Has the lunatic fringe taken over???

Images of a burning Taj and Oberoi hotels..on our TV screens...
So many killed in Mumbai...
And we still know not exactly why???....

Clearly, the lunatic fringe has taken charge again..and is in control...
It seems to be gaining ground...the world over..
Gathering more converts...
Even among the educated...and those who should be more enlightened...

A chance conversation with a co-worker...
Brought this home to me...

I was recounting the travails of a Muslim neighbour...
A devout one...as she looked for a suitable school for her 3 year old twins...
There are good schools in our neighbourhood....
But all of them are rigourously wedded to spreading the message of their religion.....

"My little boys now fold their hands and sing...
Raghupathy Raghava Raja Ram"...she said...laughing...
I could see how difficult this must be for her...

When I recounted this..
My co-worker said:
"Why not?? Let them say!!!
After all when you went to a Christian school, they made you say their prayers..."

Yea, but it was not such a polarised world back then...
And reciting that prayer was akin to reciting a p0em...
For most of us..

We recited it and went in to class...
We recited it and came home...
Some...more spiritually inclined...went beyond the words..
We listened to stories from their Holy Book...and enjoyed it..

I do not remember them running down other religions...
Or mentioning the dreaded C word...
C for conversion, that is!!!!...
And distrust was not part of the deal...
Tolerance and understanding were...

They merely showed us their way...
And we learnt..
Our way..at home..
Not so now..

Back then....
Tolerance was a sign of the educated...the enlightened...the liberal minded...
Who respected other ways...
Were sensitive to cultural and religious differences...
And leapt over these boundries to bond with others...
Recognising that all religions are merely roads to the same end...
Or to no end..
As the case may be...

The killing..
The rioting...
The burning down of people and property....
The us vs theirs kind of religion...happened even then, but these were quite clearly the purview of the lunatic fringe...
And which Faith does not have them???

What still shocks me ...
Is when I see educated people..
Educated at premier institutions...
MAs, MScs and Phds...
Proud of their learning...
Mouth the same slogans...
Voice the same prejudices...
Express the same insecurities....
The same hatred....
Speak and behave like the looney fringe...

For shame!!!!....
Learning is not only about formulae and equations...marks and jobs..
Surely..it is also about expanding the mind...and making it inclusive...or should be..

How did this happen???
This emphasis on defining an individual...
By his or her Religion...
Caste...
Class.....
Even language...
Or region...
Even in this day and age...
After exposure to so much education...post globalisation??
How much more narrow can we become???

After all...
The truely spiritual do not need the boundries of religion...
Or need to remain within its folds...
They transcend its narrow confines...

It is said that when Sri Ramakrishna...
Thought of God as Durga and worshipped and beckoned Her...She appeared to him in that form.....
As Krishna...and He appeared as such...
As Jesus...and He appeared in that form...or so the story goes...

Religion was never meant to deteriorate into gang warfare..or terrorism...
It is so much at the opposite end of the spectrum...
In the realm of the Spirit..in the Inner Life..
Unfortunately...raw passions are now in charge...
It is the dynamics of the GANG at work....the world over...

One upmanship...
Mine is better than yours...
Or rather..
Mine is the one true way....

And..in many countries...
It all begins in school..
Where they now catch 'em young...
And convert them into fundamentalists for life...

The only way out is to ban religion and religious teaching from our schools...and educational institutions...
They should teach religious tolerance instead...
It is not their job to teach or propogate a single religion...
Or drum up religious hatred...
Or expose their students to teaching that divides...rather than unites...

Take religious teaching away from institutions...
From the swamijis, gurujis, mullahs, maulvis, nuns and priests...
Out of the purview of the gurukuls, gurudwaras, madrassas and convents...
Leave it to the parents and family...it is their responsibility...
They should deal with it....if they must...

Let schools deal with inculcating moral values...
Good behaviour...good manners...
Teach their students...
To appreciate and respect differences...
Be these social, cultural or religious...
To be sensitive to others...
To become better human beings...
That is the only way to move forward...

Tribute to a very dear friend....

I have a few close friends...
Very dear to me..
I lost one of them..
On Saturday night..
All of a sudden..

It was well past eleven.....
When the door bell rang downstairs..
Something was very wrong..
My cousin was at the door..
What is it? what is it?....I ask looking down from the window....
Mrs ....has passed away...he says..

What????
It cannot be..
I dash down the stairs..
To her house..
And there she is on the floor..lying where she fell...
I feel her her hands ...so cold....so limp..
A massive heart attack..they tell me..

The husband is in a state of shock..
I heard the dog bark and came out..he says..
Saw her slumped over the sofa..I touched her...
She turned and fell over..
I knew she was gone..he says..
She is still lying there....

We spread a sheet on the floor..
Carry her to it..
She should face the North....my aunt says..
Her sammandhi...equally shell shocked...
Tries to find a lamp... a wick..oil...
It is lit...
Her arms placed over her chest..
A pillow under her head....
Tie her toes together...as custom demands...
Is it for this that we were friends???...I wonder...

My friend so full of life..
Lying lifeless and limp...
So unreal...
Could this really be happening????

But I saw her online at 10.30..I say..
I was talking to my son..
When the green light next to her name came on in Chat..
I almost talked to her...
And then decided not to...too late..
Why didn't I say something??....

The astrologers said she would live until she is 73....her husband says..
But she is gone now... only in her late 50s...

Is her spirit still around??...listening to us as we talk..as in some out of body experience???..I wonder...
Relatives arrive...
We leave..to give them space to mourn...
As we mourn ourselves..

The dogs in the compound are barking...
As if they know that something is very amiss...
"It is the soul..passing on,"...says my Uncle.....
"They can sense it," he adds...
I wonder...

She has been so much a part of my journey through life...
I have to talk about her....

I keep hearing the sound of her voice..
Speaking my name..
Occasionally lapsing into a few sentences of her stilted Tamizh...
Recall images of her..
Sitting in her veranda..
Reading the newspapers..
Or poring over her laptop....
Looking up for a quick wave..or if time permits.. a chat...

We have lived in the same compound for many years...
We were not always friends...
At first I only knew her as my aunt's tenant..
The lady who loved animals..

When a baby squirrel fell off the tree we took it to her..
If a crow was being pecked at..
We threw a basket over it..
And told her..
A little owlet sitting on my aunt's washing machine..we sent it to her

Stray cats and other animals gravitated to her house...open to them all..
As if her pair of Apsos wasn't enough!!

Even now two cats stray into the house..
She drew them in..saying that..
Pepper...her beagle..was lonely and needed friends....

It was a fight that brought us together..
We had a common enemy...
A rabble of noise makers....
Had moved into an unauthorized construction behind where we stayed...

