Caveat Emptor!!

Those of us who have developed the virtuous and well-honed habit of reading multiple newspapers for at least two hours daily (yes, this presupposes that you are either fashionably semi-retired or pathetically over-the-top-retired!), might have recently seen a report screaming out to the filthy rich that a Greek island was for sale.  In terms of moolah, one required a measly sum of  USD6MM to own that piece of real estate.  But being part of a decidedly dishonest environment in which the same parcel of land is earnestly sold multiple times to many gullible investors, with the connivance of government officials, this author felt one had to be of really solid timbre, besides rolling in money, to go after such genuinely distant dreams.  Such an investor cannot ignore the wise Latin dictum `Caveat Emptor', which simply means `Let the buyer beware'.   All through the ages, this principle has been avidly held up by the wise men of the society as the essential bedrock of all commercial transactions; but men and women have willfully ignored this splendid, sage-like advice, to the utter detriment of their own treasury balances.

This scribe first came abreast of the above term, loaded with wisdom distilled from the experience of  ancestors ruthlessly conned for centuries,  during a Mercantile Law class, as part of the Cost Accountancy course.  The professor with palpably far-leftist leanings began with the mistaken assumption that a seller was always economically better placed than the buyer and  bellowed that anyone who had something to sell, had a clear agenda without even a pretend-veil, to cheat potential buyers.  The logic was and is impeccable - the seller knows a lot more about the item on the block than the buyer and unless the latter exercises extreme caution, this dangerous mismatch in knowledge is bound to result in the buyer getting burnt somewhere in the bargain.  This precept is incontrovertible generally, but people tend to swat it aside because they have neither the patience to look carefully nor the ability to digest the truth.  Until one is taken for a huge ride resulting in a significant dent in his or her finances.

Recently a friend went to Mangalore and had booked a room with a well known budget hotel chain for two nights, paying in advance with his credit card.  It looked like half the eligible bachelors in that place were getting forcibly engaged during those two days while the other half were getting hitched after the satisfactory waiting period.  There was a huge influx of good men and women who were hell-bent on being part of the above festivities, rendering all types of hotel rooms mighty scarce.  Into this reveller-infested city,  rode the aforesaid friend and rightfully demanded the reserved room at the hotel, while many lesser individuals without such a reservation were hanging out at the Reception, desperately praying for a miracle.  After the room-boy had ushered the visitor into the rather modest lodging and made a big show of switching on the TV and the AC, he collected a tip and left in a hurry as if a few more seconds there would have cost him an arm and a leg.  The friend did not have to wait very long to discover why.  The AC showed 29 deg Celsius and stubbornly refused to budge from there even after half an hour, that `cooling' period he had generously given the machine to do its job.  It would have been an interminable wait for any cooling because the AC was dispensing only hot air - there was no gas in the compressor.  Visits by two technicians and a manager to cajole the machine to relent did not yield any result.  Anyway, the perceptive friend had concluded that the hotel staff were just playing dumb-charade with him, being fully aware of the fact that the AC had no gas.  By this time, it was midnight and the room, without any other form of air circulation or any opening on the walls, had started resembling a cauldron.  All that the expletive-laced rants of the friend could elicit from the staff was an assurance that they would change the room the next day.  They did and the second night in the hotel was a breeze, literally.  When the friend returned to base, he furiously wrote a complaint to the hotel, asking for refund of one night's charges and is still waiting for a response.  That he asked his bank to block the payment to the hotel on his card and the bank demanded to know if he had anything in writing to show that the hotel said they would give an AC room is another matter.  None of us checks that kind of stuff on the booking confirmation, do we??

A family friend of ours recently went to a well known diamond jewellery shop to do valuation of her solitaires and was blithely told that they do not evaluate diamonds bought from another source.  It sounds pretty innocuous at first and this friend realized the diabolical game being played only after she got the same answer from four other shops.  That meant she had to go back to the jeweller who sold the solitaires to her and how do you think they would value what they sold?  So, unless one knows a jeweller personally, it is difficult to get such a valuation done and all jewellers live happily ever after, having sold at their own price to their unsuspecting clients.  And the generally accepted practice of a second opinion always showing a lower value, if one can get such a valuation, goes a long way in keeping the original sellers warm and glowing!

This is the story of a body-slimming vest someone bought online in the US.  Advertisement spiel had it that if one used the tight vest daily for four hours or so, weight loss would happen and the body will slim down.  After a month of diligent adherence to the instructions in the manual that came with the purchase and going around in the vest, with the extremely uncomfortable feeling that the body was being tightly squeezed from all directions, there was no evidence of any real loss of weight or slimming of the body.  However, the owner was so seriously bothered by the odour that started emanating from the vest, he decided to put it through the rigours of the washing machine - just once.  Lo and behold, when it came out washed, the vest had shrunk to half its size and could no longer be forced down the torso of even a child!!  May be that is what the seller meant - there is no guarantee that the body would slim but the vest definitely would, after one wash!!

