On the ramp with Edna ......

The world appears to be greatly concerned about my hair.

I am being inundated with shampoo .  And conditioners. Claiming to perform all kinds of miracles . Straightening the hair. Curling the hair.  Bonding the split ends. Moisturizng the hair. Shining the hair.  I wait with baited breath for shampoos that automatically trim, cut and comb my hair too. 

The latest is that they want to know my take on ramp-ready hair.  ( I cannot stress enough that I never played marbles in my childhood with Tarun Tahiliani,  never went to the same school as Ritu Kumar, and was never on backslapping terms with parents of folks like Masaba, Vikram, Rocky, Nachiket or Swapnil...and yet they ask...?).

Ramp ready hair ?   

You don't know what that is?  Neither did I .

Ramps and I go back a long way .  Mostly, it has been a huge plank of wood which connected Mother Earth with something like a loading area of a truck, or a landing, where walking up  steps was not possible.  I've walked several ramps, when we moved houses 4 times till now, and twice for my late parents.  Then during my years in the US as a grad student, ramps were always on ramps or off ramps, and there was a technique of speeding or decelerating on the ramp, as you drove your car on to and off a freeway. 

Some ramps called life ramps,  really go a long way back. And one has always walked these ramps, in different styles of hair.

Like this shampoo called Tresemmé, launched by Ms Edna Emmé in 1947, which is almost as old as me.

Like my Life Ramp. And it has been an entertaining exercise, looking back and walking that ramp, with special reference to hair and shampoos. 

At the beginning of the ramp.....The best hair one probably had. Shining, soft, wet, curly, with wisps that needed no conditioning. You didn't really need a shampoo or a conditioner at that point.

Regardless of whether it stood up, stuck to your scalp, curled  or stayed limp, it was a wonder. Someone simply had to ruffle your hair  and everything was OK.

Further up the ramp, mess was the word they used when they didn't want to deal with the tangles. Fine , thick, curly hair, nourished by a shampoo, falling in rings all around.   Wet hair, sneezes, refusal to dry, and folks scrubbing it. And one tried to avoid folks who wanted to tie it in bows. Though I must say gajras and clips were OK....

The danger years. When you observed everything someone else did. With brushes. Combs. Clips.  Dryers. Your curls kind of gave up and began to straighten out. You surreptitiously experimented with tubes and lotions, and sometimes high heels were tried for effect.

Then someone would shout at you as you looked through some falling bangs, and tell you that your eyes would get spoilt and you would get glasses.

 In the preteens,  some great oiling of hair, and a braiding . Two tight braids, the requirement at school. Black ribbons with bows. Done just so.

The experimental hair science became a bit more exact. Regular hair washes, proper drying, combing out and detangling.  Washed hair, when wet, was never ever braided. Brushes were never used, and were never in fashion. Mothers looked at the combs after combing and shook their heads. Sometimes these braids were turned up. But never in high school.

Teenage was the golden age of hair. You poured over magazines with friends, quietly snipped away some locks, to create , what you thought was a brilliant set of bangs.

You oiled and washed and conditioned your hair several times a week. You did all kinds of tight rubber-banding to get a frizzy effect, and other times, combed out your hair is natural curls about your face. Tying up hair was a no-no.

Those of us who had frizzy hair hankered after straight, and vice versa.  Mothers never agreed to fiddling around with the God-given quality of your hair. And all this hair was always left open, and you constantly fiddled with it  for style.

College days, outings, celebrations, saw glossy hair, curled for the occasions, cascading on both shoulders. There were special cuts, layers, and an obsession with split ends, which caused a lot of cribbing. You mastered the art of making your curls bounce around your face as you walked. On a hot day, you casually twisted it up ensuring a few tendrils kind of cascaded down your cheeks.

The campus queen had arrived.

College annual days, friends weddings, family weddings, and you excelled , with a bit of help from your friends, in twisting your hair up, into a chignon.  Freshly conditioned, combed, hair, gracefully wrapping up one side, adorned with delicate flowers and jewellery, and pinned firmly into a bun. Some called it a knot.

The name is unimportant. What matters , is that this was the ramp ready style for the D-days then.

Then there were the traditional festive  family days. An early morning wash of hair, wearing of just washed clothes, and a family prayer get together.  You wore traditional clothes, and traditional jewellery, and your hair was up in a no nonsense khopa style. So ramp ready for the festival of lights and the new year, and you adorned it with jasmine and mogras under the keen eyes of your aunts.

Striding along the life ramp, swishing your now more than waist length hair.  There were folks in the house, and many more at the Tresemme Youtube Videos  marveling at, guiding and helping you take care of your hair. helping you with special shampoos, oils and conditioners.

You sat in front of the dressing table , as someone combed out the tresses, jet black, smooth, and shining. Mothers urged you to braid it, or pile it up. But it was more fun, tying it at the neck, and walking with a swish of the huge pony tail.

Have you seen the haughty looks which are standard on the ramp ? Well the life ramp has them too.

Hair greatly shampooed, conditioned, and blow dried straight. Combed up and knotted and clipped, with it all cascading down gracefully, across a back, secretly tattooed, without your maters knowledge. Smart clothes, confidence,  and greeting  everyone with a smile, and a shake of the mane, as it falls forward, and enraptures folks with its grace.

Some days are special on the ramp. Some days, friends join you on your ramp walk. Its is all about smooth, well set hair, piled high up, as you walk, head held high, on heels.  Not that you need the elevation, since you are already flying high with the imminent life changes. But the hair pulled up, highlights you eyes, and the shine within...  

Some stages on the ramp are formal. You wear formals, greet people formally in the company of a formal companion, carefully move around, smile a lot, and enjoy being the cynosure of all eyes, with the beautiful jewellery, hair adornments, and a great sense of clean comfort. The only way to proceed now is to the top . You look back, smile at those who've been part of it all, shared your tensions and cribs, you push back an escapist tendril, and turn to leave.

And so there are special ramps and day to day ramps.  You need to step from the former on to the latter.  It is all about coming home. Letting your hair loose, sitting with a cup of tea, tired feet up.  Energised, you get up, decide to have a bath,  wash your hair with Edna Emmé's shampoo, slather on conditioner, and wait. Thinking about how great the ramp walk has been . The experience. The applause. The appreciation.  You emerge, dry your hair, gently comb it, and twist it into a homely bun at the nape of your neck.

A few strands of hair escape, and curl down the sides of your face. You push them back, and notice a tinge of grey happening.  You smile, pick up a cup, and sip the remaining tea.

Edna Emmé , in 1947, decided to call her shampoo Tresemmé in honour of her own tresses.  I am almost as old as Edna's shampoo, and now it is  a Tresemmé life...

 I like to think, that had she been around today, her hair might have resembled mine.

Grey, in streaks, with some dark ones defiantly holding on.

She might have approved of the ramp walk. And then again, she and I might have done a senior citizen ramp walk together, reached the end, and smiled our thank you's before turning back.....


(All pictures courtesy Google images)

Submitted as an entry for the Indiblogger "TRESemmé Ramp Ready Hair" contest.

