Memories : shredded and retrieved

I am sitting at the moment surrounded by newspaper cuttings and articles. All pertaining to me. And my childhood. Carefully collected, but now , handling tends to cause a disconnect in the molecules that hold it all together.

I came across this plastic bag on my recent visit to my parents' empty house. Eerily empty, not of just humans, but even paper memorabilia.

Very atypical.

After my mother's passing away , my father lived for 6 years, till the age of 89 years. Except for the last few months of his life, he never had a problem of how to occupy his time. He read voraciously, wrote prodigiously.

One of my most abiding memories is that of my father and his cupboards full of books and files; the growing cost of books meant it was more of the latter. Files full of cuttings, reference articles, notes, copies of stuff , pictures; all this in several languages. He conducted a continuous verbose correspondence with various socially dedicated organizations, and authors and publishers. On his visits to me, his favourite hobby was to rummage around in our collection of books.

Somewhere in the last few years of his life, his intellectual activities, (the ones that we could see, that is), reduced. My sense of wonder in observing the workings of his brain led to this blog.

Towards the last few months , when he was still mobile, he went through the various papers in all the various cupboards. Our household help who has been with us for 60 years, tells me of the extreme zeal with which my father proceeded to simply remove and destroy, anything, that spelled paper. A pair of scissors was a permanent fixture, and slowly, a host of cupboards started falling empty.

This also coincided with the period in which he became slightly delusional, forgot people, got angry very fast, was adamant about imaginary things, and often got confused about household and personal things he had done all his life.

Some call this a dementia of the Alzheimer's type. Some just call it old age dementia. It gave a new meaning to the phrase "out of sight, out of mind". Those of us that he saw often, he remembered. On my every visit to him, I would see gaping cupboards, newly empty shelves, waste baskets brimming with paper cut to pieces. You asked him about it, and he either feigned complete ignorance or indifference , or gave you a big piece of his agitated mind, saying this should have been done ages ago.

They say , some parts of your brain just quietly reduce efficiency and stop functioning, as you go deep into old age. Alzheimer's patients have a well documented obsession with cutting up paper.

But the brain efficiency is not an absolute thing. Its all about observing things, and the brains ability to receive body signals or messages, and maybe, sometimes, do a bit of learning from it. Which probably explains , why those of us who continued to appear in his environment frequently, made an impression somewhere in the neuronic jungle, and smart links were maintained that lit up his synapses, as recognition dawned in his mind, whenever we met. Those who he did not see frequently, were either not in his database, or more likely, they were there, but the links were, as they say, corrupted.

This state of affairs worsened. The last 3 months he was completely bedridden. The delusions increased, adamancy reached new heights, language skills got limited.

One of my most traumatic memories, is walking through an empty house a day after his death, trying to occupy my time (between attending condolence visits), searching for his papers, looking for old letters, searching for something that would simulate a virtual personality in the house; the strange thing was, he had got rid of all his books, files, and even family photographs. There was nothing to clutch and work on.

And now this plastic bag that I came across on my recent visit.

Its a file of clippings.

Poems I wrote as a child, laboriously rhyming the words. Articles written by me, in children's magazines in marathi, about various travels we undertook with our parents , when young. Letters written by teachers and school principals, after some decent success in school leaving exams. Indulgent communications from favourite aunts and uncles after seeing their niece do so well in some competitive exam. Mature articles I wrote, as an adult , in various publications in English and Marathi , about graduate studies and life in the US ,in an age (1969-71), where it was so uncommon, there was no one standing ahead of me when I went to get my US visa ! I had taken my father to Disneyland when he came to visit me at the university there, and the file even had a caricature of me done by the artists there, which I had completely forgotten about.

How did these papers survive? How did papers relating to a slew of unrelated activities get thrown together ? When did he find these ? How come they escaped the scissors ? Why did he leave these things for me , when during his lifetime, I never knew that someone was archiving these ?

They say the brain is the machine that manages, but what makes the "mind" is the the effect the rest of the biology of the body has on the brain. Its a question of parts of the body sending messages and the brain being geared with a perfectly configured cell "receiver " for these messages.

They say your limbic brain in hardwired. Your emotions, intuitive reactions, remain hardwired , tempered by age.

What changes in the learning.

Its just something that makes you wonder about the Maker of the human body.

It could be intelligent cell division and energizing of the various body parts while in the womb, while protein messengers flash around triggering a hormone here , another protein there, starting and finishing things.

Its simpler to think of Someone Up There, who guided my father into unilaterally preserving these things , while the rest of it lay in shreds all about him........

Pangats to Gilly Payasam

One thing one realizes having lived for close to six decades is how the "pace" pf living has changed, and how it pervades all aspects of our life, personal and public.

Take wedding meals.

Childhood memories take me back to wedding meals that may be defined by a single word : "pangat" , and it has no clear translation in the English language. Elaborate sit down meals, on wooden flats arranged in lines on the floor; each wooden flat faced up to a plantain leaf that greened the occasion, and glistened , as an entire army of food servers went by in almost military precision, serving stuff in a predefined order.

Every food item had a predefined place. Uncooked meal items like koshimbir(salad) , and mouthwatering green chutneys redolent with the aroma of raw mango graced the left. Various cooked vegetables with varying amounts of comfort gravies dignified the right. Typical vegetables were cooked regardless of status of the wedding party; "aluchi bhaji" (a sweet and soft , tantalizingly sour concoction of gravy made from colocassia leaves, tamarind and gram flour), "bharli wangi" (baby aubergines stuffed with a heavenly mixture of coconut, jaggery and spices, steeped in a spicy gravy), and the ever popular, universally applauded "batatyachi bhaji" (dry boiled potato bhaji).

While one may slurpingly overflow, while describing various items, what was significant was the serving method.

