Eee-Flying II

The first question I had for eee was how long it had been flying around in planes.  You see, I was justifiably peeved by the superior attitude flaunted by eee, even though I grudgingly conceded that I had provided ample reason for it to conclude that my IQ was somewhat comparable to that of a low-level plant.  But using all my reserves, I was on a recovery mode and wanted to settle scores with eee quickly.  I had extracted nuggets of knowledge from my seemingly random reading habits but as my wife despaired from time to time, none of these nuggets had ever been of any real use till then. I knew an eee had all of about 25 days to live.  If this smart specimen of the species, assuming me to be a complete nincompoop, boasted of a few years' flying experience, I could gleefully nail the lie and retrieve a lost cause.  When eee began what seemed an interminable exercise in clearing its throat (anxiety or what?), I let my knowing smirk linger long enough to deliberately accentuate its discomfiture.  Eee evenly said "I wouldn't expect you to know that our lifespan is less than a month.  This flying is a hereditary vocation handed down by my ancestors, who have been doing this for years.  We observe humans when they are in near-captive state in flight and exchange notes weekly.  We observe the sabbath strictly, don't fly on Sundays and have our assembly then.  Actually, I have an apprentice too, somewhere around the 8th row in this flight - grooming the next generation, you know".  I would have fallen off the seat but for the way aircraft seats are constructed, I must confess.  I tucked my tail between my hind-legs and retreated - deciding to play it straight with this really intelligent eee.

How did eee select a flight which terminates back in Bombay at night, I was curious to know.  "Easy, we are trained to attach ourselves to one hostess.  We know all the stingy airlines prefer to get the cabin crew back to the place of origin for the night and if we keep an eye on one or two crew members, we would return to Bombay.  We just have to be reasonably unobtrusive, otherwise might be swatted away".  Simple but effective, I thought.  Then eee said something which warmed the cockles of my heart and I felt a kindred soul instantly.  It vehemently disapproved of people sleepwalking to catch pre-dawn flights as if a couple of hours' delay would mean an imminent collapse of their massive kingdoms!  "I hate groggy people in various states of sleep deprivation in those earliest flights; it is almost like looking at zombies for two hours, not very entertaining and it inhibits our study.  So I take later flights when the cabin tends to be a bit more lively, facilitating our task".

What did eee make of the Kingfisher airline debacle??  "The strategy was all wrong", eee said emphatically, as if it had hurriedly authored a couple of management bestsellers in the past two weeks!  "Running one airline, tying itself into knots, trying to be more premium than necessary, was bad enough.  But having another group airline pretending to be low-cost but forgetting its DNA, doing something different and providing near-normal services at that cost was a cumulative disaster.  How could they have sustained it any longer?", eee rhetorically asked as if it was a visiting professor at the Indian Business School.  I had read that Captain Gopinath, the founder of Deccan Airlines held that opinion and wondered how eee got hold of that.  Obviously it must have engaged him in a pow-wow too. I recounted the time when I initially felt embarrassed, then almost felt scared, flying alone in business class from Bombay to Madras - occupying one of the twelve seats there.  There were three hostesses to serve the cabin and they had a general paucity of people to take care of.  They decided to focus their aggregated attention on me.  They giggled and ceremoniously gave me a snack plate, heaped to the rafters with what four people could but should not eat and helpfully suggested replenishment was available. One took away my glasses to polish them clean, ignoring my violent protestation, thereby rendering me highly myopic for fifteen minutes.  It is an entirely different matter that the remaining two appeared to merge into a single entity befitting the occupancy level, during my temporarily myopic existence. Another evinced keen interest in my life story, as if I was a celebrity and wanted to be supplied with all the information for a proposed documentary beginning at the beginning with my childhood, about 50 years ago! I am sure their standard operating procedure did not allow them to leave an already lonely passenger in that cabin class more alone, so someone stayed with me right through the descent! That flight also provided me the opportunity to pop the one burning question I was dying to ask a Kingfisher hostess but was always hesitant - `Did Vijay Mallaya personally interview and hire you'?  Remember he boasted of this in the video they played on-board before take-off? All the three were clearly concerned that despite their best efforts I was showing a tendency to lapse into temporary insanity and wondered what I was blabbering about!

Then eee asked me if I had ever seen an absolutely petrified flier.  It asked me to take a walk and observe the gentleman on 15C for a few minutes.  I did and boy, was he nervous?  His deathly pale face twitched frequently and he mopped his forehead continuously to get rid of the generous flow of sweat (inside the air-conditioned cabin).  He was feverishly mumbling some prayer as his mouth frothed a bit on the edges and his wrist and knuckles were ashen as he held tightly to the armrests on both sides, as if he was on a roller coaster. I shuddered to imagine what his state would be if there was significant turbulence during the flight!  Eee helpfully clarified that he usually retches and disgorges violently if the plane wobbles a bit, poor guy and added that he was a frequent flier!! I wondered what official incentive would make him fly so often with that kind of a morbid fear of flying and eee agreed sombrely.  I prayed that man would always exit the aircraft on his own legs and never in a stretcher!

Eee then pointed out to a lady sitting in the previous row, cheerfully talking with her kid and said she made this pilgrimage of a trip every month on the same day, that is the 10th of the month, going by the inputs of eee's ancestors.  Why?  She was a single mom with a kid, having been divorced by a Bangalore based techie two years back.  Ever since she had had to make this monthly sojourn just to collect her alimony because otherwise the techie delayed the payment inordinately.  Eee wondered what kind of a man he was but then philosophically concluded that we did not know what the lady did to him during marriage! Very mature, I thought.  