Life is....

.....actually a game !

Sometimes, it is cards.  You are dealt some cards, and you must do your best, depending on what rules are specified to you. Sometimes it is all about being rich, sometimes, about pretending to be so despite having a poor hand.  So often, we get fooled into connecting it with money, based on the 1/52 probability of something unique happening.  And if poker is all that you know,  you must put something in, to get something out.

Sometimes, it is langdi.  You are out on a single limb, trying to change the situation.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes, you keep on hopping, falling, getting up, stretching, only to find yourself inches away from your goal, and unable to reach it.

Sometimes it is a game of Hide and Seek .  You permanently seek things. Like knowledge, money, power, a house, a spouse, food and so on. Some of these elude you and go into hiding, and some appear momentarily to give you false hopes.  The problem is, you are always, the Den.

Sometimes, it is like tennis. Depends on whether you are a ball or a racquet.  So many are mostly balls. Whacked  relentlessly by forehands and backhands, as they fly around doing someone else's bidding in life. Sometimes they are even smashed. At times, they are fooled into thinking the racquets have a soft touch , when suddenly faced with close mesh barriers. But they are wrong. Sometimes these racquets fly off the handle, when the hitters  celebrate their actions. And so many hangers-on simply blindly applaud.

If you are the delicate brilliant  type, your life is like a game of badminton. You may be delicate, fair and light as a feather, but life is all about sharp and quick smashes, caressing tosses, sometimes, as you shuttle across, it's a drop across a wired precipice, as the watchers just senselessly applaud. Of course, you often get thrown aside in favour of someone else more beautifully fit and fair, but then that's life.

Of course, sometimes, you end up being the racquet, in both tennis and badminton. And you are never allowed to forget , that you are still under some one's two-fisted control, in crunch situations.  What you think is a celebration, may actually have you thrown out into the world, and replaced. Either way, a tennis/badminton  life is so misleading. It makes you think you can fly, when actually , you are hurtling .

And so what if you are a game of basketball ? As you quietly mind your own business , they crowd around, and pump you up, walk around holding you by their side, and just when you start feeling good, you find out that it is all about improving their own score in life by making you run and fall through rings. A lot of surreptitious pushing, pulling, and others getting in their way. Sometimes even shameful whistles by some kind of boss types.

In some countries, life is actually a game of cricket. 22 folks in your environment, and you could be a ball or bat.  Being a bat is slightly better,  because you get well taken care of.  You have excellent covered homes, they worry about your complexion and provide excellent  moisturizations and linseed facials. Many times you carry the name of who you belong to, though at times, like Draupadi, you may carry names of more than one.  This happens when money obsessed Kaurav types, hold auctions.   It's not so bad being a bat.

But being a ball is bad.  First of all ,unlike bats which have a relatively monogamous life, you are badly handled by many.  Some spit on you, some ensure the extra oil in their hair is slathered on you, and some fearlessly rub you wrong. Some think they are being clever and clean and shine only half your face. And to hell with your looks.  You are whipped, cut, swept, flicked and the whole world and its friend explodes when you fall into some one's grubby hands. Some of these grubby hands even cause you planned injuries by scratching, and periodically, after they have messed you up enough, they shamelessly replace you with some one else.  The worst part is, all your travails are broadcast to the world.  Your life's ambition is supposed to be reaching some 3 pointy sticks and knocking their heads off, and  then too, once is never enough.

Of course if your life is a football life, you only have your previous karma to blame.  It is never nice being constantly kicked and head butted. But you have to look on the good side. Thankfully in our country, life is not about heavily packaged helmeted fellows crushing you as they fall on top of each other , as they do in the US.

Some people have, what might be called an elite genteel golfy life. It is all about travelling across hills, gardens, lake sides, and parks, at a civilized pace. Great attention is paid to you, and although the thwack on the back really hurts, sometimes you get to fly across water bodies, roll down hills, and the whole world watches, as you do your indecisive dance near a hole in the ground.  But you get to stand your ground, till someone walks up to you and helps you go in. It is more or less a monastic life, as you travel in special bags amidst the rich and famous and mostly those coming up in the world.

The most interesting time is  when your life is like a game of chess.  You could be just about anything; a king, queen, camel(bishop), horse (knight), elephant (rook), or the ordinary pawn, Depending on that , life will take you on various paths. Some straight, some crooked.  Your alter ego always shows up in an opposite color in front of you.

Unlike plays and movies, where they show alter egos discussing moves with your real self , the alter ego here simply plots to kill and defeat you.   And so, unlike  many other physically overpowering games, this one is about outwitting someone troubling you, not by bashing them up personally, but by cleverly using the capabilities of your subjects. The queen, king, elephants(rooks), horses(knights),  camels(bishops), even the lowly pawns,  all work at it, supporting each other, and some do get sacrificed.  Some survive and some don't, and it is not for the want of trying.  Sometimes people call this democracy, and sometimes people call this parliament.

And yes, this seems to be the only game where the woman, the Queen , is the real power.

Figures.

That is life !

SMART !

It is intriguing to realize, how meanings and relevances of words, undergo modifications,  with the passage of time.  To spell it out in clear words, how the meaning changes as you age.

When I was in primary school in the 50's , the word SMART, brought to mind, certain Anglo Indian and Parsi class teachers, who wore these frocks and straight skirts and heels, and looked exactly like folks in Life magazine, which came home sometimes from the circulating library, my folks subscribed to.

Somewhere,  a few years later , our class had (human) "monitors", everyone aspired for that badge and the opportunity to move around class with a ruler, in the teachers absence, and if someone disobeyed you, you glared , jotted their names on a report sheet, and asked them not to act SMART !

At some point, we became aware of some of our classmates who were termed SMART, who always knew the answers, who never had to stand outside class, or on chairs, and who went into mourning when they got less than 10/10 in dictation or maths.  There were some other popular folks who actually sang well, did well in sports  et al, but no one ever thought of them as SMART. Strangely, certain disobedient types were sometimes accused of trying to be too SMART, and one realized that the word was multidimensional.

Somewhere in high school,  SMART started to have something to do with appearances, once again.  The teachers were now in sarees, sometimes resembled our mothers,  and we would secretly admire some of our classmates, who sported the same drab uniform as we did, but with so much more panache and style.   It took some ability to wear naughty boy black shoes, and walk with a sway, as if you were wearing pointed heels, and gently throw back a fringe of hair, which had escaped the Principal's strict eyes.  These were the students, who came on valedictory celebration days wearing imported Georgette sarees which hung perfectly just so, with sleeveless blouses which were frowned upon in some of our houses;  and you had to hand it to folks, who despite being blessed with the same anatomy as us,  took puberty in their stride, unlike some of us who thought   that the best way to keep things under control was to cover both shoulders with the saree palloo, an eminently UNSMART move, as it was thought of then.