Recently in Bangalore, the Development Authority, the government agency in charge of allotting land for building residential and commercial spaces, decreed that some 100 houses built on a piece of land have to be demolished.  Why?  Because the houses were illegally built on a dry lake bed.  Fair enough, serves people right if they encroached on a lake bed, falling into the trap laid by avaricious private builders, who had no right to that land to begin with - people thought as they read the news item.  They even nodded in appreciation that some government agency was finally doing its job.  But they were rendered speechless when they found out that the land was sold to the house owners by the same Development Agency twenty years back!!

When I discussed this subject for the blog with my dear wife, she wholeheartedly and readily agreed.  What bothered me was the quizzical look she had in her eyes - as if she wished someone had drawn her attention to the tenet of Caveat Emptor some 32 years ago when she thought she was making the most important 'bargain' purchase of her life!!

The Writer's Block!!

This scribe is sure it has happened to even avid readers amongst you from time to time, with reading.  After thoroughly and effortlessly enjoying some four or five works of fiction or non-fiction back-to-back, suddenly you decide you need a break and press the `pause' button without thinking too much.  Very often, after a week or fortnight, you are able to release the `pause' button and resume your reading without much ado.  Almost as if the break was not there.  But sometimes, even though you try the hardest, you are forced to prolong the shying-away from the `unappetising' idea of picking up another book for a few weeks, may be months, despite sustained efforts to even jump-start the process. Even if all the titles you impatiently waited to lay hands on are within reach and time is not a constraint at all.  Pretty much like you are unable to stand the sight of your favourite dish made lovingly by the mother or the wife, leaving them bewildered as to what ails you!  You lose the intensity for something which has been almost an obsession till recently and have seemingly developed a transient apathy, if not an aversion, to that task.  And rationally you are unable to explain why that is happening, which further puzzles and distresses you.  You are with me??

Of late, it has been my misfortune to experience this with writing.  I have been posting a new title on this blog of mine once or twice a month for the past four years without any apparent difficulty - of course, not counting what the readers have silently suffered!  I say `silently' only because they have been considerate and generous enough not to respond with vituperative criticism till now.  However, since the last post a couple of months ago, I don't seem to be able to write one full sentence without stumbling or choking on alternate words.  And when the realisation dawns that the resultant wonder-sentence, the product of that fretful and laborious process through intermittent sittings over a few hours, seems to make even lesser sense than usual, I promptly undo that nugget.  I hastily abandon any further attempt at writing for the foreseeable future (but I must confess, the temptation to revisit writing lingers all the time) and withdraw into my cocoon of despair for a while.  Wondering how it has come to such a pass that - recalling a spontaneous scribble I shared with my MA classmates when a rather bumbling professor came to our class the first time - I probably might deliver a child more easily than a reasonably well-written blog-post.  That the professor wrongfully ejected my friend and neighbour from the class, mistaking the latter's uncontrolled laughter as an insulting response to some part of his own lecture and I escaped unscathed is another matter.  In the two month hiatus, there has been no dearth of topics I have tried to write on, but regardless of the subject matter, the result has been pretty much identical after all efforts -- nothing to show except a leering, taunting, blank!!  My dear wife is all sympathy and reassurance, but right now she is not being Muse enough!!

Now, if a small, part-time scribe like me is derailed so badly by this hurdle, being left with an awful feeling as a consequence, how do big-time authors, who are used to publishing frequently, handle such a blow? Here I am, sniffling about my inability to churn out a couple of pages on any subject on the earth required for a blog-post, without having to bother about characters, their inter-play, emotional peaks and troughs, a denouement and climax.  But famous, prolific authors who are used to serially reeling out  three to four hundred page novels replete with all the above, have a monumentally onerous task of pushing a huge boulder uphill and over to safety in a similar situation.  How do they cope with this enervating disease called the writer's block?  They too have confessed to being afflicted by this pestilence among writers from time to time and they seem to rebound after a period of abstinence from writing, engaged with other facets of life which catch their fancy.  Come to think of it, golfers and tennis players do that too, vanishing from their profession temporarily when their form plummets inexplicably.  So, there has to be some solution in due course, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, so long as one not give up.   

At this juncture, I see myself as a recuperating patient, who has had the wind taken out of him by a debilitating blow which he never saw coming and never felt until he was flat on the ground. I realise I cannot even pretend to do as I please, simply because I don't seem to have the reserve required for that kind of bravado!  Then it struck me that I could probably use my state of distress to fill a few paras and make a post of that, just to break out of the rut!  Here I am, unloading on you and rambling about my rather-not-so-serious travails.  Some of you might have even heaved a sigh of relief that the monthly e-mail notification of a blog-post has been conspicuous by its absence for two months.  Then I think of Jeffrey Archer, that amazing author of fabulous novels like Not A Penny More, No A Penny Less and A Matter of Honour, who continued to write even from the oppressing confines of a jail, after copping a sentence for perjury.  When `writing' is a passion, it comes out an overwhelming winner even against all odds, I guess, of course granting that the quality might be indifferent to tolerable with most writers, at best!  But then, Archer had millions beckoning him for his pains and I distinctly lack that kind of  motivation as well as that guaranteed prize at the end of the rainbow.  I am still waiting at the lowest rung, looking up at him, for I am fully congnizant of the huge chasm in the levels of writing.  I may have the writer's block, but am not labouring under any delusion, you see!!

