Cut to size

At times most of us need some alteration to be done to our clothes. Whether it is to reduce the length, increase the waistline or even change a defective zip. On Lodhi Road in New Delhi you have a whole row of alteration specialists going under exotic names like 9th Wonder, 12th Wonder and even Wonder Ka Wonder. However, tailors in Bangalore are a snobbish lot. They feel it is below their dignity to accept such menial jobs like alteration.

In our apartment complex we had a tailor named Ramanna who thrived on doing alteration work. He had been provided a place in the basement along with the ironwallah. No one knows what exactly he used to do in the past but from the time he arrived here it was like manna from heaven for the residents.

I bought a lot of ready-mades in a sale in the US. However, as my physique is nowhere near that of an average American these clothes were lying unused for a long time. Thanks to Ramanna I was able to resurrect them. He in turn reduced the length of trousers, narrowed the bottom, removed or added bottom folds. He even converted my Nordstrom gabardine trousers to stylish golfing shorts. 

For shirts he  shortened the half sleeves, altered the full sleeves cuff, or even reduced full sleeves to half sleeves. However, there were times his judgement went haywire. A couple of Hilfiger shirts had to be shortened. He took the measurement and returned the altered ones in an hour’s time. Unfortunately, he forgot that American shirts generally have a curved cut on the sides. So the front length was okay but he had gone ahead and cut the sides too, in a curve. When I wore those shirts they looked like something the modern Indian girl wears on top of her jeans!

My wife gave blouses to be altered or a fall to be stitched on a sari. In a weak moment she also gave him a brand new material to stitch a salwar-kameez. Ramanna was at his creative best. One leg of the salwar had vertical stripes and the other one had horizontal ones. He claimed there was not enough cloth to match both the legs. If that had been designed by Manish Malhotra or Abu Jani my wife would have worn them and showed off.

Unfortunately, Ramanna has a weakness for a tipple. He used to complete quickly any work given to him on a Friday morning and collected his money immediately. The after effect of a hangover generally delayed his arrival to work on Saturday mornings.Several times there were  moves to throw him out. Most residents, including yours truly, stood by him and persuaded the residents’ association to keep him back.

But his stay did not last long.Soon after he moved on to greener pastures.Presumably to do a Tarun Tahiliani on an unsuspecting housewife at some other apartment complex.

Yes, Mr. President

Post retirement most people go through certain amount of withdrawal symptoms. How do I make up lost income? How do I spend my time? Am I a nobody? After weighing various options one generally finds that there are no takers to satisfy one’s expectations. However, there is one avenue that will, if not anything else, provide a balm to the hurt ego. That is the position of President of the residents’ welfare association.

With apartments spreading like the plague across Bangalore, a major requirement is to have a resident, sorry, owners’ association. Each complex may call it by any name but ultimately there is a caste situation that exists. Owner or Tenant. Invariably, one has to be an owner to hold the post of office bearer.

When residents move in to a new complex, the early settlers flaunt a sense of superiority and tend to pull rank. They are the ones that moot the idea of a welfare association. The problem starts when some pushy individual insists that there should be bye-laws. There is a frenetic search through friends from other complexes to get a copy of the bye-laws. Once you print that, it is like releasing several monsters all at once.

For the rest of the foreseeable future, the bye-laws are interpreted the way one wants to. There is generally one bye-law pundit whose word is considered law. Every now and then some resident suggests a change in the bye-law and a special general body meeting is called. By the end of the meeting the proposer will be made to feel like Napoleon after Waterloo.

In the initial stages the position of president goes to the person who speaks with some authority about his or her experience in other complexes. In a couple of years groups tend to get polarized. There will be a revolt from the so called ‘young Turks’. But like most spring revolutions, this one also is short lived. The greyheads eventually triumph because the younger ones are too busy earning a living and cannot spare time for such activities.

To become the President of the association has several advantages. The first thing you notice is that the security personnel salute you every time they sight you. Then you realize that the plumber and electrician come to address your complaints much quicker. But there is also a downside. One would not like to be woken up at 6.00 am by a resident complaining that his toilet has got blocked and that it should be repaired immediately.

For a retired person the advantages are many. For one, you get to sit in an office with all the attendant paraphernalia. The admin staff accepts you as their czar for that one year of your term. But they also use you to pass the buck when uncomfortable decisions have to be taken.

By about the fifth year, residents could not care less who is the President. They know that like the government, it is the babus who run the system. The handymen and the housekeeping staff call the shots. After all, the President is only a titular head who needs to be humoured for one year.