College , caused a sea change.  You could be really ordinary looking, with two tight pigtails and walk with a hunch, and you could still be SMART because of your grades.  You could be someone slightly better looking but with a huge dollop of confidence, not extending to academics, and you were equally SMART.  An ability to gather surreptitious glances from folks of the opposite gender in your class  labelled you as SMART.  Being able to make excellent timely decisions with far reaching consequences (like going to med school, because you got excellent marks in the prequalifiers)  was considered SMART;  going for a basic degree in pure sciences (simply because you loved a subject), despite getting excellent marks in the prequalifiers was considered STUPID.  (I should know. Folks were aghast that I did not choose engineering. ....).      

Seventies brought in the entry of machines into our lives, and electronics reigned supreme.  SMART was all about teaching machines how to do orderly tasks, by learning languages understood by machines. Once away from the realm of  academics, SMART was all about finding your way amidst a society straining to modernize, yet pulled back  by the safety net of conservative thought. SMART was about holding a job, and advancing up. SMART was about changing fields and succeeding. SMART was about attempting entrance tests and succeeding. SMART was also about going abroad and never returning. No one was considered more FOOLISH, than those who returned from abroad  to the mother country despite having opportunities elsewhere. (Ask me, I did that :-)...).......

PC's happened, and SMART became something completely different. Machines had now become smart.  You didn't need to know tables and smartly calculate stuff  if you ran a shop. You had machines that would add up, and tell you how much change was to be returned to a customer. You had cars that spoke, maps that guided you to wherever you wanted to go, and vehicles beeped when you didn't close doors properly. You had phones without wires. You could sit in one place and click things on and off without walking a step.  Photographers and films were not needed to capture images, which you could do in front of a laptop.  SMART was all about emailing folks and forgetting the art of writing letters.  SMART was all about being really good at using these contraptions.

Till cell phones happened.   Smart Ones.  They did all kinds of things. Besides allowing people to converse audibly, that is. 

I've been overwhelmed by the sheer reach of the technology.   You can message, you can hear the radio, you can record someone , you can photograph, you can take videos, use the flashlight feature, calculate, draw,  and paint. You can also tweet, email, and surf the Internet.  You can also get lost going somewhere and find the correct place by using a feature on your phone.  You don't need friends at all, because you can simply spend hours playing all kinds of games on your phone, say while sitting in the bus, or waiting somewhere.  And you have angry birds for company. And warriors with spears charging around. Or cars whizzing by at speed. Or even sticks, balls and squares floating around trying to fit in somewhere.

This is called being SMART.  For the phone , that is.  Small children as young as 2 an 3 years, fiddle with the parents' phones, and learn . Folks proudly say their kid is a whiz at using , say, the I-phone.   I have always wondered why they didn't call it the We-phone.  

SMART is when machines have IQ's instead of you.  In my childhood, folks celebrated IQ's. Intelligence Quotients. Then the EQ's happened. Emotional Quotients.

Sometimes I think we also need to have a  SQ  or Stupidity Quotient.  The ability to make a stupid mistake yourself and laugh about it.  

If you grew up when I did,  and were faced with a SMART - alecky phone,  your SQ would be non trivial.  

I tried that recently in an august gathering of blogger types. Very few actually typed.  There were all these actions with hands and fingers, similar to what we do when confronted  with a worship thali with the lamps after a puja. A kind of virtual patting of air close to the screen and lateral moving of palms and fingers.  I advertised my immense SQ by looking for an ENTER key and loudly voicing my concern, when someone very kindly offered their phone to me for use during the meet sessions.

I guess, like today's SMART phones, which boast of  well rounded edges,  I also need to be a well rounded combination of IQ,EQ, and SQ.  Why am I so concerned ?

Because, thanks to blogging a post on a lumbering huge noisy banged up keyboard on a desktop,  I just learned about having won a SMART phone in a writing competition .  I await its arrival with a great amount of trepidation and anxiety. 

In the meanwhile, a friend , who went to school even earlier than I did , sent me a perfect image to set my mind at rest......
        

 

The Best Gift of All....

Like Winston Churchill said . "“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”....

Sometimes I need to say that too. 

Tears, toil and sweat are almost mandatory in Mumbai, whether one likes it or not. Given the messed up infrastructure, crowds, and the weather.  And when it comes to blood, whether in wartime or peacetime, one way for ordinary folks like us to give blood , is to "donate blood"....

I was initiated into this 42 years ago as a young adult in Pune. My parents recommended such things.  The late 60's  was wartime in the country, our college, one of Pune's finest, had organized a blood donation, and we went in droves.  The experience was interesting to say the least, and some of us  learned that we could withstand the sight of 350 cc's of blood, without falling into a dead faint.  I followed that up    off and on , and today, my children do the same.  It helps if you stay in an institutional area where proper camps are arranged with safeguards, instrumentation, attending doctors, and  adequate patient care and excellent documentation and checking of individuals. 

I have known folks, fairly well educated,  who avoid talking about this. They alarm their kids, albeit unknowingly, with misinformation. Mobilizing blood donors to  contribute for a friends  major surgery, and trying to do the transport arrangements, some folks I knew well, even started crossing the road away from me, seeing me come by.  

A few young folks , curious about all the noise and rushing around, came to ask details . Can you get up and walk afterwards ? Do people faint ? How long does it take ? Does it hurt ?  Will I miss classes the next day ?   What about getting infections through the syringe needles ?  Can I go to work straight from there ?

Yes. Anyone above 18yrs who weighs 45+ kgs and has a hemoglobin count of more than 12.5 can donate. Remember, there is no factory to produce blood except the human body.  Every unit of 350ml blood collected saves 3 lives, the 350ml is buffer blood in our body and is re-generated within 24 hours.  Today, a fresh disposable syringe/needle is used for every person, who is deemed fit to be a blood donor. 

You are queried about your medical history, medications, etc. Your weight, blood pressure and haemoglobin is checked and recorded , your blood group is ascertained, and those satisfying the set criteria are allotted a specialized blood collection bag. You then lie down as instructed, quietly squeezing a rubber ball in the donating hand, and your blood pressure is constantly monitored. I have seen folks nonchalantly messaging away on their phones and playing games with the free hand while the blood donation is in progress.  Nothing dramatic happens, your 350 cc is collected in no time, and they disconnect all the paraphernalia and ask you to lie down for sometime.  Ointments/tiny tapes are put where you were poked by the needle.  

You then relax in an area where they serve you  tea, coffee. fruit juice and biscuits.  You are ready to go.  To work, to school, home , anywhere. I know someone who even went swimming after 2 hours.  The personnel at these places are almost always gracious,polite and grateful to you.   You get a card as a blood donor with details.  Should anyone ever need blood, your card will entitle them to a bag of blood, no questions asked.  Those who have had to mobilize blood for  major surgery at one of the lesser hospitals will know what I mean. 


This time , it was at one of the most upmarket areas near us. A very posh supermarket near  fancy shopping areas and coffee shops, alphonso mangoes cascading on show outside, cars driving up to a hotel , with valet parking happening, and folks in their casual Sunday best ambling in to shop. 


 Those like us who knew about this event and came specifically for it, went ahead with the process. As usual , I was rejected because of age , but the daughter sailed through and donated her blood. 

