Never a lender be!!

Coming from someone who had been a banker for 35 years and derived his compensation primarily from the banks' lending activity, that is bemusing, right?  Dont get me wrong, this has nothing to do with banks and similar entities which do their lending, using somebody else's money.  Honest bankers will readily admit that it is always fun to dole out funds that are not one's own.  So what, if the borrowers fade away and the loans go kaput; one does not personally lose anything.  Actually, come to think of it, nobody loses anything, so long as only a small portion of the borrowers play truant.  That is actually expected, part of the game; if every borrower repays everything, it would be absolutely boring. In such a scenario, a number of bankers might end up losing their livelihood since there is precious little for them to do and managements might just deprive them of employment. Only when the repayment-dodging-malady gets widespread and a bank fails as a result, depositors may be affected.  May be not, even then; the idea of a failed bank is so repugnant to any government or regulator that such `bad' banks unfailingly get merged with some large, good public sector bank, which can mask all the losses and everybody can pretend that nothing serious has happened.  So, the wise man he was, Shakespeare could not have had lending institutions in his mind when he spilled these precious words. This is strictly for individuals, who cannot rely on public funds but have to lend out of their own resources; and are not in the same mould as Shylock, romping about, demanding pounds of flesh for unpaid dues!

I guess Shakespeare was a rather generous, avancular lender, with little or no experience in credit analysis and paying no heed to credit bureau ratings.  He must have collected funds at the box office in a sack during his plays and while smugly carrying the booty home, must have doled out loans to whoever accosted him with a polite request.  That meant the delinquency ratio for his lending business must have been sky-high since those who took advantage of his kindness did not think it necessary to repay the loans; probably that was never part of their plot. Obviously, Shakespeare did not run a decent collecting agency to chase them, which complicated the scene.  Why else would he make Polonius in Hamlet give this rather timeless and universally sound advice `Never a borrower nor a lender be' to his son??  But I have a bone to pick with the bard on this.  He should have concentrated only on the `never a lender be' part, because there are immense benefits in borrowing (and not repaying), as we all know.  That is a great and easy way of creating wealth for yourself and your progeny, as many contemporary worthies have demonstrated over the years; especially if the lender is a public sector bank!  Well, one's reputation may be impaired a wee bit in the corners or even damaged seriously, but that is a very small price to pay in a world shamelessly devoid of honour, which glorifies money, idolizes the wealthy and chooses to read and peremptorily ignore the footnote in bold print as to how the wealth came about!  Especially when you can change your name and resurface in some other location, doing your own reincarnation without dying! But I am forgetting that in Shakespeare's time, honour meant something; so, let me not be overly critical of the big S. in this context. Since it would be anachronistic today to dwell too much on `never a borrower be', let us focus on the other part.

Almost all of us, with a retinue of staff such as drivers, maids, gardeners, cooks and the like, are rather forced to be reluctant lenders repeatedly.  Invariably, even before the new driver, on a test run, has taken us to the next block or the cook has made the first roti, the ubiquitous loan application has already landed with us.  For some strange reason, we are only too willing to suspend disbelief and imagine that this driver or cook is going to be significantly better than the previous one.  In our desperation we are absolutely delighted to expose ourselves to an even larger loan than the one which the previous employee took and decamped without repaying, as is the norm.  Actually the higher the first-day-loan-demand is, in some strange way we are more convinced of the `good' intentions of the new employee to stay with us and work the loan off!  If one is rather wary of parting with 3 to 6 months' salary as loan on Day 1 and wants to protest, an angry glare and muttered-under-the-breath warnings from the spouse propel one with outstretched arms (laden with the money) towards the new recruit!  Once this hara-kiri is committed, the rest is like watching the first minute of an MGM or Columbia produced movie - the same lion roaring or lady with a torch benignly looking at us; only the title (in this case, the name of the individual) varies.