After the initial mandatory serving of all items, serving folks kind of went up and down each line of seated guests, bent just so at the waist, announcing the item as if singing a song chorus. ("Panchamrit. Panchamrit, Toop, Toop, Khamang kakdi......") If you wanted an item, you signalled, and the container was inclined appropriately, your item descended into your plate, and the procession continued. Simple items like fragrant rice and waran(dal) were embellished magically with a stream of golden ghee, a pinch of salt, and thoroughly enjoyed with freshly made mango pickle. Jilebi was the dessert of choice, and in all the "methods of serving food" , serving these was an exception. The newly married couple came by, with a huge plate of these, urging you to have just one more. A typical thing that happened was someone , on a dare, showed that he could eat a plateful, and he was indulged by the newly married couple, and watched avidly by the others. Folks who ate with single minded dedication, often slurped, and the louder the slurp, the more terrific the food item was. Elderly types often went up and down the "pangats" being sociable and observant about wastage at the same time. Some elderly lady, often overcome with the wedding emotions was cajoled into singing a Bhavgeet, and she did so, eyes downcast, fingers fiddling with a jilebi piece, as a hush descended , people quietly getting on with their meals, keeping their musical opinions to themselves.

Then came weddings where what you eat became more important than how you eat. Individual idiosyncrasies ruled. Folks liked to show their awareness of food not native to them, and the entire combination of quality and quantity of food did not fit into the pangat system. It became acceptable to fill your own plate, wander around eating, take random helpings, and then discard your plate (sometimes along with food). The milieu changed . The kitchen and dining area arrangement fizzled out, and we were presented with tables laid out , groaning under all kinds of food, kept warm, being roasted "online" sometimes, occasionally replenished by a guy, who suddenly darted out from behind a table with a refill . Rules were changed to suit the new social habits. Unlike what you normally see on Mumbai bus stops, people in their finery organized themselves into civilized queues. This often translated into people having to wait for long before getting a meal. And you couldn't tell who was the host, with so many people mingling around.

Weddings which earlier meandered over 3-4 days, were slotted precisely into four hours defined by economic compulsions related to availability of wedding halls, and working days and holidays for the attending guests.
With globalization, came the complete destruction of the "original wedding meal". People suddenly served "starters", unclear whether the food or the people were starting something. Then you had stuff from at least 3-4 different countries, so that your gut was overloaded with shrikhand neapolitono, undhiyo au gratin, and chowmein navratan supreme.

I shudder to think what comes next.

Since most people in India, eat,sleep and drink cricket, it is to be expected that this desperation will have its effect there too.

And so the sedate 4-5 day test matches, where players landed up daily in their impeccable whites, and played during office hours, cutting,swiping,defending,sweeping,glancing etc, nicely interspersed with a lunch break where you were polite to the opposition . Mornings and afternoons were interrupted by well defined drinks breaks, and tea breaks, folks applauded in a genteel fashion from the pavilion, and no one removed their shirt and waved it around.

(Actually, my son (then a very young school kid), who watched tests and the TV Ramayana/Mahabharata during that period, really believed that the Mahabharata war had warriors following some kind of "end-of-the-days-play" system, and going back to some place, to duly arrive back the next day with their chariots, and maces, to get on with the war once again. Maybe he looked for P. Karan, c Krishna b P. Arjun, or maybe K . Duryodhan c and b P. Bhim)

The one day internationals and the T20's are the so called modern improvements. Quick events. More noise. Less substance. Unnecessary expenses. Again, like us old timers who recall the earlier wedding meals, there are purist cricketers who try this new style , but are not really comfortable about it. T 20 has even introduced the foreign colleague system. And the less said about the cheer leaders , the better.

So its Masaledar Warne with Murlidharan au Gratin, with a side of Ponting Sandesh and Gilly Payasam .

Enjoy.

Sachin descends from the Wall (and its not Rahul Dravid).

I stay on a campus in North East Mumbai. The premises are owned by the Institute, and we have been living in our current place for about 15 years. Very recently, our house appeared in a list of houses marked for painting, and today, the painting was initiated in a massive mess of shifting stuff here and there, bags, heaps of stuff, books, and many other things.

The way things work, is, that there is a contractor who hires temporary chaps to do the scrubbing and painting and finishing work. These guys also help the residents move their things from room to room as and how required.

I have an older son and a younger daughter. Due to the relative inertia (and refusal to organize rooms), of the last fifteen years, the childrens' rooms have been studded with, among other things, posters of the Solar system,Human Genome, Human Body, Healthy Bones in young girls, cute dogs, Hritik Roshan, Sunil Gavaskar, tigers, Dalmatians, and last but not the least, a massive poster of Sachin Tendulkar from about 10 years ago.

The entire morning was spent trying to save some of these precious posters, scraping paint of walls, cupboards and any number of suitable flat surfaces. A bunch of Hrithink Roshans got scratched and torn in the process, and were duly crumbled and thrown. There was better success with Solar systems and Bones. Sunil Gavaskar was laminated and hung, so he survived the cellotape trauma. (We have 2 generations of cricket mad members).

Mornings in India are a busy time as people go off to work, lost things are retrieved, various household help types appear at regular intervals, and I got called away to the front door while this room clearing was going on.

Fifteen minutes later, having just finished with the caller, I was taking a breather and having a look at the newspaper, when one of the elderly painting-and-scraping-types appeared, reverentially holding a huge paper expanse in his hand. Smiling, anticipating my question about the sheet contents, and puffed up with a sense of pride that he would reserve for one of his own children doing well in life, , he announced, "Sachin Tendulkar!"

Of all the posters and stuff, scratched, scraped and yanked of the walls, here was something, that this gent, carefully detached, using his nails, cutters, blades, and even one of the painting colleagues,rubbing water over some edges; this poster was not to be spoiled.