This was an event specifically to help people who had Thalassemia.  This is a disorder of the blood, where the patient has problems with the haemoglobin in the blood. This affects carrying of oxygen all over the body, and the thalassemia patient needs to have blood transfusions every 15 days. Which causes its own problems with iron stores in the body.   There are 1 lakh thalassemic chidren in the country and a thousand of them are receiving regular transfusions in Mumbai alone.  To know more about this please see this.  


There was a steady stream of folks coming in, mostly young, many of them ladies,  but many in their 50's and 40's too.  And there was a wait for beds. Which was great......


Outside, in the sun, a  midsize car swathed in a huge banner announcing the blood donation event was parked at a vantage point.  There were these young folks standing outside holding placards saying "Donate Blood" in glorious red and white.  Almost marketing the event. 

I've never seen this before.  Real time marketing of the event.  Yes, there are normally welcome arches, and folks volunteering services, but inside the venue, with the documentation, refreshments, assisting the desk people etc etc. I have never seen anyone standing outside  and urging folks to go in.


But this was like advertising the event, looking so much a part of the supermarket ads announcing deals and stuff.  

It can be insensitively abused. 

Visions of "Donate blood and get 1 dozen mangoes free" or what is worse, some unscrupulous educational institution coming up with  "Show cards for 2 blood donations and get 10 marks added to your total" .......  (I've known of people who showed up 5 times for some  social service class in Dharavi as part of NSS, in the late 90's,  and added 5 marks (or was it 5 percent?) to their already outrageous totals , now exceeding 100 as a result. Happens only in India....)

There are no deals in blood.

Donating has to be completely voluntary. 
 
But we are a country where folks are blind to blood when its a matter of their life, death or surgery, but very much aware of it when they query the biological background of an adopted child of marriageable age. 

So much of  educating of the public still required .....

Life Algebras

The reason for this post is another post by a friend.

Till you learn algebra, you are always in a world of constants.  Then you get introduced to "variables" , which are things that take on different values.

Life is a kind of algebra too.  Some things in life are constant, some take on various values throughout their tenure,  you build equations, look for solutions, add acquaintances, subtract bad experiences, multiply resources, and divide stuff with your near and dear ones. Sometimes you are calculating, and sometimes you exceed "limits".......

When I went to school , writing instruments were introduced and remained constant for fixed unchangeable periods. "Slate pencils" in kindergaarten.  We used pencils to do classwork and homework, till class 6. I do not ever recall being flooded with pencil ads, sharpener ads or eraser ads. I cannot recall insisting on a particular pencil brand or color. There were these fixed pencils everyone always bought, and they were taken to class in a rattling metal box.

Somewhere in class 7, we started using precursors to the fountain pen. These were long reed things, with disposable nibs that you attached. Our school desks ( we each had one desk) , boasted an inkwell on the top right hand side. We spent 2-3 years, writing our lessons and homework with these nib-pens, and I distinctly remember the class monitor walking around with a giant ink bottle, filling everyone ink wells. Fountain pens were simply banned. And ball point pens were persona non grata.

The graduation to fountain pens was like an achievement, once we reached class 9. Or maybe , it was 10.   Suddenly, the desks had no ink wells,  We all thought we looked really smart with pens clipped on to the uniform down the front. Even then,  we used the same fountain pen for years. Spare nibs were  carried  always. We even carried blotting papers.  This being a girls' school, we possibly escaped the sport of shaking the pen and squirting ink drops on the back of some one's uniform frock.

By this time "compass boxes", later referred to by modern folks as "geometry boxes"  were a part of the school bag.  It was possible, traditional and expected, that once bought, we use the same compass box throughout our school years, and possibly even later. I remember using the same compass box, a green and orange tin affair, with possibly brass instruments  inside, throughout school and college. And the banged up , color-scratched, slightly rusted , terribly aged look gave it a kind of seniority.  For some reason we never lost set squares and protractors.

Watches were not "accessories". I remember my mother giving me her old simple watch to use as my own, in standard 9, because she thought I might get carried away answering a particular exam question, at the cost of all other questions. I proudly wore it,  learnt how to allocate time to a question paper, and not be surprised or upset when there were only 10 minutes left. I used this watch right till my 2nd year in college.   My parents then gave me a new watch,  as a special reward for doing well academically, and I used this for years, till the early seventies after I started working in Mumbai after post graduation.

And then there were phones. We got our first telephone connection (and our first ceiling fan; don't ask what the connection was) , when I was in the 8th grade. We tended to shout over the telephone initially, since we had an idea where our friends lived. Our time on the phone was minutely monitored, and  bills were scrutinized, not because  we made spurious calls, but because  folks were convinced that billing types made mistakes, that totals  needed to be rechecked. Calls to other cities had to be booked, urgent life situations called for lightening calls that cost the earth, and we made a list of points to be spoken; no unnecessary niceties and comments; you paid through your nose.

Another constant in our lives was that of no pocket money.  Our parents gave us whatever was required after a lot of thought.  We asked , and were never really upset when we were denied things. For some reason, I always had whatever I wanted, and remember more of what I got than what I was denied.  Till I went to college and lived in the hostel, I had never had reason to wilfully buy anything; and when I did,  reasoning out with self and planning had become second nature.

Today,  buying stuff in stationery shops has become like a hobby.  Ball point pens, which were banned in school in our time, now come in versions, and technologies. Children in middle school use them and handwriting suffers. Everything that was a more or less constant in our time, is now a massively changing variable. The old style compass box is extinct, and we now have plastic boxes, with fancy implements. Every time a new style  appears, the old ones are discarded. Watches are changed depending on outfits.  The old rotary black phone is almost extinct, and every child now sports a cell phone, with  ring tones from movies , the types of which were simply banned for us in our childhood.  I don't really remember things like toy shops from my childhood, though I do remember cycle shops that sold ordinary utility style tricycles and bicycles which we extensively used in hand me down fashion.   Language abilities today, are going for a toss, with the abbreviated  messaging on phones and on things like Twitter.  Friends , even good friends, now tend to be variables rather than constants.

I often wonder , if this tendency to live in variables  is good.   The ideal situation is where you have a nice mix of constants and variables,  a lot of it having to do with concern and respect, and very little of it having to do with money.  For that matter Facebook.

Variables also invariably lead to the concept of use and throw.  So we have use and throw plates, use and throw bags, use and throw pens, use and throw electronic unrepairable cheap Chinese items.

I wonder if we are leading up now , to,  use and throw friends, use and throw parents, use and throw employees, use and throw utensils,  and for an avaricious government, use and throw voters.

Algebra was all about finding the value of an unknown, called X.  Or Y . Or Z.  And determining its value, a constant for the situation in question.  

Far from it,  we have ended up adding more unknowns in our lives.  So much of giving in to peer pressure, working parents,  the interchangeable status of money and time , one for  the other,  and such an overflow of  unnecessary information, that at the end of the day,  that at the end of the day, we tend to forget, if you excuse the expression, the ABC's  of life ......         

Life Phantoms

Have been reading about Phantom Pains. Nothing to do with a hurt Phantom, squinting painfully through his purple mask  in the old comics. 

