Questions and counter-questions; no answers!!

Even if you are an occasional watcher of that abomination called news hour on prime-time TV, like this scribe, you don't have to be very perceptive to figure out something rather ridiculous is going on. This tactic all mediocre politicians (mostly that is what we can boast of) use, when they are painted into a corner by a disturbing query from the opposite number or the anchor about some misdeed of their tribe.  They try dexterously to dance around the periphery and stonewall (for exactly these skills they are the anointed spokespersons of their respective parties) because the answer is something which will show them in unflattering light.  When they realize their plight, they use the final asthra in their armour in order to wriggle out of the tight corner - they effortlessly slide back to the oft-used tactic of delving into their archives and posing a counter question in the same domain, which shames the opposition .  No answer is provided, but the problem is solved.  While the younger generation of politicians attempts to provide some answer, however weak, the old bandicoots are shameless experts in exploiting this strategy.


The 1965 Thamizh movie `Thiruvilayadal' is about how Lord Shiva physically comes to the rescue of serious devotees in times of trouble.  One episode shows Shiva trying to help a small-time struggler of a  poet compete in the king's court, in a contest of verses to answer a question giving the King sleepless nights.  Shiva descends to earth, commiserates with the poet, who is desperately trying to compose the verse for the contest and without disclosing his own identity, offers to provide the verse, encouraging the poet to plagiarize - not the right role model for kids,  but then Gods can do what they please, right?   The poet bristles at having to borrow the verse of the stranger and pooh-poohs the idea, expressing doubts about the capability of Shiva.  So, Shiva wants to settle the matter through a session of catechism between the two and asks the poet `do you want to ask the questions or do I ask them'?  The answer from the poet - and he says this without even pausing for breath or batting an eye-lid - is etched in the memory of all Thamizh moviegoers for life - `No, No, I will ask the questions and you answer; because I only know the questions, never the answers'.  This classic line repeatedly plays in the absurd theatre of contemporary Indian politicians, whenever they are asked an inconvenient question.  In response, they go through plain evasion, then switch to equivocation and finally, when they see no way out, they raise a counter-question, knowing fully well that an answer will not be forthcoming.

Take the latest example of this worthy from Congress, who will remain unnamed (a clue: he is highly prone to this foot-in-the-mouth disease, his first name begins with D and ends with Y and  is a shameless practitioner of sycophancy) and who had this laughable poser in the context of the Supreme Court saying that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is a `caged parrot, with many masters'.  Not a single person with even a modicum of intelligence and understanding of ground realities of Indian politics, would have a problem with that super-accurate statement of the court, since CBI has long become subservient to the government of the day and has been a tool to beat its opponents with.  Obviously this individual does not measure up to the parameters specified above and fails to comprehend why the court said what it said.  He wants to play holier than thou and develops a sudden love for our institutions overnight.  So, instead of providing a rational answer to the court and public to rebut or explain as to how the government can improve things with reference to CBI, he has the temerity to ask his own question: `Are we not belittling our institutions by calling them parrots etc'? What an astounding level of brazenness in one who is a seasoned politician? Or is this so only because he is a seasoned politician? If anyone has unabashedly belittled our institutions day in and day out, there should be absolutely no doubt that it is our politicians of all hues.  Just look at our parliament and assemblies when they are in session and the charades that go on in the name of democracy, if you need proof.  And here is D......Y saheb, shedding tears even the crocodiles would find hard to match!

How about the Gujarat riots of 2002, consequent to that horrendous incident at Godhra?  Nearly 1100 people perished and the arson scarred the Indian psyche for good in the aftermath.  Various inquisitions might have been held and the inconclusive verdicts issued, deliberately or otherwise.  But, there is no doubt that ultimately the government of the day should bear at least moral responsibility if not more.  Congress never tires of raising the uncomfortable question of the government's and Chief Minister's culpability for the pogrom, especially when they find themselves mired in more than the usual quota of scams.  Tired of squeamishly providing unconvincing responses for over a decade, of late BJP has started countering with their own question: `What happened in 1984 after the anti-Sikh riots? Did the government and the Prime Minister (since this happened in Delhi) accept accountability and resign or what?'.  Now, between the two parties, they probably think the matter is settled and they can move on to the next phase of their diabolical existence. But the general populace, the most affected party, is left in the lurch, still looking for some kind of closure with judgements from the courts delayed for almost one generation in one case.