This is a real life story.  One vendor in the area where I live was so impressive with his conduct that I was bowled over.  He would not even cross my path, when I walked.  When he saw me coming, he would dismount the cycle and wait for me to pass.  Even in the middle of the road, he would remove his sandals and then answer my question, if I had one.  Such exemplary show of respect, nay, reverence!!  It was all too good to believe and I should have read the hidden signs, but did not.  A couple of times, he touched me for small `advances' and returned them as committed to, thereby building up his case and reputation as a borrower.  One day he brought a mini truck and parked it in front my house and said he wants some funds to buy that one.  He very respectfully urged me to take the documents for the vehicle as collateral.  He was even willing to park the vehicle in front of my house to assuage my concerns as a lender (that was what I thought initially, but subsequently realised that parking elsewhere was a problem and expensive!).  Suitably impressed with his approach, I agreed to lend him some money, despite alarm bells jingling inside me all over.   Well, the rest is... what......yes....like watching the first minute of an MGM or Columbia produced movie etc etc.  He is still profoundly respectful and takes off his sandals while I pass him, but no repayment is forthcoming nor do I see any intent on the horizon.  The only vague comfort is that he does provide a service to us and we can adjust a miniscule amount every month against the loan!! So, all is not lost.

But this one takes the cake.  Recently there were glowing newspaper reports about a very honest auto rickshaw driver, who restored to a customer, a bag with some articles and a large amount of money which were left behind in the vehicle.  The reports said he was poor and could not even afford treatment for his ailing wife.  We called this chap, spoke to him and he shed copious tears on hearing we were willing to bail him out of his problems.  We decided to fund him to the extent of the other expensive loans he had taken from moneylenders so that he can get on with him life peacefully.  Just as a small test, we gave 50% of the amount as a gift and the balance 50% as an interest-free loan, to be  repaid monthly in installments.  He elevated all of us to the level of gods overseeing the poor and the helpless; fell at our feet and thanked us.  Out of the 20 installments he was due to repay, we got 2; then there was stony silence.  A couple of calls to him yielded no response and we had to see a replay of the first minute of an MGM or Columbia produced............. And to think that we gave him the money to appreciate his integrity and honesty!!! What an irony!

So, I have gotten wiser and have decided that if I wanted to help someone, I will hand the money over as a giveaway.  No expectation of repayment and no sour feeling of having been cheated. 

Death of a public servant

I made that seamless and successful move three years ago from being a stretched-time slave to multinational corporations who paid me rather well, to being a piecemeal slave to various people I did not even know existed till then, who wanted compensation from me for their slave-driving efforts!  Since then, this masochistic thought that I should try my hand in public service through an elected office has been eating my brain - the remnants of that, anyway - like the veritable `canker in the bud', to quote the bard. Desperate calls from beacons like Anna Hazare, backed up by earnest endorsements from Kalmadi, Raja, almost the entire political tribe in Karnataka and many of their ilk elsewhere, for all right-minded and honest individuals to enter politics to clean that sewer up, just fanned the flame a bit more.  And then the first opportunity gently floated on to my lap, as if someone watching over me wanted to put me through a baptism by fire.

The association of the owners of the villas we live in goes through this gut-wrenching and exciting annual experience to elect its management committee of seven and I had some fiftysix people urging me to contest that year.  My arithmetic was still razor-sharp and my teacher-wife helped me firm up the numbers, which seemed to scream that I had the backing of at least 30% of the voters, if not more.  As a seasoned public-servant-to-be I looked for sephologists ready with exit interviews and not finding any, I smartly demanded assurances of my victory from the populace.  When they  came through in various forms, my mind was made up and I said 'yes' to the collective glee of my supporters.  Only when someone yelled with relief `Aha, one down and six more to go', I realised that something was amiss. But by the time I got wiser to the situation that every year the owners had to literally drag seven sacrificial lambs to the altar kicking and screaming, it was too late.  It seems there never was an election due to acute paucity of candidates and the management committee was usually filled up with the unanimous choice of the owners!! So much for the euphoria over my first success to a vaguely quasi-public office!  The ensuing year was by no means traumatic because people were so very smug that they managed to put seven of us in place that they did not demand anything serious from the committee.  But this stint did give me my side-door entry into 'public' affairs.  Despite limited activity in the committee, there was adequate politics involving 200 households and I could imagine the nightmare, managing a larger population generally baying for your blood.

I was armed wih the above experience when the election of corporators came around and many of the political parties invited `qualified' people to approach them for selection of candidates. Some of my friends who knew I was a sucker for any public office promptly proposed my name to one of the parties and I was asked to present myself for an interview! I was very puzzled as to the need for that pow-wow because I knew I was probably overqualified educationally and my 35 years of working experience would have outstripped most others.  But, as a well wisher reminded me, this was serious politics and politics of any kind was `different'!  So, I landed at the venue for the interview on the appointed day, curious but not very anxious.

