Touches of Class

I don't know if classless societies exist. And I am not even talking about things like countries. Ample amount of stuff has been written about that, by guys that go by the names of Marx and Lenin, and everyone knows what happened in certain countries who swore by them.

However, I have a suspicion that , that sometimes, power generates class. The Constitution treats all of us equally, and the vegetable vendor lady at the corner, and the local Member of Parliament enjoy the same fundamental rights. It's the other rights that those in power play around with.

In autonomous institutions like ours (where I live and used to work), people earning differently have different "entitlements". At one point in my working life, I have spent hours, explaining to the payroll people, requesting them to deduct a larger insurance premium payment from my salary, as I wanted to be insured for a larger amount, only to be told, that at my (salary) level, I could only insure myself for a fixed predecided amount, and never mind that I might have delusions of grandeur about myself. So I got slotted into a class.

As far as our institute hospital facilities go, beyond a certain pay, you are entitled to a private room. Below that you are consigned to a general ward. This business of class, again. And never mind if your appendix is behaving more erratic compared to that of an officer type with mild undiagnosed abdominal spasms. The old gardener who fell from a coconut tree and broke his hip bone, entertains everyone in the general ward, with his innovative excuses when the physiotherapist comes to retrain his limbs, after surgery, while a senior executive lies in boring solitary splendour, with an elevated blood pressure, elevated prestige, and missing relatives, desperately unhappy in a single room....

Leela-aji was my daughter's friend's grandma. Aji means Grandmother. When my daughter was in middle school, everyone knew every ones grandmothers, when they came visiting. Some stayed on. Leela-aji was one such. We were returning from my daughters swimming practice one evening, and she mentioned to me in an alarmed manner, the news , that Leela-aji had apparently slipped and fallen down, fractured something, and was in hospital. We decided to check this out , and took a detour and went to the hospital.

Leela-aji's son was at a reasonably high post, and we assumed she would be in one of the single rooms. We read the names outside the rooms. No Leela-aji. My daughter even managed to peer inside some, Still no Leela-aji. My daughter insisted that her news was correct and so we went back to the front office to check. We were told she was in the wards.

A peep into the ward, and we saw Leela-aji, putting down a newspaper, removing her glasses and rubbing her eyes, simultaneously smiling, and shaking her head. She said something to the lady in the next bed, whose daughter was visiting. Then she saw us, and waved and beckoned to us. We spent some time with her, and she made some "serious" conversation with my daughter about her swimming and friends, and we promised to come again the next day, with a book that she wanted , which I had..

She was fairly old and I wondered if she was able to rest adequately in the excitement of the general ward.

"You know , they did give me a single room", she said, eyes half shut, giving me a toothless smile. " but everyone is so busy, no one has the time to come, and I feel so alone. So I requested that they move me to the general ward. I have made lots of friends here, and I even tell stories to some of the children here. It keeps me alert and away from thoughts about my recuperation. Its fun !"


(I hope my daughter learnt something there.)

Don't know about her son's stature, but Leela-aji certainly exuded a lot of "class".....

Many many years later, my mother, then 83, while on a visit to us, had a cardiac episode , collapsed and was admitted to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit(ICCU), of one of Mumbai's biggest Municipal hospitals, which had outstanding doctors, but the infrastructure for visitors was yet to be developed. Since I am the only child of my parents, resident in India, my husband and I took turns at the hospital ICCU,and they allowed only a single person to be with the patient at a given time.

Still coming to terms with what life was dealing me, worrying if I would ever talk to my mother again, whether there was enough cash with us (we had rushed out as-is with the ambulance), and how my siblings would manage to get here fast (from the US), we would take turns , sitting on the floor of the large hall outside the ICCU, where several people sat, worrying about their near and dear ones, in trauma, inside.

Late at night, i would try and catch a wink, with my head pillowed on my purse, my long scarf wrapped around me, shivering more from the cold uncertainty than the floor temperature.

The second evening, saw a huge group of Sikh people , come in. Several community elders, a few senior ladies, and many people my age. One of their folks was admitted, and it is a sterling feature of this community, that they turn up at such times, in a very united fashion , to give solace, meals, bedding, extra pillows, and what have you, for the immediate relatives. Whispered discussions with the relatives, nodding of heads, instructions to some of the younger ladies, who covered their heads in respect and bustled off to do the needful; maybe some special medication needed to be purchased, some report needed to be picked up. An hour spent there and the community group went home, leaving behind tiffins of food, water, fruit, a few bedsheets.

My husband was inside and he asked me to try and get some sleep, so as to be able to take over from him later.

Some of the ladies laid out a sheet. Got some pillows out, and they rested. waiting to relieve whoever of theirs was inside, sitting with the patient. There was continuous traffic to and from the ICCU, nurses, doctors, orderlies, and cleaning staff, some going off duty, some coming in.

I lay down , head on my purse, resting on my arms, stared up at the ceiling, and tried to blank my worried mind. I noticed the lady looking at me. We smiled. She asked me who was inside. I told her, and couldn't speak anymore. She understood. She beckoned to a young chap and asked him to pass some of the fruit. Peeled some oranges, and shared them with me. Forcing me to have some. Slowly after a while, the lights were dimmed. Maybe that was a routine occurrence. She asked me who was with me , as she couldn't see anyone there. I got back to where i was originally and nodded off a bit later due to sheer fatigue.

Sometime around 5 am, I awoke. I should be up and ready to relieve my husband who was to make a trip home. I sat up, and something fell away. Someone had covered me with a bedsheet as I slept. And I soon found out. The lady who I had spoken to earlier, didn't think it was safe for me to lie down like this , by myself, indicating that there was no one with me. She thought I needed a reassuring cover. She had spread her sheet near me as I slept, and anyone passing by, would have felt, we were members of a big family , waiting out there . Her younger son, whose sheet she used to cover me, huddled by himself , in his sleep, in another corner with some other relative.