Thanks to the devious practices of the political bigwigs, even common men, who are sympathizers of these parties, resort to similar tactics, when confronted with uncomfortable questions.  Recently, during a heated discussion involving a mixed group of people owing allegiance to different parties, a rabid BJP follower wondered why our External Affairs Minister should visit China and kow-tow there when the Chinese army had ingressed into Indian territory in Ladakh, obviously with the approval of the government.  He averred that Salman Kurshid's visit as well as the visit of the Chinese Prime Minister to India should be summarily cancelled by India, until China restores status-quo-ante.  There are a hundred diplomatic nuances surrounding such visits, which could have been the basis for a smart, well thought-out response from the Congress member in the group.  But his retort was typically shallow -`Aha, what was the venerable BJP Prime Minister doing, fiddling with his Pakistani counterpart, when that country was setting Kargil on fire'? This is what happens when leaders do not display the maturity and political savvy to provide reasoned responses to questions; how would the tiniest cogs in the wheel and minions behave differently?

When the 2G scam was raging and the details were being discussed threadbare everywhere, fortunately for the ruling party, the mining and land allotment scams surfaced almost simultaneously in Karnataka as minor reprieves, even though the numbers involved were nowhere comparable.  The demand of the opposition for the resignation of the Prime Minister was met with a cool `Why is not the Karnataka Chief Minister resigning, even after having been indicted by the court for corruption in land allotment?' was the answering question from the ruling party.  This did puncture a hole in the wheel of the opposition, regardless of its hoarse protests that the situations were not comparable (are they not?).  But once again, instead of a question and an answer, we ended up with two questions and nowhere to go.

This pitiful game will continue until our political culture changes and for that we need a good crop of genuine leaders with loads of maturity and willingness to accept their mistakes.  That is not going to happen in a hurry because as my wife usually says, one can wake somebody who is actually sleeping; how do you wake up someone who is pretending to be asleep?  Yes, our politicians have to crawl out of their own self-inflicted coma first, for things to show semblance of transformation.  Until then, we can only dumbly watch the flow of counter questions!!



 

Awkward Memory Outages

Recently, a good friend was explaining to me how acutely stricken he was when he suddenly blanked out on the name of the wife of his closest friend and neighbour for fifteen years.  The fact that my friend turned beet-red in the face even as he was describing this to me a few months later, told me something should have been seriously out of kilter with him.  The neighbour had come asking my friend, who was trying to fix something in his car, where Sunita was.  Half concentrating on what he was doing, my friend turned and looked at the neighbour blankly, not comprehending why he was being asked the question, since he just did not `recognize' the name in that context.  He must have been gaping pretty stupidly for the neighbour to repeat the question irritably before moving away in his quest of a more responsive audience! For the next half an hour the witless man had ignored his car and struggled to retrieve that single nugget from his memory bank - who was Sunita and why was he being questioned about her?  Since the thorough internal search did not yield any dividend, he had to seek enlightenment from known external founts of knowledge; without losing time he turned to the one he had close at home. He explained the context to his own wife and asked her, knowing vaguely that he was well on the way to making an ass of himself and providing fodder to his wife for the next millennium to tease him. When his wife gave him that especially odd look (which translated into `why are you being more of a mutt today than usual'?) and exclaimed that the neighbour was indeed looking for his spouse, my friend soundlessly dissolved into a heap of embarrassment.  Deservedly so.  And he avoided crossing the path of his neighbour or his wife for the next few weeks (he would  have gladly avoided his own wife too, if he knew how), until he was certain  they had forgotten the rather humiliating affair.  His wife, however, ruthlessly and unabashedly uses that episode as an `asthra' to ensure that the friend maintains the desired degree of malleability and ductility at all times.

You say this happens to everyone?  Probably.  I see brain's memory bank as a whole lot of pigeon holes into which things are archived.  And the holes are all brightly lit, so that one can identify the contents during searches.  What happens when there is a momentary power outage, impeding retrieval of the desired information at a given moment?  Well, one struggles and turns beet-red, as my friend did.  One does not have to be with one leg in the grave or within striking distance of amnesia or Alzheimers to fall a victim to this pestilence.  This happens to healthy people in their prime routinely, so nothing to worry about except the immediate discomfiture.  There may be a thousand unconvincing explanations as to why this happens, but that is neither here nor there.