For three years we fought..
Together we went to petition...the chief secretary....the commissioner of police...the commissioner of the Corporation...MMDA...sundry lower level officials...
To the lawyer.....checked her documentation....prodded her on..
Together we went to the city civil court...every time our case came for hearing...
Together, we took friends and neighbors...to hearings of the Pollution Control Board's Appellate Authority Tribunal...
Together knocked on sundry anonymous doors on our street...in a signature campaign against noise pollution...
Together walked into police stations..demanding that they register our case...made innumerable phone calls..
They played dirty...we did not...

When a Summons came for me from the Police Inspector at Vepery...
Everyone advised me not to withdraw my complaints..
No one offered to go with me...
Except my parents....
And my friend...
She and her husband came with me to the Police Station...
I was quiet as they talked...
The situation came under control .....

It was War...
But we won....ultimately....
Our joint victory....

I could never have done it alone...without her by my side....
Supporting...encouraging...
Bolstering up my sagging spirits....
Always doing the right thing....
We complemented each other..
In temperament...
In everything we did..

She was always so particular..
About doing the right thing...
For herself..
For her family and friends..
For those who worked for her....

The bond which began by sitting on the steps of the city civil court..chatting...
Was strengthened by long conversations...across the fence..

Sandy...her Apso..widower...12 years old.... came to rub noses at the gate with
Our Daisy...Alsatian....4 years old...flirtatious...as
We shared confidences..
Discussed politics...
Harish Khare's column...
Shashi Tharoor... a distant relative...
Her faith in homeopathy and ayurveda...
Priests and poojas..
Astrologers...
Tried to match-make....for her brother...went to
Art of Living classes...
Sent each other maids and gardeners...or
Simply gossiped...swapped family stories...problems...
So many similarities..so much to share..

My son....
And her daughter.. a few years older..
Two peas in a pod..
Both October born..
Living for their friends..
Avid shop-till-you-drop-ers...for clothes and shoes...
Credit-card happy....
Party animals...
He... now a student in Peoria, Illinois
She..now a successful confident working woman in Chicago, Illinois...only a few hours away...
We shared our hopes for them...

While I went back to my routine...battle-weary after the war..
She continued..
Haranguing tardy Corporation officials for not clearing the road..
Saving trees..
Because of her ...a huge tree lives on ...
At Raintree Place..in Chetpet...
She stopped her friend from felling it...
She loved our compound....
Vibed well with all of us...
And then there were the causes of those less fortunate women abused by their husbands....
She was their strength and support...

Then.....
Her electronics unit blossomed...and began to really takeoff...
Her buyers in Japan invited her over...and later they came...
Orders came pouring in..
She got busy...
And so did I.... in ways not so spectacular...

The astrologers said I will be able to buy an elephant to tie in my backyard she told me once..
We laughed over that one..
She was almost getting there....

Her maid of many years comes crying to me...
She saved my life... she says..
When I drank acid...because of my husband...
She used to come and sit with me in the hospital.... she says....

A worker from her unit...who once swept our gardens comes to see me..
Amma was so good to you....I say...
I am not the only one...she says...
Almost all the women...about 20 odd... in the factory are like me...have problems with their husbands...
Then there are four people sent by SCARF...one talks to himself..
There is also a man who comes in on a cycle for the handicapped she says...
She guided these people....counseled them..about how to better their lives...

At the funeral..
When I go in .. to place a wreath..
Her maids tell me..
She was talking only about you yesterday...for so long...
She said we should get you a new cook...
She said you are having so many problems because of that...

I am so touched...
She has held me up...during a very difficult time in my life...
And continues to look out for me..even now...
And I have given her nothing in return..
Only taken from her...I feel...

I wish I had brought her fresh flowers for her birthday..
I only sent her an sms...belated at that...
And she quickly called me...from Kerala..where she was traveling...
And later..from Bangalore..on Friendship Day...

The rituals begin...
I join the family..
Place the rice and thulasi and water on her lips..
The women representing their tharawads place a red silk cloth over her..
And then she is gone...
I cannot believe that it is final...

I understand now how my father feels... every time he loses a friend...
His shoulders sag just a wee bit more...
It is my turn now...

Farewell!!!
Noble Crusader for worthwhile causes..
Comrade in Arms..and..
Dear dear friend...

I thought I would see you grow old..
Sit on your veranda...like your mother used to..
I feel cheated...

I wish I had been a better friend to you...
Showered you with more affection..
Bought you gifts...
Called you home...
Visited you more often...
I realize now...how much you mean to me...

Life does not always turn out like we think it will..
You were gone..before you knew it...in a moment...
No lingering or looking back...

The loss is mine...
I have not been so lucky...
I wish it had been otherwise...

Celebrity ....the stuff of spin doctors???....

Celebrity….....
In my childhood…..it was a fleeting glimpse......
Of Queen Elizabeth II.....in an open car....at the head of her motorcade....driving down Mount Road.......regal......distant...

Chacha Nehru.......
Dr Rajendra Prasad....
Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan....
We saw them all....whiz by..
A wave of the hand...a nod..and then gone...

A moment was all we got.....
To capture the image in memory.....camera-like...forever..
After all..
Celebrities had only that to offer…
A supercharged adrenalin high moment.....

So........
A glance at the Pavillion..from
The Nawab of Pataudi……
Or Abbas Ali Baig......
Or any of that kind...
Quickened the pulse....
Of adolescent moonstruck young things....
And became a treasured memory...

There was no TV then....
To beam in celebrity images into our drawing rooms...ad nauseum...
So the mystique remained...

It also helped that..
We did not hear at all...
About Prince Philip's tryst with constipation......
Or of Obama's morning breath...
No butler's revelations...
Or handyman's tales...

But we did not mind...
We survived!!!!!
And they did too!!!...
Their private lives left largely unscathed by the glare of publicity!!!

Indeed, there were those who shunned the attention that fame brings.......
Like the writer....JD Salinger.....a veritable recluse....
Not so today.....
A time of instant recognition and fame...
A new breed of celebrities have cropped up....

The Page 3 people....
Avid seekers of the spotlight...
We see their pictures....
Abhi and Deepak....
Minnie…and Menon.....
Smiling for the cameras....

Who are these people???
Celebrities for an evening???...or a day???...or a season??
Who knows??? Or even cares???!!!!!

Why is celebrity so downgraded???
Surely..
It is the exponential growth of the media on the one hand....
Balanced by the growth of the PR industry on the other....that is to be blamed..
The dog..and its bone..
The one demands……
The other creates...…
Myths....
The stuff that celebrities are mostly made of!!!!

A politically correct persona....
A carefully stitched tale..... full of events that appeal...
to every segment of the voting public..
And also withstands intense media scrutiny..
This is an absolutely must for those in the public eye.....
Especially in the West..

So an Obama describes his pot smoking days....
When his contemporaries remember him as a quiet law-abiding youngster.....
A Senator McCain claims to have been tortured...
When the warden of his prison says no such thing happened...
Where does fiction end..or fact begin??