There was no talk subsequently. Only heartfelt silent words. I quietly folded the bedsheet and left it by her feet. The action seemed to wake her. I folded my hands and wished her, wordlessly conveying my gratitude. I organized myself to go in to the ICCU , and sit with my mother, through what was to be her last day on earth. Sometime during the day, I heard a commotion, and the elderly Sikh admitted to the ICCU, was wheeled out , face covered.

I never saw the lady again.

I don't know what people mean when they talk of someone having lots of class. There aren't any degrees of class. You either have it or you don't.

And this was one lady who was literally overflowing with it. She had even some to spare.

"Train"ing for Travel....

Years and years of travelling in Mumbai's public transport gives you a certain attitude. It is not cultivated as such. But you get it by default. Maybe its a feeling of "battling" to literally get a foot hold, a feeling of mobilizing for, what in polite terms, can be deemed an "assault".

5-10 pm , at any of the train terminii in Mumbai, is not a good time to catch a train. There is about 5000 people milling around on various platforms; some almost at the edge of one, peering at an arriving train ; some trying to act nonchalant, supremely confident of their last minute leap into a semi running train to give them their choice seat, and then , some folks like me, with children, saree end tucked in at the waist, purse firmly hung and held by one hand, while the other clutches that of the children, who think a big fuss is being made anyway. The train comes to a stop, There are platforms on both sides at the terminii sometimes, and you are then part of like, 500 people trying to enter through a 6 feet wide door, about 15 inches above the platform floor, all in one minute, followed by college going students, tired working women, a few senior citizens, teenagers, and , say, children wailing for a window seat, and giving certain posh looking ladies, already at the window, dirty looks.

You kind of squeeze into the sitting area, where each long seat holds 3, as per rules; or actually 4 , as per the Prinicples of "Zarasarkoonghyaa". (Loosely translatable as "Move-a-bit-will-you"). You glance at the lady near the window, who seems to be busy gesticulating to a friend outside, then the older woman next to her, who has just pulled out a water bottle wrapped in plastic, and the young student , closest to you, points to the window, shrugs her shoulders, and moves, maybe a couple of inches, giving you a place to rest your L4-L5 vertebrae in a precarious manner. Adjusting is the name of the game, as a small child squeezes in through a bunch of ladies to stand near the window, nose against the railings, with his approving mother standing in the aisle. The train starts with an introductory jerk, the child gets his mouth precariously close to the bars, secretly probably wondering if he should test the reach of his tongue, when the lady at the window seat, no one of his , shakes her head, and wags a finger saying no-no; there are smiles all around.

We are, in, what is termed a "ladies" compartment. The mechanics of undesirable contact sports, while trying to travel through a jam packed general compartment, has served to convince women in Mumbai, that, if you have to push,shove,pinch,elbow and shout, you have better success in the women's compartment with less collateral damage. So after a tumultously brave and complicated entry, some ladies settle down to napping, some read, some gossip, some bring out their knitting, and some laboriously work on their crocheting and embroidery projects, for which they carry a special bag everyday. Designs are admired, applauded, rank strangers freely give all kinds of advice which is accepted with a smile; Some women who travel from areas having wonderful local vegetable markets, buy their stuff on the way home, and it is not unusual to see ladies shelling peas , and doing the beans , on a big newspaper spread across 3 laps. By the time their 1 hour commute ends, they've done 30% of the evening'skitchenwork in the train itself.

One of the outstanding (though some may disagree), features of these crowded compartments is the various vendors who come to sell things. Handkerchiefs, clips, pins (picture on the right), decorative jewelery, children's ABC coloring books, bangles,earrings (picture on the right), ribbons, placemats, kitchen items, are just a few things. Then there are the ladies who come with garlands of fresh jasmines for your hair( on the left), fresh oranges, chikkoos, custard apples and guavas in season. These are invariably cheaper than the market rates. Of course , vendors of homemade potato chips, crisps, and banana snacks also do their rounds.

At fixed times of the day, one may be subject to smells of fish, as the ladies who congregate at the docks to buy the fresh catch, are often lugging it home, to their area markets, and everyone gets a whiff of the fishy smell as they move around with their big circular baskets . Ladies taking huge stocks of veggies and fish in the trains are a militant lot. They expect crowds to part as they make their way in and out. Occasionally there will be a very well turned out lady, with the latest outfit, amazingly made up , with all her hair immaculately in place, wearing improbable heels, posing (out of habit), and standing in the aisle. The fish ladies , very practical and no-nonsense types in their nine-yard sarees, take a dim view of all this.

One such vision, blocking the door, and becoming a problem for exiting fish ladies, was addressed colloquially, in what can only be translated as "Oye, Cleopatra, Move it !"..... , causing those who heard it to crack up.

Imagine hundreds of women standing all around you, some leaning on you involuntarily, some trying to keep safe, the tomatoes (bought wonderfully cheap), they are carrying, and a constant stream of women, coming in and going towards the door. Each station is a 15 second stop. Thankfully, the doors of these trains are always open. As you go closer to your destination, you get up at least 3 stations before yours. Someone is always eyeing your seat. Most of the ladies make it their business to know who is traveling up to where, and they plan their seat acquisition with a finesse that would defeat any political party in India. You clutch your purse and child close, and literally squeeze your way, slowly towards the door, taking care not to stand in the centre. Waves of ladies get on and get off at stations. You don't want to get off ,involuntarily, at the wrong one. The cohesive crowd sways as one, as the train picks up speed and accelerates towards the next station. Occasionally another train passes by in the opposite direction at touching distance. You inch towards the door, or if you are way back somewhere, you inch towards the crowd in the centre of the entrance aisle. The crowd surges forward. Shuffling, children muffled in yards and yards of sarees crowding about them. The train stops. And you literally move and get thrown out. Evicted is a strong word, and has unpleasant connotations, but this action is really , physically, an eviction.