As we were descending into Bangalore airport, eee warned me to brace myself for a hard landing and explained that it knew the pilot and his landing ways.  On that friendly note, it bade adios and flew towards the front galley.  A very smarteee alright, I averred and smiled when the thought hit me that the flight had been an Eee-Class ride!!  I hoped the Merc guys would make some marketing stuff of that to bolster their dwindling sales and stay ahead of BMW and Audi.  But for that, they have to read the right blog, correct?

Eee-Flying - I

I got you this time with the title, I can sense.  The couple of apparently superfluous 'e's have had the desired effect of foxing most people, my finely honed writer's instinct tells me.  E-flying, readers can pretend to relate to, even though the full import of what it is would remain in the realms of guess-work.  Images of some glitzy video game showing mutant characters in unlikely shapes and colours flying around would flash in the minds of the general populace, desperately trying to make an educated conjecture.  But Eee-flying?  Let me demystify the title without increasing anxiety levels further.  In some southern Indian languages, Eee refers to the common fly, that indefatigable six-legged insect which literally tends to fly in the face of people and all types of deterrents.  And there begins this tale.

The Bombay-Bangalore flight was reasonably full and I was feeling immensely pleased with myself for having successfully experimented with a new offer from the airline (meant only for hard-boiled suckers) to pay a small premium and `reserve' the adjacent seat also, which would probably have been empty anyway.  So, in short, I had adroitly managed to get two seats for myself and my overall world-view was in a smugness-induced lavender colour.  Just as I was heartily endorsing Browning's view that `all was well with the world and God was in his heaven' and buckling the seat belt, I had a rather funny feeling that someone was staring at me - you get that when the hair on your nape bristles a bit??  I was on a window-seat, so at best someone could have had a partial shot at my profile, but then that would have required a significantly strained neck and some gymnastic effort many would consider perfectly unjustified by the mug in question.  But when I looked around, as was usually the case, not a soul seemed the least interested in me or what I was doing.  But the vexatious feeling persisted as I turned to the window for diversion and I found the offending presence instantly.  This eee was sitting on the window-sill, about one foot from the tip of my nose, at a fortyfive degree angle (that would explain why I thought I was being stared at). It sported a carefully cultivated air of arrogant nonchalance that could only be born of enduring proximity to humans and a healthy mix of contempt and pity for their ways.  It should be pretty tough even for a physiognomist to interpret  the inscrutable face of an eee due to a general lack of visibility of the visage - especially the eyes and this task was further complicated by the fact that one didn't know whether it was a he-eee or a she-eee.  There is no need to be derisive about this poignant fact because my own gut feeling, though unsupported by any admissible research on the subject and my past discomfiture in similar circumstances have taught me that if it is a she-eee, in the aforementioned mix of contempt and pity, contempt prevails overwhelmingly by a hefty margin.  And that is more disconcerting, as everyone knows.

As we were preparing to take off,  eee got busy and flew away as if it had been assigned specific pre-flight chores, as an essential cog in the wheel of the cabin service team.  Some fifteen minutes into the flight, it returned to its perch and seemed to examine me critically for a few seconds before gingerly moving to the empty adjacent seat; but only after circling me twice and making a 360 degree review, as any HR specialist worth an increment would recommend.  When I exercised the option for an empty seat next to me, I did wonder what I would do if some belligerent and uncouth specimen insisted on occupying that space since the seat was empty and there was nothing to declare that it was an integral part of my domain for the duration of the flight.  Beseeching the air hostess for help in evacuation was the only path open to me.  But now, I summoned all my intelligence and good judgement to play to refrain from complaining about an eee to the authorities, lest I was hand-cuffed and evicted as a potential troublemaker in flight.  I bought a cuppa masala tea from the hostess and went about mixing the brew, deliberately ignoring eee.  As I deftly balanced the cup in my hand, preparatory to attaching the lip for the first sip of my masala tea, I heard a husky voice asking whether I flew a lot.

Whether my body jumped first or I choked first, there is no way of firmly establishing since there is an acute lack of scientifically recorded evidence of cause and effect in this context.  But there was no ambiguity about what happened to my hot tea! I certainly spilled half the cup on my somewhat white shirt (put it down to the exceptionally hard water of Bangalore, which mulishly refuses to let pristine white to be retained on any fabric after three washes), leaving a nice big brown patch on the exterior and a red scald mark on the chest, as if my heart had decided to involuntarily ooze masala tea.  The source of the voice was not my immediate concern because I had a nightmarish vision of having to explain to my dear wife `how I managed to get such a large stain on my shirt THIS TIME'! I must confess I have a tragic character flaw in my historically proven inability to drink or eat (my extremely prejudiced wife would desire inclusion of `even hold', but I humbly and vehemently beg to differ) in/on anything that is likely to move.  That is, without significantly damaging the immediate environment as well as my own clothing.  Consequently I was barred for life from eating or drinking on short-haul flights and other assorted modes of transport by an edict proclaimed by you know who!  I had stupidly violated that, tempted by a lowly cup of tea. If I told her an eee's husky voice was actually responsible for the tragic outcome, I would be inviting the `gone off the rocker' certification without further ado.  As I was dolefully contemplating the dire strait I was in,  the helpful husky voice continued,`Use the tissue you are holding and water from the bottle to clean up'.  The owner of the voice had evidently concluded - based on reflexes displayed thus far - that such an imbecile required all the help he could get!

While my already bruised ego took another painful salvo in the form of that piece of unsolicited advice as well as its origin, I was smart enough to understand that the advice was solid nevertheless and deserved following.  After five minutes of abulations, my chest and shirt felt and looked pointedly worse in that order,  than before and I promptly suspended my scrubbing activities.  All the while, eee seemed to be welling up with empathy and was providing some morale-boosting two liners to me, with the sole objective of shifting my attention away from the stained shirt.  In the process, we discussed what was uppermost on my mind - the eventful welcome that awaited me at home for violating a sacred oath.  Then eee told me a bit about itself and how it happened to be on the flight.  What followed was a series of spell-binding revelations from eee and I almost wished the flight would get diverted to Colombo or some such place, thereby enabling the conversation to last longer!