The other day, I woke up in the morning with a bee in my bonnet, as it were.  There was an intrusive buzz, which I could not banish despite concerted efforts.  I ignored the distraction for a while, but during breakfast it dawned on me that the buzz was actually the tune of a Thamizh film song.  With some unifocal effort, I could decipher the contours of the tune but my success trailed off beyond that. I could not identify or recall anything else - not the lyrics, not the singer, not the movie, nothing else.  I went about my chores for half a day, (which included two seemingly important conference calls on earth-shaking subjects like Liquidity Risk, Capital Adequacy, Governance issues) like someone who had a distinctly alien substance stuck in his throat, neither to be swallowed nor to be spat out.  All the while, this intriguing tune was playing in my mind as if in a loop.  When someone was expressing a serious concern about the extant asset liability mismatch and liquidity problems , I was screwing up my face in agony, trying to remember at least a few words from the lyrics of the song, so that full identification became possible by googling.  Another participant in the call, seeing me overwrought, thought that I was being uncharacteristically and needlessly emotional about mundane corporate matters and wanted to pacify me, offering me a glass of cold water.  Lunch and tea came and went without any improvement in the situation and I was getting increasingly agitated by my failure to put the finger on the nub.  I shed all inhibition about my singing ability or the acute lack of it and actually hummed the tune over phone to a friend, who revels in Thamizh film songs.  Unfortunately, to him, my off-key humming sounded like twelve different songs and when I rejected all his suggestions,  he angrily retorted that I ought to provide a more decent clue.  My glum look during dinner prompted my worried wife to ask what was wrong. Unfortunately she was no pundit with Thamizh film songs, so I did not see even a remote chance of her solving the puzzle for me.  A little after 2 a.m next day, when I got up for water, just one sleepy sip proved so potent that I attained `realisation' - the song came to me in a flash.  `Vannam Konda Vennilave' from Sigaram, a 1991 movie.  I hastened to listen to the song on Youtube a couple of times and with a sense of elation, went back to sleep.  What I wonder about is why and how did that particular song worm into my consciousness like a `canker in the bud' as the bard put it and why the resolution finally appeared on the horizon at that specific juncture.  I will never find out, I guess.

The other phenomenon that always puzzles me is that one can vividly remember inane things from one's childhood (events like the wild fisticuffs after a not-so-neutral umpire sheepishly made a ridiculously late no-ball call off the last ball of the match, to artificially `set-up' victory for one team just to hurt his `enemy' who was the captain of the other team) whereas much more recent events and people involved therein have already been consigned to oblivion by the memory.  How do you explain the fact that I can recall the seating arrangement in my VI class from about 50 years ago, can reel off the names of all classmates while ticking off their faces in my memory, but when accosted by a colleague of recent vintage, I had to awkwardly wait for him to re-introduce himself so that I got his name.  It cannot be because we have lived with childhood memories longer - not all are rehashed frequently in later life.  Is it because childhood memories are far more pleasant for most of us and are therefore entrenched well for retrieval at will??

 May be the answer lies in what my senior colleague proved once with evidence.  He had bustled into the room and asked a bunch of us if we remembered what the bank's revenue numbers were in the year 1981-82 (this was in 1985) and most of us just shrugged him off instantly.  Who was interested in remembering a three-year-old statistic from the bank's performance, now that the bonus has been digested?  This senior colleague then recalled not only that but various other related numbers, much to our amusement.  A few days later, he again barged in and innocently asked a couple of us `do you know which two batsmen were at the crease when Wesley Hall began the last over in the tied test of 1960 between Australia and West Indies?'.  At least three people had the correct answer (Grout and Benaud).  The senior colleague cackled and pointed out that we could not remember revenue numbers from 3 years back , but the other vignette came back to us after 25 years.  His theory was that people remembered what they `wanted' to remember.  Is that it?  May be, but then, strangely even when you maniacally want to recall something, that something eludes you like a veritable eel.