Clean-up India

When the Prime Minister (PM) of India recently announced an ambitious and aspirational initiative to `clean up India', he would not have bargained for the spectrum of responses from different segments of the country.  All the well-intentioned PM meant to do was to give an impetus to half-hearted, still-born and non-existent efforts to significantly improve cleanliness in homes and in public places and urge Indians to collectively work towards that goal.  But, this scribe hears that various constituencies interpreted the over-arching goal as well as the process differently to suit their own agendas and convenience.  Here goes.

As usual the politicos get the prime spot.  It is rumoured that the beyond-the-pale-corrupt and the fence-sitting corrupt amongst politicians (this author is willing to yield to those `chaste' politicians, who ruefully point out that there is a minority amongst them who do not dip their private pens in the public ink-pots) decided to see a metaphor in the PM's appeal where none existed and interpreted `clean-up' very conveniently to mean `take the country and public funds to the cleaners'! Consequently it appears many of the `proven pundits'  already enjoying their jail terms in suitably luxurious settings, are hoping for immediate release so that they can offer their expertise as management consultants (phew, I can visualize their Linked-In profiles!) and help in expeditious swindling generally.  Their minions outside are sharpening the tools of their trade for the leaders to emerge from incarceration and start harvesting.

Immediately after the PM's announcement, there were unbridled celebrations in various parts of the country, obviously on public roads, sponsored by political parties wanting to jump early on to the bandwagon.  In the aftermath, mounds of litter (remnants of fire crackers, rotting flowers and garlands, water bottles, empty boxes which had housed sweets earlier, stones and glass bottles meant for acts of defence and offence in emergencies, broken parts of pubic buses which came in the way, other assortment of removable and destroyable public property etc - all that paraphernalia going with a successful public rally in India) have apparently been left behind. With an assortment of political leaders blithely telling their fervent followers that the PM's team of 9x9x9......(he nominated 9 people, who would do the same and so on) will do the clean-up after them.  Last heard, the civic administrations in various towns and cities have just barely made way on the roads for the senior politicians to move around, leaving the others to climb over mounds of waste in their untiring efforts to reach their destination.

Senior spokespersons for the national party which recently lost the election but had ruled the country for many decades, leaving the country's affairs in an unholy and filthy mess (self-preservation dictates that this author does not get adventurously more explicit and leaves the identity of the party to be guessed by the supremely intelligent and perceptive readers of these blog posts) who had gone into hibernation, promptly made their presence felt on all TV channels.  They appeared in one of the 24 to 30 (they were difficult to count due to their very small size,  could have been more) postage-stamp sized boxes on the TV screen and swore that they were who they said they were (there was no way for the viewer to establish their identities otherwise, due to the tiny images which made faces unintelligible).  Their well-rehearsed statement was delivered in bored monotones: `Our party takes pride in saying we had originally launched a similar initiative 52 years ago, which was sabotaged and run into the ground (that explains the permanent littering of the country) by the Opposition parties.  So, this PM cannot take credit for this, no way'.

All secular parties in the country (that is basically all except the one, well, may be three including a couple of allies) have been vociferously unified in their demand that the other minority communities should not be deprived of the exhilaration of freely littering public places at the same per capita rate as was done during Deepavali.  Since this rate has not been established, they wanted an all-party parliamentary committee to arrive at this all-important number. Translated, that means until one round of such littering is completed by each minority community during their own festivals, they - the secular parties - would not brook any sustained attempt to clean public places, come what may!  Such parties are contemplating diktats to ardent followers to stop trains, block national highways and do multiple rallies which would generate tonnes of garbage, just to drive home the point while showing their might.

Tamil Nadu politicians have come out strongly against any clean-up anywhere prior to the Sri Lankan government and their President are removed from power by India.  They are shy to confess they have no clue as to how this can be achieved but insist, nevertheless.  In their mind, this action is an essential prerequisite to any attempt to clean Tamil Nadu, if not India.  Mamta Banerjee has gone mum on this issue, ostensibly because she has enough to clean up in West Bengal and knows she will be tied up in her own cleaning activities for the foreseeable future and cannot talk or think about any other mess.

As far as citizens are concerned, those who have always cleaned up and maintained cleanliness are continuing to do that.  Others, who have lived in the midst of all the filth right outside their homes and other public places, thanks to their own and civic bodies' indifference, are waiting for Sharukh Khan or Priyanka Chopra or Tendulkar or Kamala Haasan or at least Ambani or Tharoor to show up with the magical broom, so that they can have a photo-op if not a selfie with one of them! Civic bodies are now putting an innovative spin on their proven and inherent inability to clean up by telling people that if things get tidied up now, none of the above-mentioned individuals will show up and the loss will be the people's!!  The latter can see the reasonableness of that argument and are sitting pretty on piles of litter, awaiting the dignitary to materialize!

At the lowest level of the chain, while our home and the environs remain reasonably clean, my dear wife is visibly upset by one prickly garbage dump,  which lies on a path we frequent.  It began on the side of a narrow road but has displayed expansionist tendencies to go viral and occupy half the road.  It is just outside some apartment blocks and a host of shops and restaurants, but inexplicably people living there do not seem to mind being the principal beneficiaries of this visual and olfactory treat.  Every single time we pass this dump, my wife wants to jump out and clean it up, even without the involvement of the creators or abettors of that dump.  And she wants this author to help, forgetting that I am not Kamala Haasan or Tendulkar!! So far, my retort - `what makes you so sure that you will shame those people into changing their ways?' has kept both of us away from that filthy dump, but God knows for how long!!