Unfortunately, my blogometer is somewhat angrily indicating to me that I have used up my quota of words for this one without saying much, as is customary.  I will have to defer the details of my heart-to-heart with eee to the next one! So, until then!  Stay tuned for Eee-Flying II !

Bharat Ratna!

I could see from the corner of my left eye that my wife, scurrying past, head bent and pretending (detecting this comes from cumulative experience, there is no substitute!) to be searching the floor for some long-lost bling.  She was actually trying to deftly slink from the spot in which I was in an intense argument with a couple of friends about Tendulkar's Bharat Ratna (BR).  She had her reasons; she had heard my impassioned (read `blathering') point of view in this matter before and had no doubt it was just a matter of time before I embarrassed her and my unknown and unnamed ancestors, our progeny and their own unborn broods and herself by propagating what she thought was a mulish muddle.  No, she never bothers about me embarrassing myself because she thinks I am suicidally adept at such self-flagellating initiatives and richly deserve all the resulting awkwardness and more.  She prefers to be miles away from the scenes of such harakiri. When a friend called out to her `You must listen to what your dear husband is saying',  she nonchalantly continued her effort at extrication from the scene with a vaguely mumbled response nobody comprehended.  You see, I was absolutely convinced that Tendulkar got his BR not for a century of centuries and other related achievements but for ultimately deciding to call it quits, definitely a couple of years unpardonably late.  It was conferred on him by the powers that be, more in immense relief than in appreciation, was my brief.  Tendulkar, the individual turned out to be an awfully poorer judge of the situation and worse timer of decisions compared to Tendulkar, the player!

But this piece is not about Tendulkar.  There is not even an iota of doubt that he deserves all the accolades that come his way.  So, let us get that out of the way.  This is about the process, or the dismal lack of it, in deciding the BR recipients.  There is no clarity, none at all, about how and why the recommendation of a name is made to the President, ignoring some other qualifying names.  So, there is no wonder there are huge controversies periodically and even litigation attempts when this award is announced.  Ours is a country which willfully and unabashedly infuses generous dollops of politics into every sphere - whether it be religion or motherhood or rocketry, thereby seeding every governmental action with plenty of scope for controversy.  So, when the political establishment is the penultimate arbiter for such awards (the Prime Minister makes the recommendations apparently on the basis of a governmental committee's selection inputs) and the final goal-keeper is the President,  one can imagine how apolitical the entire process will be.  In a nutshell, it is probably futile to try rationalizing the BR calls, especially against this background and we better let things be.  But then, nothing is more fun than in indulging in a task without any expectation of an outcome - just for the sake of it.  So, here we go.

If you look at the list, it is clear that one does not have to lay claim to the award from inside a tomb or an urn.  Being dead is not a necessary qualification and being alive will not be held against you for this purpose.  Lata Mangeshkar, Tendulkar, Amartya Sen and Abdul Kalam testify to that.  May be, I should not, therefore, say there is no clarity at all about the rules of the game.  Till Tendulkar's award came, no sportsperson was ever considered for BR and that was the reason for all the commotion witnessed when his award was announced.  Only achievements in art/literature, science, public service were recognized for over 60 years.  It is indeed a depressing fact that not a single writer has been conferred with BR till now (assuming Amartya Sen's Economics rather than literary skills got him the award), which have seen politicians of all shades being honoured in the name of public service.  One has to conclude that no Indian literary writer has so far merited the award - how convincing does that sound? 

Was a sportsperson ignored earlier because achievements in this area are primarily through physical exertion?  Could be, going by the strong national disinclination historically to unduly exert ourselves except when chased by a mad dog or pulling, shoving in queues to watch a movie or cricket match or gyrating to variants of `lungi dance'!  That was why Dhyan Chand was denied the award all this time, because all he did was physical?  Or was it something like only extraordinary individual achievements in team sports would be recognized (that makes immense good sense, right?) but crown jewels like Prakash Padukone would be rejected because his was an intensely personal accomplishment in an individual sport - very logical, don't you think?  But, Chess can qualify probably because it is not just about physical prowess but requires significant cerebral matter?  Vish Anand could have been an awardee as soon as he won the World title?  May be not - because Chess is not a widely popular sport/game?  But then how was Satyajit Ray given BR, when more popular mainstream Hindi film personalities like Raj Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan have languished?  Somebody in the selection committee got bitten by the `art cinema' bug?  It is indeed an irrefutable fact that one Raj Kapoor or Amitabh movie drew in an audience far bigger than all of Ray's movies put together.  So `being popular' is obviously not enough?  That would seem so because Lata Mangeshkar has got it, but not the equally popular Mohammed Rafi or Kishore Kumar, even though they all equally excelled at the same thing.  May be the number of songs they have rendered was the deciding criterion? Of course, a P.Susheela, who sang prolifically and mellifluously in all the southern regional languages and who many consider even better than Lata (put it down to flagrant parochialism!) could have been denied only on the basis of lack of popularity in non-southern states.