A smiling Sachin Tendulkar, in his trademark batting stance, almost 4 ft by 3 ft , now sits , spread out on the living room sofa, for the duration of the room painting.

Makes you wonder.


Here is someone who manages to unite folks, irrespective of age, social status, economic strata, injuries, IPL, deep fine legs, silly points by Harbhajan types, centuries, ducks, crores, runs and anything you can think of. I can't think of any one in politics who can claim such support.

Having said that, I fervently hope Sachin doesn't join national politics after his retirement. In one of my more optimistic moments, I have often felt he would be a great Ambassador to Australia.....

(Come to think of it, if ambassadors were decided by holding a referendum with voting in both India and Australia, it is quite possible, that he will win by a landslide)

Anyone listening ?

The Slapping fields and the pre frontal cortex

Brain-stem for brain-stem we are no different than our predecessors in the Darwinian scheme of things. Where we are supposed to be superior, is in the development of the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Simply put, this means that while the brain stem is the source of all the primal and instinctive reactions in us, a decently developed prefrontal cerebral cortex, allows us to reason and react, and envelopes our psyche with some sober thinking.

Dr Shamsah Sonawalla , consultant to Mumbai's Jaslok Hospital and associated with Harvard Medical School, , in an India Today article on why more and more youth are committing suicides these days, states that a study of today's maladjusted youth (including teenagers), has shown up a lack of sufficient development in their brains' prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that introduces a sober aspect into our behaviour, something that allows us to reason out our impulses and thoughts, and discourages us from doing rash and aggressive and dangerous things.

The recent happenings on the cricket fields of Mohali, throw up several questions. And it all has to do with the status of development of the cerebral cortex, not just of the players involved, but also of the BCCI, if you think of it as a person, with, of course, brains.

It is well known that economic well being related to sport has changed very fast over the last 10-15 years. The RATE of change is so big ,that it primarily affects the mindset of those players who (a) have come into the game in the last 6-7 years and (b) are likely to have a relatively underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, for a variety of non cricketing reasons.

Take two players with markedly underdeveloped prefrontal cortices. Observe their rise and their perceived successes. Harbhajan, post Australia, and with the euphoria of having a nation stand behind him, still could not reason himself into putting a stop to his brain stem reactions on the field. Observe Sreesanth, in an interview prior to the Australian series , replying to a question saying "I am Sreesanth", not in answer to a name query, but as an answer that shouted "whatever i do, is OK, because I AM Sreesanth".....and notice his uncontrolled weeping subsequent to the slap, a desperate instinctive reaction.

The slap was just waiting to happen. If not Harbhajan to Sreesanth, then maybe the umpires. Why is it that we have never seen Tendulkar shaking his fist at someone from the opposition ? Or Rahul Dravid, mouthing bad words and glaring at players ? Kumble, I am sure, swears at troublesome cricketers, inaudibly. There are some younger players who seethe with anger but prefer not to let off steam on the field.

There is a reason. Discipline while growing up, coupled with discipline in their sport. It means taking the worst with the best. Controlling outbursts. Channelising emotions and energies. Their parents are to be applauded.

The BCCI, if it was a person, would certainly have a severely underdeveloped pre frontal cortex. Here is an organization, wallowing in funds, with world level clout. And what does it do? Goes overboard supporting Harbhajan in Australia, by foolish actions like threatening to pull out . Then faced with an ICL offering fortunes for cricketers to play with them, it reacts, with a remarkable lack of concern for the effects of all this glitter on young cricketing minds, and suddenly throws up the IPL. In highly publicised scenes reminiscent of corporate takeovers and auctions (with money no problem), grand purchases and buying of cricketer loyalty takes place. These are not well thought out reactions of an individual or organization , that plans for the future, comprising , say of the next 10 years. It is the gut reaction of an organization drunk on power, money, and an adoring audience of, what in India , are referred to as cutlery.

Kerry Packer tried something similar years ago. A lot of the cricket associations were still "middle class" then, and relied on the mental strengths of their cricketers to stay away from it. Many years later, Kerry Packer's set up merged seamless with world cricket, or vice versa.

The slap was incidental. Tomorrow something else other than palms may be used. There is no end to abusive words. Their use has to be restricted. Slap dash reactions from the parent organization encourage slap dash reactions from the players , with weak pre frontal cortices, conditioned by insufficient parental guidance.

Violence was always there in sport. The ability to curb it needs to be present.

Many years ago, our wicket keeper Farroukh Engineer(who fined Harbhajan), himself raised bats with Abid Ali the bowler, after an on field disagreement. However, this was taken to its rightful end, inside the dressing room, where both raised bats, but ended up throwing water on each other, and their disgusted manager, G.S.Ramchand. Slightly better pre frontal cortices, conditioned by stricter bringing up and a thought for their playing future.

Rashid Patel, a left arm bowler, chased the late Raman Lamba to the boundary with a stump raised in his hand, during a West Zone-North Zone Duleep Trophy game in 1991. North Zone had piled up 700 runs and this frustrated Patel. He was banned for 13 months by a BCCI, (which was not yet hobnobbing with the world's latest four Indian billionaires, and selling them cricketers).

The Slapping was just waiting to happen.

Will the BCCI, use its "rich" cerebral cortex, and look into some counselling for these two bowlers ? Monetary fines will not work. Thanks to IPL , they have more than enough.

Flying over

In most countries of the world, driving a car is an exact science. There are some folks who try and defy that, but by and large everyone tries to follow non controversial, low-tech rules like keeping to a lane, showing signals, and so on. In India, driving has been elevated to an art form. And woe betide anyone who thinks otherwise.