Generational Gap!

"Kittipul? What's that? Something to do with pulling a cat"?  Notwithstanding the feeble attempt at banter, it was clear from the lad's arched brows and quizzical look that he was puzzled.  His younger sister sought to venture a guess that retained the cat in the picture and added some grass (`pul' in Thamizh).  They were woefully adrift and surprisingly we were embarrassed they were. A childhood friend of this author, who banished himself to the US some 35 years ago when he was still a bachelor, had come visiting with his family - wife, son and daughter,  the entire package carrying that unmistakeable stamp `Made in USA'. Their exposure to India had been limited to periodic sojourns for a couple of weeks, indifferent at best, mostly to assuage the itch of guilt the friend needlessly nursed for having decamped from India.  We were reminiscing fondly about the time his upper lip got split in a game of Kittipul (Gilli Danda in Hindi).  I had pedalled a bicycle with him groggily wobbling at the back, gory face and all, held steady on each side by two running aides, all the way to the clinic for a few stitches and a grandfatherly reprimand from the friendly doctor.  His two children walked into this conversation and sought immediate edification on kittipul.  My dear friend sat there, frozen for a bit, not because he could not explain the game, but was apparently mortified by the idea that he had to interpret something as earthy and fundamental as kittipul to his children!!  He later lamented that the fissure caused by growing up in an alien land had been cleaved further into a chasm by the Generational Gap (GG)!  No dispute there, because kittipul aka gilli danda is not something easily visible in towns and cities in India and seems to have been vapourised in a single generation.

We are always aware of its ghostly presence but from time to time, this GG chooses to hit us in the face with a violence that staggers us - literally - as we found out recently.  An unsuspecting group of friends - age from 35 to 65 - had gathered for a celebration at this bar, without any warning that the `volume' buttons on their music system were ulalterably set from 'Very very Loud' to 'Severe Impact on Eardrums'.  Within a minute of arrival, a couple of ladies had wilted by the onslaught of outrageously wild blare. They bravely went to the designated `controller of noise' and implored him to play music rather than noise.  He pretended to fiddle with the system and walked away; we did not realize that move was to tag our group as `softies' to the higher authorities for further processing.  The manager promptly descended on us and curtly told that within the next hour, that whole place would be crammed with screaming youngsters, who would compel the DJ to `go where no man has gone before' in terms of noise-level, in a take reminiscent of the Star Trek tagline.  He warned us to abandon our post forthwith and take refuge elsewhere so that he could have a homogenous crowd for the evening, without GG spoiling the fun for his regular clientele!! That we stayed put because the wilted ladies could not be revived was another matter.  We were amazed that groups of youngsters were having delightful and very meaningful conversations above the ambient noise, laughing and smiling while we were struggling to avoid choking whenever we tried to raise our croaking voices!! 

When one travels with youngsters on a holiday, GG lurks at every turn.  It begins with `packing' - an activity which, in the minds of older people, means stacking up decently pressed and folded clothes in adequate numbers in a suitcase neatly.   From the youngster's perspective, the rather inconvenient and menial task of packing roughly translates to collecting all the available clothes scattered in the vicinity, regardless of who they belong to and washed or unwashed; carefully making a ball of that compilation and roughly stuffing into a bag always smaller in size than is required for the volume at hand; asking an older person to hold the suitcase down while he sits on it to get the satisfactory, final closure.  The one great outcome of this is that at the other end, youngsters do not compete with oldies for wardrobe space.  Their suitcases left wide open in the middle of the room, serve as their walk-in closet and they are perfectly comfortable wearing the same pair of jeans or shorts and some crew tees during the stay.  When the oldies plan a sight-seeing trip, yielding to that compellingly obsessive habit nurtured over the years,  youth bristles: `Are you guys out of your mind, loitering in this heat when you are on a holiday?? We came here just to chill, watch TV, order room-service, eat and sleep'. Something they could have easily done and were doing at home anyway!!

If you tend to hold your smartphone on one hand so that you don't drop the phone and type with the other, you belong to the earlier generation.  If your phone rings, you are old (it has to just purr, never ring - never mind you keep calling people back, spending more money on calls for which others should have paid).  If you pick up calls from unknown numbers, you are older (`what's wrong with you, why do you pick up random calls?').  If you by chance meet someone, who happens to be a friend of your friend and give him your phone number, you are antediluvian ('how can you give your phone number to random people as if it is some public info to be doled out?'') - reminiscent of what parents tell children when they are young - not to talk to or go with strangers!   If you typed full words on your text messages you are a goner! This scribe is sure there is much more in the realm of cell phones which could tell the generations apart, but that should suffice for now.