But these are supposed to be pains arising out of something that simply isn't there. In your body that is.

Typically experienced by someone, say, who has lost a limb  traumatically, and it has been amputated. And he still continues to feel all kinds of heat and unbearable pain in it, as if the limb is there.

Think of someone who , say, skidded , going very fast on a motorcycle in the rain, was thrown by the impact, but to complicate matters, his jacket got stuck on the handle bar etc, making his shoulder and arm muscles bear the brunt of the push and pull. The arm got badly dislocated, and the nerve connections between the upper arm and spine simply got yanked out.  (No, I am not making this up, but this is a true story.).  This resulted in the entire hand withering away, becoming useless,  when reattached back at the shoulder, and the man kept having unbearable pain, continuously in his bad arm, which was , for all purposes ,  nerve dead.     

Turns out that our nervous system functions in a convenient type hierarchy.  While the decision making properties of the Brain are supreme,  some of the instant decisions are left to what are called "nociceptive" neurons in the spinal column.

Remember how you sense the heat and instantly pull your hand away above a hot griddle , or refrain from touching it? Remember how you instinctively duck as you sense something useless being thrown at you ?  What happens, is, that in such cases, the nerve sensation travels up through the arm nerve-bunch (brachial plexus), and reaches the spinal neurons through further connections called ganglia.  These nociceptive neurons do some processing of the sensation, and act automatically, before relaying the pain message to the Brain . And they keep doing this all the time, whether we are aware of it or no. Like when we shift positions in a chair to enable circulation, or relieve strain on a particular muscle etc. We call this a reflex action.


The nociceptive neurons in the spinal cord, continue to be busy relaying pain messages to the brain, pretending they are  activating reflex actions in the limbs, even when the nervous infrastructure is completely bashed up as in the case of the fellow above.  This is the pain the brain processes, and the injured person feels.  The culprits are the nociceptive neurons, or should I say, now deceptive neurons , which have become slaves to habit, as such.

It has occurred to me that life around us is much similar to this.

We have a Head supreme person at the top , like a PM. He has all these levels of subordinates under him, all of whom, need to report to him, and sometimes they take decisions by themselves.  These could be bureaucrats, elected folks, regional heads, rural officers etc .  Even when there is sometimes no appreciable work, these guys pretend to be busy, creating a impression of work, simultaneously cheating the public in the process, by creating obstacles .  The public suffers, and the Head or the PM, continues to suffer under the misconception that his subordinates are doing truthful meaningful work.  Phantom problems (where there need to be none)  are created for the public, complicated by introduction of corrupt practices.

The question arises as to why the brain cannot take all the decisions and avoid the pesky nociceptive neurons.  The same as asking why everything cannot be handled by the PM or Head.

This will lead to long approach lines, or in the case of the body, long nerve fibres all creating chaos, connecting individually to the brain. Leaving a decision to the spinal neurons, without consulting the brain, would possibly be those few life saving seconds you needed....

And so we have a hierarchy.  Its the price we pay for evolution. For democracy. 

Unfortunately, we have no value for it.

Like middle managers pretending to the CEO of a company , to be busy with work, when there is none,  the spinal neurons  pass so many wrong,confused, and noise type signals to the CEO Brain, that the mind perceives this as a continuous constant pain in a limb , which has no sensory supply , because it is simply not there.

And so we are, as a people,  getting used to the mess created by corrupt phantoms , that complicate our lives, our law ad order and our safety.  Because democracy gives us freedom and we badly and irresponsibly abuse it.

Is there a solution ?

In medicine, there is. Neurosurgeons use cryosurgery or thermal surgery to kill off the spinal neurons left over from the accident. It's a very delicate surgery , done with a lot of care and finesse. Else there may be untold effects like paralysis or loss of one or more senses.

In life, we need to seek a solution, by proper investigation, honest decision makers, stiff punishments, and at all times, honest democracy.

Watching what is happening in our supreme legislatures, I sometimes wonder , whether this will be a sensitive careful surgery, or a random hit , hoping that magically , something improves.

If we only learned from our bodies.... 

A womens' weekend

Highlighted on Oct 17, 2011 by

  

This has been a weekend for celebrating women.

    Contrary to my tendency of avoiding mass scale get-togethers (n > 10),  I found myself along with a blogging offspring (who had independently registered herself), at the Dove-Indiblogger Women Bloggers Meet held in mid-town Mumbai.  More than 90 women had registered, and converged there, from various corners of Mumbai, miles away; possibly some even came from other cities.

A wonderful welcome after the hassles of Mumbai travelling, cool drinks,  and a plethora of pampering offers of leg massage, hand massage and hairwashing/styling,
it was a morning of great companionship,  where we put faces to blogs, introduced ourselves , listened to the Dove folks extol the virtues of their new products, and old folks like me suppressed a smile seeing corporate looking Dove chaps  giving a speech and using the word "chipku" to define  oil slathered sticky hair. No one likes oily sticky hair, and Dove had come up with a non oily alternative. They had a lady with soft manageable wonderful hair give us a talk about how to use the stuff. And all the while it was interspersed with the Indiblogger MC person, having quick announcements and competitions which had really nice Gift certificates as prizes. A terrific lunch later, there was a team treasure hunt,  commenting on each others backs on huge white hanging paperboards, (notice how different it is from commenting behind each other's backs), and all the while various folks kept going into screened enclosures with bedraggled windswept hair, and returning with freshly washed, fragrant, blow dried and set hair, which was an event in itself.  The event ended with all the ladies being given amazing Dove hampers, and the much coveted Indiblogger tees.

Then IHM , who had invited  entries for the Tejaswee Rao Bloggers Awards, and had been flooded with entries in 39 categories , all related to Women, announced by Sunday evening,  that the first set of results would be announced the next day. All reflecting, the Woman of India, the trauma and celebrations at her birth, her growing up, her place in the family, society and the world, her ambitions,her disappointments, and thrills,  what she has to put up with as a sibling, daughter, daughter-in-law,wife,employee, and even as a boss; all this across the spectrum from have-nots to the extra-haves. And one looked forward to a huge library of articles to be enjoyed with a decent cuppa , at one's leisure....

Sometime during the Indiblogger event, I got a call on my cell phone. The number looked vague, I wasn't expecting any call, and I cut the call as we proceeded to the lunch area. The phone rang again. I picked it up.

It was my household help,"S.", a much blogged about lady. Since we were leaving for this event fairly early in the morning, she was going to come and cook a simple hot  lunch at noon, for the non-blogger at home, and she was calling to say, that she had cooked some extra stuff , as she wouldn't be coming in the evening, since she was off to hospital, having just become a grandma for the 4th time.  She, 3 sons, 3 daughters-in-law, 3 grandsons, and 1  daughter lived in 1.5 rooms, and she had just acquired a 4th grandson !  Much excitement and celebration, and I congratulated her and told her I would see her the next day. I was amazed that she remembered to call me in all the excitement. 