I learnt driving in Pune and Mumbai in the late 60's, in what may be called the golden age of driving, with the lumbering Ambassadors and pesky Fiats, and my trial by fire, so to speak, was successfully driving through the Khandala Ghats and navigating the 30 degree turn with a gradient of 60 degrees , without frothing at the mouth, while a truck kept accelerating and breathing behind me. Graduate school in the US introduced me to the science of systematic driving. When you overtook someone in the next lane at 65 mph on the freeway, the possibility of him veering suddenly a centimeter next to you was almost nil.

Notwithstanding all this scientific driving training, on my return, I took to driving in Mumbai, like certain law enforcement people take to paperwork from drivers pockets.

The biggest quantum change in driving in Mumbai has been after 4 things entered the picture. Fancy ,faster, more powerful cars, autorickshaws, flyovers, and the cell phone. The smallest quantum change has been in the road infrastructure offered to the citizens.

Recently, over a month, I had occasion to make daily east-west trips across the same set of roads. A new aspect of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation was visible. It endeavours to train its citizenry to face the unexpected.

The Mumbai Metroploitan Developement Authority (MMRDA) is besotted with flyovers. The whole idea is to modify the mindset of the hassled drivers of Mumbai, as they accelerate over strange gradients without lanes, and zoom to the top in a very cheerful mood, amazed at how wonderful the MMRDA can be.

One of the flyovers I frequent often is one that starts off in the midst of an area with slums , disorganized construction debris and buffalo yards and then kind of zooms across, giving you a lamppost view of the whole of Larsen and Toubro establishment, and then suddenly deposits you where you watch stunned as the Powai lake with its extinct crocodiles, construction debris, silt, the Hiranandani Complex with its upper middle class ethos and style, and the ravaged hills, unfold in a wide angled panorama in front of you.

Don't let all this fool you. Life has not changed for the better. The MMRDA, has for several months, presumably for educative purposes, scrupulously maintained a huge heap of debris at an unlighted spot in the left most lane as you descend the flyover. It impresses the hell out of me when I realise that keeping the rubble heap on the ascending part of the flyover would have made it visible from a distance and destroyed the surprise element , that the MMRDA is at pains to introduce, in an effort to keep motorists down to earth (in more ways than one).

And so there are stoppages. While most vehicles screech to a stop , and then , with a mixture of anger,frustration and despair, kind of push their way right, in a orchestra of ticking indicators, there are some people who make creative use of these places, in a way the MMRDA bosses never imagined.

Late evenings, often find couples on two wheelers parked on either side of the heap, occupying what they think is a choice place for enjoying some interesting moments, with a great view of the silting lake, as various diesel trucks, and container trucks grumpily shuffle,sneeze , agitate, and manoeuvre in the next lane , worried about the unavoidable traffic jam at the end of the lake.

For a country that drives on the left, rules and normal thinking demands that one overtakes from the right. However, maybe as a tribute to the MTV Roadies show, and as an expression of the awareness of the selective myopic vision of the law and order set-up, today the two wheeler non-easy riders. charge in from the left, regardless of buses at bus stops, alighting passengers, embarking passengers, and basically, anybody. It is not unknown for alighting passengers to alight from the front of the bus, with a pose reminiscent of bharat natyam, one hand outstretched, palm facing the motorcycles, the other hand clutching the bus rod, one foot stretched in the front .......with a pleading expression on their tired faces.

The MMRDA also shows great creativity in placing barriers in the middle of a road where some digging is being done. On the same road that I frequented on my trips, one encountered amorphously dug deep ditches of undefined shapes and sizes, surrounded by easily movable metal barriers resembling clothes dryers. Not one for losing an opportunity to make money through advertisements , these barriers were emblazoned with the word "SUVIDHA" . (Faciility). Out of all the things that they could advertise , like cellphones, nearby malls and the like, the choice here was particularly apt. (SUVIDHA is a well known department store in Dadar , a suburb 20 kilometers away). Should you miss noticing the dug ditch, this would be a SUVIDHA(facility) for descending into the nether regions of the earth below Mumbai.

And what can you say about cellphones ? Never has something been used so well to deceive people. Extreme left lanes of flyovers are used today to stop your two wheeler, and attend to calls , telling someone you are twenty miles away from where you actually are. " Hands free " facilitated phones have given a new meaning to speaking to yourself, and i have often marvelled at the sudden profusion of people on two wheelers seriously talking with
themselves on the highest point of flyovers (great connectivity), as 500 vehicles whizz past in an hour next to them.

But I deeply admire the autorickshawallah, who parked his axle damaged vehicle next to the heap pf debris on the flyover peak, and napped away amidst the rubble, enjoying the cool night breezes from the lake. The heap was a wonderful barrier from other vehicles, he slept in the sort of fresh air he never inhaled where he lived, and he must have , after the repairs, been tickled to trundle down the slope of the flyover in a natural attempt at starting the autorickshaw, sitting double-seat with his mechanic friend, as they made their way early morning to a wayside stall for cutting chai, quite close to one of the sophisticated star hotels in the area.

This is just a single flyover. It has shape. It has character. And like for any character, it has its flaws. And it continues to be used heavily, heaps, rubble, and all.

It just occurred to me that the ultimate objective of the managers of the city is to make it like say, Shanghai, HongKong, or even Singapore. With its intricate history and successful use of "flyovers, I just hope no one here is thinking about becoming Los Angeles. The overpasses, underpasses, networks, ramps and the like offer unlimited scope for MMRDA's czars who are bent on educating the citizenry with their innovative objects on flyovers.

I shudder at the impending and looming disaster.

Chronic Croritis****

Words fail. Mouth agape. ( In keeping with the shape of zero. The key to converting nothing to crores).

But the finger types on. We have become a nation of extremes.

Another nation twitches its eyebrow over one of our border states, and our PM puts off his trip there. The same nation goes into a frenzied tirade about a torch related to their forthcoming Olympics, and the Indian Ministry of External Affairs , sits back, eyebrows arched in importance , with eyes closed, as the Chinese Ambassador, in an unprecedented breach of protocol creates history , by being the first high level diplomat to tangle with a overly eager-to-please New Delhi Police.