Once again you are in fresh air, with ladies around you attending to their disheveled sarees and upset kids. Some regulars wave to their train friends. Occasionally, someone will get off who isn't feeling well. Stories abound of pregnant migrant ladies from the outskirts of the city, traveling to Mumbai's free public hospitals at the last minute. The husband is in the general compartment, after having seated his wife in the ladies. Suddenly the labour pains start. First the woman is frightened. Then she tells someone in the
compartment who notices her discomfort, and her pain. Someone starts asking around if there is a doctor /nurse person there. A few ladies pull the alarm chain that will stop the train. Some get on the phone to alert the authorities. Scarves and cloth pieces,scissors in purses, etc are inventoried. The lady embroidering the tablecloth, sacrifices it as a spread on the floor.Frequently, the ladies will create space for the poor woman on the floor, give her privacy by standing around her , while someone attends to her till the station comes. All the water bottles are out, there is someone comforting the woman, asking her where her husband is sitting. There is a small window into the adjoining men's compartment, and someone passes a message. The hunt for the father is on. Somehow he gets the message. The station arrives, and the lady is bundled out along with her assistants from the compartment. The railway police women constables may now be there to assist. Many times,the delivery is very quick, as the train women organize themselves and their duties, trying to protect the woman's modesty, giving her reassurance, offering their help as needed, some looking for her husband to inform him. A child is coming into this world. Nothing else is important. The ambulance arrives, the family is now augmented by one and together again, and they go off to the nearest hospital where more traditional care will be forthcoming.

Occasionally, train friends, will have celebrations. Birthdays are celebrated. Songs are sung. Homemade sweeta are thoroughly enjoyed. During the festival season, certain color sarees are worn on specific days, and so you often see a sea of yellow, pink, green, blue emerging from the ladies compartment, depending on the day, with whiffs of jasmine , and a bit of fake jewellery .(You don't want to wear the real stuff. It is dangerous.Too visible a display often attracts nimble fingers of unknown people.). A ride in a train is a place for pouring your heart out to your friend ; its a place to crib about your mother-in-law, your boss, the government, the increasing prices, and schools. Its a place for being comforted by friends, after a particularly bad day at the office, or simply when you don't feel too good. Stress relieving at its best.

Its crowded. its noisy. Someone always steps on your toes. Someone is always talking too loud and fighting with someone. Everything always doesn't smell like lavender. And no DEO on earth can negate the smell of oiled hair, strange perfumes, onions, garlic, and squished tomatoes, and of course, the sweat and tears so many people.

But so is life.

Regardless of where you go in the world, you never forget your train roots.

This was brought home to me, many years ago, in spades, when I had occasion to travel the Tube in London.

I forget which station it was on the Tube, but we were taking it to the outskirts of London, after a day spent with our 5 year old son , in the city. It was around 5.30 pm. There wasn't a crowd on the station by Mumbai standards, I could see no anxiety in any faces, and no one stopped conversations on seeing the train appear around the corner. Here I was, saree tucked, in, holding my purse as well as some shopping bags in such a way, that I had one hand free, even when the other was clutching my son's, mobilizing , as such, for ,"assault ....:-)" .

The train arrived, doors slid open, NO ONE rushed. I did my bit of rushing in with my paraphernalia, and stood inside, as there wasn't a seat I could see which was empty. By and by I got a place to sit. No one was eyeing any seats in an obvious manner, no one was getting hyper. Everyone was minding their own business, which is , I suppose possible if you are not forced to breathe into someones hair or ear, or hat. It was comparatively quiet.

Whenever stations came, people got off and on without any excitement. I had learnt. When time came for us to get off, I controlled myself from elbowing my way to the door and getting self evicted. My son and I sedately , and properly stepped out. The doors closed and the train moved away.

And that moment, my son raised an alarm and pointed to the train and let out that he forgot his book in the train. he'd been looking at the pictures when I suddenly bundled him up to disembark. Had this been Mumbai, I would have yelled through the window, pointed to where I was sitting, and asked a lady to throw it out onto the platform. Someone would have listened, a book would get passed from lap to lap, and someone would manage to throw it out ,maybe, just as the train passed the platform end. There would be hundreds of people, tea and snack vendors, boot polish chaps, cleaners, time-pass passengers, etc watching this, participating, and someone , somehow would get that book back to us.........

I know. Forget it. Nothing really of any of earthshattering importance.

But sometimes, it feels like progress cannot be all west centric. If progress was a fabric, it would feel infintely richer, with a few individualistic ,oriental sequins built in.....

Total Timepass......

Some of us take English for granted. The language , that is. Years spent in school, being scolded in English, cheering your netball team in English, learning to excuse yourself in English. We all , here in India, almost always spoke another language at home. We have a very rich tradition of native literature and theatre, and so in some families, a special effort was made to keep their children aware of their own language and its usage.

So it was with a sense of surprise that I found out that the word English, had , well, non-English origins. Somewhere in the 5th century, three Germanic tribes , the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, sort of came over from what is today, parts of Denmark, and Northern Germany, and decided to explore. They battled the natives, and ended up pushing them, and their native Celtic language far into the West, in what is today Ireland, Wales and Scotland.

The conquerors ( the Angles) came from came from "Englaland ". Their language was called "Englisc ". The rest is history.

And we were saved from types who named their villages , "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch".....( Alan Jones, the clerk to the Village council, insisted , that that pronouncing its name be used as a citizenship test for English people planning to move to Wales). I mean I looked for the website of the Llanfairpwll Football Club, and it said "The cache was not able to resolve the host name"......I don't blame the cache at all.

Those of us who write in English will be eternally grateful to the Angles for appearing at the right time.

Today, times have certainly changed. English was , in a sense exported to the British colonies. In these days of increasing imports and dwindling exports (unless you are China), many words are entering the English language from India, having assimilated themselves into the language by innovative uses locally.

There is a word for that, Hinglish.