She came in this morning, with a big smile on her face. The entire family had been to the hospital the previous day, and the new mother would be coming home in a couple of days. She made some tea for both of us, brought me mine, and  I asked after her daughter-in-law, how the other little grandsons reacted to the new arrival and so on.

Her face wreathed in smiles, she  told me  everything. Then looked a bit wistful .

Finished her tea, collected both our cups, and stood up to go to the kitchen.

"You know, four grandsons; I'm happy.  But I was dearly hoping for a granddaughter !  I suppose I'll just have to wait...."

And I thought about all those super qualified moneyed folks who go do ultrasonic exams to determine the sex of the foetus in their daughter-in-law's womb,  and the radiologists who defy laws and reveal the sex of the foetus, so  some family members with mercenary minds can  arrange to end a tiny life, simply because it was to be a girl.

I hope S gets her wish in the future. She is aware of limiting the family size. Her eldest has two sons, and the parents have had the family planning  surgery done.   She has 2 other sons, and one unmarried daughter (who might shortly get married). So there may yet be a granddaughter for S !

A little girl in the family, who would enjoy and thrive being nurtured by a grandma like S.

Maybe, sometime, in the near forseable future,  the offspring blogger in my family , who has a photoblog, will take her pictures and blog about her, like I do about her grandma.


And maybe, just maybe, S and I, on a wonderful, prefestival weekend,  ( like  the one that just happened ) , sometime in the future, will look at stuff on a screen, take sips of some wonderful tea, look at each other, and smile, maybe, our toothless smiles ....:-)

Death, dark, and fairy stories.

Prominent cosmologist Stephen Hawking, in a recent interview to the British newspaper, The Guardian, has said that , "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

While Hawking, (who suffers from severe motor neurone disease for the last 49 years, and "enjoys" computer assisted communication) , is surely entitled to his esteemed opinion as Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, at DAMTP in Cambridge, UK, I don't see how how regarding the brain as a computer , implies the presence or absence of heaven and/or afterlife.

Comparing the brain and a computer is like comparing the Himalayas with the hill in my backyard, or say, the movements in Kalarippayattu or Russian ballet , with my dodging actions and hesitant moves, as I attempt to cross the high traffic potholed road outside.

Brains are so superior to computers.

They have a built-in neural plasticity, that allows a particular sense or circuitry in the brain, to take over the functions of a disabled sense or ability, to some degree, and perform new learning. And so you have sightless people who have an amazing sense of hearing or touch, or someone so mathematically incapable, but who can navigate through the intricate alleys of classical music and "taalaa", with impeccable renditions, in languages you don't need to know, to understand them.

When did you last see a computer, where after a virus attack, the CPU remembered and learned to ward of other attacks ? When was the last time, the monitor conked out, and say, the DVD writer circuitry connections on the motherboard, self adjusted themselves to try and get the monitor working ? When was the last time, the engineer was able to repair your computer while you merrily carried on typing the blogpost ?

And have you heard of complicated surgeries , including those of the brain, being done, with the body anesthetized, and partially temporarily disabled musclewise, and that there is no such thing as a human body "reboot" ?

And have you wondered at what is called human will, which sometimes performs wondrous miracles, as yet unexplained by logic ?

And speaking of rebirth and heaven, nobody has been there and reported back. And so no one has the right to get up and make statements about these things in a definitive way.

Religions may or may not believe in afterlife and reincarnation. Many times, religions across the world, have been misused to get power, and divide normally peaceful people. Blind following of rituals, intimidation of folks in the name of religion, and suppression of education for those in need of it , can never be upheld in any society.

But when , as a child, our understanding of religion was restricted to saying prayers daily , and enjoying festivals, it worked, when someone who was fond of frequently making evil faces at someone was told, not to do so, because , in his/her next life, he/she would be granted a permanently crooked mouth. And it was believed.

Sometimes, one gets repetitive dreams, of some unfamiliar structures. Sometimes , you visit a place and feel something familiar about it, a sense of strange comfort. And sometimes, you feel terribly wary of someone you have just met. Such events are yet to be understood.

The feeling and understanding that this is Play 1, Act 1, and there is always a Act 2 possible, sometimes strengthens the individual when faced with the fall of curtains.

X, at 89 , was a formerly active , wiry, very imaginative, wilful person, who was now bedridden. He had a group of friends who would meet every week in some one's house, for reciting some prayers , some interesting talk, and prasad (blessed food). When he was absent continuously for awhile, his friends called to enquire and were unhappy to hear his news. They asked if they could visit, and the family invited them to have a prayer session with him.

X's face lit up on seeing then, and then he looked a bit confused, because , thanks to memory problems, he suddenly couldn't place some of his friend's names. The eldest member, in his nineties, and a veteran of pilgrimage walkathons, sat on his bed, his hands pressing X's legs.

He cleared his throat.

"Tell me, do you fear Death ? " he asked matter-of-factly . No one in the group thought this was odd. They looked at X.

X took a deep slow breath, and with a great effort so he could talk in a loud voice, shook is head and said "No. Not at all"; and then he smiled at his friend sitting on his bed.

The friend started saying a particular Sanskrit verse, and gestured to X, asking if he remembered the next line. He prodded X, and X exercised all his old and tired neurons at will, and slowly came up with the next lines. The rest joined in, and the prayer was completed with smiles on every ones lips, and eyes that were full.

I think X felt at peace. He wasn't worried about death, heaven, hell, afterlife, or anything. It didn't matter. He was happy now.

He never thought about Death normally, and would not do so now.

It was important to live in the moment, and live it honestly, truthfully and well.

That was heaven for him, in this life.

He would worry about afterlives later. His daughter was reading a book by Brian Weiss, and he was curious. He had noticed the title. "Many lives, many masters ". He would talk to her about it, sometime..... For the moment, he needed to take some rest.

Mr Hawking is supposed to have said, "I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark. "

.
.
X was never afraid of the dark.

He never battled death. He didn't even play hide and seek.

He just went smiling, facing the bright lights at the end of the tunnel......

Good Over Bad : It works !

Winner of the Blogadda "Good over Bad" Contest : Nov 12, 2010




Two score and ten years ago. A cool Shravan evening in Pune, at the foothills of the Parvati temple. Shravan (in August) , the 5th month of the Indian calendar is home to a time of festivities.

There would be a fair like atmosphere on the steps leading to the temple on the hill top. And we always accompanied our folks there, given that there were so many things to enjoy. And sometimes ache for ....Temporary tattoos on arms, paintings on the forehead, colorful bangles, tiklis, dolls, marbles, shell necklaces, roasted channa, ..... There was even a guy selling homemade (from tree branches) slings for boys. Many folks came in from the surrounding areas to do quick business with merchandise, home arts, toys, etc.

That evening , there was a commotion, and we suddenly saw a man bearing down on a child, about to thrash him. The boy had some one's footwear in his hand, and was trying to move away with it. (There is an old temple at the foot of the hill, and one left one's footwear outside while worshipping. ).

Madhu was the little boy. His mother sold flowers on the steps of the hill, a younger child lying in her lap. This fellow played around every day, and had got into bad company, and stealing footwear was the new attraction. There was a commotion as people gathered, and his mother, came tearing in, to face the angry man. She then proceeded to thrash the son herself.