The Indian Olympic Association, which specializes in sending more officials than athletes to the Games, year after year, decides to run a torch relay for itself, and the public be damned. Barricades, barbed wires, rod wielding, 18,000 police and 50 national security personnel (in a cordon around each runner) , guarding the route of 2.5 kilometres.

A chosen lot of 70 runners will do the torch relay, swearing eternal allegiance to Samsung, Lenovo, CocaCola, and maybe, just maybe, the Indian Olympic Association and Olympic Movement . From a torch relay run of 32 kilometers in 2004, watched and applauded by men, women and children, this will be like doing a sophisticated passing-the-parcel every 30-40 metres or so. With tens of thousands of securitymen dressed in track suits lining the path, applauding as ordered....(while another tens of thousands of securitymen, chase the Tibetan protesters, who are simply having a torch relay of their own, some distance away, in what I thought was a free and democratic country)

Who pays for this ? Well, don't ask. National Prestige is involved.

When the government has no funds to improve the abysmal living conditions for policemen, no funds to enhance the living conditions in our highest security overcrowded jails, no funds to buy ammunition for the Olympic shooters for practice, no funds for badminton shuttlecocks for the national team, and no funds to give airfare to a champion woman carom player representing the country abroad, we need to redefine National Prestige as National Shame.

Crores are allowed to flow through without any results or accountability. Meetings, flights, ostentatious displays, expenditures for individual offices , security for laughable relays. At one time, one hesitantly talked about lakhs. Today, everything is in crores; costs, rewards, people, fees, contracts..... Stupid me.

Is it a complete coincidence that the other travesty in Crores, IPL, otherwise called Itna Pakad Lo, is to begin the next day in Bangalore.

Every single cricketer "who counts" (as a player, not money), is injured or close to it, thanks to the factory type slogging playing schedule the BCCI sets up , in a cruel effort at shoring up the crores. Cricketers who made weedy comments, cricketers who spat into their hands and discussed their integrity, are now, thanks to the shining crores, talking about the sportsmen from various countries getting closer. Discussions of the Simian variety take a back seat, as the crores blind some.

While stock markets fall, inflation rises, industrial production falls, I wonder if this has to do with industrial houses dealing in cement,telecommunication, liquor, textile yarn, construction etc finding enough crores in their pockets, not only to pay crores to expert flingers and hitters of the red cherry, but also to import a bunch of dancers to teach us Indians how to enjoy a sport. (The BCCI filled its coffers till today, thanks to the Indian audience that braved badly designed , infrastructureless, unorthopaedically and unergonomically designed stadiums; as the just imported Washington Redskins cheerleaders would (never) say, "man, we don't need no dancers....").

As if this is not enough, everyone who acts in Hindi movies is now being paid, what else, crores, to depict improbable personalities in unreal situations, with dances in minimal clothes thrown in. In case you think that's a saving, the costumes actually cost a crore.

Do we have a lack of entertainment in this country ? We produce the largest number of movies, play cricket for maximum number of days a year resulting in the richest cricket association in the world, we have the largest number of impoverished sport associations in the country, we are probably the largest set of mobile phone users in the world. While we bask in the glory of 3 more IIT's and how it has become a brand across the world, we are probably the backbenchers, when childhood and women's literacy levels across the country are concerned.

What to do. There is a crunch.
Of money.
In some places.
We are like that only.

In other places, money is today being flung around in a frenzy, as if it is going out of fashion. What this will do, is affect the psyche of those who still , well entrenched in the middle class , correlate efforts with rewards, in daily life , that is.

Not under lights, not under police protection, not on television, not on any kind of show.

Maybe these folks know something Richard Armour once said

That money talks

I'll not deny,

I heard it once:

It said, "Goodbye."

****P.S. Apr 18, 2008. Read Mini T20 at North Pole to know how some people are still immune t0 the epidemic of croritis. Way to go, Indian Navy !

Torch runs of a different kind....

Ten thousand and more moons ago, when we were still the "next generation" (currently, we belong to the older variety), running was associated with stuff like running for buses, running from a herd of sneezing bulls or a pack of mad dogs, running to catch trains which had suddenly altered departure timings, running to catch forgotten school stuff which our brethren flung at us from a first floor balcony, and such mundane stuff. The most wildly exciting form of running, which was practiced in dramatic style in movies, was running away from home. For square and gutless folks like me, that was never an option.

Today running is a political statement. Allowing an unhindered Olympic torch relay to happen is a political statement. Allowing protest regarding the torch relay , is another political statement.

It has nothing to do with the sport of "running" per se.

In the original ancient Olympics, there was a flame, but there was NO torch relay. In its original form, the Olympic flame was lit at the beginning of the Games, and it continued to burn throughout the games. It was doused at the conclusion of the games. Any kind of running with torches, was actually a public relations event, where capable chaps ran through cities in Greece announcing the games, and inviting the populace. While there were Gods-of-honor, like Zeus associated with the games, it isn't clear if the games had an entry fee, whether the public paid to get in, whether the temple staff went in free, etc etc.

The first torch relay was held in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where a person called Carl Diem, decided to organize a relay transport of the Olympic torch from the site in Greece, to the Berlin Stadium. Hitler was to preside, and his minions convinced him about the games being THE place to highlight German and Aryan supremacy. A German (Aryan) athlete ran with the flame. The country went all out and "Jews not wanted" signs were ordered to be removed from tourist attractions. The Ministry of the Interior directed the Berlin Police to arrest all the gypsies and keep them in special camps; the clean, white, superior Aryan games would not be sullied with visions of impure gypsies.