As I walked into the room, the three wise men managing the selection process greeted me warmly and after a short introduction, serious business commenced in earnest.  My effort to highlight my education and experience were peremptorily ignored, causing significant agitation in my mind.  But I was somewhat assuaged when I realised the three wise men wanted to discuss specific attributes which they considered essential for the job of a corporator.  They began with `integrity'.  My fervent launch into corruption in public offices and the need to restore probity  was brutally cut short after 8 seconds and they said they just wanted to know whether the party can `trust' me. My answer was categorical, yes, absolutely.  Next came the critical quality of being a team-player.  Extremely keen to impress, I began with being a member of these school teams and those college teams but again they would have none of it.  All they desired to hear was that I had no problem in working as a team member in this specific context and sharing credits with others working with me.   I triumphantly declared that my credo was always to share whatever success we achieved with colleagues and was pleased with myself for a job well done.  Then came the query whether I subscribed to the philosophy of Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) process.  I was pleasantly surprised that the party-men even knew about that and avidly identified myself with the principle.  That was it.  The interview was over and I was told that I was being shortlisted for the next meeting with the `leader'.

When I met the leader, he was again very focussed on the three attributes his lackeys discussed in the earlier meeting.  He expressed happiness that he can trust my integrity to keep all the monies collected from various sources during my tenure at the party's disposal; no accounts, no paper, just plain old trust, he reiterated.  Then he proceeded to applaud my team spirit; he clarified that without that, party leaders cannot hope to get their shares of the booty from corporators, especially when there are going to be no accounting books involved.  Finally, he explained the importance of the PPP process and the need to squirrel away a major portion of the public funds allotted to my constituency and deposit the same with specific private parties identified by the leaders.  I was too dumbfounded to even react when the leader asked me whether I was ready to firm up the percentage of shares etc. Being the terribly busy leader he was, he did not tarry long and went quickly to the next candidate, who seemed to be more clued in.

My desire for public service through elected office died a quiet and dignified death that day.  I do not even know where it lies buried now!  Not that I am looking out for it.

Air Indian Airlines (??!!)

The collective Indian heart should weep, looking at the deplorable way in which a good airline has been run into the ground with sinister precision over the last few decades.  The title has been deliberately picked to reflect the utter confusion in which our malfunctioning national airline has chosen to wallow for a long time now.  It is a moot point whether the company is heavily bleeding with losses because of the negative attitude inherent in a labour-union-driven mindset of the average employee - especially when that kind of attitude does not help sell even chewing gum in a competitive environment, leave alone airline seats to customers with choices!  Or have the airline employees, based on track record, developed the temerity to believe that the government will bail them out of any deep hole they dig for themselves, using tax-payer money and therefore do not care? When decently run airline companies all over the world are fluctuating between losses and marginal profits despite much better efforts and work ethics, what chance does our airline have, with its strike-hungry employees?  If it is cabin crew today, it is the pilots tomorrow, with the engineers queuing up for the day after - all clamouring for something or the other.  The fact that collectively they are doing a great disservice to paying customers does not seem to affect this callous bunch in the least, since they have developed pachydermal hides over the years, engaging in strikes with practised ease and impunity.  How many times has one read news reports of passengers being left hung to dry in local or foreign airports by this airline, just because the whim of one set of employees dictated so?? And in comparison, very rarely does one come upon a similar report regarding any other private airline in the country.  Means what?  That the government, which owns the airline, has been guilty of terrible management practices?  Possibly, but there are many other government-owned companies which seem to be running well, without disruption as we have seen in this airline.  Where does that leave the blame?

A cursory glance at the immediate past history tells us that there have been strikes in this airline every single year from 2007 (may be multiple strikes each year!) and this scribe is sure that if we go back further, we will find more of the same.  Why don't the management and employees come together and negotiate a schedule of strikes for the upcoming year and post it in their website, so that customers are inconvenienced less?    Currently the problem is that we know there will be strikes, but we do not know when and that problem could be solved thus.  We can even suggest the summer months for such scheduling, as in schools and courts, because that is when the traffic could be the highest, workload the most and this would ideally be suitable for the employees.  Obviously the professional and seasoned `strikers' will not bite because the `impact' would be lost.  Interestingly many of these strikes in the past few years have been in April, May and June.