Another distinguishing feature of the younger generation is its penchant for online purchases.  While most of the time this works well, to give credit where it is due, when the targeted item is dependent on size or colour, things falter frequently.  Shoes are ordered and promptly returned because 'not the same shade of colour I expected' or 'it seems their size 9 is not the same as standard 9' or 'too much of the top of the socks show'.  So, why don't they go to the shoe store about one block from home and pick up what suits and fits them?? 'Oh, online is so much easier'....Eh??  And, soon they gracefully seek to give the oldies the same pleasure of online shopping and ask you if your shoe also can be ordered online, just so you get to flow with the times!!

When our sons were visiting from the US, one day my dear wife lovingly made some breakfast they liked and sent out the clarion call for us to resume the consumption binge.  I walked up to our progeny and sought their delightful company for the repast.  The youngsters looked at each other and in a well coordinated assault, reprimanded us for eating too much in three meals a day when there is no way we could expend the accumulated energy and fat. They wanted us to follow their illustrious example and ingest only two untimely meals and four cups of stale and acidic coffee during a day.  Our argument that we eat three smaller meals did not cut any ice.  But then, we realized that an entire generation has been growing up eating that way and our pattern did not figure anywhere in their scheme of things.  All this, while my dear wife is always trying to stuff more food into their faces!!

Some people, even as they grow older, are able to ignore GG and deal with the younger crowd in a very sure-footed way, almost as if the age difference does not exist.  This they manage invariably by almost matching their behaviour and responses -- physical or otherwise -- with those of the younger lot.  It is a futile assumption that those who as adolescents or young adults manage the oldies and children well, are able to close the GG somewhat.  It does not seem to work that way.  Sometimes, external help is needed to bridge the gap, like the Indian Pro Kabaddi League (IPKL).  That languishing game from the earlier generation has suddenly got such a great fillip and has a sizable fan following among the youth, thanks to the luminous exposure provided by IPKL.  That tells us something, right??  The wine may be better if it is old, but in order to sell, it has to be bottled anew, with a dash of glitz that appeals to the new lot!!  Oldies can likewise bridge the gap to some extent by changing their spots a bit!! Of course, this does not mean they start packing their bags like the youngsters, god forbid!!

Being Status-Conscious

For those of the same vintage as this scribe - that is, people who have grown up on a diet of Hindi and Thamizh movies from the 60s - `being status conscious' could unfailingly trigger one specific image.  That of a pipe-smoking and aristocratic-looking gent, striking an exaggeratedly regal posture, in the midst of a pompous and declamatory monologue (no one dared interrupt him!) to his family members. This completely subjugated and distraught bunch would invariably be feverishly wringing their hands trying to extract the last vestiges of whatever juice was available therein.  The patriarch would declare imperiously, while nailing with a malevolent look his only daughter who nurtures utterly misplaced rebellious thoughts of marrying a common man - `How dare you think that a wealthy man of high status in the society like me would accept that low-life ruffian as my son-in-law!! Over my dead body!!'.  All the while menacingly waving that unmistakable prop, the gold-capped cane walking stick and flashing at least ten assorted rings on his fingers on one hand - the other hand usually would have been tucked behind his back or twirling his moustache and either way visibility as to the number of rings on that extension was impeded!! But this author for one knows that this malady of being status conscious has afflicted not only the aristocracy but the various strata of society all the way down, so long as there is a perception that there is space for one further rung below.

A couple of years back, our housekeeper had been complaining that his mobile phone has been giving him grief (he has a right to be aggrieved because he spends one third his waking time and a considerable chunk of his take-home salary on that contraption, the excuse being he is away from his family in Nepal and needs constant dialogue, mostly animated and frequently agitated).  So, when we moved to smartphones, we gave one of our Blackberries to him.  Within ten minutes of taking it from us with a huge smile, he returned with a scowl of disappointment and vented his displeasure `but, this is not a touch-screen phone'.  We were more than puzzled because his expertise with the phone did not extend to internet, games, downloaded movies, music or email; he is one of those classic users of the mobile phone as a means of high-decibel oral communication!  So, my dear wife attempted to demystify the situation and asked him why he needed such a phone just to talk.  He flummoxed us saying `people like shopkeepers, gas delivery guys and newspaper boys, way below my status in life sport such phones, so how can I be seen carrying something less'?  The look on his face clearly admonished us - `how could educated people like you be so naive'! We knew any rationale about the Blackberry being more expensive would not cut ice with him and kept our counsel.

Once a few of us were on a business trip from Bombay to Bangalore and as status symbols went those days, a couple of us had tickets booked in business class.  A relationship manager also had  accompanied us and even though he did not merit the business class status (shame on him!), he had fully leveraged sub-clause 6, point (xiv) of the expense rules, which decreed that if he accompanied seniors who flew business class, he would also be grudgingly allowed to fly the same class as a parasite.  In Bangalore airport, while returning, this relationship manager met the promoter of a well-known IT company whom he had been desperately wooing for a while to expand the business relationship and got chatting enthusiastically.  He made it a point to tell us the seniors under the breath that he intended to sit next to the `customer' on the flight to milk the opportunity. We had boarded the plane and taken our seats when the pretender-to-business-class entered with the trophy-customer and politely waited for the latter to be seated.  Horror of horrors, the promoter-customer, kept walking towards the back of the plane, indicating that he always flew economy!!  Now, our man had to choose either temporary `status' or score brownie points with the customer.  Wisely, he renounced his aspirations to higher status, abdicated his business class seat to the gentleman who had occupied the middle seat next to the business honcho's and continued his pow-wow, in the hope of snaring some incremental business eventually.  I forget whether he succeeded or the sacrifice went waste!