Way back in the 17th century, when the British tangled with Indians, several great words like shampoo, bangle, bungalow, jungle, jodhpurs, pukka etc were accepted into colloquial English , to be followed by the dictionaries. Today, with a reverse migration, spoken English is experiencing a change . So much so, that you now can speak Hinglish.... new words in the Collins Dictionary, like BADMASH, buda, changa, desi, filmi, namaste, theek allow you to address rogues, wish someone nicely, say OK , call someone a "native" (in a British sense :-)), or even say something is nice !

Prof Crystal, honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales, estimates that 350 million Indians now speak Hinglish , exceeding the English speaking populations of UK and US. Given the predominance of Indians in IT and the spread of the Internet based communications, this number is expected to increase.

And so you need to know, that in an emergency you can "airdash" somewhere. (Ministers do that even otherwise). You "prepone" meetings because later on you have to be somewhere else. People in your music group include a bunch of "goras"(white folk), and "desis"(locals). Habitual visitors to 5 star hotels despair of the "jungli" (uncouth) behaviour of starry eyed hoi-polloi visiting there for a wedding....And yes, the wedding reception cost is more than several "lakhs"(100,000 = 1 lakh), and the total expenses would go into "crores"(i crore = 100 lakhs), given that the bride's side folks are performing a specially choreographed dance , after being trained by a "filmy"(Bollywood) choreographer.......

Next time you are going on a long trip by car, make sure you have a working "stepney"(spare tyre), in the "dickey"(boot of the car); You need to be alert for "lumpen" (thug) elements in unknown places. You might not find a decent place to have a drink, if you are feeling "glassy", by the way....

Your friend is very particular that everything be Fuss-class(First-class" - indicates high-quality material, used to describe many things - lodging, cars, food, drink, people)....he won't send his daughters alone shopping, as there have been instances of "eve-teasing" (sexual harassment), in that locality (though I would like to think that with karate being a popular learning item, "adam-bashing" should soon enter the dictionary). Alternately a "tight slap" should suffice....

If a bald chap with a mild fringe of hair all around is blocking your view of something, you can shout, and " hey, stadium, move to the right, will you? " will get him to "do the needful" every single time, mostly in Mumbai. When you are in a hurry, you have "hazaar"(thousand) things to attend to, and if someone insists on pestering you with unrelated things you ask them , not to be "arbit" (ask arbitrary stuff) and stop bothering you "khali-peeli".... And it certainly gets so hot in Mumbai, that as soon you reach home you "open"(remove) your shirt, and doesn't matter if your building is in such a crowded area, that they have put up a big sign saying "Entry from backside"

But the most wonderful Hinglish according to some, is a word designed to define and bring a feeling of elegance to the important action of doing nothing, as you sit back and enjoy : Total Timepass, yaar(friend) !

Things are not easy, and likely to get worse. We have so many official languages, and dialects in India. Everyone is into English. And everyone cannot understand each others language sometimes. So there is going to be Hazaar confusion, and Arbit outcomes.

But we will still "yenjoy!" ("enjoy" said with a southern inflection)......

Why ?

Beacuse Hinglish is also something that unites Indians in a country that has 14 official ones and more than 1,600 dialects.

The latest dirt on Dirt.......

Way back in the 70's and 80's there was still a sense of wonder and achievement when a person got a chance to travel overseas. IT , then, was someone simply emphasizing "it", and it certainly wasn't a password for going to do a job or graduate studies abroad.

So Sudhir's family was delighted when he got a chance to tour abroad , for the very first time in his life, as part of a team that accompanied a world famous Indian musician on his performances in Europe and America. The team enjoyed great hospitality everywhere, Sudhir got a feel of how it is to be a kind of assistant-celebrity, and he occasionally was part of the accompaniment on stage.

We asked him how he enjoyed his trip and what he liked . He was all praise for the arrangements, the hospitality, the punctuality, the smooth roads, the fancy cars, the amazing automation in homes with regard to labour saving , and so on. Then he said a very strange thing .

"Everything clean-clean. Not a speck here and there. Folks constantly mopping, cleaning,wiping, spraying stuff......you know, sometimes I got the feeling that things were just too clean !"

We cracked up. We thought he was being funny. But, it was his honest opinion......

His opinion was understandable, coming from someone who lived in a crowded suburb of Mumbai, in front of whose apartment complex, was a garbage place, where wandering cows zeroed in on things to drag and chew, as they rummaged around inside the dump. On his daily commute by train, he'd feel he was missing something if there were no pieces of old newspaper and snack papers under the seat.

But what he felt then has been echoed recently by someone at the University of Iowa.

Dr. Joel V. Weinstock, director of gastroenterology and hepatology at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, and Dr. David Elliott, a gastroenterologist and immunologist at the University of Iowa, have shown that when organisms from bacteria, viruses and worms enter the body from dirt, the immune system becomes stronger.....

Something called the "hygiene hypothesis" is there , which says that various worms, bacteria and viruses that enter the body inadvertently through normal dirt, actually build up your immune system in a very positive way. There is also something to the fact that autoimmune diseases, allergies, Asthma, Multiple Sclerosis, IBD/IBS, etc are very prevalent in the developed world, and almost not seen in countries hitherto described as "dirty"..... Examples are told about how babies like to pick up all kinds of junk from the floor and put it in their mouth, as a natural instinct. There is talk about studies on farm children in the western world, showing a different and better level of immunity than children in cities of the developed world.. Recommendations are made saying "let the children play in the dirt".......

And so we now swing between two scenarios.

One, where we are constantly spraying stuff on anything we touch, suspect everything new, throw away entire things at the slightest doubt about a part of it being suspect, and wash things so excessively that we start imbibing the soap.

The other scenario is, where, say, we allow babies children to wander and play , say in a cowshed . ...

