Multiple Shades Of Insomnia

My fervent appeal to readers is not to entertain any thoughts of a parallel between `Fifty Shades of Grey' and this title.  One has nothing to do with the other.  With that preamble, let me proceed.

Once one becomes a senior citizen (in many cases, even much earlier than that), it seems age gets you happy discounts everywhere, but God ensures that even your sleep gets sadly pared down.  The degree to which one forcibly gives up on sleep varies, but some loss at this juncture in life is a reality.  Of course, God perversely makes some exceptions and some people never pause to realise they are expected to struggle for sleep or others do.  They just continue as if nothing has changed even well after 60 and sleep their way to our envy.  My dear wife has such a boon (God bless her) and another chap who can sleep wherever and whenever he wants even in a state of perpendicularity (I suspect he catches a satisfactory nap even while standing in a metro train) is my brother.  Obviously, since the bounty has been cornered by such folks, others in the family are made to suffer that extra bit in compensation, in order to preserve the clan average and this is where I enter the scene.

Many love-stricken youngsters may enjoy staying awake, pensively singing, a la Dev Anand in Guide, about the slow-moving night.  But for most others suffering from some shade of insomnia, the reason is not any such emotional wrench.  Try as much as they can, their fate consigns them to toss and turn endlessly in their beds and when they are exhausted from this agonising exercise, fall asleep for a short while before waking up and resuming the tossing and turning.  My own personal experience is a bit different and rather unique. I go to bed like others and sleep well for two hours.  But then, a silent alarm goes inside the body, specifically my nose, which organizes a block at that time in the left nostril, in my horizontal position.  I surface with one nostril temporarily but completely closed for emergency repairs and another one pretending to do the work for both.  After mollycoddling the shut nostril with a combination of spray, drops of sesame oil, a dash of Vicks etc, I am forced to remain in sitting posture for a couple of hours to avoid a tragic relapse.  My advice to other brethren who suffer from my shade of insomnia, is to take advantage of this heaven-sent opportunity to sharpen their skills in Solitaire or Word Cross or Scrabble.  Actually, any game on the cell phone helps but those are my favourites.  Sometimes, I even read Omar Khayyam or Bhagavad Gita or some biography (Hitler, recently) to keep the grey matter functional.  After that, when the phone or the book drops from your hand a couple of times and wakes up a few other sound sleepers in the household,-- yes, changing the gorilla glass frequently is the penalty you pay -- you know it is time to restore yourself to the supine position for a re-try.

There are more reasonable but mundane shades of insomnia, in which people force themselves to stay awake till early morning and nod off subsequently.  They begin by eating dinner after 10 pm, then watch a movie or two (some for the 20th time or some such) or something equally inane, before hitting the sack for a few winks.  During a recent discussion about our respective shades of insomnia, I suggested to one such victim that he probably would be better off if he ate his dinner early, as if it was my place to provide expert advice. He condescendingly sneered at me and retorted that he shifted his dinner from 7 to 10 only after he became an insomniac, since eating late helps in killing more time, when one has lots of it on hand.  Strange, I thought but he insisted I should be clear about cause and effect in this context.  He seemed more upset by my analysis than about his insomnia.

What if one is neither fond of nocturnal audio-visual entertainment nor in the habit of reading/games??  How do such people while away their periods of sleepless inactivity?  You would say, `counting sheep' or `doing deep breathing' and all such well-established, but useless nevertheless, antidotes to insomnia.  I am unable to get guidance from my closest advisor-cum-Muse because she is a perfect stranger to this phenomenon.  What follows is not authentic but entirely my guesswork based on some vague conversations, so you don't have to take this seriously.  Some women told me that they rehearse in their minds the entire kitchen routine for the next day, including chopping vegetables, cooking full meals, feeding the family etc.  Those who are not into such domestic chores but are afflicted by insomnia, said they made a list of all the phone calls they would make the next day and practised some conversations as well, with all the grunts, fake laughs and paraphernalia.  Another constituency of insomniacs who delighted in shopping just let their imaginations loose and shopped from all over the globe, mostly for things that they would seldom use or need. 

The sleepless are the ones who are enthused about the time difference between India and USA as this helps them indulge in real conversations with friends across zones.  If one has some ten friends in the USA, then any shade of insomnia actually becomes a gift and a very purposeful tool in handling communications, mostly about trivial stuff, with friends overseas via phone and Whatsapp.  It is probably true that parties at both ends get exhausted and benefit from some sleep after the prolonged pow-wows.  I too have spent part of some nights, mindlessly watching a particular stock oscillating wildly in the US market, even though I had nothing to do with the stock - just for time-pass; I could not remember the name of the stock when I woke up.  There may be a lot of such workouts people can indulge in, so that their sleepless hours are filled up. 

One fallout of insomnia bothers me.  When you are awake after the middle of the night, around 2-3 pm,  a lot of sounds are heard, which you do not normally pay attention to.  And shadows here and there.  Such sounds, shadows etc not only distract you from your book or game but spook your mind a bit, which make you, well more sleepless! TV watching insomniacs are not flustered by these sounds etc because what they watch itself is full of horrible sounds and shadows.  I wish someone develops an App which will prevent such extraneous things from playing ducks and drakes with our minds, especially when you are already suffering from insomnia.

How does one deal with the overwhelming grogginess the next day, if sleep has evaded one completely or mostly?  The prompt advice is for the guy to sleep when sleep envelops him - be it in the morning or afternoon, whenever.  So that some energy is restored.  As usual, contrarians urge such people to keep wide awake through the day so that they are sufficiently and senselessly bushed to get over their sleeplessness, come the night.  Empirical evidence is not available to me to conclude which is the better of these two advices. 