I came across one unbelievably entertaining vignette today about this airline.  In 2007 some Canadian organization seemed to have honoured Air India with an award, yes, award!!  That propelled me forward in my seat and I delved a bit deeper to see what the award was about, since any type of award to Air India could only have been 'fixed', in my humble opinion. It transpires that the award was for creating awareness regarding the vanishing ozone layer.  That figures, isn't it??  If your employees take turn to engage in strikes and perform this annual ritual religiously, that would indeed mean lesser flights from Air India; and that would mean lesser depletion of the ozone layer! Ah, Air India got the award for creating this awareness among its own employees, who avidly demonstrated that they know and care about the ozone layer (more than their paying passengers, of course!).

Our government seems to be labouring under the misconception that national pride would be wounded and  the average Indian would be driven to hang his/her head in shame and sadness if this airline is padlocked.  The truth is that by such a forceful action, the government will be providing a golden opportunity to the employees to go somewhere else and `strike' absolutely unfettered and enjoy themselves in life doing what they do best, without causing public nuisance.  Nothing can be more beneficial to the country and the users, from a common man's point of view.  Anyway, one cannot feel any greater shame and sadness in the context of this airline than what has been thrust on us relentlessly over the years, due to the pathetic actions of the employees and management.

Some Indians living overseas in the 80s and 90s would unfailingly take an Air India flight to come home, ignoring many negative attributes that went with the airline, compared to, say, Singapore Airlines.  They simply enjoyed the India-like feel the airline gave them, something akin to a movie trailer.  Good Indian food, some Indian movie, sari-clad hostesses, Hindi, Tamil and classical music channels - unlike today, these were available only on this airline those days - prompted one to put up with rickety seats even in business class,  antiquated projection/audio equipment etc.  Times have changed and the employees, in their ostrich-like state and very busy with `striking work', have not recognized the fact that other airlines offer all these and more now and there is no reason to prefer the `national airline', at its erratic best.

It has come to light that while 400 and odd pilots of the airline are on strike currently, over 70% of the flights are being operated with the remaining pilots and some 100 executive pilots.  The numbers could be here and there, but the point is the airline is way too overstaffed and is groaning under its wage bill, supporting an aging crew all the way to its glorious retirement.  If it is a private organization, the situation would have been drastically different.  But our government, which wants to mark the price of petrol to market in the name of reform, has done just zilch about this ridiculous condition in the airline for many years.

In a recent development, this airline has sought compensation from Boeing for delayed delivery of planes ordered long back.  Ethically speaking, Boeing should not be penalised because it has done a big favour to the airline.  Consider this - if all the planes were delivered on time, this generous airline would have hired some 500 more employees, had a heftier wage bill, a larger group striking work and incremental losses to boot.  The government should see the hollowness of the argument of `opportunity loss' and refrain from pressing their case for compensation.  It is indeed `opportunity loss' for the 500+ employees who did not come on board to enjoy their tenure and perquisites, but then that is not what we are talking about, right?  If the compensation does come through, as it will because it is a commercial transaction, I suggest the airline just specialises in ordering more and more planes and hope for delayed deliveries; that would be more profitable than actually using the planes randomly for transporting paying passengers between strikes!!

When this current strike commenced, someone had circulated a photo of a few Air India planes sitting on the tarmac, with the caption `Saare Zameen Par'!! That perfectly fits this airline and what its striking employees do best -- staying blissfully disrupted and losing pots of money!!

Story of my lower berth!!

This is something new.  Nowadays, this feverishness sets in whenever I am on my way to the train station.  There is no problem with the reservation - all that was done three months ago, when the online reservation process opens up a wee bit, enough for me to get the foot in.  Obviously, since even the grey market operators do not commence cornering tickets that early, I invariably manage to get a seat/berth I want.  These days, I prefer lower berth for overnight journeys; not because I am too enfeebled to climb up the few steps of the ladder to the upper berth.  This has more to do with my inveterate inability to sleep on trains or buses or flights.