We live in a world where extremes excite . There is no limit to how wide we swing to both extremes. This is true of behaviour of societies as well as individual lifestyles. There is a commercial interest in phobias being built up, and pharma interest in maladies being highlighted as life threatening. Besides giving rise to inflammatory type diseases, this has also led to psychological problems and imbalances.

I have had a running war with door-to-door sellers of water purification systems, when all I believed in was boiling. I wash all my veggies with plain running water, thoroughly, before I cut them. Traditionally, we use cotton cloth dusters to clean and mop the kitchen , as well as a separate set of dusters for hands while cooking. These are washed clean with detergent and dried in the hot sun before reuse again. We wash our hands and feet, routinely, when we come in from outside. But I have known folks who washed cucumbers with soap, and scraped carrots and radishes to half their thickness, in an effort at purity......

Maybe now US supermarkets will be flooded with "dirt" packaged beautifully, buy one, get one free, which you spread, say in the playroom or patio, or even your backyard. They will advertise worms, sourced specially from some country, and Trader Joe's will go ballistic marketing leafy veggies that give the worms a safe haven. Tissues will see a downturn in sales, paper towel factories will go bankrupt, and people will go to Washington and crib about how the government does nothing for them but only for the Citibank, notwithstanding the fact that paper-towel-factory types don't buy private jets but travel to Washington by Southwest Airlines and rented cars........

Children will be encouraged to wipe their noses with the back of their hands, after a rough and tumble game. Restaurants will advertise certified "dirtified" foodstuff, and people will be encouraged to eat with unwashed hands.The Dirt Devil will no longer be a vacuum cleaner brand name, but will be the hero of a new special TV series for children, the successor to the Sesame St series.

But what no one will realize , is that the babies who crawl on the floor, the world over, and pick up interesting things to check out with their mouths, are simply doing what has endured through thousands of years. This habit has survived through ages. For that, there has to be some benefit to the children. And so maybe it is the sort of Immunity 101 course for babies, training their growing systems to handle perturbations to their body, learning to fight infections, building up immunity and resistance.

No one deliberately likes dirt. Circumstances beyond one's control causes it. How much "dirt" you live in has to do with the weather, the populations densities, the dietary habits, level of industrialization in society, type of society and so on. Each country or society achieves some kind of steady state given all these parameters.

Dirt is good and bad. Life threatening infections in infants in developing countries, have to do with the problems of less. Life threatening or life changing maladies in developed countries, have to do with problems of more. A balanced, reasoned look at this subject is needed. Playing in the dirt cannot be a lifestyle decree. What is needed is a new understanding of what is considered dirt, in which situation and where. And the settling down to a studied "mean" level of lifestyle, complementing the chosen environment.

I have blogged about this "middle" stuff once earlier.....but then no one was researching and publishing stuff (except me and my blog :-), and no one was talking about organic dirt.

This fast slide into a super consumerist society needs to be halted. People need to learn to think, and not just follow declarations from up there somewhere. Its not a question of white and black. Life is all about different shades of grey and brown, and ivory. Sometimes, even green.

Actually, I think what Sudhir said was right !

Muscles in life

Niggling shoulder pains, have often elicited disparaging comments about what are euphemistically called advancing years. Many moons ago, this would have been treated with a great massage with a special ayurvedic oil, baths with some special leaves or oils added to your bath water, and wise suggestions from concerned family folks, on what actions needed to be discouraged , as well as encouraged, to accelerate the healing process. Someone, with great experience would have suggested imbibing foods prepared out of certain resins, to bring strength to the bones, and offered to make some delicious stuff for you to eat.....

Today with an amazing rate of turnover of "knowledge", nuclear families, and great mobility, not too speak of missing greenery,trees, and sometimes even sufficient clean water, we need to look elsewhere.

Sometimes , the question is, of accurately describing what's happening.

I spent almost a month trying out various things to reduce the pain, as well as find out whats going on.

I did R and D . R on the Internet. D was all about development, but of my pain.

It would come and go depending on certain actions. But whenever it came, it would take its own time petering off, showing the sort of unwillingness a child shows when asked to come away from someone distributing free chocolates....

It was almost as if the muscles had a memory, and were unwilling to forget the troubling action.

Which got me on to something called Muscle memory. There actually is such a thing.

And it has nothing to do with disgusting pictures of folks with such extra-bulging muscles, that they cant stand straight in (try doing that with super bulging leg and arm muscles and see), and need to take certain "poses" to prove their mitochondrial richness, curves and all.....

Turns out that we have several types of muscles. Some are totally under our control - like our skeletal muscles. We decide whether to run, walk, stop, bend, raise arms, slap someone and so on. Then there are some muscles , that are not so much under our control, like eye muscles, and the chest diaphragm. We unknowingly blink sometimes. But should someone tell us to close our eyes, we can do that at will. The diaphragm is involved with every breath we take, whether we are aware or not. But should we need to hold a breath, it is under our control too.... So these are muscles that have two masters. And then there are many muscles, located inside us, like the heart muscle, which , very clearly has a will of its own, and is never under our control. It has its own life, its own rhythm, throughout our life.

Turns out that muscles can be taught to remember.

Certain actions that we try again and again , say in an exercise class, make it easier for us to perform the particular action. Its not a huge surprise for our muscles the next time we try.... Muscles remember that action A is followed by action B, then action C, and prepare. We feel things are getting easier. Like when you learn to cycle and learn to hop on one pedal before getting on. Like when I learned math tables as a child, tables of 29 got easier as the repetitions continued. Because something somewhere developed a memory or habit.

And while we feel the muscle is getting smarter its actually the brain which is making things fall in line.

Apparently, the tongue is also a muscle. And various actions of our tongues, as we enunciate the various inflections in our languages, teach this muscle, how easy it gets with practice. So someone who speaks Marathi, my language, will have the tongue muscle habituated to the inflections of the language. Say, as compared with someone speaking French, German, or some new language. That's why learning a new language is difficult initially.

I wonder if within a language itself, the tongue has memory.