We know of some people doling out lakhs in donations to send their kids to schools favoured by the rich and famous, even though more academically oriented schools, which also tend to impart better values, are easily available.  The objective is not so much to `educate' the children well (practically speaking, there is no need for that, given that the parents already are rolling in wealth) but the ability to crow in parties that their children are friends with the progeny of Page3 crowd and they themselves are on first-name-basis with other influential parents including some celebrities.

Aren't you familiar with individuals who, till the other day, were eating street food with you in a group in Fort area of Bombay or VV Puram in Bangalore (taste and affordability being the principal drivers here), licking their fingers and relishing every bit of things on offer, but flip abruptly after a few years of good life and `growth' ??  They refuse to be seen in the same places and we are not talking of public figures but ordinary mortals like us doing well in life financially and otherwise.  Primary reason for this is obviously the reluctance to be associated with paraphernalia linked to one's earlier, somewhat lower status in life.   Few people do rise above all this and manage to keep the equilibrium, but not many.  One is not snivelling about this, but just stating a fact of life.

Recently a friend, a self-made man from humble beginnings but currently of reasonable wealth, recounted how he shocked his hosts in Madras, when he went there to attend an engagement ceremony.  This is a no-nonsense, practical and down-to-earth individual who does not pay heed to the `norms' of a status-driven-life and does his own things, disregarding all the bemused stares coming his way while he is at it.  Apparently he landed at the hosts' bungalow in the heart of the city in an auto-rickshaw, that despicable yellow contraption, since he did not see the need for hiring a car just for that morning.  After the ceremony, the host came out to send this friend off and looked for an upmarket car, could not find any and asked how the latter had come.  When he found out the truth, the host went into tremors and insisted on summoning his own Merc for the return trip - all the time going into convulsions as to `how can you take an auto-rickshaw'! As if ebola was lurking dangerously in that mode of transport.  The friend remarked that it was just as well the host did not see him arrive or else his entry could have been prohibited, their long friendship be damned!  Ironically, the same status-conscious people don't think anything of taking mass transit or tube or subway while on foreign shores; some compromises to status are acceptable obviously and even preferable, especially when you have the shroud of anonymity to cover you in an alien environment.

Men's Empowerment

Recently a couple of friends, who usually strut around like well-endowed peacocks - macho ones at that - came to this scribe, terribly downcast and simpered about the need for someone to be bold enough to stand up for the forgotten cause of men's empowerment.   I was disbelieving and therefore unimpressed, especially in the context of all the high decibel focus on crimes against women, women's education, women's rights etc.  My dear wife simultaneously rolled her eyes, suppressed a smirk and shrugged her shoulders to subtly express her reaction.  But then subsequently when I was not under the glare of my wife's eyes, I chewed the cud on this.  I could clearly see with my mind's eye, a disturbing and moving montage of all those friendly souls who had undergone, to borrow the language of the meteorological department,  heavy to very heavy, widespread persecution most of their lives.   The usually somewhat dormant Solomon in me got a hefty kick on his backside and was forced to perceive the unfairness of the whole situation.

Any actual or perceived injustice to women creates a huge public outcry, as it should - don't get me wrong - and unfailingly merits an eight-member panel discussion on all self-respecting TV channels.  But could any reader recall even the barest passing mention of heinous offences committed on various sections of the male of the species, who have suffered all iniquities in silence, just because the creator inserted spongy spinal columns in their backs?  You see?  That is the blatant unfairness this is about. The fact that the cumulatively thickened crust of all such grievous crimes against dithering men has remained absolutely unscratched, largely due to the callous indifference of our society, seared this author's heart.  That was the genesis of this outpouring.  Lest people misunderstand and for the sake of propriety and absolute clarity it is reiterated that this scribe is neither a misogynist nor is against women's empowerment, but only advances this soulful plea that a shining torch be shown on the hitherto ignored domain of men's empowerment too!  While at one level women are victimised horribly and deserve all the souped up empowerment they can acquire, at another level, other domineering and brutal women are guilty of riding roughshod and leaving battered and bruised men in their wake.  The pity is no contemporary chronicler has mustered adequate courage to record this fact for posterity (except for Ja Ra Sundaresan, also known as Bhagyam Ramaswamy through the hilarious stories of Appusamy and Seetha Patti in Thamizh; those of you who do not follow Thamizh, please forgive this aside).  This scribe has manfully chosen to pick up the gauntlet to right that wrong, unmindful of the consequences.