I believe God has been very equitable in distributing good sleeping habits; so equitable that two people in the same family are not blessed with the talent to nod off within five minutes of the vehicle, whatever be the mode of transportation, vibrates from some form of movement.  You can guess who the lucky one is in our family.  It takes some 90 seconds flat for my wife's head to meet her shoulder once the train starts moving.  I think she will sleep earlier, if I just tell her the train is in motion, even if it is not!!  My story is woefully different.  Even in the comfort of home, after adjusting everything surrounding me to be just-so-perfect, after a prolonged struggle, I have to normally sing to myself a lullaby in a hoarse, tired voice in order to attain Nirvana!  I tend to be of least help to myself, since as a habit, I insist on completing the whole lullaby, so the last few minutes before sleep are always tense and filled with drama. With two strenuous and mutually incompatible activities, if performed simultaneously by the same person, fervently competing with each other, one stays in a la-la-land for a period.  But, during travel, my pre-sleep discomfiture multiplies manifold.  I potter around the limited space graciously provided by the Railways, endlessly adjusting the pillow, the bed-sheet etc; trying to read a bit under that abysmally low-wattage lamp they have carefully fitted in the most inconvenient place possible; getting up and walking around a little, all the time thinking if others who are awake wonder whether I am somnambulant!!  Singing a lullaby in a train coach is not an activity even I would like to indulge in, so it gets infuriatingly frustrating when others around you are oh-so-blissfully-asleep so fast!

No, all this is not the ranting of a sleep deprived soul.  The angst comes from elsewhere.  Given the propensity to wallow in a pool of sleeplessness for most of the night, I make it a point to get a lower berth, so that I can sit up comfortably, if required, and continue my struggle to read under the dim lamp.  If one has travelled in an Indian train, one knows this is an impossible task to execute on the upper berth, which at best is good to crawl into and crash face down and then turn over to achieve one's favourite sleeping position!  This is the crux of the problem, which causes feverishness in me two hours prior to the commencement of the journey.  Why should I worry since I have a lower berth, you ask?  Let me explain.

The last few overnight journeys I have undertaken, fortified by the knowledge that I was fully equipped with a lower berth to take on all the travails the long night can throw at me, something goes amiss every time.  Once, someone older than me limped on one crutch into the compartment and even before sitting down, bleatingly asked me if I could give up my lower berth and take his upper!  Since then, if someone slightly out of the ordinary steps into the coach, my blood pressure ebbs significantly.  The next time it was a frighteningly pregnant woman, whose husband stood at the window, on platform and skillfully coached her to extract the same exchange deal.  When it is more than one lady in your section of the coach, you know you are doomed and that lower berth which you have nurtured for three months so carefully is slipping away from you.  The last time it was a man, his wife, a kid and the maid who were co-travellers and when the man popped the usual question, I did try to protest because this was becoming a routine and there was no respect for the effort I make in getting the lower berth at an early date.  But lower-berth-seekers on the train are a fiercely persistent lot.  They tell you sob stories, offer to roll up their trousers to display their old or new injuries, hold up the child as a weapon and even make their women pretend to struggle up the ladder one step, just to elicit your sympathy.  They rest only after they manage to seize what they feel is rightfully theirs and taken by you in an entirely unethical manner.  After a point, how do you stave them off??  During a recent trip, a man came with three ladies and was carrying something large under his armpit, apart from the bags.  When he came close, I realised it was an MRI film.  He actually kept the film out to show to me (I refused the honour) and prove that the only lady in the group who was in the sub-100 kg category, could not climb even half a step due to a freshly minted fracture and consequent treatment in the hospital.  What does one do??  I just heave one of my longest sighs, give up, tuck my tail between my hind legs, climb and crawl into the upper berth.  I cannot bring myself to be rude enough to decline all conversation with such specimens and this tribe can smell a sucker from a couple of miles away and go for the kill without remorse!

So, what do I plan to do?  Am buying a couple of braces for the ankle/knee, so that I can wear one for each journey (and both, if the `opponent' seems overly determined) as my own weapons.  I am also going to append a walking stick to myself.  I will limp my way to my coach and the moment talk of a barter starts, I will bare my knee and ankle and have my own sob story to tell!!  You think it will work??  I hope it does; otherwise, I have to find a different mode of travel because that upper berth is not for me!

God, please mend your ways!