Abusive words exist.

Some people cannot speak a sentence without uttering an expletive. Whether the motivation is shock value, or a sense of revulsion towards the object of the words, is debatable. But it is clear that a tongue muscle habituated to performing swirly movements, to mouth words, hitherto considered objectionable, will remember the activity. Every time a situation demands action on the part of this speaker, typically, the first to emerge, by default, will be this expletive or expletives.

Sometimes you don't have to be so bad. I know several folks, who use the word"like" , like a comma; when you have a sudden pause, like, say, in , like, a sentence, you throw in, something, like, a like....People have been known to have consciously "de-liked " their vocabulary, by participating in games in a pair, where you thump/nudge each other every time you say "like" , in redundant situations, and people have been known to stop this ridiculous habit.....

There is also other facial memory. Your lip muscles and eye muscles, obviously learn, from previous sneering and raising of eyebrows. That is why, even the mention of a particular person, who may be physically miles away, makes you disapprovingly sneer, or raise your eyebrows questioningly. because the memories associated by your brain and learnt by these muscles, with the mention of this person, are such. Sometimes the tongue muscles too participate. An abusive person, is never abusive to everyone, His thrill in the abuse, pertains to maybe only certain people. And so we have people whose tongues fly into abuse configuration at the sight of specific folk.

Its possible, that parents who inadvertently hard wire their brains with these kind of muscle memories, will pass it on to their offspring in the form of an abusive DNA string. And so many times, you see alcoholic abusive folks carrying on the stuff in successive generations of the family, making life hell for everyone else...

So when our parents tried to instill in us, sometimes successfully, certain standards of behaviour,conversation, and interfacing with the general public and or family, it had a reason. It was so that the tongues would develop a constructive memory pattern, suited for a society where there are units of humans that live together. Abuse was punished. Expletives were penalized.

And the tongue muscle. hopefully , learned.

Lifestyle , too , was encouraged in a similar sense. Rules of diet, recreation, quiet contemplation, and interpersonal interaction were there, without being thought of as rules. You cleaned the house everyday, had a bath before you prayed and started the day. At least in my childhood, there weren't machines for housework. You bent, you stretched, you extended and you twisted. Your recreation as a child had to do with playing in the outdoors. And so each of your muscle groups got the sort of training that the muscles remembered, and you got into a habit of doing these things. Today's technology , labour saving though it may be, has encouraged no memories, except in a left brained way. And we try and substitute by overdoing the gym stuff, which is mostly brawn and hardly brain.

No one then knew anything about muscle memories, or how the brain makes the muscles do things. Unnecessary evil and abusive talk was remembered , not by the tongue muscle of the originators, , but possibly by their facial muscles which may have contracted after getting a stinging parental slap. And those memories must have lingered.

And so one doesn't go by the look of a muscle. It is much more than fibres. Striated , red or white. It is much more than mitochondria. There is a part of all muscles that build character of an individual.

As early as 1907, a gentleman by the name of Granville Stanley Hall, who was a psychologist and educationist had said, "Muscles are in a most intimate and peculiar sense the organs of the will. They have built all the roads, cities and machines in the world, written all the books, spoken all the words, and, in fact done everything that man has accomplished with matter. Character might be a sense defined as a plexus of motor habits."

I cant agree more. Dont know about the motor habits , but the pain in my brachial plexus is killing me......

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda! ! Sure ! Sawadee Pee Mai!

I know its been almost a month since 2009 began.

Like many folks , who at year-end and year-beginning, take stock of their fortunes, economic and otherwise, some other folks like GWBush and Obama, who I am sure look back and look ahead respectively at this point, it occurred to me , that, trying to find the international/national mix in the various folks who alight on this blog once in a while, would be an interesting thing to do.

I thought it would be in the fitness of things that I wish them a Happy New Year in their mother tongue, (as I guess it to be).

While the most numerous of my blogger friends can be wished in English, I thought these following 92 ways of saying a Happy New Year to everyone , sometimes even in their script, was something I should be doing, as the Chinese people, today , January 26, 2009, begin the year of the OX !

There isnt any entry for English. For those folks , A very happy new Year to you....

For those whose blog followers speak Thai, Albanaian,Dhihevi,Greek,Hungarian,Eskimo ,Kabyle,Kisii,Lithuanian, Vietnamese, et al, this is how you say the stuff .....

And now for the exciting stuff: (Roses are Red, Bloggers in Blue.....:-).)

1. Afghan - Saale Nao Mubbarak
2. Afrikaans - Gelukkige nuwe jaar
3. Albanian - Gezuar Vitin e Ri
4. Armenian - Snorhavor Nor Tari
5. Arabic - Kul ‘am wa antum bikhair Hi Edasseri !
   
6. Assyrian - Sheta Brikhta
7. Azeri - Yeni Iliniz Mubarek!
8. Bengali - Shuvo Nabo Barsho Hi Sucharita ,Pradip Biswas , Ranu, Vikram Hazra !
   
9. Breton [Celtic Brythonic language] - Bloavezh Mat
10. Bulgarian - ×åñòèòà Íîâà Ãîäèíà (pronounced “Chestita Nova Godina”)
11. Cambodian - Soursdey Chhnam Tmei
12. Catalan - Feliç Any Nou
13. Chinese - Xin Nian Kuai Le 新年快乐(modern) 新年好(traditional)
14. Corsican Language - Pace e Salute
15. Croatian - Sretna Nova godina!
16. Czech - Šťastný Nový rok (or Stastny Novy rok)
17. Danish - Godt Nytår
18. Dhivehi - Ufaaveri Aa Aharakah Edhen
19. Dutch - Gelukkig Nieuwjaar!
20. Eskimo - Kiortame pivdluaritlo
21. Esperanto - Felican Novan Jaron
22. Estonians - Head uut aastat!
23. Ethiopian - Melkam Addis Amet YihuneliwoI!
24. Finnish - Onnellista Uutta Vuotta
25. French - Bonne Annee Très bonne année Hi Helene H , Fida!
    