As in the public space..
So too in the private space..
Family history...personal history.....
Are all..
Fertile ground for myth making...

And it keeps happening all the time..
All around us.....
So much ado about nothing...
Based on nothing!!...

The Bard it was who said..
To thine own self be true..
Only..
That would put the spin doctors out of business....
And then where would all the attention seekers go??

Makes one wonder???...
Is all history the stuff of spin doctors???
Is it all made up then?? Since back when??
That is the question!!.....

Until next time then....
Adieu!!

When does Life begin????....or end????

This week I say
"Hats off" ......
To one of my oldest friends...
Oldest..both in terms of age and acquaintance...
As she steps off a Cruise down the Nile..
And looks the Spinz in the eye..
A sprightly 70 plus..

Still looking for adventure..
For that Road to Machu Picchu.....
In geographical space..
And in her mind...

Two years ago, she did Angkor Wat..
Climbed up those forbiddingly steep steps..
While the rest of her Gang of Four gals..
Trailed behind...

She inspires me...and makes me wonder???
When does life begin? or end?...

Sweatshop comments and conversation would have me believe that it has ended already ....for me..
At least...two decades ago!!!!
Funny!!!...... considering that several of my co-workers are trailing..... close on my heels.....
But then ....

As I get on in life..I find that age matters most to the young...
And the muddled...and the insecure...
They gloat and exult in it...
Comparison with those older makes them feel good....
I guess..

But age has never really mattered to my friend...and
My mother's best friend...then and now...

I met her first...when she was in her mid 20's...to my 8 or 9...
Playing a now defunct game called L-O-N-D-O-N
With her landlady's children!!!!
The first time I had ever seen an adult play with children!!! And enjoy it as well!!!
I see the same interest..when she bonds with Ash...my 12 year old niece...and checks out Ash's nail polish collection!!!!

She and my mother took us for long walks in the evening...
Down to the sea...in Waltair....

So many memories..
Scrambling over the sticky sandy beach..
Chasing the waves...
Jumping up high.....when the breakers turned and rushed back at us........
The sea....so dangerous...and alluring...
And then hailing a bus at dusk..in a township which had no bus stops..just unscheduled stops at the door step of its passengers...

Each of our outings were tinged with adventure....
New thoughts...new experiences...new feelings...
It felt as it we were on to something every time we set out with her...
A Julie Andrews-Mary Poppins type of quest..

Who knows what the next bend in the road will bring???...
A goblin?? No ..only a lone cyclist bent over as he cycles up the incline...but maybe next time...

She was studying to become a librarian...
And wrote middles and stories in women's magazines...
It was her description of the sea from our house that first drew my attention to Nature..made me notice the world ...out there...

We lived then in a house...
Atop a little hillock..
Overlooking the sea...
Redlands...it was called...

All that land around and under it had once been under the sea..
And when it receded.. the sea left its mark..in the peaks and crevices...in the undulations...the contours.... scooped out of the red sand...

At night, the jackals howled...in the dunes ...nearby..
And later still we heard the half chuckle of a family of hyenas that gazed at our lawn...from the other side of the fence..
Saw their beady eyes glisten in the dark.... feeling safe behind our glass doors!!!

The article she had written described the scenery we saw every day..
From the huge bay windows in each bedroom...
Yes......the sea....so many shades of blue...
As the waves kept coming...
Crashing over the bottoms of the two capsized ships on the Naval Base side of the Bay..
And washing up on the boulders at the base of Dolphin's Nose..then a huge uninhabited rocky hillock jutting out into the sea...now the site of luxury resorts!!!!

Such a beautiful place...and she first made me notice it...and then it became a habit..

She never married...there were family tragedies...her career as a librarian at a leading University kept her going...
She went riding every day..played tennis..and kept tabs on her Mother in Coorg..just a few hours away...

Over the years, she kept visiting my parents..
In times of joy...and in times of pain..
We holidayed together...as a family...
We did Jammu and Kashmir..
And then Nepal...Gauhati and Shillong...
Delhi..
Rajasthan...

And now..
She is family..
Not bound to us by bonds of blood..
The bonds we have forged are deeper still..

Perhaps Winner sensed that when he bowed to touch her feet and take her blessings ....the last time she was here..
It made me feel happy and proud...

Our lives are so moulded by those around us...
And..
We need to be inspired...to just get a move on......

She inspires me..
To believe that life never really ends...no matter the number of years that slip by...
For those touched by the Spirit of Adventure....
The best is always yet to be....
Only when Interest in the world around us dies...does one really die..

So do take a leaf out of my friend's book...
And believe that Life will keep surprising you...sometimes when you least expect it to..
Here's to Life and Living!!!
And three Cheers to my friend!!!!..

Even the longest life will seem short...in the end!!!
So let's just plunge in and live life to the fullest...
Whaddya say?????

No more tomatoes in my soup!!!!!

I never thought I'd live to see this!!!...
A time when tomatoes would rule at Rs 60 per kg...in Chennai..
Equal to the price of a liter of petrol...
About the price of quarter kilo of meat...OR...
The price of a house in Detroit on eBay!!!!!......

Is this the beginning of the end?.....
Of the world as we know it????...
Or the beginning of the beginning of ...
The world food crisis...much talked about and feared!!!!

If things continue at this pace....
We may soon have to wait in line outside the ration shop..
For our weekly quota of tomatoes...through the public distribution system!!!!!

What's going on in Veggie World?
Is it the global crisis?...the usual show spoiler these days......

Or
Sky rocketing inflation?
Higher transport costs?
Bad harvests?

Methinks it is...
The Tomato Mafia at work here.....the middleman taking advantage of all the above three factors...
And holding consumers to ransom...

With Diwali in the air...
It is also Make-a-fast-buck-at-the-expense-of-the-Stupid-Common-Man-time...
A lethal combination of forces are at work..apparently...

At the state level no politician has made a statement regarding this...

Maybe they believe that the arrest of a Vaiko is of greater importance to the common man than the price of the food on his table?
Or to empathize with the Tamil Eelam cause...
With a human chain in the rain..
Made up of NSS and NCC cadets forced outdoors for the sake of attendance..
Putting commuters to inconvenience....
To a five to six hour ride in slow moving traffic to reach home in Adayar from Anna Salai... ON A WORKING DAY...is somehow going to endear them to us all?


That political theater and rhetoric will make up for inaction?...
How out of sync with the Common man's most basic needs and aspirations can our politicians be?

Food prices will emerge as a major election issue...
And the price of tomatoes alone can upset the apple-cart of the ruling party on polling day...
Not all the flyovers in Chennai....
Or the public parks that keep sprouting up...will make a difference..
If the food and vegetable prices situation is not contained....

Don't you agree?
And while you mull that over...
I'll just go on and place my bids..on eBay..
No...not for tomatoes!!!...