Stories are legion of sons who have been so thoroughly manipulated by well-meaning, loving but insecure mothers through childhood and adolescence in subtle and overt ways. Obviously such specimens never arrive in life as adult men with any will of their own.  While the mother's inherent defence mechanism is soundlessly triggered early on to protect herself and her son from one specific as-yet-unseen eventual aggressor (you know who, right?), the son ends up being putty in one pair of hands to begin with. Once this is accomplished, only the hands change - somewhat like the relay race - but putty he remains for life invariably! To be given various suitably non-threatening to submissive shapes by other women subsequently.  Being putty in warm hands initially must be very comforting for the unsuspecting son - something akin to the cocoon for the larva - but it becomes an unshakeable habit for life, very unlike the cocoon from which the larva can break free when ready. And, there lies the tragedy.  Males in this constituency should be effectively weaned from such mothers at an appropriate time and empowered to think for themselves, even knowing fully well that this process is highly flawed on its own and may have very harmful consequences anyway.

Let us cut through the hordes of women - childhood mates, school friends, teachers, aunts one never knew existed, grandmothers, house maids and zillion others, who love the look of the putty so expertly moulded by the mother and attempt to give their own shape to it.  Let us take a leap and arrive at the next crucial stage in the life of such a man - when he is ready to take on a  partner for life (well, that last part is clearly an exaggeration in the modern context, which you should concede to any author in the name of prosaic licence!).

What happens here is this:  the most sensitive of the already-puttied men may just fleetingly feel the coming into play of a fresh pair of hands and continue their blissfully subservient existence, as if nothing has changed.  The oracle generously doling out to them instruction for each step in life will change and this can be initially disconcerting, but the demands on them remain so comfortingly similar. You see, such people are specifically identified by their partners as the chosen ones, precisely based on the appeal of this malleable trait in them. Women can astutely perceive and appreciate all the labour the mother has lovingly invested in a man over the years and exclaim ` Voila, here is the guy off the shelf, fully trained and packaged'.  Some women may not like certain rough edges in the package and may make minor modifications here and there - just as they would ask the store to do minor alterations in the dress they buy.  Having said that, they can all recognize classy base material, when they see one.  But those `unputtied' men, who escaped the ordeal with their mothers because of their liberated ways, are now put through the wringer by other women, who may neither have the patience and warmth of the mothers nor the same forgiving nature.  This is very painful for the poor men, not only because it is a change for the worse, but also because they probably expected a very smooth sailing with their partners; based on the women they saw for five years on and off, not knowing that what they saw was really but one shade of a whole spectrum!  This group of men deserve more sympathy because the avalanche hits them without notice and they need all the empowerment to cope with the difficult times ahead.

But, undoubtedly the man who deserves the heaviest dose of empowerment is the one who finds himself painfully compressed in a cleft stick - sandwiched between the loving mother and the doting partner! I see many heads nodding animatedly in agreement and they are all male, obviously.  Having a single dedicated oracle running one's life is difficult enough but having to follow two forceful ones, invariably deliberately contradictory in tone and content, is humongously stressful.  Such a man is damned if he does anything and is more damned if he does not.  Given the fact that the the two rough sides of the cleft stick are only interested in compressing him between them and have no intention of reconciliation, he has no exit route. But then, empowerment alone is not going to help him because what can he do with that?  What he requires is exceptional cunning and wisdom to broker peace between the perennially warring parties.  One thing he can try to do is to get the mother and the partner to arraign themselves on the same side against himself - then he has only one adverse unit to deal with.  He may perpetually be the butt of all jokes at home, but at least life won't be as painful??

Usually this disclaimer appears upfront, but I forgot about this earlier, not knowing how this was going to pan out.  Whatever is written here is not based on personal experience.  The author's mother and wife are absolutely smashing individuals who have never caused the author to pause and think he needs any empowerment.  As such, the request to all those who are itching to comment on this piece is to ensure that the comments are moderated; not to stymie things for the author and vitiate the peaceful atmosphere that has prevailed at the author's home for decades.  And be notified that all such comments will be subject to careful scrutiny by people, who are obviously beyond the control of the author and will remain unnamed!!


 

Drinking past midnight

A few months back, going by the heated discussions and passionate outpourings appearing continuously in the public domain for a few days, one would have thought Bangalore stood in the cusp of something genuinely historic and path-breaking! An uninformed outsider, sniffing around the city for a few days, might have mistaken the pervading hoopla for some kind of a precursor to pioneering societal reforms in Indian cities. Like an all enveloping and seriously enforceable ban on spitting and urinating in public, jaywalking on roads, eve-teasing and encroachment of public spaces by street vendors - all at one go.  Something which no self respecting government in India would ever dream of implementing because that would have been immensely and directly helpful to the general populace and would therefore be against any government's mandate! Moreover, that would have gone against the grain of our character!

Social media was typically agog with exuberant and high-decibel expectations - of course, this author must confess that was based on hearsay, since he has chosen to remain ignorant of and alien to their workings.  Prime-time TV news correspondents aired reports from congested pubs and resto-bars (this was also only hearsay because one could not see much in the trendy and fashionable darkness inside those places of entertainment) to ensure that the viewers understood the seriousness of the issue at hand and how critical it was for the reputation of Bangalore as a premier city in India, to do the right thing, in the opinion of the effervescent youngsters! Even my dear wife, who seldom has any time for minor shenanigans, tried to remain awake for a week till about 10 pm in the hope that a decision would be announced and she would not miss the historic high!  Actually, she even got up on a couple of nights to wake me up (very considerate of her) to ask whether the decision had come, since I was still wide awake when she was slowly dissolving into her sleep.  Even before the-rudely-awakened-I could part my sleepy lips to provide the monosyllabic negative response, she had slid swiftly back to deep slumber, leaving the-fully-awake-me to wonder about the vicissitudes of life for the next four sleepless hours.