26. Gaelic - Bliadhna mhath ur
27. Galician [NorthWestern Spain] - Bo Nadal e Feliz Aninovo
28. German - Prosit Neujahr Hi Fida !
    
29. Georgian - Gilotsavt Akhal Tsels!
30. Greek Kenourios Chronos
31. Gujarati - Nutan Varshbhinandan Hi Hitch Writer , Chirag, Rajk !
    
32. Hawaiian - Hauoli Makahiki Hou
33. Hebrew - L’Shannah Tovah
34. Hindi - Naye Varsha Ki Shubhkamanyen नए वर्ष की शुभ कामनाएँ Hi Everyone in India!(whose mother tongue I cannot figure out), Various Indian Folks in the US, UK, and Australia !,
    
35. Hong Kong (Cantonese) - Sun Leen Fai Lok
36. Hungarian - Boldog Ooy Ayvet
37. Indonesian - Selamat Tahun Baru Hi Adi Nugroho !
    
38. Iranian - Sal -e- no mobarak
39. Iraqi - Sanah Jadidah
40. Irish - Bliain nua fe mhaise dhuit
41. Italian - Felice anno nuovo
42. Japan - Akimashite Omedetto Gozaimasu 謹賀新年 Hi Manifestation
    
43. Kabyle - Asegwas Amegaz
44. Kannada - Hosa Varushadha Shubhashayagalu Hi Ganesh ! Hi Lakshmi, Usha
    
45. Kisii - Somwaka Ompyia Omuya
46. Khmer - Sua Sdei tfnam tmei
47. Korea - Saehae Bock Mani ba deu sei yo!
48. Kurdish - Newroz Pirozbe
49. Latvian - Laimīgo Jauno Gadu!
50. Lithuanian - Laimingu Naujuju Metu
51. Laotian - Sabai dee pee mai
52. Macedonian - Srekjna Nova Godina
53. Madagascar - Tratry ny taona
54. Malay - Selamat Tahun Baru Hi Sukku !
    
55. Marathi - Naveen Varshachya Shubhechcha Hi Vivek, HareKrishnaji, Vinita, ChammakChallo,Radhika G., Pitamaha, Sonal M M,Abhilekh, Chandu,Magic Eye,Raman Ozha,Ganesh, Enchanted
    
56. Malayalam - Puthuvatsara Aashamsakal Hi NSIyer
    
57. Mizo - Kum Thar Chibai
58. Maltese - Is-Sena t- Tajba
59. Nepal - Nawa Barsha ko Shuvakamana
60. Norwegian - Godt Nyttår
61. Papua New Guinea - Nupela yia i go long yu
62. Pampango (Philippines) - Masaganang Bayung Banua
63. Pashto - Nawai Kall Mo Mubarak Shah
64. Persian - Sal -e- no mobarak
65. Philippines Manigong Bagong Taon!
66. Polish - Szczesliwego Nowego Roku
67. Portuguese - Feliz Ano Novo
68. Punjabi - Nave sal di mubarak ਨਵੇਂ ਸਾਲ ਦੀਆਂ ਸ਼ੁਭ ਕਾਮਨਾਵਾਂ Hi Sayani !
69. Romanian - An Nou Fericit
70. Russian - S Novim Godom С Новым годом!
71. Samoa - Manuia le Tausaga Fou
72. Serbo-Croatian - Sretna nova godina
73. Sindhi - Nayou Saal Mubbarak Hoje
74. Singhalese - Subha Aluth Awrudhak Vewa
75. Siraiki - Nawan Saal Shala Mubarak Theevay
76. Slovak - Stastny Novy rok
77. Slovenian - Sreèno novo leto
78. Somali - Iyo Sanad Cusub Oo Fiican!
79. Spanish - Feliz Ano ~Nuevo
80. Swahili - Heri Za Mwaka Mpyaº
81. Swedish - Gott nytt år!
82. Sudanese - Warsa Enggal
83. Tamil - Eniya Puthandu Nalvazhthukkal Hi Kavi, NSIyer, Ganesh, A. I..Radhika G, Rajk
    
84. Tibetian - Losar Tashi Delek
85. Telegu - Noothana samvatsara shubhakankshalu
86. Thai - Sawadee Pee Mai
87. Turkish - Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun
88. Ukrainian - Shchastlyvoho Novoho Roku
89. Urdu - Naya Saal Mubbarak Ho
90. Uzbek - Yangi Yil Bilan
91. Vietnamese - Chuc Mung Tan Nien
92. Welsh - Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!
93. Mexican - Feliz Año Nuevo
94. Latin - Felix sit annus novus Hi Chammakchallo!
95. Sanskrit - Bhavati api nutana samawatsaryasa subhashchaya Hi Chammakchallo !
    

Any folks out there blogging in Swahili and Welsh, and say Uzbek ?

Abilities of another kind....

Getting desperate for education is one thing. Getting desperate over the mechanics of it is another thing.

In a world, where school really appears to be about making smart people smarter, one was faced with a situation of learning disability within the family, once high school happened. In a world, where relative inability in maths, and pathological aversion to physics and chemistry, was, actually treated in families like a disease, it took a lot of learning and observation on my part, to realize that children's successes could be of many types, all not necessarily academic.

Open Schooling was an option, and was grabbed with both hands, at what I today consider , one of the best centres for it in Mumbai. It is a telling comment on professional attitudes, that I was warned NOT to send my child there, as "there were a lot of disabled children there !"

At such times, one is grateful for the one big dose of good sense and realism that god and our parents may have bequeathed us. I wanted my child to learn to respect differently abled children, and empathize with them. I had s een enough parents so obsessed with the success of their own children that they bred a lack of sensitivity in their own children, who often stared and didnt know how to react when confronted with a differently abled child. (What one thinks of such parents is the subject of a separate blog post one day)

As it turned out, it was a normal school which opened its arms to a few differently abled children, and took special care of them, integrating them with the mainstream, to the benefit of the entire student body .