Those cases of techies or others who slog in India for a corporation headquartered in the USA and who necessarily have to interact with their US offices during the night, are outside the ambit of this blog post.  For the simple reason, theirs is not a case of insomnia.  Probably they would rather be asleep blissfully but are forced to stay awake and participate in such 'high-powered', 'educational' and 'meaningful' discussions previously scheduled for the sleeping hours here.  And they are exempt from the category under discussion, because they get handsomely paid for this masochistic experience.  I recall one particular senior in USA who insisted on Asian offices having twice-a-week conference calls with him during our sleeping hours.  After a month of this brainless rigmarole, all the Asian branches unanimously suggested that one such conference call should be scheduled during Asian working hours every week!  Pronto, the calls ceased.

If insomnia hits you after retirement, probably the damage is mitigated because the demand on your time is much less and you can do as you please.  I wonder how people who manage active jobs or even busy with home work, cope with sleeplessness. On the other hand, there are people who take naps during their working hours regularly.  We can let it slide, so long as they do not make fun of insomniacs!!



 

Where The Heck Did The Day Go?

Hours swirl by, days whizz past, nights whoosh into history and soon you are a month older, without anything significantly interesting popping up for you to savour this recent past.  You wonder `where did all that time vanish'??  Sounds familiar??  My question has no scientific shades of the relativity theory, but is something much more fundamental.  Do you recall what you did yesterday in your life??  We have been told time and again that chores, even the mundane and mindless ones kinda expand themselves to fill the time we have on hand.  Still, I bet that if you sit down to tabulate the stuff you did on any particular day, you struggle to barely fill up even half a page of a A4 size paper.  My suggestion is that you don't venture back too far because all of us are seriously susceptible to forget the eminently forgettable things we do and this will complicate the already problematic and distressing exercise, frustrating you even more.

Recently, on a relatively hectic day by my high standards (which means I could laze around only for half the usual quota) I had received crystal clear instructions from 'you know who' to blunder through some tasks/errands and submit the banal `Action Taken Report' by late afternoon.  Evening is usually reserved for Judgement time, a rehearsal for that day when we are finally in front of our creator.  The solemnity of such occasions makes me fidget, standing on one leg for a while and then the other; wringing my hands frenetically and mumbling inaudible excuses (let me tell you, it pays to be unclear in this context). Hoping that you get an air-conditioned room and two square meals in the easier segment of hell - a la the criminal politician lodged in Tihar jail, who failed to share the booty with powers that be and is therefore heavily out of favour.

Her Majesty's commands are usually unambiguous, and blemishless, to the extent that she actually demonstrates once to show me how to fulfill the mandate!! The perceptive and perplexed ones among you may ask why she does not take the final half-step to just compete the job herself and let me applaud heartily from the sidelines.  Go ahead, ask.  To me, it is not a mystery at all.  This is a diabolical plot through which she can chuckle and reassure herself periodically that neither time nor experience has improved me in any way and there is still that yawning gap between her expectation and my execution.  It was deja vu again on that fateful day and she rounded off with a plaintive `how could you have forgotten to do that'??  Some error of omission on my part, let me hasten to confess unabashedly, which has unsurprisingly resulted in nothing short of a cataclysm.  It always does.  Suitably admonished, I did a clinical session of catechism to identify root causes for my lapse (also did a fish bone analysis) and began with a list of things which engaged me on that calamitous day.  And the outcome made me ask the question appearing above as the title of this blog.

*Bought air-ticket for my dear wife.  An astute review of the result revealed that there was an almost fatal flaw.  Had typed Mr instead of Mrs as the title. Apart from incurring her mild rebuke (it never is severe, just to make you feel worse!) for the mistake itself, the resultant situation would have seen her being disallowed boarding.  Would have been disastrous and immediate reparation was warranted. The actual booking took 8 minutes and the fixing of the problem consumed 135 minutes, with multiple calls to almost 80% of the people in the call centre, who were adept at passing me and the problem on to the next guy.  I was bleating like a lamb, when a sympathetic soul corrected the ticket for me. I was all the more nervous because it was not the first time something like this happened with her booking.  I had once booked her mother, herself and brother on a flight exactly 3 months after the date on which they wanted to return from a trip; a genuine error but it came out as if I was eager to keep her entire tribe out in the boondocks for longer.

*WiFi at home has been playing truant for a few days. Every 30 mins, it developed an itchy desire to drop off and went off wandering for a few seconds and then resurrected itself, causing agonizing disruption in browsing.  I can empathize with the people in Kashmir, who are suffering a lot without internet.  The technician from the provider company had become a frequent visitor anyway -- probably he liked our home, its ambience and the cuppa coffee he got? He came happily again for the umpteenth time to dissect the system.  For a good two hours, I winced and struggled to watch him wrestle with the problem without a hint of a solution on the horizon.  In my desperation, I finally told him to reset the WiFi settings and voila, everything was fine.  This seems to be the solution for all problems with gadgets of all hues nowadays.  RESET.  I wish this trick would work with the people too, but we have to discover the specific buttons to push!

*Periodically we have been noticing an unapproved intrusion in our home-- a sedate procession of hordes of ants from one of the bathrooms to a balcony outside through crevices in the woodwork.  For the lives of us, we could not tell why these creatures could not bypass the interiors of our home and take the march through external routes. The tantalizing question has always been `how can we divert this unwanted traffic' without harming the marchers themselves?  Took over two hours to find a benign solution, with  inputs and interventions (some of that unsolicited) from a dozen people, including my mother on phone from Madras, my mother in law, gardener, our resident housekeeper, maid, driver and a few other special invitees.  By the time we finished, there was a queue of  disappointed do-gooders at our door, all craving admission to visit the problem and provide a creative solution.  But, I somehow feel that we will see the disruptive ants again soon and therefore can call on the disappointed good samaritans again.

*Of late, I have repeatedly been stymied to find that favourite CDs don't work properly.  After a couple songs, they stubbornly refuse to deliver any sound, not even a screech.  I ignored this phenomenon for a while but then realised that it was getting to be the new normal - almost like an infection spreading fast, which was just not acceptable.  So,  I sat down patiently to copy the CDs to the desktop and use a tool to burn them on new CDs (actually 20 year old unused CDs, stocked for such eventualities).  Should have taken all of 15 minutes but like a lot of other skills, this one was forgotten too and I had to re-learn the whole stuff; to begin with,  I could not even locate the Windows Media Player and rediscovering that took an enormous amount of time. Had to retrieve it from some corner where it had taken refuge. Every step was a struggle, but finally got done and the the process took over three hours, end to end.  Why not use USB stick, somebody is asking derisively.  No fun and more importantly, not compatible with my player!

