The attendant, who is the seventy year old son of the elder statesman and a frustrated and desperate forever-waiting-in-the-wings-leader himself, smiles broadly and almost triumphantly; all eagerness, he asserts that the `leader is as clear in his thinking and lucid in communication today as he was ten years back'.  The reporter cannot recall it being this bad a decade ago and it was a major disaster then.  But though aghast, he wisely decides against any contradiction, minding his own physical welfare.

The nonagenarian leader has lived the last twenty years of his life, vaguely recognizing only silhouettes of even elephants brought by sycophantic followers to garland him, from time to time.  Being the original visionary, he has been able to rule his kingdom, using the eyes of lesser human beings -a la Dridhirashtra- around him.  The only saving grace is that his hearing faculty still remains excellent, as evidenced by the fact that he recently expelled three unsuspecting and indiscreet minions from the party because they were heard, at a reasonable distance but within his earshot, discussing the consequences to the party when `the great leader' kicked the bucket.  And the Policy Making Committee had promptly and jubilantly decided the next day that equipped with just that single ability in an otherwise severely disabled physique, the leader can run the party and possibly the government for the next five years; some brainless pollyannas hoped for ten, driven by their extreme anxiety about being swept prematurely into political wilderness. All because the leader has been the lone vote-catcher for 60 years for the languishing party, which was thrashed badly in the last election.

Sounds very familiar in the Indian context??  One can be sure that there are about ten politicians like this in every state, one for each party, holding forth from a wheelchair, kept alive by an expensive and state-of-the-art artificial support system funded by the government when the leader was in power.  Well, may be somewhat exaggerated,  but not a lot.  Why are we so fond of keeping such half-dead political leaders in the limelight, way beyond their shelf life??  Is it because we do not have good substitutes?  Certainly not.  The reason is more like the inability of the subsequent generations to dislodge the old bandicoots, who have tasted blood and want to perpetuate their stronghold.  And the rather insecure and less confident younger politicians are mortally afraid of an abrupt collapse of their own political world if the wily old foxes withdraw intentionally or otherwise, which again is a state of mind carefully created and nurtured by the senior leaders for their own benefit.  This explains why sixty year olds are considered `young blood' in most parties in India and we have seventy year old debutant ministers in governments.

But what is even more puzzling is that politics in not the only domain wherein this phenomenon is uniquely manifest.  Take the music industry for example.  One should be amazed by every upcoming playback singer and music director, in clear displays of utter sycophancy towards an eighty year old singer who was an undisputed queen-bee earlier, exhorting her to keep `those superb melodies' flowing for ever. When, in reality, she can barely hold her voice steady for a chit-chat.  No doubt, she is a legend, has an absolutely enviable body of work done over 50 years and completely deserves to be deified.  But is that a good enough justification for her to have continued singing odd songs in a shaking voice, which does not even have a vague resemblance to the melodious one of her heydays, trembling and croaking her way through a few lines of lyric??  Pitiably, when you hear the recent numbers of this lady, you actually get so offended that you dont even want to listen to all those fascinating songs of yore.  Being such a good musician, it is not as if this lady cannot tell the difference between what she was and what she is now.  So, why does she inflict this on herself and others, knowing fully well that she is well past her sell-by-date??  Can't she see that a dignified and complete exit to the sidelines, where she can truly bathe in the glory of being a great mentor or a guiding spirit, is probably going to serve her interests better, with all that glorious work standing her in good stead?

What about Sports?  Cricket, specifically? Some astute and perceptive cricketers who have served the country with great distinction, seem to have kept their fingers on the pulse of their careers and timed their retirements so exquisitely that people are left wondering `A pity; he could have played for a couple of years more'.  This has happened twice in the past year and our respect for such individuals has not diminished one bit even though they wont be in the limelight as players.  And then we have this demi god of a cricketer, who has always struck you as a wise and dignified individual all through his career, deciding to hang around even after he has himself admitted that `not much cricket is left in him'.  His recent performance has been up and down by his own high standards and his fan following has plummeted a bit.  One heard clear murmurs of `isn't it time for retirement' in the public domain; something that was anathema just a year back is being aired freely now.  But he hangs on - God only knows for what! Money or TV time or fame cannot be the reason because he has seen it all and must be beyond all that.  Loving cricket cannot be the only reason because a lot of people love cricket.   He may still score a couple of centuries and send unadulterated fans into raptures, but is it worth the risk of being lowered a few notches from being the game's presiding deity to just another great player?  One cannot fathom this at all.

And then, we had that rather unedifying spectacle of two ageing tennis players with bloated egos, repeatedly getting into public spats, culminating in an ugly showdown regarding selection for Olympics.  A lot of dirty linen was washed in public and that served only to divide even the players, while considerably dimming the aura of success that shone on these two individuals, thanks to their significant achievements in doubles play, never before witnessed among Indian players.  Could these two have gracefully given way to younger players earlier and avoided all this muck?

Certainly such specimens abound in other spheres too.  It looks like India suffers from this syndrome, despite the fact that we have our population coming out of nooks and crannies and youngsters are snapping at the heels of the earlier generation in all facets of life.   It would be nice to see the oldies, however great they have been, willingly and happily getting out of the way a bit earlier and actively mentoring youngsters who can take over the mantle eventually.  Think about it; innumerable gifted teachers have done exactly that, all through the ages.  But then those teachers did not really bask in the glory called limelight, I guess.  Is that the difference??