So, the absolutely unbiased amongst the readers can scream out now, if a discernible pattern in the decision making process has been identified.  No?  None?  I thought my predisposition is blinding me to the merits of the process.  But one thing is clear from the bulk of BRs which have been awarded to politicians and those who are associated with politics - almost 54% of the total.  That is one bright and clear beacon shining through - if you are a politician you stand a better chance of getting BR, more so if you have the strong support of the party in power.  But even here, the consistency is not all that good.  While many previous Prime Ministers of the country, including an interim one, have got BR - unsurprisingly all of them belonged to Congress - even a deserving candidate like Vajpayee has not got over the hurdle because BJP lost power at the end of Vajpayee's term.  Gujral and Deve Gowda would not pass muster anyway while Narasimha Rao queered his party's pitch in some ways to lose favour.  Interestingly many of our Presidents have got the nod, but those like Fakruddin Ali Ahmed, Zail Singh, Venkataraman and Sanjeeva Reddy have not - am sure because successive governments have concluded that their 'public service' was clearly inferior to that of V.V.Giri.

Unless something changes drastically, by extrapolation it is easy to visualise some potential BR recipients in the next one or two decades - Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, Shard Pawar, Vajpayee, Advani.  Unless, of course, Aam Aadmi Party and the like seize power at the centre with the primary objective of setting right the BR process!   Karunanidhi would have made the list if he had not rocked the alliance boat at a critical juncture!!

The only outcome of a very shallow analysis is that political agenda probably drives the decisions more than anything else, when it comes to BR and all other civilian awards.  Exceptions could be there, but they are just that.  If you are in the good books of the ruling party, you have a chance, otherwise you don't.  Simple.  Should the recipients of the country's highest civilian award be determined unilaterally by a government playing favourites or by an independent panel of eminent, well-read and impartial people, which would make the choices without fear or favour - it is easy to see.  But who is going to implement what is right, with courage and vision?  That person would deserve the BR without doubt.

Big Mouths do help

It was some fifty years ago.  Our neighbour, a normally benign individual had virtually turned malignant in sleep as if some vampire had mysteriously infected him and was furiously gesticulating and shouting at his aged mother, of all people! The provocation for his angst had come from the chattering old lady having divulged some closely held family secret to a rather meddlesome relative, thereby inadvertently causing hindrance in a land deal.  The one stand-out declamatory phrase repeatedly employed by the neighbour was `you-and-your-big-mouth'.  Readers would have surely heard this often at school (teachers reprimanding talkative students) or closer at home (elders admonishing precocious children talking beyond their age). The strong, negative connotations attached to the `Big Mouth' (BM) could not have been missed.  So, without belabouring the point further, we can conclude by consensus that there is a severe antipathy and stigma attached to BM.  Come to think of it, there is no recorded eulogy or appreciation of BM in literary works in a couple of languages this scribe has marginal capabilities in.  This serious attempt is to address that deficit, rectify a historical omission, redeem a bit of ground for BM and save it from complete condemnation.

Switch to two weeks ago.  I was sweating profusely inside the air-conditioned car and was highly conscious of generating incoherent and asinine prattle, in an utterly nervous state.  My wife was making valiant attempts to calm me down, but in vain.  Over the years, she had learned that on such trips I just flip out to be reduced to gooey jelly and there is no known remedy for that.  When we reach this specific destination, I usually behave like an exceptionally rebellious mule which resents being goaded into heading in a particularly undesirable direction. I put up the same pathetic show this time too.  My wife adroitly used her teacher-like stern demeanour (this she manages with a smiling face - don't ask me how - and she has a band of admirers who wonder how she is cool and is ever-smiling!) as well as the 'dont-embarrass-me-type' hissed-out instructions to cajole me into the ante-room of our .....er.....dentist!  I felt completely trapped and hopelessly hemmed in since I was flanked by the only two people in the world who I am mortally afraid of - the dentist inside the clinic and the wife, languidly guarding the only exit.

The intelligent and perceptive among the readers must have already deciphered my intense dislike for dentist's clinics.  I must record for now and posterity - or else I would be guilty of doing grave injustice -  that my dentist is an endearing lady, a gentle soul, a confirmed wheedler who can coax a hungry robin to yield that half-eaten worm and a skilled operator when it comes to teeth!  As a process, she eases you into the recliner, she chats nicely and lulls you into believing that you are the chosen one, about to be fed some devilishly tasty ice-cream.  Once you are down, the scene changes swiftly and alarmingly; three more otherwise absolutely normal ladies emerge from the wood-works to assume forbidding postures around you.  One thrusts a glass of water in your face to rinse your mouth; one holds a suction pump to remove excess saliva and water and one carries a contraption used to widen unwilling mouths to the fullest.  This is the moment the dentist chooses to hide her face behind a menacing mask, switches on the overhead light, which makes your eyes water (thankfully that merges with the flow of fear-induced-tears!) and picks up the cursed drill which makes that confoundedly screeching noise as it grates on your teeth. Now, the metamorphosis in her is complete.  As for me, at this stage my muscles automatically stiffen, my breathing gets heavy and I feel like a bleating lamb at the last stop inside an abattoir!

Then the dentist calls the assemblage to order, commences the proceedings and seeks further widening of the mouth.  When she realises I cannot expand that orifice any further despite best efforts due to limitations imposed at the time of creation, she says in a rather defeated and resigned way `Oh, your mouth is so small.  I wish it were bigger'!!  Here is someone asking for a BM, after all, even though it is to facilitate her in plying her trade.  You see, a dentist has to combine the skills of an expert digger, deft chiseller, careful filler and good finisher.  She has to perform all the complicated and intricate tasks in the rather confined space, which usually accommodates a couple of morsels of food at a time.  As such, in order to get the satisfaction of a job well done, the least a good dentist expects is a reasonably big mouth.  When you confront her with a smaller-than-the-desired-size mouth, she has a right to feel cheated because she has been given less than the minimum required base material for her to earn a livelihood and that is disappointing, to say the least.  Hence a dentist's yearning for a BM!  But my dentist, the smart woman she is, saw an opportunity even in the adversity of having to work on me and once brought in her apprentices/interns to show how it is done when the desirable size is not available.