So, what was the bestirred youth clamouring about?  Well, you see, the city police officials (looks like some of them can be sensible if they so desire, god bless them) had stoically refused to relent against several earlier assaults mounted by the service providers (bars etc) and the consumers (the tipplers) to keep their routine confluence (of course at the bars etc) open till past midnight as against the current closing time of 11 pm.  The primary provocation for the demand was the highly injured pride of the tipplers who felt slighted by visitors from other cities and countries deriding seemingly progressive Bangalore for its archaic drinking deadline. Bangalore tipplers bristled that local authorities were conspiring to prevent the city from occupying its rightful place of pride in the drinking pantheon and from tippling  themselves more witless for a lot longer in the night.  The bar owners justifiably felt inhibited from plying their profitable trade for a few more hours legitimately, when drinkers - who really mattered - were willing, but interfering intermediaries were playing truant.  Those managing the government's treasury were also inclined to go along because extension of time would augment tax revenues for the government, which in turn meant more money to siphon off,  for the corrupt ministers.

What was the hitch, you ask, when such diverse sections of the society were going to benefit from a simple decision?  Primarily, some senior police officials felt that drunken driving and otherwise tipsy behaviour in public, which was already rampant, would get seriously out of hand.  They were throwing hard spanners into the machinery because they did not want to literally lose sleep and pile more agonising late-night work on themselves.  So, we had the tipplers with bruised pride on the one hand and some sensible and anxious police officials on the other, arraigned against each other on this earth-shaking issue of humungous importance to the city of Bangalore and the chief minister himself was apparently going to be the final arbiter.

Now, as is this scribe's wont, it is time for a disclosure - I am a teetotaler but have no prejudice against any drink or for that matter, any tippler - that is so long as the latter does not disgorge his entrails anywhere close-by.  Actually, I have spent immensely enjoyable evenings,  listening to the entertaining but sometimes damaging ramblings and rants of the beyond-the-pale-sloshed among friends.  Simply because I was probably the only one staying marginally sober on tonic water!  Even as a neutral individual, the no-holds-barred and belligerent enthusiasm of Bangalore tipplers to redeem the city's reputation as a drinker's paradise made me cringe for various reasons.  (1) Didn't these guys have anything more concrete to do?  Among all the ills of the society Bangalore was a witness to, the intelligent and socially active youth could not find a more meaningful issue to fight the authorities?   (2) How critical could drinking from 11 pm to 1 am in a bar be to any reasonable person's happiness?  If one did that between say, 8 and 11 pm, that was not adequate?  Couldn't later drinking be confined to private homes and party halls?  (3) How did youngsters who had fun in these bars till the revised closing time, that is 1 am, get to work the next morning and in what shape?  If this became habitual, how did it affect their software programming or other computing work at Google or Amex or wherever?  (4) If police data is projecting an increase of 40%, post extension,  in the number of cases of drunk driving and drunken behaviour in public places, isn't that good enough reason to maintain status quo?  Didn't the tipplers have any compunction?? (5) While people with suicidal tendencies may drink and kill themselves in accidents, should innocent by-standers become sacrificial goats in the altar of Bangalore regaining its drinking glory?  Had the drinkers become so soul-less that they wanted to look askance at this fact?

Youngsters obviously reacted negatively to the above questions.  Their take was that just because a handful of people have problem post-drinking, others should not be penalised - imagine, they thought the society was penalising them by sticking to an earlier deadline!  When they were told that law worked exactly that way in all aspects and it did not wait for the entire population to start indulging in crimes before making/enforcing the law, they were probably far gone into drunken stupor not to comprehend.  When asked why, if at all the extension was necessary, couldn't the deadline be stretched only for weekends, they snapped out of their reverie and logically explained that people worked on different schedules and there was no common week-end as such in the modern world!  There was an under-the-breath-muttered-response, more like a muffled expletive, when it was pointed out that daily people under the influence of drink were hurting and/or killing themselves and others.

What did the government do?  Come on, don't be so ingenuous!!  Obviously it extended the deadline, consequences be damned!  Ministers and mandarins did their job and promptly retired to their sleep, asking police to be more vigilant for a longer period late into the night to uphold law and order!!  The already over-worked police force had no choice at all and are sleep-walking through the extended hours of the revelry. Indeed, police has taken punitive action by cancelling the licences of riders/drivers under the influence of alcohol forthwith.  Whether the loss of licence and the possible temporary loss of the vehicle are punishment enough to change the way people think, is a moot point.  Doubtful, because the thought of losing one's life in an accident had not infused any good sense earlier.  It seems there is a specially designated late shift for the police called the `drink shift' - something similar to the graveyard shift, for the most obvious reasons - and the race is on amongst the police to be the top suspender/canceller of driving licences.  The poor souls have to keep themselves entertained during their nocturnal duty hours.

In the meantime, one hopes that the tipplers find the extra two hours' drinking very stimulating and rewarding and that they do not cause any bodily harm to anyone around except themselves, if at all!