While the lack of constant rankings in class, missing superior attitudes of teachers, and excellent textbooks prepared by the National Boards enthused my child, the main thing was that it gave her an immense amount of self esteem which got her interested in studying subjects, which she could select as per the rules of this Board. Liberal Arts with a dash of Business courses did the trick , and my child comfortably did her 10th and 12th grades from there.

For various logistics reasons , I took my daughter to school every day, waited and brought her back. The Principal, a Jesuit priest, noticed some of us parents in the same boat, and requested us to be parent volunteers while we were there, and we could assist the teachers etc. We gladly agreed.

Children from many other centres were appearing for their Boards at this particular school, and I was asked to invigilate a class where several children who were classified, spastic, and with other medical problems were writing their exams, with "writers" . (Writers are people who are interviewed , and accepted as someone who would transcribe what the child dictates during the exam. These are selected based on the specific child , his abilities, disadvantages, and sense of security , all within the framed rules of the Board, followed strictly by the school.).

Sandeep was appearing for the Junior Boards or the 10th class boards. A student of the Spastics Society School in a suburb of Mumbai, he was a mentally very active child. His parents both worked, and his grandparents lived with them. His mother rued the lack of time for him (thanks to the time she spent commuting to work everyday), despite his grandmother assuring her , and happily participating in looking after the chap and his various needs at home.

Sandeep was allowed to bring his grandmother as a writer, and he was one of the 10-12 such student-writer combinations that I was to invigilate. All the students, without exception, looked tension free and had smiles. They came in looking around the desks, choosing their places, willingly giving in if another wanted it. Some wanted to be near a window, some insisted on sitting right in front of the class, and some simply quietly sat down with their writer wherever they could. The question papers were distributed.

The students were supposed to quietly dictate answers to their writers. Despite what may be brought up by skeptics as a perhaps valid doubt, the writers don't write the papers on their own. (It is not unknown for perfectly able students to do this claiming a fake disability, with the connivance of their parents, and I had seen one such case, which happily, had an unhappy ending).

After a while I started hearing some really loud whispers, and a bunch of suppressed giggles. Sandeep was giving a loudly whispered dictation to his grandmother, who was trying to quieten him, and the rest of the students thought this was funny. It never occurred to any to "listen" to the answers. They just thought it totally amusing that one of them was getting away with this, to the complete consternation of the grandmother.

She called me over.

I tried telling Sandeep, that he should quietly dictate or everyone would hear his answers. He pointed to the fan saying it was making too much noise above him. We shut that off. He looked at the other students, and all of them smiled at each other, in unity with Sandeep. The whispered dictation continued. He would suddenly remember something from a previous question and make his grandma go back, trying to accelerate her gnarled fingers with his own as she turned the pages. Then he would switch back again.

After a while, water was in fashion. Everyone, starting with Sandeep suddenly became thirsty. It was like a little break while everyone parched their whispering throats. That's when Sandeep suddenly noticed the speaker like contraption on the wall of the classroom, and demanded to know what it was.

For me it was a lesson in patience. This was not how exams were. But then this was not how children were supposed to be.

I told him that the Father Principal, could hear everything going on in the class via this thing. And chances were that he, the principal, was actually aware of the excitement Sandeep was generating with his talk and activities, all while dictating answers. Maybe he would come down from his office. Maybe he would get upset with Sandeep. (Actually, these were speakers used for public announcements at school).

Sandeep quietened down a bit, and finished the paper along with the other students. Sandeep was ecstatic as he was done with his papers for that year, and he could now get back to what was his version of cricket . I asked him about his school, and he told me about the visit of the cricket greats like Gavaskar to his school , where they played with them, misbowled balls, shaky bats and all. But his eyes told a different story. They shone with confidence.

He asked me if I would report him to the Father Principal. I told him to go wait for his Grandma outside.

The old lady was in tears as she collected her purse, and a little pack of refreshments she had brought from home for Sandeep. She extricated herself from the school desks, something she was doing, possibly after several decades. She removed her thick rimmed glasses, wiping her eyes with the edge of her traditional silk saree, and started apologizing for her grandson, saying she was sorry for the trouble he was causing everywhere he went, like the classroom today.

I was completely aghast. I told her there was no problem at all. Sandeep was doing fine. He was NOT a problem. I liked invigilating this class, and would do it again. And if Sandeep were to be appearing for another paper, it would be my pleasure to invigilate .

She wordlessly held both my hands, touched my cheek, and then left, suddenly remembering that Sandeep would be waiting for her in the foyer.

I took all the collected answer sheets to the supervisor lady. Amongst all the invigilators who came in with tired troubled faces, shaking their heads at the tricky things the so-called normal students could do , I was the only one who seemed to have enjoyed the activity.

The supervisor , who had been doing this for years knowingly smiled when I told her I had a great time and would offer my help again.

Education was not about getting a B++ student to get an A+, or appearing in an merit list. It wasnt about framing tough discipline rules that considered all students tricky till proven otherwise.

It was about bringing assurance to a life, beset with disadvantages, and making the child feel, he was doing so well, he could face anything in life now, including a googly from Gavaskar.......

Sandeep eventually passed his 10th grade with distinction, taking one subject every year. I stopped going to the school after a year as my daughter went to college, but I met his grandmother accidently once , and this time the tears were of a different type.

Degrees are fine. Scholars are applauded.

But what will always stay in my mind's eye, is the smile on the face of a child, who everyone thought was a recipe for failure, his innate honesty, his conviction that grandmothers are made to be troubled by grandchildren, his fellowship with his classmates, his laborious yearly attempts at examinations, and the twinkle in his eye at the prospect of getting back to his school game of "cricket", as his grandmother looked on through indulgently flooded eyes.