My mother stopped her. A calm hand on the shoulder does wonders for the ebbing of anger, and she returned to her flower stall, which her neighbor chap was minding in the meanwhile.

Turned out that Madhu's father was bedridden and sick. They had moved from their village to Pune looking for work, and the mother had found this flower selling thing to start with. Madhu gallivanted around till it was time to go home.

I could see my mother having a talk with Madhu. First he was wary, then suspicious, and then he took a relieved breath and smiled. She wasn't going to turn him in. But there were conditions. Every evening he was going to sit outside the temple, and look after people's footwear for 1-2 paisa . ( In those days 2 paisa could get you a lot of stuff, such as a half serving of delicious bhel , a popular snack). But he was to turn over his daily earnings to his mother. While he sat, he would wipe the pairs with a some cloths that my mother would give him every week. My mother was a regular hill temple goer for almost 4o years, and he would see her everyday, in those days. Occasionally, my mother would stop by at his mother's flower stall. For those of us who had relatively safe , secure, uneventful childhoods, this was a Life Lesson.

At first his friends made fun of him. But he had a very enlightened mother. who could see why this was a good thing. By and by , the festival season got over, crowds reduced, but Madhu became a fixture at the foothill temple. A few years later, my parents helped him go to school, and paid for his books and fees, provided , of course, that he showed them his report card. Things were so different then, education was not an "industry" (unlike now), schools and teachers were simple , sincere, and strict. If the child was straying, they came home to discuss it with the parents. Somewhere in between , his father passed away, and Madhu grew up and became the man of the house overnight.

Today, he works in a printing press, where he joined as an apprentice soon after school. He learned to save as a child, and never forgot that. He and his family and his mother still live at the foothills, where they now have a small pucca 2 room place, thanks to the real estate development in their area using their small piece of land.

Long after we all grew up and went our ways, he and his mother would occasionally drop in to see my mother, in her seventies. The flower shop was no longer there, but his mother prepared tiffins on order now. Something she could do from home. But she would always bring wonderful flowers for my mother, which my mother would offer to the family Gods.

Today, my parents and Madhu's are no more. Geographical distances do not allow us frequent trips. Madhu himself is in his fifties now.

But this story remains etched in my mind. Of how something bad, needs to be addressed, looked at in empathy, and an innovative mind applied to it. No one is bad, but circumstances make them so. Shakespeare had a fancy way of saying that.

I like to think, that many times, something bad has to happen for something good to emerge from it.

And we need to get involved, whenever possible. Not because the festival says so, not because we are celebrating a special week, and not because it looks nice on your CV. Sorry to sound cynical , but that has happened.

We often think the world is binary.

Its all about being 0=bad and 1=good.

But what's real, is the difficult but dedicated trudge along those dicey fractions that convert a zero to a one.



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That his Bangalore team is called Royal Challengers, has nothing to do with it.

That the owners of the team, live life King Size, is totally incidental, and nothing to do with his stature.

The man has always reminded me of noble Mufasa , the Lion King . Who explained life to his son, Simba, saying, " Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance. As king, you need to understand that balance and respect all the creatures....we are all connected in the great Circle of Life."

The similarity is uncanny. While in this case the son is still too young, the father lives this philosophy, unaware , that, the world looks up to him. Not just in cricket, but Life....

Anil Kumble, is all about balance.

That he began his Cricket at 13, joining a club called Young Cricketers. That he studied when he had to study, graduated with distinction in Mechanical Engineering. That he made his first class debut in 1989, playing against Hyderabad. That he got selected in the India under 19 team. As a right arm leg spinner, who practiced a flipper, throwing a curved backspin Magnusian ball, at batsmen who simply fatigued from the onslaught of accuracy,intelligent variation and bounce. India colors in 1990, and he went from strength to strength, ODI's, tests, and now, back in the IPL.

The second individual in the world after Jim Laker to take 10 wickets in an innings, (against Paksitan, in New Delhi, 1999), he, along with Muthiah Murlitharan and Shane Warne, holds the record for surpassing 600 wickets in test cricket. The former two, who relied on excess, ferocity, misleading tactics, and , as Peter Roebuck said, "created error by destroying hope" , for the batsmen, while Kumble, simply kept the line , length and precision, dedication writ on his determined visage. Precise results from planned precise assaults. An engineer in action, maybe. Balanced in his attack.

Statistics and records are just one aspect of the man.

There are records and records. Where umpires tired of holding up the finger.

And then there are vignettes. Which we hold up today, to show our young.

Kumble, in Antigua, hurt on the jaw, bleeding, returns bandaged (with pins in his jaw) from the pavillion, and bowls his heart out, 14 overs in pain, and gets the wicket of Brian Lara. A team man, to the core. Hurt, dedicated, brave, but always in balance.

Kumble, appointed captain , with Dhoni interning in the wings. They couldn't have chosen better. It was a difficult time, with a difficult series in a difficult country coming up. His friend and colleague from Bangalore had resigned as captain, there were issues. But he lead the only way he knew. With his head, with sincerity, with discipline and intelligence. Knowing what was important . Always in balance.

Kumble sitting at the press conference in Sydney, Australia after Monkeygate. No snarls, no snide comments, no gestures. Just a tough, no-nonsense ,straight look and a line that summed it all up : "There are two teams out there, and only one of them is playing in the spirit of cricket...". And the whole of Australia listened, agreed, chastised their own, and the game, about to get a bad name, remained, in sporting balance.

Kumble, delighted to bits about his 10 wickets in an innings; someone who inspires selfless unheard of actions in fellow bowlers, like Srinath, who after noticing the record a wicket away, deliberately avoided trying to take a wicket, so that the 10th could be Kumble's. Always aware, grateful, happy, balanced.

Kumble, the family man, flying back in the middle of the Pakistan series,a quick trip, to be by the side of his wife, at the birth of his son. And then flying right back, to bowl his Magnusian deliveries at the opposition. A man in balance.

Kumble, the realist , understanding the limitations of an injured little finger, his difficulty in finding his form due to that, declaring his retirement from first class cricket, on the last day of the Delhi test against Australia in 2008. It takes a great man to realize that flying around and getting surgeries was not a solution. And that there was a time and a place for many things in life. All to be finely balanced...

Kumble, who was often seen, in the pavillion, delight writ large on his face, capturing cricketing moments of the unforgettable type on his camera, as the team stood up to applaud some other cricketing God performing in the field. And he himself, coming off the field in his last Test, chaired by those who he guided and led with exquisite wisdom and balance...

Kumble, who doesnt remove and wave shirts publicly, doesnt wink at scantily dressed girls in ads, doesnt revv up accelerators of cars in glamorous ads, doesnt sip colas and tell lies to sell them, and who doesnt appear mouthing threatening words to batsmen on the pitch with accompanying gestures. Just looks determined, serious, tough, and seemingly in balance...