When we were young, frequently we could hear parents admonishing children for kiddish indiscretions - like killing a few ants crawling on the floor thoughtlessly or kicking an elder playfully or wasting food already served.  The kids were told `Don't do that, God will hurt you just as you are hurting the ants'; or, when the next time the kid complains of some pain in the leg, `see, that is what happens when you kick elders; God is punishing you with that pain'; or `Don't throw away food; wasted food will complain to God and He will make sure some day you do not get enough to eat' and so on.  Even if the innocence of those years prevented us from either comprehending or believing all these fully, we were indeed forced to think of God's retribution for every `bad' action of ours.  We were made painfully aware of the Omniscient one watching over our routine activities and jotting down in his ledger against our names what punishment should be doled out on some future date for deviant behaviour.   Did that deter us from bad deeds and serious crimes when we grew up??  That is a moot point.  But, this correlation between our `bad' acts and God's fist descending on us some day for those was deeply etched in our consciousness and conditioned to some degree the way we grew up.

As we left our childhood behind and became adolescents and adults, there was no repreive from the above process.  In the context of every wrong committed by someone, one generally heard mutterings under the breath about how justice will be meted out by God eventually.  Helpless and affected bystanders cursed the offenders with God's wrath.  And the slightest sign of something negative happening to an individual, people promptly ascribed that to a punitive burst from God.   As a Thamizh saying goes, `King kills (punishes) immediately; God waits and kills (punishes)' and the faithful were pretty clear that even if the guilty escaped the clutches of justice momentarily, God will land the knock-out punch in time.

May be today's parents continue to put that same fear of god in their children with similar dire warnings, but generally the theory of crime and punishment seems to be more diffused, if not very diluted now, especially in the minds of grownups.  If a five-year-old falls and hurts himself while chasing an insect with the intent to hurt, a parent is more likely to encourage the kid to pick himself up and continue the chase.  That is the parent's way of ensuring that the kid does not lose his confidence or get put off by failure in life.  Likewise, a lot of things that were taboo earlier are no longer seen as acts `punishable' by God.  Have you ever wondered why that is?  I have and have concluded that people have lost that fear of God's retribution because (a) He is taking far too long to mete out that punishment, given the humongous population explosion that has come about and also due to the enormous spike in all kinds of petty and serious crimes (b) He is waiting for our tortoise-like judicial system to punish the offenders and spring into action after that, if further intervention is required (c) He is taking the Thamizh proverb too seriously and is waiting endlessly to strike with punitive action, even as it has been proven that our government and courts are just not capable of meting out justice.  Whatever the reason, it is clear that most people have gradually lost their faith in the correlation between misdeeds and retribution and this is manifested in the ways they go about their lives.

If you stand at a street-corner and hurl a brick blindly, you will probably hit eight people who should have earned the wrath of the God earlier, but are flourishing in life, despite all their crookedness and guilt.  The son of a minister grows up watching his father conniving and thieving away to glory, completely aligning himself to the `fact' that wrong actions pay and do not hurt. So, when he is barely twenty, the son also jumps into the fray to improve upon his father's criminal record through innovative and well-crafted shenanigans, so that he could carry the flaming torch of success and family pride into the future.  And the minister, the father, focuses on training the son not to get caught while plundering everyone around.  The same thing happens with a contractor's son or a policeman's son (I am sure the daughters are also going that way - going by some recent examples - but let us, for this exercise keep it to the sons!). They see that their fathers have been highly successful in plying their dishonest trade in blatantly criminal ways and have not been taken to task by God during their lifetimes.   They decide that they are not accountable to anyone since God has also seemingly diluted his standards to suit the times and is willing to give a lot of leeway to His subjects; so why should I, the son or daughter, not take advantage of an easy system already perfected by my father and ensure further growth??  Actually, with the home-advantage such people have, if they throw it all and walk away because they believe what their fathers are doing is `wrong', this society will brand them `failures' and `losers' instead of praising them for their ability to distinguish between good and bad.