You know what is funny about this whole post?  I have been chewing the cud on this for quite a bit of time and even had a title ready.  It is a phrase used to signify something that is nagging and elusive, remains stubbornly nebulous and perseveres in being unresolved - an answer you know but cannot just put your arms around.  The problem is I have got hit by `memory outage', cannot seem to recollect what that phrase is and have had to resort to a lesser alternative.  It is not one of those run-of-the-mill phrases but something very catchy, used rather selectively but has deserted me completely.   I have asked a few people but they just look at me as if I have grown horns overnight.  It is a pity I cannot give any other clue, because I have no idea.  Can you help??







   

A different kind of migration!

If the reader belongs to the generation which went to school in the 60s and 70s, he/she would recall all those clarion calls made by ancient emperors when their borders were assaulted and the army was short of brawn and bodies.  The king asked each household in the kingdom to volunteer at least one able-bodied man to the war-front.   People did realise that the king was being nice and that `volunteer' bit did not deceive them;  they understood  it was actually a camouflaged mandate to be obeyed by citizens without demur.   Those who were not propelled to comply by bubbling patriotic fervour, were coerced to do so by the stalking fear of humiliation and ostracism from their own folk and the society at large.  The King himself was not overly concerned about the exhortation being labelled `sexist' in calling only able-bodied 'men', because even if the female of the household was bigger in frame, she certainly preferred that the lesser body be always carted to face the poisoned arrows, boiling oil and inebriated elephants running amok.  And more often than not, the men plumped consciously and wisely for what they perceived as the lesser of two evils and were probably happier staring down the dangers of war, rather than live the life of the downtrodden at home, greatly disadvantaged by their own inferior physique! A situation my dear father describes pithily as `the shade of the street-side neem tree being infinitely better than the discomfort of home'!!

One wonders what the citizenry's response would be, if such a clarion call were to originate from our current-day government.  Don't get this scribe wrong, he does not even entertain the vaguest intention of willfully maligning his compatriots as lily-livered.  He is just being a pragmatist in taking cognizance of all the morbid fears and diurnal concerns associated with modern life smothering down the nobler, patriotic instincts somewhat.  While we are good at vociferously demonstrating our love for the country through tumultuous street corner jamborees and in cricket stadia, with pizzas and ice-creams for company, it seems unlikely that we will extend it any further towards to the war-front.  That is probably true of majority of the citizens, this author included.  The overwhelming decree would be that the armed forces are there, they are the specialists and they will get our full-throated support.

What is this leading to, you wonder?? Against this background, think of the hordes of young men and women, voluntarily moving to USA at the mere beckoning, muted-squeak of the IT industry, forget clarion calls.  As a prologue to that, youngsters go by the planeloads thither, to equip themselves with higher education.  It would not be an exaggeration to say that many middle class households in the southern states (may be some other states too) have contributed at least one body to this cause or are in the process of getting that distinction - ah, finally I am relieved I got to the point this somewhat stretched analogy was building up to!  Easy to discern why, though - no danger of combat or bodily harm; on the contrary, the allure of a good life and shining future and why not!  Parents may even feel inadequate if their family is not represented in the USA - a reaction not very different from that of the the able-bodied man who had not gone to war at the king's behest in the old days.  But the `migration' in the title does not refer to the movement of youngsters for livelihood reasons, but what inevitably happens in the aftermath! This is about their parents flitting to and fro, for well-earned holidays and more likely, to provide the familial support that the youngsters desperately need overseas.