*I have taken to ordering some repetitive stuff online and am already regretting that.  Neither easier nor faster because of the plethora of clutter displayed unnecessarily. In the neighbourhood store, you look at a couple of options and pick up one and quit post-haste.  Now, once the order is placed, there starts a series of updates to your phone, about the origin, route and other horoscopic finer points of the items and tracing their two-day journey to your home, all the way mile after mile - which information is egregiously superfluous for most of us.  Deleting those messages is an arduous task and takes a chunk of my time till after the delivery.  Then we find that the order is not delivered in one lot - our fault, because the items do not form a homogeneous bunch. They come in multiple lots and the delivery guys make it a point to ring the bell when you least want them to.  If I order 14 items together for scheduled delivery on the same day, I have to go up and down the stairs 5 times to receive the bounty in dribbles.  If want to return an item received, then make it 6 times, because the return item is handled separately.

I know I have not accounted for the entire, waking twelve hours available to one but after describing the above with seriously tiresome effort, I am not even sure if I will be able to.  Listing all the activities along with time spent is going to be absolutely impossible and I suspect it is not prudent either to create such records for posterity.  It is easier and practical to take the rap from the dear wife on the seasoned knuckles and prepare for a repeat in the future stoically.

Happy Independence Day!

As we grew up, we always heard delighted chirps like `Happy Deepavali', `Merry Christmas', `Happy Holi', `Happy Pongal' etc on a few occasions of festivity.  During the last two, three decades things have evolved to such an extent that shouts like `Happy Republic Day', `Happy Sivaraathri', `Happy Aavani Avittam', `Happy Vaikunta Ekadasi' etc have become commonplace. Even Memorial Day, Thanksgiving and Labour Day have `happy' greetings flowing out from that segment which has or has had association with USA. The primary driver for all this overflowing happiness seems to be the fact that all such days are holidays for most people.  At least for the majority of people hailing each other, the particular day's significance ends probably with the wish and the rest of the day is just another holiday.  Please don't get me wrong; I have no grouse against anybody being happy on any day, including a working day and realise that people have the right to wish each other `Happy Tuesday afternoon' if they so desire.

My thesis that holidays define the greetings is strengthened by the fact that some ebullient but reasonably clueless individuals have been heard to wish `Happy Good Friday'.  They pay no heed to the fact that Christ's followers would definitely be not happy about what happened on that day and could justifiably take offence being gleefully greeted.  If Good Friday is not a holiday, I am almost certain that no greeting will be exchanged outside of the community.  May be there is a case for declaring Good Friday a restricted holiday only for the Christian community -- I know that does not sound secular from a political standpoint and there could be vicious objections from various quarters --  just to avoid bloopers from the ill-informed sections of citizenry.  I have very little knowledge about the festivals of Islam, but can venture a guess that 'Happy Bakrid' may not be an appropriate greeting, simply because the day signifies sacrifice; being the day on which Ibrahim sacrificed his son.  I could be wrong.  Good Friday and Bakrid are celebrations alright, but are definitely dissimilar to Pongal and Holi in terms of the nature and texture of the celebration.  For most of us, the only common denominator is the fact that all are holidays.  So, my point is this:  Shouldn't we be sensitive and use different types of greetings for occasions, instead of being just `happy' about the holiday?

What about Independence Day?  When we were kids, we congregated at the school, sang a few patriotic songs with childish gusto after the tricolour was hoisted by the fierce headmaster or some other equally sombre chief guest, eagerly collected our toffees and dispersed to enjoy the holiday.  At that time, the exchange was `Independence Day Greeting', if I remember right.  There was indeed a speech from someone to remind us about the privileges of Independence, but also of the sacrifices people made, about the pain people went through and the lives that were lost around the time of independence.  That seems in fitness of things because the day is not just to rejoice that we are independent, but also to recall what we, as a country, went through to achieve that.  That is why I personally feel that a breezy `Happy Independence Day' does not fully reflect the significance or history or value of the day.

Our achievements after independence?? I am indeed thrilled that most parts of the country have become open-defecation free in the past few years and rural homes are getting toilets and electricity in the eighth decade after independence.  We should all be elated and proud.  I will hasten to add the caveat for the record.  This success story will remain unproven until the few remaining Opposition MPs, whose governments could not do this for so many decades earlier, unabashedly arrogate to themselves the righteous roles of supreme judges, fan out to various parts of the country to physically verify and certify this.  Shame on the entire country, more specifically on the heartless governments and crooked, avaricious politicians who need to live in disgrace for ever, for their apathy, cruelty and callousness.

What about the heart-wrenching visuals we routinely see on TV, of small kids and frail women agonizingly carrying pots of water home from some scanty source a few miles away and this being a daily ritual?? Of schools in remote areas presenting the sorry spectacle of empty, cob-webbed class rooms without electricity, toilets or water and yes, without students and teachers?? Of skinny farmers and bony agricultural labourers, squatting on parched lands for TV shots, while genuinely wondering how they would provide for their families or plotting how best to commit collective suicide?  I wonder what all these unfortunate souls greet Independence Day with??  Difficult to pin that down exactly but I can bet my bottom dollar that `Happy' is not the adjective lurking anywhere in the vicinity.  When we juxtapose those pictures with gleaming airports, glistening cars and other trappings of well-being and affluence, what strikes us most is the abject failure of governance, governments, people and politicians, to bring real happiness to the majority of the folks in the country. Now, one wonders how much justification lies in our `Happy Independence Day' slogan.  To a large extent, that rings hollow.  We have lived in hope for decades and it will be typical of us to believe that eventually things will get better, faster.