In these modern times, the Torch travels by various modes of transport, like planes, ships, cars , buses and human runners. Governments give high priority to this trip of the torch. A few symbolic athletes are involved. In some countries like ours, it is a place for political games and oneupmanship, as you stand on a dias, high-up, applauding the carefully selected favoured runners, chortling to yourself as you pose next to the current powers that be, thinking about the event organization and commercial profits-to-be.....

Tibetan people have used this occasion to highlight their plight . Amidst varying opinions about whether this way of protesting is acceptable, one cannot help think of what would have happened if the imprisoned gypsies in Hitler's Olympics had protested, or been allowed to have their say. But Germany then was NOT a real democracy; Hitler dictated. Today, China is NOT a democracy, and communists rule, with as iron a fist as any, particularly when it comes to the religious Tibetans. History appears to be repeating itself. Maybe we need a Tibetan Jesse Owens.

But. There is another kind of Torch Relay happening.

Special Olympics are held throughout the world, to encourage differently abled people to participate in sports. A sports festival where participating is as important and as much applauded as winning, the torch relay here has been used as a fund raiser in the form of a The Law Enforcement Torch Run.

Initiated in 1981, by Richard LaMunyon, Police Chief of Wichita, Kansas(USA), who foresaw an urgent need to raise funds for the success and awareness of the Special Olympics (for very special people), the Torch Run was soon adopted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). Across the world, this is the largest grassroots fundraiser, as well as a public awareness event , and they have raised up to 30 million dollars in 2007,

Close to 85,000 law enforcement officers/police carried the torch as the "Flame of Hope" across 35 nations, raising awareness and funds for Special Olympics. Police officers and Special athletes participate in torch runs, wherever Special Olympic local events are held, leading up to the main Special Olympics. Funds are generated through various things like a "adopt-a-cop" runner sponsorship, Special Torch Run T-shirt sales, corporate sponsorships, golf tournaments , pledges for running policemen, and every two years, law enforcement officers from around the world gather to carry the "Flame of Hope" in a Law Enforcement Torch Run Final Leg in honor of the Special Olympics World Summer or World Winter Games.

India does send athletes to these Olympics , and does very well, medals and all

. We never hear of a hue and cry being made . by the powers-that-be, over these "torch runs" . Maybe that's because its never about making or winning points, but all about participation. And about rejoicing in the win of your fellow athlete. No Pepsi, no Cocacola, no Samsung, no scheming, no politics , no announcing rewards in parliament ,no nothing.

We have politicized the Olympics. Like in Cricket, money dictates attitudes. You cow-tow to countries smitten by trade agreements, price of oil, their support at the UN; all , with a fine myopic blink at their country maps, where they claim a part of your country as theirs......

All this thoughtless running. For reasons of power. Not what Olympics is all about.

Shakespeare probably never did sprints or marathons. But he anticipated things when he said:

We may outrun

By violent swiftness that which we run at,

And lose by over-running.

The Middle Inheritance

Overcome as I am, with my surge of inspiration enabling me to give a Ludlumian flavour to the title, let me just say that for a long time it has become apparent to me that irrespective of the various boundary conditions one may be forced to encounter in one's life, the only feasible path for a sensible person, living with eyes wide open, is a middle path.

Notwithstanding the boring, unexciting and dull connotations one associates with the word "middle", jiggling one's cerebrum indicates several ways of hitting a "middle" path.

You can stick like fevicol to the straight and middle path , or you can swing in wild non-simple harmonic style, go through emotional and other peaks and troughs,in effect, asymptotically approaching a middle path, sort of dithering across the middle with lesser and lesser amplitude.....

Sticking to a middle path in life, prioritizing objectives, trying to shoulder various family responsibilities, folks are generally forgiven a few secret stray sinful swipes on the leg and on sides (as they say in cricket), with modest (but sometimes tumultuous) reactions, as they learn , about what we call the wonders of life.

Their children are often found listening to FM chatter on a 10 year old radio with a half broken dial, as they study for their impending tests. Folks in these house purse their lips when they see their child gravitating towards jeans costing eight hundred rupees(only), on the quarterly shopping trip to the Mall. A single pair of pants, simply should not cost more than your monthly milk. A daughter emerging with a neckline that obeys Issac Newton's laws, is told in no uncertain terms to forthwith change. These folks do not offer Colas and biscuits to visitors. Its all about limbu sherbet, chaklees and bakarwadis; on a festive day, maybe an ecstatic ladoo....

Observe some others, where modern monetary floods have led to behavioural excesses.

These folks emerge from backgrounds where parents have seen a near vertical rise in their economic status leading to wild lifestyle swings. Kids in such families are experts in propagating the "I need" syndrome. A family outing is a mother with her head demurely covered accompanied by a daughter in a low waist pair of jeans, exhibiting layers of stomach, or a son with pair of torn "hanging" jeans, characterised by a now-they-fall-now-they-don't waistline. Kya karein. All their friends are like that only....

They change cellphones more frequently, than they cut their nails. Communication with another individual consists of messaging with atrocious spellings, and very often they may be mistaken for mad people as they walk around talking to themselves, on what is called their hands free cellphone attachment.

They either fare disastrously in exams, get depressed, get medically treated (as a prestige issue), without thinking, or they join tuition classes that cost so much that some people pay that much as a deposit on a single room accommodation they rent. These kids get cars for their birthdays, and it doesn't matter if they do not have a driver's license. The high end money hype, is matched by the low end relationship they have , with their families for whom they have no time. It is so much more important to "hang out at hot places with hotter people", and "chill". The extreme oscillations across the middle, even appear in the language :-)

At some point reality bites. Counselling is the order of the day. And they slowly and finally get dragged to the middle and straight path. Which they try and keep to , as they fluctuate wildly across the axis, troubled to find the mean(pun intended) middle.

Life replicates these swings to both extremes.