Iceland..I hear...is on the block ....
Maybe I'll get lucky and snag that...
For the price of six kilos of tomatoes in Chennai!!!..

How about that???
If I get lucky I'll send you tickets to ringside seats...
To watch the Northern Lights light up the Arctic Skies this December...
Nature's own Festival of Lights in the Sky...
On a grander scale than our own Festivals of Lights..

So Happy Deepavali...
One and All!!!..

And Do have a Feast...
Even if you have to limit the number of tomatoes in your soup!!!!......

The times..they ain't always a changin'....

They say..
Times change....
Names change...
As in.. Madras is now Chennai...
And grand ole Victoria Crescent is Dr Cherian Crescent...
Even patterns of behavior change.........they say...
And so I thought too...

Until a letter from a student of a prominent Chennai college for women...
Of which I am an alum...
To the youth supplement of a local English newspaper..
Threw me off....
Proved me so wrong....

An obnoxious young man was flashing his wares..
From behind a pile of newspapers..
While riding a motorcycle at the same time...the letter writer said...
Yech!!!

When Chennai grew...it swallowed up those lonely, dark spots where exhibitionists love to lurk...or so I thought...
The breed must have died out...or migrated to B and C grade towns in the hinterland...or so I thought...again...
Apparently not!!!!

The letter took me back to the time when we lived in the hostels attached to this very same college...

In the evenings from 4 to 6......
When a bell rang!!!.......
To signal time out!!!!
Hostelites were allowed to exercise....
By walking around the Crescent...

In giggling gangs...
We circled the walls of Our World then..
To peer at the world outside Fortress Hostel...

Round and round we went..
Like those fabled armies that went around the walled city of Jericho...in Biblical times.......

When someone spotted the intruder.....

A clean-shaven, quiet looking young man with a briefcase....
He appeared quite suddenly...
And then...he did it...
From behind the briefcase...

The gangs of perambulating girls stopped in their tracks...
Some were shocked...
Some were angered...
Some were disgusted..
Some were giggling...
Some were shocked, angered, disgusted AND giggling...

And in this Strange State of Being...... raced back to the hostel..
And thundered up the stairs....
To the the very top of Top Floor....
Of Auschwitz Block..
With its own live-in Warden...
To be scolded..
By the Resident Lesbian Couple..
For startling them!!!!!

Fiddler on the Road...we called him!!!!
He kept us indoors over the next few days.....
Then the vacations came...
When we returned he was gone!!...and we put him out of our minds...
His memories dredged up only now by this desperate plea in the papers.... for action.....

Sexual misbehavior of this kind elicits derision...especially from cops..
The offender becomes an object of ridicule..and that's almost about it..
The attitude clearly is..we have far more serious matters to deal with...this is light stuff in comparison...

For hardened cops ......yes!!!!
But how about those like the writer of the letter????...
Young and so unexposed to exposure!!!!!
And without the knowledge that...
Show-offs of any kind are only about show and tell...
Not action!!

But then..coming to think of it..
Exposure is no serious offense on Chennai's streets....

With the monsoon clouds all over the place...
And a cool nor'easterly blowin' in from the Bay..
The drive down Spur Tank Road...is a sight to avert one's eyes from...
As one zipper inspires the unzipping of another....

They stand in a never ending line...
Along the margins of the Cooum's banks.....
And they are no Daffodils!!!!
Wordsworthian or otherwise!!

No sign of shame or fear.......at all!!!!
What would happen if that Writer for the Lonely Planet Guide to the city were to drive by???.....
You tell me!!...I shudder to think!!!...
Wouldn't she be tempted to put this at the head of her list of Must-see sights in the city??? Huh???

That there is a deep interest abroad in India's underbelly is very clear from Aravind Adiga's White Tiger Booker victory...
This would only take the interest down a notch lower!!!!

To come back to the fiddler...
If caught..he will be left off with a fine...
And what good does that do???

Fines...
May reduce smoking in public....for a while....
May make the Marlboro man bite the dust...
And make jingles like "the Made for Each Other Blend" so much ancient history...
May help cops make a fast buck...
May make NGO hot-shots feel important..
Make other eager-beavers feel good...
But not much else...

In such cases...of fiddlers....
Psychiatric treatment is sorely needed....

And for those other Spur Tank Road-type offenders????
It takes much more to change the way they are...

Maybe we should learn from Olde Siam where...
Subjects once loved to spit on the sidewalks...
A Wise Monarch then decreed that the Siamese must stop with the spitting on the streets forthwith... Or else...
And it worked...

It has worked for us too....in the past....
We moved from "We two, Ours too many"
To "We two, Ours two"...
Mostly inspired by Sanjay Gandhi's Or else tactics.....
Adopt family planning
Or else face nasbandhi aka forced sterilization...for the men!!!!

Only two choices...
Most men decided to be sensible and wisely ticked off Option One....
Rather than have their manhood tampered with in makeshift-tents-turned-operating-theatres!!!!...
It worked then...though the entire country hated it...... and that man for it.......

Or else then is the best agent of Change in such cases...
Absolute power to say "Or else.....Off with your..."
Will do the trick...
Will allow you to step into puddles in the rain without wondering what else is in it???... other than rainwater??!!!...
Will stop that guy from aiming at your freshly white-washed back wall....

Just think of that...

And now.......
That said...
Its pouring outside and...
I have to GO.....
Outside...

To a party!!...

Gosh!!!!!! What WERE you thinking???!!!!

Anxiety on Anna Salai....

PANIC......
A familiar feeling these days...
It momentarily gripped the usually unruffled offices of Sweatshop yesterday..
Unruffled by global issues that is...

A stranger stopped young Champagne on the street with some startling information...

Are you coming from the ATM of XYZ Bank????.. he asked...
Did you know......
It is not possible to get money out of any of their ATMS on Anna Salai????..he added..

Was he a helpful good Samaritan-type person??..
Or just a perverse rumor-monger?????...
Out to create a run on the bank???....

Anyway....it was enough to rattle her...
XYZ Bank? I have all my money there...she wailed... to us...

Colleagues quickly buzzed their husbands..
Ordered them to pull out money...
Emotional pandemonium prevailed..
Then the news wires put out some reassuring news..
The moment passed....

Our little microcosm..
Was only reflecting the larger macrocosm...
Out there...
In the world outside......

The sub-prime crisis in the USA may have touched off the meltdown.....
But it is the interconnected nature of the global financial system that helped spread the contagion...
To touch even us here.....
On Anna Salai.......
Our very own Main Street..

Is globalization such a wonderful thing after all????.....one wonders...
Given the domino effect at work on markets..
And seeing that gloom seems to beget more and more and more gloom.....in a cycle ....

Even Chennai has not been spared...
Our quota of bad news has come trickling in...

Only a day earlier, we had the horrible murder-suicide news of an IIT-Madras 1985 alum in LA.. on the front pages of Chennai newspapers...
He killed his wife, his mother in law and his three children before turning the gun on himself..
His life's savings gone in the Wall Street Crash..
The prospect of a trailer park existence stared him in the face...
And something snapped...