What do we do happily with our independence??  Many good things and lots of uncouth stuff, we can all identify with.  What immediately comes to mind are those things which we just stand and deliver (meaning lack of footwork in sports parlance).  Like, men unzipping and peeing wherever they feel the urge, regardless of who is passing by and what they are peeing on.  Best not to disturb them in action, because they might turn the sprinkler on the questioner!  Reversing a vehicle or making a u-turn in the middle of a narrow road, whenever we want, blocking the entire two-way traffic for some two dozen others.  Even when a lane or a street is available ten metres away for doing the same elegantly and with least disruption. And pick up a heated quarrel, to boot, with someone who questions that act.  Spit on the road, while walking or driving or just chatting;  be warned not to admonish the culprit, lest the next colourful burst comes your way.

We rejoice in letting our relaxed bovine population joyously loose on all thoroughfares, regardless of the huge inconvenience caused to the traffic and pedestrians.  Parking our vehicles wherever we want, a bit diagonally from the kerb if possible just to enhance the pain value, especially on narrow, jammed roads without a thought about others. Dumping our garbage on any pedestrian walkway or road-side (because walkways are conspicuously absent on most roads) after furtively looking around, dropping and scooting.  Stick our hands or any other available body part out from a vehicle and turn right or left at the last moment, without caring for who is behind and how close.  Unlimited licence to encroach on public spaces for shops, restaurants, hotels, apartments, bungalows, temples, whatever.  With splendid rationale, though.  It is public space, one is part of the public and so, one can use it for private purposes in whatever manner one thinks fit, public be damned.  If your perspicacity quotient is phenomenal, you won't miss the fact that this is the logic that characterizes all the above behaviour patterns.

At a different level -- I am deliberately not saying `higher' level --  those with power and position at their disposal, celebrate their independence and freedom to do things like holding the parliament to ransom, willfully refusing to let any business be done; violate serious laws like money laundering act, foreign investment promotion rules and indulge in looting public money through devious shenanigans whenever they find an opening; rape and attempt to murder the victim to wipe of any trace of the crime. There is much more, but I guess everyone gets the drift.

A sharp nonagenarian once told me  when this venerable topic of our independence came up, that he sometimes thought we would have been better off under the British.  He was being facetious, I knew, but the angst in his voice betrayed the disappointment that he has had post independence.  Obviously he was not berating everybody or everything in the country in a broad sweep, but, you know.

Incidentally, has anyone heard of the local equivalent of `happy' being used for greetings on Independence day etc in any Indian language?  Is `happy' in all such contexts forced into usage by the English speaking populace in an inappropriate and contrived manner?  You tell me.

Oh, lest I forget, this is edited by my dear wife and she completely agrees.

Senior Citizens' Learning Disability!

One of the incontrovertible facts of life is that a recently retired man (RRM) is a harried one.  More often than not. Apart from the fact that an RRM never fully anticipates the travails of a jobless existence and that his agonised mental state induces a feeling of kinship with the furniture and fixtures at home, he has a more troublesome fire-hoop to jump through.  That is, the persistent pressure from all around, including folks at home, to begin afresh, learn something new, `reinvent' himself, what not!!   People come around and dust you and wipe you, in metaphorical terms, from time to time and ensure you are looking presentable.  But the focus shifts permanently to teach the old pony some new tricks. The brilliant rationale for this is otherwise the pony isn't happy, but no one ever asks the pony to confirm this.  If only they do, believe me, a lot of people would be spared a whole load of angst!  Personally, I didn't suffer through much of this because I continued to work part-time after retirement and when that was done, I happily shifted to multiple activities including golf!  And, all this while, my dear wife was busy with full time work herself, God bless her.  But I have heard of heart-rending stories of the perilous life of retired men, primarily because of the intent of the world around them to somehow `renovate' the old fogey.  Overall, such overweeningly ambitious drives unfailingly leave the men feeling more inadequate than ever, vulnerable and exposed in their new career of unemployment!

A while ago, a RRM was minding his own business (or the lack of it) and listening to MSS's Dasano Madiko when he was rudely interrupted by his bitter half.  She rightly or wrongly always assumed a position of superiority to look condescendingly down on the other half!  'Why don't you learn Sanskrit', she asked.  The provocation for this was not any urge to convert him into a linguist, but just to get her invaded space (she had it all to herself for forty years) at home vacated for a breather.  'Or Kannada, since classes were being conducted in the community'?  She felt that Sanskrit would help our man to comprehend the pith of religious and spiritual texts and Kannada would be very useful for communication with gardeners, drivers, electricians, delivery staff et al?  The husband had no penchant for languages anyway and obviously had no leanings towards spirituality or conversations with the proletariat.  To ward off the assault, he just asked one legitimate question as to how the wife had managed all the workmen for decades without proficiency in Kannada. Wrong move and there ensued a war of words; a torrent from the wife and stony silence from the chastened guy. He subsequently rationalised with us that in Bangalore, Thamizh is as current as any other language and one can get by, which is true.  He dared not advance this logic with his wife, who had already petulantly declared that the RRM should go back to work somewhere, full time, whatever be the work.

Many RRMs have complained that they have been bulldozed into learning Yoga by others at home who cannot even bend to touch their calf muscle, let alone the toes.  When he tried to argue, his wife shut him out saying she would also learn Yoga when she retired from kitchen and other household chores; the RRF judiciously decided that everyone was better off with the wife in the kitchen than in the Yoga class. And dragged his ageing body painfully to the knotty encounter with the Yoga teacher.  I know an imp of an old man, who was forcibly thrust into learning yoga, who, when asked to touch the toe while sitting and stretching the legs out, did that gleefully and successfully. Only the toe belonged to someone else in the immediate proximity and the entire class was left giggling. They say Yoga can be learnt at any stage and that may be true, but I am yet to see any manifestation of this in an old person known to me.  The pain in the aftermath of the class invariably ends up identifying to the sufferers, many bones and muscles they had no prior knowledge of.  So, this old bandicoot just did what he could to avoid further harassment. For a month he dutifully got out of the house with a water bottle and a few biscuits his wife insisted he take for nourishment, exactly at the appointed yoga class time.  Sat somewhere else out of all sight for an hour and half and returned home after consuming the repast, groaning with faked aches, providing much satisfaction to the wife.  This worked; until a lady asked his wife `Why is your husband not coming for yoga class nowadays'?  It took a lot of persuasive confessions from the old man that with his aching body, his vajrasana attempt was looking like someone praying in a church, sarpasana was more like a man struggling under water and so on for the wife finally to relent reluctantly.