In any meeting of friends and families in Bangalore or Chennai or Hyderabad, conversation is not complete without parents exchanging their travel plans to be with the children in New Jersey or Bay Area or some other US city.  The party of the first part (Parents A) gleefully boasting of their forthcoming visit to the Bay Area in the summer months to the party of the second part (Parents B), in all probability means that retired parents are visiting, at a time of their own choice - summer, children who do not have the baggage of their own families to carry.  In response, the party of the second part mumbling something grudgingly about going to Chicago in November/December could mean only one thing -- that their married son or daughter had erred grievously in terms of timing the arrival of their next baby (who will not obviously tolerate the idea of being born outside of the US of A)  in the height of winter or some such similar unavoidable situation.   A typical Madrasi bone-structure (referring only to that which has truly thrived on the humidity and heat of the area for a few decades, has known no other clime and therefore is acutely allergic to anything alien) crackles and rebels at the very thought of being confronted by the icy cold winds of Lake Michigan.  Also, the concept of adding one or more layers of woolen clothing is anathema to a body, which is adept at shedding unwanted layers of clothing with alacrity.  Therefore, if  the party of the second part seems blatantly unhappy, even disconsolate in private, at the thought of having to visit USA in November/December, that indicates it is singularly bereft of options.  It is entirely another matter that what begins as enjoyable summer outings for the party of the first part could rapidly, meaning in a few years, degenerate into the nightmarish trips at inopportune times like the one the party of the second part is now faced with.  This transformation occurs expeditiously when the grown-up-kid in USA decides to get hitched, especially if the 'hitchee' is another kid from the same part of the world, in pretty much similar personal and professional situation as the 'hitcher'!!

For the parents, a trip to US always requires immense and careful psychological tuning, since it results in a temporary but significant life-style change; especially if the SOS arrives at an inconvenient time.  A lack of mental adjustment in the parents is made manifest in the way they diffidently approach the trip and stay there. When one is at the Chennai or Bangalore airport, waiting for the flight to New York or Chicago or elsewhere in the US, one cannot but marvel at the seasonal migration of older people to the US from this part of the world.  The stoic faces of the grey haired uncles and aunts usually give away very little about their state of mind. Some people just breeze through the journey and have a ball on the other side of the globe too.  But for many others, simple folks who have not travelled outside India much or have no craving for such expeditions, it is almost like they are waiting to be brutally launched into deep space without any protection or support. The glazed look screams that all is not well!  The 24-hour rigour of being boxed in an economy seat is sheer torture for most people.  Especially if some sensitive, arthritic limb also hears the pre-boarding announcements and commences those familiar but disconcerting, cracking noises in protest.  The anxiety of being deprived of the essence of life, curd rice, for the duration of the journey and the possibility of having to look at a neighbour tearing his chicken or fish with a fork, exacerbate the discomfort multi-fold for the staunch vegetarian.  If inability to sleep at home in the horizontal position was a minor bother for some, being vertical and sleepless during the journey becomes a major hazard.   If it is an auntie travelling alone, because the spineless uncle cried off and she happens to be parked next to a foreigner on board, the auntie's face remains furrowed into a crease and blanched for most of the journey - as if she has a ghost for company!  There is general trepidation whenever the foreigner tries communicating anything and the deer-in-the-headlights kind of reaction of the lady makes the former beat a hasty retreat, lest he is accused of trying something sinister.

The transit stop en route entails a veritable quest for the holy grail for some inasmuch as the routine chore of identifying the correct gate and flight in a German or French airport assumes gargantuan proportions. For no reason at all, it becomes an exercise of  repeated querying every second step without a clear understanding of the `faulty' pronunciation when the Europeans respond.  Visions of  the whole airport set up conspiring to detain them at the transit stop with some ulterior motive are conjured and the outcome is many more panic buttons are pressed and red lights flash for some time! Add to this, the prospect of facing the biometric ordeal at Immigration after a long wait, saving precious Paruppu Podi from being dumped by the suspicious customs guys with a lucid explanation, the loneliness of living without familiar neighbours, restricted mobility because of the dependency on someone else for movement, inability to go out and wander about in the neighbourhood as is one's wont - the list is unending, for some.

As my wife says every time we meet such parents when we travel, if, despite all this hardship, parents keep winging out to help their kids in the US during times of childbirth, illness, kids' own travels and all other assorted reasons, they deserve kudos for that.  That is the hallmark of that generation, generally speaking I guess - doing this for their children, despite their own apprehensions.  That is why this kind of migratory behaviour is special.  Birds and animals migrate because their current habitation cannot support them any longer with food or water or whatever. But this set of people migrate not necessarily always for fun or survival, but very often against their own volition because their current habitation is probably the best suited for them and they are forced to leave something they love - for the sake of others!!  I only wish they would learn to enjoy such trips.  And the hope is that the youngsters are gracious enough to do as much and more for their parents when the time comes and the need arises.  Actually, I know many who do.  Indeed, that is gratifying!!

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??