Long faces are the norm these days...as pessimists rule the roost......with their terrible predictions...and it seems like anyone and everyone in the city is a pundit......especially on matters economic...

Indeed George Bush and I are the only optimists around....
Fellow citizens: we can solve this crisis and we will.. he is supposed to have said..
Anxiety is feeding the meltdown..he added....
For once in his life he is right..
But who listens to him????...

Not the bulls surely......frisky sensitive animals......given to herd mentality...
Especially when the news flowing in is negative...
The coverage and slant to it even more so...

A zillion panic buttons sparked off.........
Leading to the stampede out of stock markets ..the world over..
The bears have been hammering away at prices....pushing indices below ground zero levels...

Conservative money management could have averted disaster.....

Years ago, a former executive director of the Madras Stock Exchange..now gone to the Other World...had sound advice for investors... large and small...

Spread your risk... was his message....
Put a third of your money in securities like government bonds or in fixed deposits in public sector banks..
A third in blue chip company deposits or debentures.....
And the last third in the equity of companies you can hedge your bets on...and..
The investor...whether an individual or a mutual fund...has to do his homework.... he held...
So true...

It does not take an MBA from the Wharton School of Business to manage funds effectively..
A prudent housewife with a large dose of commonsense can do the job equally well...

As with individuals so too with corporates...and all the other big guys....
The greed for more and more and more...the search for higher yields.... risk taking...investing the entire corpus on doubtful schemes...shady investments....
This is their undoing....always....

Anyway, what comes down must go up..eventually.....that is the law of the markets....and it will happen sooner or later...

And what goes up must come down..... Right????....Right!!!!
Yea, except petrol and diesel prices...

International crude oil prices may tumble to below 80 dollars per barrel...but petrol prices are fixed firmly at the Rs 50 per liter mark....
Amazing how a rise in crude prices is factored in instantaneously..
But a drop of more than 20 dollars is just ignored...
This is partly why tomato prices are reigning at Rs 35 per kilo....
And hey, if the middleman realizes that the common man has the capacity to pay Rs 35 per kg.....he will make that the price till Kingdom Come!!

Either an end will come to all this..
Or we will live to forever BORE coming generations to tears..
With tales of the way things were..
Back in good old 2008....or thereabouts..

As for me..
All things considered......
I am a Bull...
I am in it for the long haul...
I'll just wait it out....
Until the next big bull run....

Hrrmph!!....

A Mahatma among us

In Olde Madras..
Long before Gandhian Studies became a fashionable subject..
Among research scholars...ambitious writers...and such like..
Before politically correct publishing houses put him on their publishing lists.....
I discovered my first book on the Mahatma...

Frequent transfers were part of the deal for bankers back then..and so it was that a certain Mr Mundkur left two whole crates of books with Father's friend, before setting off to introduce banking in some remote corner of darkest Africa...
Father's friend got transferred and in turn bequeathed the crates to Father..
Who left them under the staircase in HIS father's family house...

Where as a child I liked to poke around...looking for treasure......
And found this treasure chest of books...
Enid Blyton, the Brothers Grimm, Richmal Crompton, Jim Corbett, Kenneth Anderson, Louisa May Alcott, children's magazines imported from the United Kingdom, stories from the Soviet Union....and many other cherished books....all of which proclaimed their owner to be Anand S Mundkur...

Mr Mundkur's son I presume?..
The books remain unclaimed to this day...

So much to read on languid summer days...over several long drawn summers....
Lying on the bed..
The fan whirring on...

A children's book on Gandhi was part of this collection..a slim one filled with fine sketches......
It started with scenes from Gandhiji's funeral..took me back to his birth and early life.....through the high points that followed ...and ended with his assassination...

I was all of seven years old...no one had told me about Gandhi until then.....
The book..it made me cry....
He was a hero...
I wished I had been Gandhi...
Driven the white man out...
Set us all free....

Years later...
Kid brother No:2 told me:
"You, you like to be Gandhi!!"
But he said it with a sneer...as in "You, you killjoy you..."

Not at all like I was a hero or something..
More like "You are the worst pain in the a--- in the whole wide world.."

Especially when I trotted out my "we should do the right thing" dialogue.....
Why can't we just pay the damned bribe?...Or pay the damned donation? ...Or do what it damn well takes to get a move on?...was his view of things...
Let's be practical here...... is probably what he wanted to say..
Just pack up your idealism and your airy-fairy notions of life....he probably wanted to add...

Yea, but then...
I have always been a fan of the Mahatma...
Even Attenborough's Gandhi (who called himself Gandy to rhyme with Candy..)
Made the hair at the back of my neck stand up......
Especially in the Champaran scenes...
"I am an Indian, traveling in my own country..what law could I be breaking???" or some such lines to the British officer trying to shoo him away....

He was the touchstone
And several generations of Indians measured themselves against him...
It made them opt for the straight and narrow...
We may not be materially rich..but then it is more important to be morally rich-kind of people...
True, even I don't find many of this tribe around..they are dying out...the fascination for the Mahatma and his idealism may have ended with my own generation....


So ended....
That I could not even buy the "Story of My Experiments with Truth" at the bookshop closest to me in Chennai......that belongs to a publishing house..which also has a publishing list on Gandhian Studies...which it likes to trot out with great pride....
"That one was written by MK Gandhi no Madam?..Sorry Madam...No demand..we'll have to order that one...I'll let you know as soon as I get it Madam", the salesperson told me...so sweetly....two years ago..

Yet...studies abound..
Delving into.....
His sexual experiments...
His political deviousness.....
His bania cunning...
His treatment of Kasturba...sorta thumbs down there until they discover the Kasturba Diaries..if ever..
His kids...kinda.. sorta... ditto there they give him...
He was so human..as if that is a fault....what do they expect???? A halo???
He had a soft spot for a Bengali beauty.....
Freedom would have come anyway..sooner or later....
He was not perfect........not 100% pure as guaranteed...maybe only 98.99%...or 98% ...or maybe just about 95.02% pure..so...
Pull him down from the pedestal.....

His own grandsons have jumped on the bandwagon to write some of these, often forgettable memoirs....
And no one tries to dispel the confusion that prevails among the masses...by the other Gandhi name holders... of India's premier political family....

He was human but also very different from other human beings.....
Not an easy act to follow.....
To live a principled life..
To be true to thine own self...
Hey, that's no easy ride...
And ultimately, we see what we want to see...

I realized the value of having a Mahatma among us during my own sojourn in the Land of Sawadee and Smiles.......
For all their bravado, I sensed a yearning among the people there for direction...
Someone to look up to in moral terms...
But there is no one....
No one they can measure themselves up against...
Other than monks and holy men..
Their closest equivalent to a Gandhi may be a former central banker known for his honesty....or a leader of the Opposition who heads the vegetarian movement in that country..
Gandhi was all that and so SO much MUCH more

So, a certain moral vacuum and dithering prevails in these lands...
Materially rich but morally bereft...