Some precocious ladies, of which there are multitudes, have tremendous foresight.  They can sagaciously visualise their spouses being carried home, post yoga, in  tangled bundles and left in a heap, possibly requiring urgent surgical intervention to untangle and restoration of the body to status-quo-ante.  They smartly nudge the men towards Taichi, the gentle exercise form originating from China. Not that the country of origin or the exercise itself matters, because women are just looking to displace their husbands temporarily and even a medium-paced ceremonial dance-form from Congo would have done the job.  With its very elegant, slow movements, Taichi seems to lend itself for indulgence at old age.  But one agitated RRM had violent objections to a few aspects of this.  That it was awfully slow even for seniors, the accompanying music was cloying and it was nothing but super-slow-yoga anyway.  He spent more time arguing that the Chinese just lifted yoga from very ancient India and slowed it down to suit their own lives, than training.  That is the crux of the matter.  RRMs don't want anything half rigorous as Yoga itself and they don't want anything slower either.  By now one should know, these guys are just looking for excuses not to learn anything new; but then, who is listening??

Feeble men, with whom history is littered, who cowered in the presence of their spouses during their working days, tend to lose control completely after retirement and get fully domesticated in a hurry.  To make up for all their absence from the kitchen scene earlier, the wife plunges them into learning some chores around the place and then some cooking also. With disastrous outcome, of course.  Production results are so unpalatable that even the makers struggle to consume a morsel of what they cooked up. My own guess is that these oldies are cunning devils, even as they are docile and try to take refuge in the syndrome of senior's learning disability just so that they would be promptly banished from the kitchen forever by the rest of the household.  After all what is at stake is what most people live for!!

Another RRM was inducted into chores like shopping for grocery and vegetables.  Even after a prolonged apprenticeship stint, the lady was patently disappointed with the quality of stuff that he procured. The man, in turn, made it clear that she was not the only one who was unhappy; he hated what he was made to do but he was trying his best.  When she visited the market after a lapse of a few days, she discovered that the unhappiness bug had spread to the vendors also.  As a chorus everyone complained about her husband; the way he did his bargaining, his harsh exchanges with them, his unilateral price fixing, his tendency to damage vegetables during the selection process etc.  They actually threatened to blacklist the husband as well as the entire family for the trauma he was causing.  The wife withdrew the man from the frontline post-haste, to avoid having to go a distant market.  Not worth the trouble.

My dear wife read through this piece and said acidly 'so all retired men should just sit and watch TV or play cards with friends, when they are not eating or drinking'??  I said `No, without making the poor guy feel like a useless novice, pushed into learning something, get him to share the work burden.  Gently does it.  After all, would these women who have been at home for decades, want to go out into an office environment at retirement age?  To learn something new'?

I am still waiting for the seemingly benign response, soaked in sarcasm.  I know it will come sooner than later.
 

Phew!! It's Over, Finally!

The first reaction from my dear wife when she looked at the TV screen on 23rd May afternoon was very predictable, knowing her, even though the vehemence in the tone was a bit unusual.  `Phew!! The stupid thing is finally over, mercifully' -- she exclaimed those words when the election results were out, with a cocktail of emotions like relief, joy, residual irritation and wonderment as to what next.  I hasten to assure the readers she is one of the most vociferous advocates of democracy in all forms and at all levels (in public domain, I must add. Most women who tend to practise that admirable concept take a slightly different approach, as convenient, in matters relating to the husband, as evidenced by various live specimens).  But the chaotic campaigning and overwrought election process itself had come to such a head where all she desperately wanted was the election-circus related rigmarole to be done, dusted and buried deep.  For some specific reasons, this 2019 parliamentary election had become more nerve-wracking, all-noise-little-substance low-brow drama and one could take only so much of that.  Or we are just ageing while democracy is getting louder and very intrusive in its manifestation.

For the past 6 months, all that reverberated on TV channels as well as newspapers was mostly sheer bunkum, crude name-calling, bombast, brainless accusations and counter-punches.  Kaamdaar/ Naamdar, Chowkidar, Chowkidar Chor Hai and the like,  multiple variations involving these phrases, threats and counter-threats, unverified numbers, unsubstantiated statements. Unrelenting verbal and print assault helped in just numbing the senses, just like an anesthetic, of all reasonable people.  Most of us, at some point, chose to ignore bulk of the garbage, pretending to lead normal lives but it was always there lurking menacingly in the background, trying to muscle in, if we were to open a slit somewhere in a moment of weakness.

That is when the caucus led by my dear wife and constituted with 'democratically' appointed followers like her husband, mother, sister and brother were peremptorily summoned for a session by the `high command'.  Even though some of us were dragged to the table screaming and kicking because they wanted no part of any of this.  It was unanimously decided in a matter of few minutes that from a common sense and lay-person's perspective, some reforms were absolutely essential in the matter of running elections in India.  The following nuggets were fleshed out after quick deliberations.

(1)  The maximum campaigning time should be drastically reduced to 7 days for an all-India binge.  Any smaller election, like state or metro, should have up to 3 days for campaigning, as mandated by the Election Commission (EC).  The biggest rationale is this would force the sensible elected representatives (if such a species exists) to keep talking to the electors more often than once or twice that is the norm now for 5 years.   Also, it is impractical and cruel to expect one or two leaders, however portable they are, to criss- cross the country and seek votes. It makes better sense to have multiple, presentable leaders.  If parties dont have them ready, they should develop them before the next election, to share the burden. Neither the ruling party nor the opposition can utter a single word about elections or any related subject, before the EC fires the starting gun for the campaign, in a publicly aired ceremony on TV at a pre-scheduled time.  And they should faithfully tape up all motor mouths at the time the EC repeats the act with a finishing gun.