But a Kumble, who knows how to celebrate an honest effort , be it by himself or someone else on the field, whose feet always remain on the ground, firmly anchored, who endorses wildlife, education, insurance companies, and gets appointed on retirement to the World Anti Doping agency(WADA). He supports the IDF Tuberculosis campaign, and honors the young participating project contributors, saying ,"Lets clean bowl TB !".....

The nation declares an Arjuna Award, and later, a Padma award for him. He honors both, by attending. Wisden honors him, also shortlisting him in a list for Wisden Indian Cricketer of the 20th Century, in 2002.

Anil Radhakrishnan Kumble, as Lion King Mufasa would put it, is well connected in the Circle of Life.

Wonderful cricket, great colleagues, a supportive family, perceptive photography, amazing meetings with legends inside and outside cricket, and an abiding respect for creatures of the green, some in sanctuaries and forests, and some, who have run between 22 yards, with a piece of wood, hitting a Kookuburra , for much of their life.


IPL is a commitment he made before he retired. It is not his life. And like he did for his country, he gives it his best.

He remains, for our children, someone to emulate, understand, and look up to.


He probably has more time now. Maybe he takes his children to school and drives them there. Maybe he thinks of the stacks of photos that he still has, which can make another wonderful book. Maybe he will introduce his children to the wildlife that excites him. The light changes to green and he moves on...

The most wonderful thing for him, is possibly an intersection on the busy and prominent M.G.Rd in Bangalore, that is named after him.

A signal honor from the common man, who, while travelling to work daily, stops by, just for a little while, outside the TV shop on that street, watching the last few minutes of the thrilling match, eyes all alight, hoping that Kumble, spinning that second last ball, can do the needful; Watching it all makes him feel good.....

In balance, for the man on the street, it makes the day go better......

Mufasa, the Lion King, would have roared, and approved .

This entry is posted as a part of the Contest by BlogAdda.com

Which was more fun ?

The day after Christmas in 1969. I was 19, leaving Mumbai for grad school in the US of A, and also flying for the first time in my life, anywhere. It was a BIG event. Lots of people had kind of hinted to my folks that sending abroad a daughter at the ripe young unmarried age of 19, was a very bad idea.

Nevertheless, they were intrigued, and the few days prior to my departure were like a festival , with relatives, well wishers (I like that word; and I often look for the opposite to appear : someone who has the guts to stand up and say I am here, and I am an ill wisher. So!), friends , neighbors etc, landing up to wish me.

An entire bus was hired by the relatives, all on their own, to come to the airport. In those days (as opposed to now), you could go right up to immigration and customs, to wave at people. There were no airline "gates" at Mumbai's airport. (The domestic Santa Cruz airport functioned as an International airport whenever needed). You came on to the tarmac, and either took a bus to the aircraft, or you simply walked.

My entire departure was fairly dramatic as I played a sitar in those days, and I was carrying the instrument with me. One of my father's cousins who worked for Customs walked down with me to the plane. The Japanese stewardess who met us was told that I was his niece and she should take good care of me . (She did). That I was leaving, gradually began to sink in, and after climbing up the steps to the plane entrance, sitar and all, I sort of turned to look back, only to see the entire collection of relatives and friends on the terrace of the airport, waving desperately to me. I gulped, and waved back. You know, how the PM, GWB, Obama etc wave ? Except they don't gulp, I suppose.

There was no email and chat in those days. There were no PC's , period. International direct dialling had not started in India, and one had to book calls. On reaching the US, my brother who worked there, arranged to inform folks at home about my safe arrival. Many times when we booked calls from India to the US, we used to make a list of what we wanted to discuss, and actually kept a ticking clock near the telephone, so as to avoid outrageous spending on saying Uh-uh-Hmm, and the like. It was also the fashion then to shout on the telephone, because you were convinced the person wouldn't be able to hear across so many continents and oceans.

My folks in Mumbai, first heard details about me settling into my university, after 15 days, when my detailed letter reached them. (An airmail letter would take 10-15 days).

Cut to 2005.

August monsoons were on, and we had just emerged from the worst flooding on 26th July . The runway was spoiled by the flooding Mithi river, flights were being rescheduled in the daytime . (For some inexplicable reason, flights in India leave and arrive at exciting times like 3 am, 4 am etc.). There was huge uncertainity about whether the flights would go at all.

My son was leaving for his grad school in the US. While he had made a special trip a fortnight before to see his uncles, aunts and aging grandfather in Pune, only his immediate family of parents and sister went to the airport to see him off.

No one, other than passengers could enter the airport concourse, and so he went in alone to check the baggage and then came out to wish us goodbye. Of course we now had cellphones, and I reminded him that just outside the flight gate they had courtesy phones from where he could call us free. For a while we peered through the glass pane interspersed with big cutouts of welcome signs,bank ads, and the like. Followed him as he spoke to someone, sat down to fill some customs and immigration stuff, and then he went where our eyes couldn't see. So we left to walk back to the parking lot. Before we could get into the car, the phone rang. He was sitting at the gate,waiting to board, and would email us from Singapore.

He did. The next we heard was a call from my brother from the airport in the US, saying that they could see my son arriving, and would give a call when he came out after completing the formalities. Phone calls now were so easy it was like speaking to someone in the next room.

Email and chat have certainly removed a sense of anxiety that would pervade earlier when children left to go to far off lands. The Internet has also made the world a closed loop for news. So very often , I get some news about something in India. from my son , who has been reading it. Laptops have become de rigeur at school, and when you are not working (or sometimes even when you are), you have a chat or a news site in an alternative session. Hardly anyone writes letters these days.....

In the old days, there weren't so many families with children studying abroad. Even the postman was thrilled when he brought you blue "air mail" letters in those days. Children collected stamps, and stuck them in albums and exchanged them. Today, almost every family I know has a child studying either in the US, or UK, or Germany or France or Australia.

In my time, when I got back 3 years later to Mumbai, several relatives were a bit upset that I had not drastically changed, causing them to miss out on practicing their smart comments. I didn't wear frocks, hadn't turned blonde, didn't even wear lipstick, and what was worse, I had started driving in Mumbai , the day I landed, after 2 years of driving on what they called, the "wrong side ", in the US. ( This is actually a feat, requiring more than automotive knowledge and understanding of driving rules. In Mumbai, it is not a science, but an art ) .

Whats more, I remembered my mother tongue, Marathi, and was still comfortable speaking it. (It was fashionable then to go to the US for 3-6 months and come back unable to speak in your own language, and such folks were a target of constant ridicule and humor, which, amazingly did not bother them ....)

I often wonder how the world has changed. Today, information is available at one's fingertips. If you don't hear about something in some expected time interval, you get into a panic. If the Network conks out, you agonize over missing emails. There are so many sources of News, (all telling the same thing), but you read all, to make sure whatever it is, is true and happening.

Has it gone too fast ? Too slow ? Is all this instant communication really required ? Is all that effort , (required in attending to instant digestion of, and response to information), reducing and even overburdening some of our other mental faculties ? Is that the reason young people today are seen to be stressed out?

Is there a mean speed at which our brains function in an optimum way, so that the EQ is taken care of along with our IQ?

Does anyone know? I would love to learn more.......