Gandhi made me feel strong...
No other country in the whole wide world has anyone to equal him...in moral stature...
We are so strong..in the eyes of the world and in our own..because of him...
Because of Gandhi
We can hold our heads up among the peoples of the World...
We should be so proud...

Today...on his birthday
And always..

The curious case of the murdered banker....

It is the latest headline-grabbing crime story in Chennai: a banker who had recently opted to retire voluntarily, had his throat slit open by a gang of three young men he had befriended. They killed him after sharing with him a meal he had cooked for them...
All for 12 sovereigns of gold and a little money...
While the neighbors slept on...

And it is only a few short weeks since the city was in the grip of a psycho killer, who attacked security guards and rag pickers, slit their throat and cremated them without a sound.....
While the neighbors slept on......

Security guards all over the city immediately stopped sleeping on the job!!!!
They bonded with one another..
The sound of incessant whistling and counter whistling rent the night air....as signals in Watchman Code went back and forth...it made sleep impossible.......
That and the feeling of guilt...that we were dangling live bait in front of a crazed killer.....
We just could not sleep on...

For a few brief weeks...
Thapa Bahadur our own watchman, gave his ninety winks a miss...he turned down all offers of security behind grills in verandahs...took to sleeping in the open air...stake-out style...until swarms of marauding mosquitos...a quintessential feature of Chennai's night life forced him to take cover in Amma's abandoned old Fiat.....the locks still worked...so he could sleep again.....
And we too could....at last...

Who is this weirdo with a vendetta against watchmen??..we wondered...

We did not have to wait long for an answer...
The police nabbed not one but a gang of psycho killers.... boys who attacked ragpickers and security guards to rob them of their money!!!

Jeeze.....how much money did they think a rag picker or even a watchman would have on him????
Some loose change??? Less than ten bucks???!!

It would have seemed more plausible if they had said they did it as some sort of perverse blood sport... a macabre quest for gore...but no...money it was they said they were after...
Like THIS was their idea of a get-rich-quick scheme???!!!
Dense????
No, psycho!!!!

So too in the case of the murdered banker...He was a banker right?....Would he stash his retirement funds under his pillow??? He, of all people, would keep it in a bank, you'd think??!!...Right!!!

So all they got was Rs 14,000 in cash and the 12 sovereigns....not more than 100,000 Rs....not even a number that is easily divisible by 3....about Rs 33,000 apiece......
Dense???
Again???!!!!...
No, psycho....
Again!!!

Should we blame the state of our education system that it does not even develop logical thinking in crime-prone youngsters???!!!!

Or is it a reflection of the terrible times we live in???......
Anyone??..
For even small change??!!...

Madras in its heyday was a very safe place...its denizens turned in by 9 pm.....leaving the roads deserted... ..the police patrolled the empty streets in their cycles.......
That apart, brave young Gurkhas descended from their Himalayan homes.....
With just their kukhris and their boundless courage, they roamed around.. patrolling the streets at regular intervals...in twos and threes...all through the night..for a small charge..
If anything went amiss...the gurkhas were called in...but usually nothing did...but it is not so now....

A geographical relocation in terms of criminal activity is underway...crime is no longer restricted to those few pockets of the city which you entered at your own peril...it seems to be hitting the heart of Chennai...
Localities like Tambaram, T Nagar and Kilpauk....once considered safe....are now proving otherwise...

Add to this the release of hardened criminals to celebrate the birth and death anniversaries of political leaders....what can the average citizen do???......other than feel like an endangered species...

Also, to add to the confusion, a new-look criminal is doing the rounds...
Abandoned are the thick mustachioed, scarred, warty, thugee looks...that is reserved for the reel life villains..
The real life ones tend to look like more your average every-day Joe...
As did the banker's killers...two of them were working.....the banker got one a job!!...the third was a student...
Gosh!! I could make friends with them...they look so...what's the good word???....yes!!!.... decent!!!!....they look decent!!!!
Heck!! even the banker's Doberman didn't smell a thing!!!!

So young..and yet...
Why did they put such a low value on their freedom???
It is a beautiful world out there...and there is always hope...
Why would anyone want to spend it..shut away among hardened criminals and other deviants....forever..or until another political leader's birth or death centenary arrives...just for a little money..

Or did they think they would never get caught???...So little faith in the ability of our cops to track them down??

Indeed one hopes that the police has water-tight evidence.....that it is not of the circumstantial or the forced confession variety, stemming from a katta-panchayath type investigation....
Surely, the dead banker deserves better...
Some hard irrefutable DNA type proof that would stand up in a court would be good...of the kind one sees in Bones or Criminal Minds or NYPD Blues....
Or even one of those Discovery Channel crime serials.. the kind that have inspired a generation of nieces and nephews...and made them yearn to study forensic science...

One hopes.....

There is also a lesson in this for VRS-optee bankers who may be reading this piece...do not spread the word about your VRS...you may have a Swiss Bank account...but if the word hits the street then the kidnapping brigade will put you on their hit list!!!!!..definitely!!!

So take care all you beautiful people out there..
Do not befriend strangers...
If you must, then at least abstain from inviting them and their cronies for sleep-overs..especially if you are old...or middle-aged...or even young...

Adios...
May you be safe from all throat-slitters, psycho killers and their kind forever and ever.....
Even if you live in Chennai....

Just take my breath away...

These forwards which flow in from cyberspace will be my undoing...

In my inbox last week was one about a Chennai-based hospital...patient with non-life threatening condition flies in from the UK.....doctor suggests emergency procedure and bungles it...money is snatched from husband...condition worsens..patient who is the mother of two young ones dies....the hospital doctors the case sheet...literally...

Sad....but it seems to keep happening.....that forwards are the only available form of retaliation is a reflection of the dreadful state of things...

It was against this backdrop that Spouse was sent off by his employers for his routine annual checkup at a leading Chennai corporate hospital....
I was anxious..naturally..

The rumor mill had it that if someone so much as fainted on its premises, this hospital carted them away to the ICU and stuck them with a whopping bill when they returned to reality.....enough to make them faint again....

Nowadays, getting access to sound medical advice that one can trust is often possible only if your aunt went to medical school with the doctor or your brother plays tennis with him...you have to be just plain lucky to find Dr Right on your own...

Those days when doctors made house calls are ancient history..
In Chennai today, the only people you can count on to call at your door are donation seekers, dictionary salesmen, psycho killers and the occasional axe murderer.........

In the Madras of my childhood, the visiting doctor, almost a family member, prescribed vile pharmacist-made up mixtures in red and green for your run-of-the mill illnesses... an injection was resorted to if things looked serious...if he suggested hospitalization, it meant that he could likely see the shadow of Death hovering around....