(2)  During campaigning time, rallies can be held by political parties, regardless of who presides or attends, at only pre-approved venues which are at least 10 kms from the outer periphery of any city or town.  Villages and cluster of villages can be used for meetings without too many restrictions because (a) such villages can accommodate more live entertainment (b) political bigwigs do not visit the villages otherwise (c) villages might surreptitiously be spruced up for this purpose and provided with some amenities, which nobody can complain about as these should be welcome any day.  

(3) Cruise ships, luxury yachts are liberally permitted for use in the campaign.  Obvious reason is this mode can keep a loaded and dishonest politician away from harming people.  If someone is struck in a remote corner because of a river or lake suddenly drying up without notice, he/she can continue to provide wholesome fun where they are `marooned'.  Nobody should be permitted to travel by helicopters and chartered planes for campaigning because that exposes more people to the crass exhibition of the shameless politicians. Commercial flights, if possible terribly delayed, regular airports without any special facilities or exits, normal road transport combating maximum traffic congestion, minimal security etc should be the norm, so that we see less of this phenomenon. Then we have the dual advantage of politicians learning a wee bit as to how normal people live and benefit from this experience. And people themselves are saved from all the mindless collateral damage that the visiting dignitaries usually impose, including their toxic political speeches and the vociferous sloganeering of their bovine followers.

(4) TV channels should be permitted to air election related news or clips for one hour a day, once in the morning and once in prime time, during the campaign.  Only the news anchor or presenter should be on the screen; no debates, no leaders' address, no political pundits (thousands of them sprout during the season like inedible mushrooms and should be definitely kept away, lest they mislead the public).  Channels should be compelled to show more of soaps, film-based programmes, old cricket matches, cookery shows and Kaun Banega Crorepati to fill up the void created by election stuff being taken out.  Of course, radio stations should be allowed to broadcast within some restrictive parameters; more so, because we do not expect most people to pay attention -- if there is no accompanying picture, people generally ignore that.

(5)  All election polling should be completed in one day, regardless of how widespread the election foot-print is.  Obviously technology is the only answer and a robust platform should be built for handling all types of elections.  If the government has to spend a few billions on this, it must be done, so that repetitive, humongous expense and pain are saved for the country on an ongoing basis.  All doubting Thomases, who tend to blame the technology for their defeats -- it is noteworthy that they keep quiet when they win -- can be put inside a cold storage with the proven/generally accepted system, with any and all expert support they can muster, to hack it and prove their point, if they can. This challenge can be held once a year so that all political parties are given an opportunity to test the system periodically, be satisfied and never complain till the next test, unless anyone has some proof of malfunctioning.  And, all results should be announced the next day.  Over.

(6) Make payment of cash for votes legal.  After all this helps people.  Every voter in the constituency should get the same amount from all parties, cash for biryani and liquor included, regardless of affiliations.  All such payments should be through direct transfers, as being done in the case of subsidies etc. using approved payment channels.  The objective here is to make the spoilt voter happy and he is not deprived of the election time bonanza, he is used to.  Uniform rate per vote should be determined and announced by all parties.  After taking money from everyone, a person should be entitled to vote NOTA (even if he does that only because he thinks he did not get enough money)!

(7) A few words, phrases etc can be banned for the campaign period and no party/TV Channel/Commentator/Newspaper should be permitted to use any of these.  This compendium can grow over a period, but we can quickly put something together for the next election.  No synonyms/antonyms etc should be allowed.  And, no food item, indigenous or foreign, should ever be insulted.  There were derogatory remarks about chai, pakoda etc in this election campaign - not to be done.

(8) And exit polls should be banned.  Not because they may be right or wrong, but because they bring yet another influx of all kinds of people on TV, masquerading as experts in all matters relating to people and elections, to inflict incremental pain.

It is all well to celebrate this circus called the dance of Indian democracy euphoriously and thump our chests frequently, but the cost of a long, overdrawn, low-brow theatre is untold misery, nothing less and is perfectly avoidable.  Look at the benefits of the sparkling suggestions above - no prolonged election mode restrictions on governments, which seldom work anyway and we give them additional excuse for shirking off in the name of compliance. Sure, ban any policy change for one month before elections, but do not create impediment in implementation of approved schemes relating to food, roads and other routine things involving livelihood. That just aggravates people who probably need more support, not less.

Finally, as my dear wife exclaims, once the result is announced all politicians magically undergo transformation and start being civil with each other.  Even the ones who were calling each other thieves and imbeciles!    

Conversational Pitfalls

This gem comes from distilled experience in expansively greeting various groups of people -- friends, acquaintances, strangers and some one would not want to know in a few life times -- and walking into their conversations. Such instinctive but careless bonhomie may frequently result in one quickly bearing the unmistakable resemblance to a sacrificial goat, which has taken on the mantle voluntarily. This situation is pretty familiar territory for many, but still sucks them in like quicksand even before they can contemplate the options open to them.  This is for the benefit of that segment of the population, which cheerfully wades into such pow-wows, gets roiled, pummelled or plain bored to the bone in the end.  Here goes.

In India, there are some subjects like cricket, politics, secularism (this is just a sample list, there are multitude of such subjects), in which one billion of the 1.3 we have are seasoned campaigners and self-anointed experts.  And for some inexplicable reason, such people are avid talkers, who hate to yield a few seconds to another and have frenetic, grating voices, as accessories.  If five such specimens get together and limp home after a few hours, maimed and scarred, that is fine because they have acute consciousness of what melee they are creating and are part of.  But, my heart bleeds for those individuals who innocuously and naively step into the discussion, without realising they do not have the wherewithal to cope with the manic intensity or mindless abrasiveness prevalent.  It is usually multiple times worse than the Arnab show with thirteen extra-large and ultra-wide mouths (twelve panelists and Arnab himself) which simultaneously have uncontrollable verbal diarrhea.  To avoid the physically bruising and mentally traumatising consequences of such conversations, one should just be determined to point the nose in the opposite direction and walk away, whatever the temptations to stay or however strong one's friendship with the participants.  But, but, it is so very pathetic that more often than not we don't choose that simple option and end up like a Shakespearean tragic hero eventually.