Typically, even for something as simple as a cavity-filling, while the dentist herself drills inside the mouth (I invariably imagine myself to be a piece of marble being cut), there is an accompanying requirement of some spray to cool the temperature (the analogy with marble being cut gets stronger).  Or even as the drill goes shrieking inside, there is a need for the suction pump to take out the extra supply of saliva (is this a by-product of the high anxiety level?) or water from one side. So, at any time, there are at least two contraptions simultaneously inside the mouth.  If the mouth is too small for the comfort of the team of crafts-women, something like a solid plastic block is inserted to keep it open to a desired level - the dentist assures me this is to lessen the strain in keeping the mouth open for long as required - even if the owner of the mouth is an absolutely reluctant participant in the orgy. At some stage, the ultimate knowledge dawns on him that he no longer can exercise his choice in this matter!  So, now let us see - the mouth, small as it is, has at least two contraptions, a few fingers (once, having far gone into la-la land, I vaguely counted a couple more than usual and not being able to figure out who they belonged to, guessed that some avid, revenue-generating spectators had joined the event) to hold things in place and a plastic block.  On top of all this, the dentist and her assistants have to get a clean line of sight to the repair site through the maze to avoid tragic collisions as well as blood-bath inside the mouth.  Do you blame the dentist for asking for BM?

Last week when I returned to the dentist for a review, I told her how I wished I had a BM! It would have made the visit to the dentist just a jittery experience like it is for an ordinary mortal instead of a traumatizing one.  I went on to narrate my experience thirty years ago with a Bombay based dentist who pulled out my wisdom tooth huffing and puffing, after a marathon session that left me bleeding profusely for some time.  And I had to carry an exceptionally well-fed look for two weeks, with the cheeks pretending to be mumps-afflicted.  That dentist had the gall to charge me extra for the horrendous experience, citing my small mouth as the cause of `his' trauma!  I sarcastically told my current dentist how some people blame everything on others.  She asked me what the name of that dentist was and when I told her, she looked very cross and abruptly ended the review.  Outside, the receptionist told me that Bombay dentist was her uncle and her role model!!

'You-and-your-small BM', I could hear my wife muttering under her breath!

Why, but Why!

Intellectual curiosity is the hallmark of an active mind, seeking to nudge the horizons of knowledge a bit further, conventional wisdom avers.  This scribe agrees without any demur.  But there are two very distinct classes of seekers one comes across - one which just raises a feeble and mundane `what' in an attempt to scratch the surface and ceases further search at that threshold; the other which invariably carries a heavy duty power drill and never tires of asking a series of `whys' after the initial `what'.  This scribe has always zealously advocated offering a couple of stars extra for the 'seekers' in the latter category for reasons which are not difficult to fathom.  This class, in its endless urge to mop up all knowledge available in the vicinity, wants to lick the last drop by getting to the bottom of the barrel, if that is what it takes.

Let us look at a couple of examples.  When Wordsworth was so profoundly affected by the melancholic strains of the solitary reaper, he could have stopped with the plaintive query `Will no one tell me what she sings'?  He did not, he went a little further and sought further research as to why such a soulful rendering, because he was a knowledge seeker in the classic mould.  Or for that matter, take the case of this good friend who travelled ten miles to incoherently ask (since he was panting from the physical effort) why is Brad Pitt seriously offending Angelina Jolie (going by newspaper reports) by suddenly abjuring the use of bathing soap and whether global anti-pollution drive will get a fillip from Pitt's action!  Unfortunately, there is no documented evidence of Wordsworth solving the riddle posed by the solitary reaper; this friend too will be denied the ultimate knowledge he seeks because he cannot interactively demand edification from either of the protagonists!!  But the whys have to be answered reasonably well prior to meaningful closure of the fundamental issues raised by the whats, you would agree.  Whys keep the wheel of knowledge trundling forward slowly and steadily.

Now that the foundation has been laid out structurally establishing the superiority of `why' as a tool for wisdom-seekers, it is time to formally enter the catechismal arena with THE question to delve deeper into some events, statements, reports etc and seek incremental light.  All in our ceaseless quest for knowledge, of course!

@What: In the context of the 2014 elections in India, a few young turks in the political arena as well as some `forward-looking' psephologists, who have arbitrarily arrogated to themselves the flag-waving rights for being path-breakers, incessantly crowed from the TV screens that in less than a decade, Social Media (SM) will have a decisive impact on elections in India.

@Why: Even with all the much-maligned migration from rural to urban areas in India, the rural population would probably still top 70% after 10 years.  Do these 'visionary' politicians and psephologists dream that a vast majority of the rural population would have avidly taken to Facebook and Twitter in that timeframe??  One hopes they do comprehend the difference between a mobile phone and SM!  All this chatter came through ironically almost at the same time the Parliament was passing the food security bill to provide subsidised grains for the bulk of India's population, because they cannot afford food at market prices.  Now, juxtapose the 'wild vision' of the impact of social media on elections with reference to the rural population and the need for the government to provide food security! And explain WHY such outlandish predictions are being made? Pray, why?

@What: Karnataka Government announced grandiose plans to widen many roads at a huge cost to the exchequer and this will entail demolition of many buildings including dwellings on both sides of the existing roads.

@Why: Previous such efforts have yielded commendable results in creating additional road lanes for traffic, but only as a sign of transient success.  The problem is inevitably the new space is not used for what it is intended for. After a couple of months, the lanes on either extremity of the road are encroached upon by people whose full-time occupation seems to be parking everything from cycles to mammoth trucks.  By demolishing shops, apartments, houses etc and depleting financial reserves, the government ends up converting living space into expensively produced and freely given parking space, without even a semblance of a short term solution for traffic woes.  And they want to do more of this. Why?