And then there were home remedies, homeopathy and ayurveda...

Spouse's mother believed in faith healing...she gave the children sangu thanni from the Mundakakanni amman temple...to cure most illness...and it worked for them...

But now, technology has taken charge and diagnosis based on symptoms and case history has flown out of the window...a dead art...so one gets sucked into a battery of tests...even those clearly on their last legs are subjected to tests, tests and more tests...

Chennai's biggest corporate hospital has now emerged as a hospital of last resort....a central hospital.....akin to the RBI, our central bank, the lender of last resort.....

When the private and mid sized places see that they can do no more, the patient is moved there...kept alive through ventilators and the like...

Release often comes only when the family says: "Pull the plug"...and most families do not want to take that decision...

Not realizing that their loved ones should be allowed to die with dignity...

In the process, rumor has it that everyone gets their 20% cut, the referring doctors or nursing home is sent 20% of the total billing by the central hospital as part of a profit sharing thing....which keeps business flowing in...all the time..

While cutting edge technology makes it possible to save lives, and these big places do their bit in this sphere, the pressure to keep the bottom line a bright shade of green often turns them into predators....

They create hope when none exists...and that is unforgivable..


So...I do what I can..
Add a few more lines to my daily prayer:

In the evening of my life..

When the time comes for me to shed my mortal coils...

I want to be lying in my own bed at home..
I ask that He should then...Gently....

Just take my breath away..

Only then am I truly Blessed....

Whose time is it anyway?

I get battle-ready on the first day of every month....
To join pensioners and sundry other unfortunates at the queue at our friendly neighborhood Post Office..
The pensioners come armed with their tiffin boxes ..wife in tow with thermos in hand...for back-up support...ready for the Long Wait ahead...
I arm myself with patience, steel myself to boorish behavior and sharpen my tongue in readiness for repartee....

Truly, there can be no greater leveler than the Post Office queue.. other than Death of course...
I watch as Prince and pauper are treated alike, with equal contempt..
"Pass-book update? Look at the queue behind you...no time now..come at 3.30," the counter clerk tells the old gent ahead of me after he has waited a whole hour in line..it is only 11.30 am now...he walks away...to fight is useless he knows....
"Next"...
My turn now..I approach the Bench..
In trepidation...
Anxious..
Prepared to answer all questions.....
With my flawless convent English accent...that should throw her..
And I will be firm... Verrry FIRM.....
She searches through three ledgers until she finds the moth-eaten page with my accounts.. makes an entry, signs it..passes it on to the Post master...who by some strange miracle is not in the middle of his tea break..he initials it...enters it in his little red book and then it is all over...the deed is done.....

Phew!!!!
50 minutes to withdraw Rs 5000/- of MY OWN MONEY!!!!
I have the math done in my head.. that's a wait of 1 minute for every Rs 100 withdrawn...
And this does not include the 35 minutes I waited until the clerk bustled in...late as usual...or maybe this is her usual time..

Hey, I am a GOVERNMENT employee, not your personal servant...I help run this country...it's a tiring job......I cannot always be on time........you want your job done??...then wait for it...I'll show you who's boss here...take up my time will you? I'll have my revenge by squandering yours....the counter clerk's body language seems to say..

It is the last thought that irks me the most...my time..I have to waste large swathes of it every time I come in contact with officialdom..

The time-work correlation as well as attitudes to time have changed and will keep changing as a brief history of time will tell...

Family saga has it that in the early 1900s, my Paternal Grandfather, stayed at his own wedding just long enough to tie the thali around his young bride's neck.... the groom quickly shed his garland, adjusted his turban, wore his overcoat and made it to First Line Beach to be at his desk at Ye Olde Bank of Madras when the counters opened for business that day....he gave his Time and his commitment to the Bank...willingly...it was his life...nay his very soul..

Fast forward to the fifties, my father worked for a bank too..he was always at THE BANK...interesting things happened at THE BANK....interesting people came to visit him at THE BANK..like a Geiger counter he detected the frauds, tricksters and cheats and threw them out of THE BANK ..every day brought a new challenge and he came home to regale us in the evening with his exploits at THE BANK that day...
It was his life and by extension, ours too...

So much so that as a child I thought that boys grew up, studied and then went to work at THE BANK...
And girls grew up, studied and married someone who worked at THE BANK....
Needless to say, it was quite a shock to me at age four, when I heard that there were career options other than the bank...some of my nursery pals had fathers who were doctors, teachers, lawyers, police officers, landlords...but of course THE BANK was the best of all...Amen.

And now me!!!
I was a true child of the Seventies, in spirit, if nothing else...
The Beatles sang of Revolution..
At the convent school that I attended, I along with a group of other 15 year olds rued the fact that we were not born in that great land, the US of A..
Then we would been at Woodstock.....definitely...
Then we would have hung out with other groovy people at Greenwich Village...
Then we would have hitch-hiked to Haight-Ashbury...this from girls who were not allowed to even ride a rickshaw alone!!!!...
Smoked pot...when the only kind we dared have access to was definitely of the clay variety!!!!..
Hooked Paul McCartney....at a time when good girls from good families were not encouraged to laugh out loud!!!
Or at least had his babies..
Out of wedlock???!!! Of course!! This from babes who just did not get it until told by their peers in rather crude terms: the v-g--a is the middle of the three holes we girls have down there STUPID!!!
Dressed like hippies..nay become hippies and toured the world in a hippie style caravan...
Freedom..Freedom...sang Richie Havens and we sang along
Time was all ours..
We could do with it as we pleased...

Strangely, Indira Nooyi, now CEO of Pepsico also attended school in Madras at about the same time...she came away without imbibing similar woolly-headed notions of life...needless to add, she was not a student of OUR convent...

I took this work for the love of it to my work place.
Work was everything.. it had to be perfect...creative...reflecting the superiority of my mind....an end in itself...
Time???...you took as much time as the work needed....besides I loved the work...

At my first job, which I joined on the the 25th of the month..I couldn't believe it when they paid me for those five days...
Keep the change..I almost told them....now giddy, in addition to being woolly headed!!!!!

Articles in magazines extolled this idea of working for the love of work alone and pay be damned...
It took me a while to figure out that these articles were actually put out by the Skinflint Employers Association and their minions, whose numbers were surely legion...I then tried my hand at hard bargaining...time was money...and my time was certainly a lot of money...or at least should be!!!

In Chennai today, in BPOs and sundry other outsourcing establishments, employees are not only aware of US time, UK time...but also of Company time and how it is so different from Personal time..

At the Sweatshop,
Employees are subjected to weekly and monthly lectures on such fine differences.....nine to five fifteen at least is certainly company time....every micro-second of it....
So we frown on personal phone calls received on personal mobile phones in company time...even if your house is on fire...
We frown on lingering over lunch...
We frown on extra long pee-breaks...
And we watch your body language..
And we hear your thoughts..
Quantity is everything..
Creative juices?? You can just go and can those...if you can find some tins!!!