Take Cricket, it is a real low-hanging fruit for this context.  How does 'A' convince four fractious and on-the-edge friends that Rahul Dravid is a greater contributor to Indian cricket and role model than Sachin Tendulkar (he heartily says stats be damned, look at the overall picture).  His argument that apart from all the runs both scored, Dravid's timely retirement in a very dignified manner should score over how Tendulkar dragged his feet, huffed and puffed before being almost asked to disappear.  'A' soon realises this is a battle he cannot win, but as a true-blue, pugnacious cricket expert, he dare not give up.  This testy argument will go on and if you have any sense, you will side-step this one.  So are other juicy topics like what should Kholi have done around the 15th over of the match against KKR in IPL 2016 or  if Ray Illingworth should have taken the new ball when available in the Lords test against Australia in the 1960s!!

How about this 'chor/chowkidar' slogans which have flooded the airwaves these days?  Even at the tender age of 6-8, smart kids discover that it is futile to run around as police, trying to catch thieves.  Look at these seemingly educated adults strutting as political leaders playing `Kallan/Police' endlessly.  If X is trying to harangue his friends into acceptance of his argument that it is terrible form for a real 'chor' to be calling anyone else (chor or otherwise) that, it is not going to be a cake-walk.  How do you argue with people who just throw numbers (different ones, plucked fresh from the air just for that moment) on the same subject, without producing an iota of proof, and brazenly keep insisting that something has been stolen and there has been a scam! X will end up being hoarse and probably be deprived of half his larynx but it is downright stupid to expect him to win this one.

If ever three older men (with sincere apologies to all old men from one of their own) are talking in hushed tones, there is an even chance that it is about their ailments, doctors, treatments etc.  Please banish yourself from the vicinity post-haste.  Do not err to lend an ear, for that body part will be gone for a walk for a while. I understand that being sympathetic is good, but my own experience is that sympathy in some such contexts brings you a bountiful harvest of unwanted personal information.  That, interspersed with agonising dissection into minutest details of individual anatomy, what is out of whack (of which there is a whole compendium), updated details on hundreds of efficacious medicines consumed and useless ones rejected - all shared with intuitive wisdom.  All ending up with almost a fervent wish that you also should go through the ailment so that you can appreciate the value of the discussion. I am not being very sympathetic in such circumstances any longer - do you blame me??

Any group which looks like having broods distributed over the western world is usually avoidable because the conversation is predictable and emotionally charged.  The onslaught begins with a benign statement which goes like `My son is in Seattle and daughter in San Francisco'.  In the next 15 minutes, you are subtly or overtly but mercilessly stripped of all family history.  You get to hear in fantastic detail why Cupertino is a better neighbourhood than Milpitas.  Thrown in as a bonus is a conviction-based-declamation as to why Trump has got it all wrong (only because India's sons and daughters holding H1B visas have all become endangered species suddenly) and should be impeached.  For someone like me who struggles to comprehend the politics of our homeland, deciphering the complexity of the Trump immigration policy is going beyond the pale.  The problem usually is that one cannot walk away because one is part of a captive audience!

Always look around to see if anyone in the group you are joining, especially someone unknown to you, looks like a financial or economic wizard before venturing opinion on anything that vaguely sounds like economics.  Because theories of Keynes and Adam Smith, details of micro and macro economic situations in all corners of the world as well as inside information on what the central bank governors and Finance Ministers are thinking at that moment-- all these and more are pulped and swallowed by these chaps continuously and they are so ready to regurgitate what they have read and heard.  There is just no way of contravening them because this situation is akin to a dam-burst -- you just get swept away in a whoosh!  You listen and be damned or ignore and be damned, that is all the choice you have.

By now, I am sure, you have come to the same conclusion as I have.  The problem is not the topic, but the people engaged in the conversation.  I try to see if what is going on is a reasonable discussion or a seemingly simple argument which will turn violent any time.  And, beware of those sworn founts of wisdom, spewing forth knowledge in all directions.  You can easily identify these with a bit of practice - they generally carry a halo around their whole body, not just the head.  Then there is that species which vigorously waves the flag always for what it has been part of -- the bestest restaurant or saree shop or jeweller and seldom brooks any dissension.  So, if you want to save your skin, do watch out for the signals before stepping into a likely mine-field or develop a strategy to extricate yourself at the earliest point.

Lament Of A Traditional Match Maker

One essential feature of daily life my dear wife and I enjoy most within our gated community for the last decade is our evening walk.  We try not to miss that and the wife makes such a song and dance if I were to be the reason for the walk not being part of the day, because she believes the quality of her sleep deteriorates sans the walk.  That the fact is she sleeps 15 minutes more overall on such days,  is another matter but then who wants an argument over this! Under the circumstances, I was a bit perturbed when she recently started postponing the time of the walk, converting it from an evening walk to an almost nocturnal exercise.  It seemed like she was trying to avoid something or somebody, but wouldn't brook any discussion.  Until one inky dark night,  when there was minimal scope of anyone recognizing anyone else unless the two parties were to collide violently into each other and then engage in an intense identity quest.  We were confronted by a diffident couple, who were more like contacts in a common, large WhatsApp group for us -- not even acquaintances, certainly not good friends.  Laced with great hesitation, they nervously but quickly, without preamble, requested our help in identifying a match for their son and left us perplexed, without further ado.  My wife finally chose to throw some light on her attempts to delay our walk-time. `See, this is why I want to walk even later.  I have heard from some other distressed parents, who think we have a magic wand.  I know we can't help much'.