Bottled water is now a "necessity". Covering bore wells, dug for providing water to a village , is not. In one case a bottle is thrown away. In another, a little girl falls into the open bore well pit while playing. We operate in extremes.

60 miles north of Mumbai, news reports indicate maximum malnutrition deaths amongst children . 60 miles on the other side a pharma company , having an almost zero social spending budget, spends several lakhs for a 10 second TV commercial about fairness creams, and their big boss appears on stage , standing next to the current hit star, who charges a couple of crores to sneeze on screen. Vicks ki goli lo ? Nah. Too middle class.....

More and more Indians, lug their name brand suitcases (somewhat identical to something I got in Somwar Peth), as they sigh and stand on the airport escalators, bored as they go on their fourth trip to Bangkok. Yesterday, a BEST bus driver on duty , with a busful of passengers, on one of Mumbai's most congested and badly modified roads, died of a heart attack, as his body, struggling to make ends meet, working long hours, eating whatever was available, slumped over the steering wheel, giving up on the apathy of those who have failed to make quality-of-life better for simple folks.

My household helper's daughter has to face hoodlums' comments as she returns after a hard days work everyday, constrained as she is, to stay in a certain locality, and unconcerned and unmotivated, as the police are, in looking into this thing. But , in the name of national security, a posse of 37 police in various uniforms, lounge outside, and accompany families of certain so called leaders of Mumbai, as their children attend school, and wives attend kitty parties. They are perceived to be in danger, my bai's daughter is not. Extreme myopia . Or should we upgrade to blindness.

Can sports be far behind ?

A single chap wallops his way to a tricentury against South Africa. The theory of finding a middle path demands that we swing to the other extreme, and prove that in the next test, runs are counted in tens and twenties, and a three digit score for the whole team is a distant prospect. Never mind. As some say, Form is non-existent, Class is extreme.

Hockey , a national game (was that an extreme classification ?), just ceased to be national after we bowed out of the Olympic qualifiers, riding on the euphoria of previous medals. No one worried about a minimum level of international proficiency. We await the swing back to the middle path.

After our shooters got Olympic silver and gold in Athens, four years ago, today, there is nothing to shoot, as the governmental sports setup is unable, unwilling and unconcerned about sanctioning money for ammunition, for 3 years.

There is something stable about maintaining a middle path, that requires a sustained and intelligent effort. The earlier generations of Indians followed this as a concept, which is why their descendants today work and study across the world, heads high. Us.

More developed nations, earlier went through the pangs of prosperity that we see in India now, and an entire generation has come up there today, that is being replaced where it counts, with people who came from the third world .

There is a lesson in this. Exciting as it is for young minds today to soar wildly , we need to leave them a "middle inheritance", that our parents left for us. The wildness and greatness of a mental flight is measurable only if a stable middle base exists.

(Like my badminton coach used to tell us, 40 years ago, "move all over the court to retrieve shots, run, but after every shot, quickly get back to a central court position; the ideal way to attempt every shot is to take off from the "middle....")

But is anyone listening ?

A Grand(ma) commentary on the state of cricket circa 2008

My elderly aunt from Pune (who had some questions about Brangelina in Pune earler) was visiting us. A typical, naturally superior Punekar, she is not a fan of Mumbai weather. That being so, and given that she is enjoying the eighth decade of her life, she spends a lot of time indoors, some of it , watching TV.

Living with a typical Mumbai middle class family with a single TV connection, and several cricket mad members, sometimes she is forced to watch cricket, instead of, say, an old marathi movie. Being intrinsically a smart lady, she learns new things very fast. This time she ended up watching the CB series finals(with all the associated commentary), which she did with great enthusiasm, quietly lighting the diya in the puja room when India had 2 overs left to bowl. (Imagine hundreds of grandmothers doing this across India, and you start sympathizing with the Indian Gods, all 64 crores of them...).

Basically interested only when Tendulkar is playing, she is firmly convinced that in particular , guys like Symmonds and Hayden are up to tricks, and are basically, bullies. And the less said about Ponting, the better it is. She doesn't trust him.

She finds this whole auction stuff confusing. Have we sunk so low that we now sell people ?

"All this drinking of Bournevita and Boost, riding motorcycles ,playing cricket on top of municipal buses....they earn so much. Where was the need to sit around and get sold like cauliflower ? " she asked, simultaneously disdainfully throwing cucumber peels into an already burgeoning trash bag, a fine example of her multitasking capabilities while watching cricket.

Someone tries to explain the IPL and ICL stuff.

"You mean they actually paid so many thousands to the guy who started the nonsense in Sydney ? Someone called him a monkey and he went crying to the judge ? Who gave which bad words to who, and our newspapers have nothing else to report ?

We tell her its not thousands , its hundreds of thousands, even crores....

"For what ? And why get the supercilious chap who keeps chewing and spitting stuff the whole day ? All, that chewing and spitting stuff into your palms and rubbing them. Chee. "

By mistake she once saw an ICL match in progress.

"It wont work"

"Where is the need to have girls is missing clothes, dance to show what's missing, everytime someone hits beyond the fence? Are they hitting the boundary to bring attention to whats happening at the boundary line ?"

Then she read in the newspaper about some team from the south planning to display Indian dance moves at the boundary line, to "honour" our "culture".....

"What have we we come to? Vinasha kalay viparita buddhi......I remember someone trying to have classical sitar performances in one of the fancy restaurants at the Taj at one time, and how everyone crticized the move. And here we go , doing tirakita-dha on the boundary everytime someone whips the ball past the white line. Do you ever see anyone performing ballet moves and piroetting behind the goal post when a goal is hit at football matches in Italy? "

What completely gets her aghast is the people who are supposed to be buying these teams.