@What: Recently the investigating agency in India slapped a case on the head of a business conglomerate for possible violation of rules in the allotment of coal mines. Immediately some major industrialists tut-tutted in unison and spouted statements vouching for the honesty of the specific individual and expressing fears that the investment climate will suffer consequent to such diabolical actions of the government.  Preemptive noise to protect the clique?

@Why: Every time a politician, bureaucrat or an industrialist is put on the dock, his overzealous tribe screams in defence and mouths sanctimonious platitudes.  At this rate, the only `unprotected' tribe against whom any cavalier legal action can be taken unchallenged is the one to which the poor common man belongs.  While the investigating agency itself is notoriously political in its affiliation, unscrupulously manoeuvred by those in power and therefore easily suspect in its motive, wouldn't it make sense to let the process go through its motions and for the specific individuals to prove their innocence?  Should not be too difficult, if they are indeed innocent!  Why this unseemly hurry to `exempt' people from the process?  Because all these powerful people have proved that they are like Caeser's wife - incorruptible and above suspicion??  Are they really?  Otherwise, why?

@What: State governments, in their infinite wisdom, are introducing - hold your breath- mobile mammogram units.  The noble intention is to help women, who would otherwise be averse to visit medical facilities to undergo the test.

@Why: No offence meant to anyone and one is all for everyone getting all the required medical help, so please dont bristle at this - has the government considered the fact that it might be providing a ready-made platform, literally, for unfriendly acts against women?  The gruesome and murderous outrage committed against a girl in a Delhi bus is still haunting most of us.  One particularly perverted and revolting section of the Indian male species is already probably looking for all types of moving vehicles to outrage women; so, why this open invitation to such lewd and leering men? Why cant this be done inside some hospitals in various localities? Why?

@What: One section of Andhra Pradesh has been kept on the boil for many years with ongoing, violent agitations and rallies.  The government, in a callous display of sheer and desperate political opportunism, announces its decision to split the state.  Result:  Now it has two sets of people indulging in agitations and rallies - one seeking the new state and another against that.

@Why: It did not require great political sagacity, not even significant intelligence but just a bit of effort to use a pea-sized brain, to envision what would happen if the split of the state was announced.  Why is the government wringing its hands in witless despair now, clearly caught between the rock and the hard place?  Didn't it see what was coming, when most others could? Unless, of course, someone saw merit in engulfing the whole state in despair as against firmly dealing with the faction seeking change in status quo.  If this is indeed the case, for god's sake, why?

@What: With the frequent tussles between Democrats and Republicans resulting in the government teetering on the brink of financial collapse and economic rating downgrade, the US Congress has started resembling the Indian Parliament in some ways, especially the utter disregard of national interests for the sake of some brownie points for a party's skewed hardline position.

@Why: Days were when the democracies of the world looked up at the US Government and Congress with awe and respect, as role models in the conduct of parliamentary business. Indian public wanted the country's politicians to learn from the US system to run the parliament effectively and with dignity, whatever their differences.  For some strange reason, it looks like the roles have been reversed suddenly and the US politicians have developed this suicidal desire to ape the Indian politicians' way of ruining the country's reputation and economic standing, with their narrow, selfish, party-driven thinking and mindless theatrics.  What next?  John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi leading their chosen teams to India for crash courses in the art (or is it `science'?) of accurately hurling mikes and miscellaneous objects at each other and sticking their tongues out at their opponents to express their displeasure?  Why?

Finally, a recent news item indicated that the Chief Minister of Karnataka State has expressed his ardent desire to get a Bullet Train clone to run between Bangalore and Mysore.   I am not even going to ask Why! I know somebody told him to follow his dream and he did.  Just that it is a bad dream, I think. Let us run our 60 km-per hour `super-fast' trains well and safely for 5 years without any accident and then `dream' about high-speed trains!!  Why, you ask!  You need to assimilate a bit more knowledge on the Indian Rail system and its ways.  Start now, you wisdom-seeker!

Amchi Jhakaas Bombay!

I prefer Bombay, plain and simple.  No politics here and I affirm I have no particular aversion, none at all, to the alternative.  Lest I light up that parochial keg of gunpowder, keenly awaiting the fleeting touch of a matchstick! And I am quite impartial; it is still Madras for me.  I kept addressing letters and packages to Bombay and Madras till recently, when a very observant India Post employee in Bangalore helpfully warned me that the stuff may not get delivered, should some passionate local avers that my bovine insistence with the `old' names deserves punitive action and unceremoniously dumps it into a stinking cesspool of sewage.  Deservedly, in his opinion.  But, I digress.

Bombay, the city, is one of those things which one cannot be indifferent to - one either has a life-long love affair with it or burns with a gut-wrenching hatred for it even when coerced to do time there for `economic' reasons.  A shining example of the former tribe is my wife (she represents many of our friends who still call Bombay their home), who pines for the city, even though Bangalore has most of the `attractions' Bombay has to offer - milling crowds in cramped spaces, stifling traffic, seemingly cosmopolitan residents, foul smelling localities, to mention a few.  A very close friend of mine holds a fervent torch for the `nay' group.  Some 15 years back, during a chat he animatedly vowed to me that he would desert Bombay the day he ceases to have a job there.  This, despite having grown up in the city as a youngster!  Recently he retired and moved to, guess what, Bangalore! He planned everything so meticulously that by the evening of the last day of his employment, he had flown the coop, a relieved man in a celebratory mood.  His antipathy to the city was so visceral that he did not mind migrating to a place where he knew just one individual well!!  Now, both these souls are very normal human beings from somewhat similar backgrounds with similar lifestyles, but responded to Bombay in diametrically opposite ways.  One would not comprehend why, unless one has lived in the city for at least a couple of years. It is because Bombay is not just a city; it is a way of life and each one looks at it from a different perspective!