And so we come back to the old question..Whose time is it anyway???
I think:
Time belongs to whoever takes charge of it...
QED....

Gotta go take charge of it...Just be there and do that...yeah!!!

Those Old Funnies...

How funny are those old funnies??

As a child I used to wait for that evening newspaper - The Madras Mail - only to read "Mutt and Jeff", the comic strip that ran at the bottom left of the last page....the Mail disappeared from circulation and with it went those two funny men...

When I heard that the newest newspaper to hit Chennai carried that old strip..I bought a copy.. turned the pages eagerly...there it was... all slapstick...wham! bang! crash! ...only it did not really tickle my funny bone any more..

And the "Archies"......all in there too....
Jughead chomping through mountains of burgers, transfat n' all
Archie, Veronica, Betty and Reggie still at their old courting games...

Their world remains pristine, unchanged...
Even after the school shootings?...the Columbine massacre???
...the drug problem???..
...the crime wave???...
...teen pregnancies????...Get outta here..

And obviously, these guys haven't heard of Nike, Adidas, Aeropostale, American Eagle, Levis.... which must be wonderful for their parents!!!!!

No wonder Winner's generation gives them the go-by......they just cannot make the connection....

And neither can I...
Dennis the Menace was right there in his element in his root beer and cookie world...but it is strange to see him playing video games...Na!!!...not so menacing...not so cute...not for me...

Perhaps if Dennis had grown up and morphed into Calvin's dad....he, of the "Calvin and Hobbes" fame... that would have seemed like karma ...don't you think??

Come to think of it, Calvin is the Dennis the Menace of the twenty-first century.....in the same tradition...but rooted in our world...

The action heroes have done better..Batman, Superman, Spiderman.. in their movie versions...but not so the Phantom...ghost who walks..man who cannot die...he seems to have died out...and taken Lord Greystoke aka Tarzan with him

Also missing are Little Lotta and her friend, the polka-dot obsessed little Dot in her Dotland....Casper too has been rather quiet after his Hollywood debut..and as for Richie Rich, whenever I hear his name, I can only think McCauley Culkin!!!

The funnies have to be funny about our world..they have to grow and evolve with us, catch the flavor of our lives....maybe some of the old funnies do need a rest...perhaps we should just let go......gracefully.....

Now, I'd rather be reading "Marvin" or "On a Claire day".......
Or look at life in India through the eyes of RK Lakshman's ubiquitous common man..
How about you?

Bitten by the ant-tee bug!!!

I was sashaying in from the Sweatshop yesterday when it happened.
A high-pitched voice yelling "ant-ee, ant-ee", stopped me in my tracks.
And then I spotted the Bug. It was my 35 plus something neighbour beckoning me with a smile..
Ant-ee? Oh Aunty...
Yikes, did I hear right?
Did she really call me Aunty? Oh heck!!!!

Pushing 30?
Okay girl, the game has just begun..
The odd kid sprouting downy hair on his upper lip, shuffles his feet and mumbles: "OK aunty" to something you said.

"Hey kid what was that you said??..Aunty??? Who me???"
Maybe the kid is short sighted in addition to being challenged in the intelligence department...you think..
But then, it happens again...you cringe..and again... you cringe some more
Could it be that single strand of grey just behind my ear that is doing it??? Could it be???Could it?? Have I got there? Already??

Hit 40? The rules change..
The frequency of the bite varies depending on factors such as the quantum of excess adipose tissue on your person, the size of Spouse's paunch, the facial hair on your adolescent's face and mostly, how much of a push-over are you? Will you take it lying down? And in quiet embarrassment?

Fifty may be the new 30 in Madonna-land, but if Madonna was Indian, she would be Madonna Aunty to many of us.

Would she gyrate and strut her stuff with gay abandon, flex her muscles or tongue-lock with a Britney Spears if hordes of teenagers went to her rock concert and thumped their feet and chanted in unison: Aunty-Aunty-Aunty-Aunty???

She would feel like a butterfly on a dissection board. Pained...pinned down and ...
Labelled...

In the Madras of yore, in my growing up years, the rules were simple: mother's friends were aunty, father's friends were uncle....

But in the Chennai of today, we do tend to take this respect thing a bit too far......we all have a name..often beautiful ones which our parents scoured the length and breadth of their world to find..how about using that for God's sake...or if making a show of respect is your thing, then preface it with a Mrs or a Ms....

I would even settle for Madam...that it makes me feel like the Mistress of a Bordello keeping close tabs on her brood of perky young hookers is quite another matter...

Cheers!!!!

It's a family thing

Strange thing about families...

We were driving home from a wedding reception the other night..with us was Old Relative..all of us enclosed inside the car...no escape routes visible..

Now, I rate traveling in a closed space with relatives, right up up there, a close second behind waking up to find myself buried alive in a crypt.
Anyway, we were not long into this claustrophobic ride into the night, when Old Relative turns to me and says: Why are you vegetarian? Is it because you are FAT?.....

Dead silence....
Old Relative is older than my birth mother...husband's much older sibling..
I expect gracious polite Madras charm...instead I get crass, rude, not to mention crude and cruel Chennai behavior..

I do have some excess adipose tissue on my person...Okay, several excess kilos...but still....

Spouse looks silently out of the blackened window at non existent scenery, it makes JFK, the driver, miss the speed breaker and land on a pot-hole....


That should pass......
But it doesn't..

"Then WHY??... Tell me, tell me.....," he persists...Much like the Tamil comedian Vadivelu saying "C'mon.. Talk me, talk me.." in that movie clip that Winner and I so love to watch..

I mull over this and wonder...now how do I field this one? Should I turn this into a general question as in "Are vegetarians slim?"......"

Anyway, why are relatives so obnoxious to their own families? Should they strut out their very worst to those bound to them by ties of blood?

Several instances come to mind...
Times when we have gone to eat out...times when I have had someone turn to me and say, "the food was awful today.." With deep emphasis on AWFUL.......I did not cook the food, I only helped pay the bill...even then....

How about some grace here? Some sensitivity? ...Am I expecting too much? Do we reserve the best for those who are not family? Is family supposed to lump everything? Is this an Indian thing?....

If it is, then it is another one we need to change real soon...

A new frontier

The young ones in my life have inspired me to blog. In particular, I have to thank Champagne Supernova who shares my work space for introducing me to the possibilities that this medium holds....I am just a Madras girl...Madras not Chennai. Madras stands for gracious, laid back, relaxed enjoyment of life. Chennai, on the other hand is all hustle and bustle...I do not know these people who call themselves Chennai vaasis...grabby, money making machines..spewing negative vibrations into the atmosphere...But enough already...I have now started recording this journey of life...who knows what this will bring...ouch!!!..therein lies the rub....