Who is to blame for this mess?  Elders in the family invariably fault Kaliyug, in which they have seen travesties of justice in all matters being commonplace.  Yes, the first stop should be the government and systems of justice in place now, but then they are being run by the same bunch which is trying to perpetuate their ugly and criminal hold on everything through muscle and money; what else can we expect??   Next in line is God, who was seen to be more prompt and proficient with punishment earlier.  He seems to have lost his touch and also the desire to dole out penalties in order to keep his flock in good shape.  He has to sharpen up and get better technology and systems (one of the supercomputers?) in place to promptly identify offenders, give them a chance to turn and punish if they fail to.  He cannot work his current load with the ancient system of a ledger and cannot afford to wait and kill `eventually'!!  By the time He comes around looking for someone, that guy is probably gone without having suffered the slightest indignity or pain in life, leaving the bad legacy to his descendants.  The only way to rein in the people is for God to demonstrate His ability to punish when someone is alive and is into bad acts.  People today do not bother about after-life, simply because they are busy getting more skewed in their thinking, without fear of any accountability for their actions.  They have to see pain and suffering in this life; the sequence of crime and punishment has to be played out by God in all its severity, for those who cause pain to others so that there is a compelling deterrent.

I cannot but recall the way movies made during those times ended.  Invariably, the bad guys lost and got punished or they confessed to their crime and vowed to change.  The word `Subham' appeared on the screen and the audience walked away, savouring the fact that justice had been done and all was well.  Consider, in contrast, as to what happens today - The Don cocks a snook at everything in sight and jauntily declares that `Don ko pakhadna mushkil nahin, namumkin hai' (Catching the Don is not just difficult, but it is impossible)'.   Sign of the times?? That, in essence, is the prevailing scenario.  That will not improve unless God changes his ways and upgrades His punishment methods to align with the times.  He will have to carry the AK-47, even if his targets are cockroaches.  That is the only way He will regain the respect of the people!

God, please mend your ways!! Don't be a wimp and wait for too long to punish!! We have empirical evidence that it does not work!!

Taking toll on you and me!

Frequent users of the Bangalore-Madras highway, on which they strip one of roughly Rs.240 for the drive, or for that matter, any toll road in India, will find the contents of this post resonating well with them.  This particular road is still good, but has deteriorated in quality over the past year or two -- pretty abysmal, considering the fact that it has been functional only for 4 years or so -- with glaring and recurring evidence of some genuinely `sub'-contractors having displayed their `skills' on the road showing up.  Long stretches of the road are being closed for re-laying the top surface within such a short time, thereby drastically reducing the four lanes in two carriageways to two lanes in one.  This indicates that the age-old practice of  the sub-contractors using sub-standard materials, labour, techniques etc was seriously at work even on toll-road.  Surprising, because one wonders how the contractor forgot that he will have to dip into his own pocket to re-lay the toll-roads and cannot look to the munificence of the babus for government funding. 

While the quality of the ride may have improved significantly compared to the so-called national highway of yore, some of the quirks of road-travel during the trip are throw-backs to the earlier days - almost as if we will not be allowed to forget what things used to be!!

The first thing that strikes you when you line up and pay toll at the booth is that you are not dealing with the toll collector on equal terms, literally and physically.  He is sitting in a box which is at least a foot above the car window and it would be difficult for most drivers to reach out to him.  This difference in levels has created an additional employment opportunity in that the toll companies have had to introduce a special-purpose-vehicle in the form of an interlocutor, standing between the car and the toll collector, to bridge the distance as well as the gap in height.  As you approach the counter, this interlocutor has a single-word-question to all drivers - `single'??  He is not gathering information on your marital status for a survey, but is asking whether you plan to return on the same day, when you can pay the reduced `return' toll amount.  And even before you finish saying `yes' and hand over a 100-rupee note, the next robotically delivered question reaches you - `do you have 5 rupees'?  Invariably the toll is fixed by the company, in their infinite wisdom, at Rs.25, Rs.35 or Rs.45 for some unfathomable reason - I suspect it is only to provide this individual with incremental conversational opportunity - and he always tries to ferret out that 5 rupee coin you seem to be hiding for its numismatic value.  Not that they suffer from a severe dearth of coins; they just love to peel one from you to gloat over their good fortune and do a calypso at the end of the shift and so have to ask.  Once you express your inability to supply the coin of the desired denomination, which most of the drivers routinely seem to do, you do get the balance promptly (this includes a five-rupee coin obviously), along with the receipt, thereby indicating the collector has adequate supply of coins.  The height of the irony is that during one such exchange recently, a third individual inside the booth had some 4 bags of 5-rupee coins and was involved in some serious counting business, when the usual query was popped to my driver `do you have 5 rupees'??  We all laughed and said in chorus, pointing to the guy inside the booth, `No, but he does'.  If you thought this is unique with 5-rupee coins, you are wrong; if the toll is Rs.40 and you gave Rs.100, they will ask you if you have a 10-rupee note, so that they can return a 50-rupee note!! The characteristic Indian hoarding mentality never fails to hold forth and never fades!!