"Looks like you have to be a dancing actor, a modern actress, a daruwala (sorry Mr Mallya, thats what she calls you), or shining industrywallah to have a team of your own. I mean I have heard of people buying and gifting jewellery, clothes, even houses to family members. Do we now look forward to news items that scream across headlines saying "XYZ of PQR industries buys Yuvraj Singh for the team, to commemorate his daughters engagement or something ?"

Then there is this thing of Shoaib Akhtar. Doesnt impress her at all. All show, and more trouble, is how she describes him. Fails to understand how he was a choice in the first place, forget someone bidding for him.

All this fuss for 44 days of the year ?

"Our team was playing cricket so well recently. Such a good example and inspiration for little boys. Work hard, don't get distracted by stupid idle talk on the pitch. And then they spoil it all by selling themselves for money.

She thinks all matches should be like the CB Series Sydney and Brisbane finals. Indians playing as Indians, Australians as Australians; each playing proudly for their country, and not primarily for money. No need to have weird mixed teams.

And like she says, putting a totapuri mango in a hapoos basket, doesn't make the totapuri mango a hapoos.

But there is just one thing that bothers her no end.

How can anyone think they can BUY Sachin ?

*****Another little girl grows up....

I remember her as a little chubby girl in a cool looking ,radially flaring summer frock, holding on to her mother's hand, and walking, alongside her , with a definite purpose. Skipping along a road dappled with the rays of the evening sun trying to venture through the lush foliage , she was probably just immensely pleased, that her mother was home from work.

One word that simply shouts to be heard in her case, is confidence. She always had, and continues to have, oodles of it.

A girl who did very well at school, not just in studies, but also revelled in perfomances on stage. My children went to the same school, and, as is the tradition , all of us parents religiously appeared once a year in a huge auditorium, and watched in wonder as they sang, danced, acted, peformed, and went smartly striding up on to the stage to collect their annual awards, academic and otherwise.

A vision in a white sari, next to a statue of Lord Krishna, oblivious to the chattering of first grade types in front, and fake smart types at the back, she acted out her Mirabai role , full of concentration and attention to the music; several minutes later, she was back, school uniform and all, going over to the podium to accept her academic awards, to the complete amazement of the chief guest.

Many moons later, now a senior at school, she faced a very different exam in life. She now had a younger school going brother, of an age, where listening to elder sisters is something you did not happily do. The elders in the family were involved in handling a medical situation, which would take some time to resolve. She was old enough to know the significance of the problem, and wise enough to realize that the best way to help, would be to manage everything in the house herself, so her parents did not worry.

So, while an entire generation of school seniors , got fussed over by family members, tiptoeing around the house, making tea at unearthly hours, and snacks on demand so as to enable the seniors' blood-glucose to cross the blood-brain barrier and aid in igniting the spark of knowledge, this little girl, attended to her academics, managed the kitchen, supervised the staff, and most important, was always there, for her little brother, anticipating what he needed. Household help existed, but there wasn't anyone then at home who could wait and rustle up some stuff for him at odd times, and she did that too, between thinking about polynomials,conjugation of verbs, and electron energy levels.

And she studied and managed the house, and excelled at both. Once in a while, my daughter and I would run into her on a visit to the local temple. Probably there, to have her own conversation with the One who Sees , she would be sitting down for a short rest before a trek back to a worried house. My daughter was much younger, more enamoured of the temple prasad, unashamedly hankering after it, and this girl always made her feel that , it was ok to be that way. My daughter never had a clue, that behind the wide grin and twinkle in the eye, was a worried mind.

Early summer, found us at the pool, where we would occasionally run into her. My daughter was learning to swim, doing better than average, and I like to think that some of it was due to genuine encouragement from this girl, who actually had interesting conversations with her, about the various strokes and tricks one could do in the pool.

By and by , it was springtime, the sun shone again, health issues were resolved, and the family was back together. The little girl had grown up in more ways than one. She had had a unique training in recognizing a problem, and then solving it. (She would need that later, but for problems of a different kind).

She went on to college and did engineering. Unlike most girls her age who spent hours negotiating public transport woes of this city, she stayed in her institute hostel. We moved house, and her way home from college , most weekends, took her past our building.

We would often cross paths, as i needed to travel some distance for my daughters new school, and for someone who excelled at studies, was a top ranker , and considered a promising student, she had an amazing empathy for another young girl, who was still coming to terms with what society called inabilities of the academic kind. In a closed society, where there are supposedly more doctorates per square metre than elsewhere, and less understanding about "underachievers" than elsewhere , it was refreshing to meet someone who seemed to know that there are different types of successes, not all academic.

She is now pursuing a doctorate herself in the Queen's land. Those in her field take great delight in her progress. Its not enough to be clever; you need to be able to communicate your immense knowledge at all levels of proficiency. And today she finds herself as the Resident tutor, teaching the British youth , all about pressure, flows, obstacles, eddys, resistances, and how to handle these, academically.

She should know. She has learnt how to study and predict the various flows in life.

Today, she stands , resplendent in her silks, waiting for the young man, who went to college with her, and then onwards to England. Both worked very hard, and will continue on for a doctorate. In the meanwhile, the hall resounds to the chatter of excited relatives, glistening in their silks, with a whiff of jasmines and sandalwood pervading around.

She stands , surrounded by her family, in a paithanee and jewels, in the vividly decorated wedding hall, waiting for the young man to arrive with his family, on the Big Day. There is a constant chattering of relatives, folks moving around offering glasses of cool drinks; her mother, in an effort to handle conflicting emotions, trying to balance the "acquisition of another son" (as they say) vis-a-vis a departing daughter and assorted grandmother types, lifting their kanjeevaram palloos, to surreptiously wipe their eyes, as the prepare to witness the wedding of a wonderful girl.

Indian weddings and jewellery , go hand in hand.

And I would like the young man to know, that he is getting the best jewel out of them all......

With our Blessings.

*** An earlier blog about another little girl was "The little girl grows up..."