One well defined group which completely and passionately identifies itself with Bombay, very obviously, comprises the sons and daughters of the soil - those who consciously grow a bit of Bombay inside their body and soul and probably are not desirous of any change.  This may be true of other cities too, but more remarkably characteristic of Bombay.  Someone from this group would have possibly moved from one `housing society' to another within Andheri while growing up and buy an apartment with `modern amenities' in Malad or Kandivili after marriage.  Even this massive relocation, which entails travelling along the same train line through two additional stations, would have been avoided, had the incoming bride not made it a pre-condition for the marriage.  Shifting from the central railway line to the suburbs lying on the eastern railway line would be an unthinkable anathema for many, for sure.  How this group is completely aligned and integrated with `amchi Bombay' is demonstrated by a true story.  In the 90s, we had senior level vacancies in Madras and Calcutta in our organization and we chose to offer these to two guys from Bombay.  The panel explained the job, the salary (much higher), perks (car, house and a few others - all extra), good schools for children etc etc, over 20 minutes.  The first guy waited till we finished with the details and politely declined.  Our entreaty that he discussed with his family before deciding did not make him yield an inch.  He smiled and told us he was happy with the recognition but could not dream of moving out of Bombay, ever.  With the second guy, we had even lesser luck - half way through our recitation, he rejected outright, almost rudely. That they preferred to live in a tiny single-bed apartment in far-off Virar and Nallasopara, suffering the long ordeal of the daily commute in stiflingly congested local trains and sacrificed all the financial benefits the higher position offered in the other cities, could be brain-numbing, only if one had not comprehended the psyche of the quintessential Bombaywallah.  For him, deserting jhakaas Bombay is akin to sin!  On that day, I marvelled at the adhesive-like attachment these people developed with their city and I still do, having lived in eight different cities in thirty years.

One group of Bombay residents who probably just about tolerate the city only because it provides them with livelihood is the migrant labour from other parts of India, primarily from the north.  Let us leave them out of this discussion because they would gladly be back in their own towns, if only they could secure three square meals for their families there.  So, they stick around despite all the insults heaped on them by some local politicians who repeatedly make it clear that they are unwelcome; not out of love for Bombay but out of economic compulsions.

Then there is that group, so well represented by my wife.  Such people are superbly supported by corporates; they have large, well-furnished apartments in the heart of the city or in tony suburbs and rub shoulders with Bollywood stars occasionally; they drive some of the nicest cars available and have all  material comforts.  No doubt, they can indulge in some of the best shopping in India and dine at the swankiest of restaurants/hotels.  But these cannot be the reasons for their love for Bombay, because they can have all these in any other city in India, without tolerating some obvious negatives of Bombay.  So, why this unalloyed love for that city?

An anecdotal explanation is probably the easiest to offer.  When we shifted to Bombay for the first time, we went to inspect our apartment, going through the finishing touches of renovation.  That done, we stepped into the lift lobby to see a melee - some seven people jostling for space and our attention, shepherded by the security guard.  They identified themselves as grocer, newspaper man, `ironing woman', car-washer, vegetable vendor, domestic helper and milk vendor!! In 15 minutes flat, they had gathered our requirements from the next week and vanished without a trace.  Now, which other city would offer that kind of enterprise and logistical support? In any other place, that process would have taken a heart-breaking, head-splitting few days to complete, with maniacal follow-up and a few slip-ups subsequently.  Bombay is what it is primarily because it is the most functional city in India, backed up by a fantastic spirit of enterprise.  Everything works - well, almost, in relative terms.  Why so?  People are comparatively more professional and more importantly, know the value of time; they realise that time is money and any time wasted in `phokat' conversation means a lost opportunity.  Very material approach to life, but it helps.  So, a taxi driver does not waste time haggling with you about a short ride, but takes you without demur and happily moves on quickly to the next short ride.  This spirit pervades Bombay and the dynamism so created is what people love, specifically. And the same urge to convert every opportunity to extra money is what drives the Bombaywallah, despite all the attendant constrictions of Bombay life.

However, having given Bombay its due, I do have a beef with the much-hyped `resilience' of Bombay in the aftermath of a tragedy.  I dont believe this is anything unique.  Every town or city which suffers a severe setback gets up, dusts itself and restores itself to `normalcy' over a period.  Bhuj, the Gujarat town, which took a monumental hit during the earthquake, was back in business - in a much spruced up avatar, I believe - a couple of years later and all those tsunami-devastated towns in various countries rejuvenated themselves to cope with tourism and life all over again. The much-vaunted resilience of Bombay actually tragically masks the limp helplessness of the residents in improving infrastructure, security, living conditions at the lower levels etc. The typical dynamism goes for a toss and in the face of sheer apathy of the powers-that-be, the `grin and bear it' approach takes over.  If Bombay wants to pride itself on this ability to suffer stoically, so can other places! 

Cheers to Bombay!!

Indian Voter's Polylemma!

 Usually, elections at all levels are disposed of with robotic nonchalance by our family.  We do discharge our democratic duties diligently and get our fingers inked.  Then plonk ourselves in front of the TV to find out which set of corrupt and inept politicians would mismanage our affairs through gross non-governance for the next five years.  But do we ever pick our candidate after extensive analysis? Nah.  Our decision to vote for a candidate is based on the cumulative effect of all the inputs we have consciously and unconsciously imbibed since the last election.  And more often than not, the choice has more to do with the party which has contrived to create the illusion that it is doing better in some spheres; seldom predicated on the candidate - most probably because we have never had a candidate of that stature.  Yes, there are exceptional cases in which a candidate gets the vote regardless of the party, but those are isolated instances.  During the last state assembly election, my wife and I thoughtlessly set a trap for ourselves and walked into it, eyes wide open!  During every election, we do hear some clarion calls urging us to select the `ideal' or `clean' candidate and this time we decided to experiment with this path, while making our choice.  So, unlike previous elections, we sat down and did some research about the candidates to find out who would merit our votes best.