Let me clarify, we are not some wizards in the business of match-making; never ventured close to this rather sensitive activity till about six months ago, consciously or otherwise.  The genesis of this current situation happened when we had two families well known to us, right in our line of sight, struggling to find suitable matches for their son and daughter.  Even a dim-wit would have seen the opening and introduced the two families for further discussions.  We did just that and lo and behold, the union was concluded; boy and girl are happy; parents are over the moon.  We were obviously thrilled and happy that we could help.  But there was this surprising twist to the outcome too, in the aftermath.  Some other parents who were on the look-out for suitable matches for their children probably thought we are a massive data-bank teeming with brides and grooms, all lined up for diverse eventualities.  A few more chats with parents and we realised how desperate people are, caught in a painful cleft stick.  Peer pressure is crushing them with its weight on the one hand,  while on the other, the perpetually procrastinating youngsters are completely devoid of any interest in marriage, driven by their own easier social environment.

Recently we attended a couple of weddings and found that if one were to throw a well-made `laddu', one would score hits with ten sets of parents looking for matches.  And certainly enjoy a bonus of  at least a couple of noble souls who consciously and bravely make efforts to connect families, as a social service; such parents who constantly suffer from acute anxiety, acidity and ulcers, among other ailments. A pow-wow with a two such brave-hearts enlightened some of us about the thorny issues they and the anguished parents face in the context of the wards' marriage.

Here is the litany of the problems enumerated by the duo with a lot of angst.  In order to appreciate the current tangle well, we need to go back and get a crash course on the process prevailing two decades back.  Earlier, the match-making process was relatively straightforward, even though as long as parents were involved they unfailingly contrived to inject some dose of complication.  And, if they were not the juries and judges in the match-making decision, the level of complexity ballooned multi-fold, simply because of the age-old parental belief that they know best.  Generally, parents got the chills when the boy or girl returned home late from work periodically, with what sounded like glib lies for explanation. Palpitating heavily, they started pestering the ward to get hitched and proceeded with the opening manoeuvre, ignoring all protestations, tepid or robust, from all sources.

Enter the Traditional Match-Maker (TMM), typically a genial, good-samaritan lady, with dollops of leisure on hand and bagful of contacts, the package enhanced infinitely by a gift of the gab and praiseworthy patience.  The TMM was given the details of requirements, expectations etc of the parents, ignoring the wails of the wards.  This TMM was a veritable mobile data bank, relying completely on her roving memory, with an astounding ability to do a RAM search and match whenever a new candidate was introduced.  When the TMM sensed she had even a nebulous chance of success, she connected the two sets of parents and disembarked, relying more on hope than on conviction.

Parents talked, matched/mismatched horoscopes, ferreted out trivial family background information going back a couple of centuries, seemingly with the intent to reject the match.  Then, if it was a no-go everyone pretended all was well, buried the case and went back to target-practice, harassing the wards. If it was a go, the families jubilantly met to do a stringent character assessment/assassination of the grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, other kith and kin, with the unifocal objective of running the match aground on some count.  Finally, all such nefarious attempts failing, the boy and the girl too met for a few minutes - if they were fortunate and the parents, very liberal - not to decide their own fate, but before saying `yes' to parents.  Usually, the final edict was issued by the patriarch, normally the one with the loudest voice in the family, and all dissenters meekly fell in line with remarkable alacrity.  When the wedding was done, the TMM notched one more chalk mark on her board and moved on.

Cut over to the present day.  Invariably, all the middle class kids study, scrupulously and deliberately avoid jobs in their home city, find something at least half a world away in order to escape the clutches of the parents and fly the coop. They exploit their new-found freedom to the hilt at the other end.  What this means is when the parents start piling the pressure on the wards to marry, a perfectly antithetical situation emerges, with the elders intent on forcing the ward into wedlock `now' (You are already 28!), while the boy/girl wants to remain free for another 4-5 years (No one marries before 32 today!).  The dexterous ones manage their `freedom' plan skillfully by breezily telling the parents to use the TMM route, while they also look around, to select a few prospective suitable matches.  They simultaneously keep well researched reasons to say `NO' when something does come up.  After all this TMM business helps them postpone decision for considerable length of time.  So, while the TMM-Parents syndicate works feverishly to put some options on the table, the process never reaches the  next stage.

All the new matrimonial sites with various classes of service (Diamond, Platinum, Copper, Steel, Aluminium etc) have added another compounding angle to this confusion.  During all this time, probably the ward has already identified a suitable candidate, but shields this carefully from the parents for as long as possible, if only because the latter would explode and evaporate in fumes when they find out the truth!  The TMM is left adrift finally when the boys and girls identify and marry their own partners.  All the TMM has accomplished is a lot of frustration along the way and disappointment at the end.  The hit rate has come down drastically and this obviously fuels discontentment among the TMMs.

The other major problem TMM faces today is that the demands from the boy or girl, which have become part of the process unlike earlier times, have gotten very progressive and bizarre.  'Potential candidate based in and around a city in California' is par for the course now.  A strictly `No-Return-To-India' policy is a non negotiable condition often.  Another strident rule is from the girl is `In-laws cannot stay with us for more than 6 hours and two meals at any time, except when I need them'.  `We need to date and go out for 6 months before deciding'; `I can only consider this if we can live together for a year' - these are some more pre-conditions faced by TMMs.  The quaint TMM concept, which had worked well in a conventional social structure, finds it rather difficult to deal with such turbulent waves and is crumbling. So, many TMMs have sought and taken voluntary retirement and the tribe is probably dwindling by the day.

The dividends the TMM used to get for all the troubles were rather sparse in the good days.  They were driven more by the satisfaction of rendering some useful social service and seeing couples settling down and living happily.  This is also getting dicey now, what with marriages breaking down in haste for what would seem flimsy reasons to most people.  So, the veteran TMMs we met and interviewed, advised any budding TMM (if such a species exists) to tread carefully and never take any credit for anything in the first place.  Who knows what will follow??

Under the circumstances, if TMM as a tribe becomes extinct, that won't be a surprise!