If you have travelled by road in Europe or US, you would have noticed that the right/left extreme lane remains unclogged and is used only by those overtaking others.  Such overtakers pass the vehicle in front and promptly move back to the other lane, as a matter of road discipline.  In India, we are new to the luxury of having multiple lanes to drive in and the inherent and complete lack of discipline that is the hallmark of Indian driver just got multiplied manifold by the generously additional space made available by the toll roads.  The result is that you notice frequently a tempo carrying a full load and then some, travelling at its 25 kmph peak speed  in the extreme lane even if the other lane is free.  But invariably that is not the case, as it is used by an ultra-long carrier holding something humongous -- actually it turns out to be a windmill blade that is about 60 ft in length -- going full tilt at 24 kmph.   That means all those fancy cars which are touted to reach 300 kmph in 20 seconds (of course, conditions apply and will never be met in India!) have to toodle along at 20 kmph and toot their horns in collective frustration, behind the aforesaid vehicles.  But there is some reprieve from boredom though.  Now, the drivers of these cars have to punt on whether the tempo or the carrier will be the eventual overtaker in this rather absorbing race and stay behind that vehicle.  Just that the process might take over 10 minutes, what with the drivers of the racing vehicles taking umbrage at each other for trying to compete intensely and accelerating by about 1 kmph, to keep the interest going for the punters!!  To boot, this might happen in some hilly part of the road where the gradient is steep; this means the speeds in question nosedive to 8 kmph and 7.5 kmph  respectively and you can imagine the agony of the other drivers, waiting for a small gap to emerge to dash through!  Wherever you see signs screaming `Heavy vehicles must stay on the left lane', you should expect in the next 50 metres, steep climbs and clusters of competing heavy vehicles anywhere but on the left lane!!

But it is not always fun and frolic.  Some typically thoughtless actions with possible deadly and tragic consequences are also played out on toll roads.  When you are moving along nicely at about 120 kmph, suddenly a couple of confounding headlights move towards you in your own carriageway - reminiscent of the old, two-lane roads.  This is a 'local' truck or tractor, fully loaded (the driver too, if probably fully loaded!), having used a gap in the verge to cross over and reach its destination on your side by the shortest possible route, ignoring all known rules of safety.  Such drivers have the temerity to think that they have done their duty as well as a big favour to you by switching on their headlights to warn you that they are doing something stupid and illegal.

The toll road is built with villages/towns all along the route (to be fair, the villages were always there, the road came later), very often one sees people standing around in clusters on either side of the road as well as on the middle verge.  Then, literally dripping with suicidal instincts and momentarily possessed by the village deity,  someone steps off the middle verge and runs across the broad highway looking straight, just as your car is approaching; I used to wonder how they knew I was coming and why they choose my car to sacrifice limb or life!!  There is no way of finding out and I have come to the conclusion that I should do serial offerings at all the temples along the route, to placate all the local deities and convince them to opt for some other car!!  The scary part is that most of such crossers are old men and women, who might have lost their vision partly and are probably short of hearing too; nothing else explains their hair-raising run.

Then, there are the mini tankers with their long hoses, used for watering the grass/plants on the verge in the middle of the road.  Invariably, the drivers of such trucks, with uncanny judgement and the exceptional skill they are endowed with in such matters,  park the trucks in the extreme right lane, around a bend in the road, such that you cannot see them even from 300 metres.  And there are no traffic-regulating-cones to warn you of activity around the bend.  As you belt down and run the bend, you suddenly come upon this gay, group activity akin to a lecture-cum-demonstration on `how to water plants using large hoses in the middle of the road' and have to brake heavily and swerve maniacally to avoid manslaughter.  I think the idea of plants in the middle of the road, however beautiful they are and even if they provide miniscule relief from the tedium of road travel, is a century ahead of its time in India.  Make it two centuries, to be safe.  As usual,  my wife disagrees and wants small gardens in the middle, all along the 350 km road, so that local people can also participate in the development of India and have a sense of ownership of roads and camaraderie with the road users!!  I shudder more violently than when I was doing that aforementioned, maniacal swerve!!

A Few Minutes With Rahul Dravid

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

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

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

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