I gasped when my wife let out a scream of desperation within the first minute of our starting the scrutiny of the candidates. She was justifiably alarmed that there were 17 of them - no less - vying for our votes in the constituency.  We were not so prejudiced that even before a cursory examination we doubted the absolutely altruistic intentions of this large a number of people to serve the electorate, but this just increased our workload manifold.  Our desire for extensive research on all candidates plummeted drastically with this discovery.  We were pessimistic to begin with, about both the need for and outcome of the exercise and now this clearly queered the pitch further.   However, we decided to plough on valiantly and in the next 24 hours, we had gleaned the following about the candidates:

(1) Of the 17, four were genuinely thick-skinned political honchos of various parties and it showed glaringly, almost like a halo.  All the four had multiple criminal cases against them, ranging from 14 for the `revered leader' from a national party to a rather modest 5 for the hopeful from the state-level party.  Each one had some `serious' cases according to the website but then we derived no further edification regarding the types of crimes.  Specifically we could not decipher whether any heinous crimes like rape, murder etc were involved and this really hampered our judgement. The declared net-worth of each one in this group had at least 10 zeroes behind a number and had skyrocketed in comparison with the disclosures five years back, further lending credence to the impression that they were all seasoned players, who specialized in accumulating wealth without much investment (a colleague used to call this `dipping your personal pen into the public ink pot') - a knack (not skill, mind you) only hardcore politicians employ unabashedly and get away with it.

(2) Four other candidates clearly had aspirational qualifications - they were activists of smaller parties - which could not be ignored.  They had only civil cases filed against them and obviously were seeking a platform to give their budding careers the decisive push and graduate to major criminal shenanigans, once they get our mandate.  You see, unadulterated brazenness and money-driven, blind loyalty of the factotums, so essential for committing serious crimes, spring from the power that is bestowed on elected positions.  Without that, this group woefully lacked the distinguishing aura that the previous group was blessed with.  But the redeeming feature was that they were all contractors and/or realtors - the right kind of essential attributes that marked them as the success stories in the not-too-distant-future and one could see why they were taking themselves seriously.

(3) The remaining nine, the perceptive judges in us could see even without further investigation, would inevitably be also-rans.  Simply because they had no real stature (lamentably not even civil cases against them!) to command respect nor testimonials for brute power to instill fear in the constituents.  All they could boast of was some random academic qualification, which would never be put to use for common good (some were engineers and others post graduates, but what good is that, even conceding that their degrees were not bought?). And a self-professed and demonstrated keenness to improve the lives of common men and women around them.  Evidently they were not moneybags, which fact unfailingly served to dismantle them from the race forthwith as far as the average voter is concerned.  That was the painful clincher.

We dealt with the last group first for very obvious reasons - we wanted to get the feel that we were making some progress!!  We realised that probably a few of these would make good elected representatives but chances of them ever getting there were zilch.  Out of 400,000 voters, some 10,000 educated people, with misplaced righteousness, might collectively opt for all these good men and women.  That obviously is not going to bring the bacon home for these.  The million dollar question was whether we wanted to be part of this small, thinking group, just for the satisfaction of having voted with our conscience for the better candidate.  The idea of opting for someone who would be a certain loser was not appetizing and definitely depressing.  What remained was the difficult choice between (a) those with criminal cases, who have done it all and were awaiting convictions and (b) those who were bursting at their seams to attain that higher glory and would do their damnedest to join the elite group, if only we gave them that window of opportunity, appreciating their eagerness and enthusiasm!

Very distressed by the prognosis thus far, we decided to digress a bit and looked at the photos of all the aspiring leaders in this pool, just to take our minds away from the bewildering task on hand.  That was a serendipitous masterstroke and gave us a breakthrough inkling in terms of some criteria for a decision.   We could choose one with ostensible belligerence in visage and intimidating bulk in physique, so that `our voice' would be heard in the assembly whenever our worthy representative moves like a bull into the well of the house and disrupts the proceedings.  Or we could elect someone seemingly older and more mature, who would quietly sit there without uttering one word (not because he is a profound philosopher but because he cannot speak in public to save his life), shiftily watching `something interesting' on his mobile phone!  So, could this be the ultimate deciding factor in helping us cast our votes?

Come to think of it,  after all the hoopla, once elected, what are the Honorary Members going to do when they condescend to take a break from disrupting the House to actually legislate??  They would quickly and painlessly pass those bills which perpetuate all the ills of our electoral system - they would legalize electing a person jailed for murder and the like; they would legitimize the continuation in power of those convicts who have appealed against guilty verdicts and are roaming around freely, while manipulating the judicial system to prevent their cases from ever coming up for hearing.  If they still had some time, they would bestow additional perks and compensation on themselves and as a concession to the people, would also approve a couple of populist bills when they are close to the next election.  And the few brilliant and seemingly earnest and sincere men and women we manage to elect, with the expectation  that they would help reform the political class, are pathetic, silent spectators of all these activities.  Legal luminaries, economists, wealthy businessmen, scientists and intelligentsia - all of them prove helpless in arresting the avalanche of the ordinary!  Aren't they as guilty of betraying our trust as the real offenders??

We shrewdly decided to go with the national party's candidate with the least number of criminal cases against him!  What is the big idea of promoting a lesser candidate to a higher level of criminality?  Or voting for a candidate who would not win, come what may?  Clean candidates have to wait a long while, probably!!