Love for Phoren

When I was at college a Raj Kapoor film, ’Around the world in 8 dollars’ reflected the reality that an Indian traveler faced. Foreign exchange was scarce and a lot of explanation had to be given even for such a small amount to be sanctioned. Any shopping abroad was dependent on the host’s benevolence. Today the peripatetic Indian travels all over the globe. Honeymoon in Bali, gambling in Las Vegas; or even a cruise in Alaska. Foreign currency is no longer an issue with a liberal government doling out almost as much as one needs.

On my first foreign trip to Singapore in 1979 we were allowed a grand sum of $250.It was like being let loose in paradise. That is when I got hooked on to some wasteful shopping. At one store I saw these small two-pronged plastic forks meant for Hors d’oeuvre. As I was paying for them I imagined my wife serving hot tikkas and kababs with the guests being duly impressed by these forks. Thirty two years on the two packets lie unopened in our crockery cupboard.

Those days an average Indian used to go ga ga over anything with a foreign tag. There was always the reluctance to use the product as one was not sure when one would get fresh supply. A friend once brought me a bottle of spicy salsa from Spain. When I finally opened the bottle after two years the contents started frothing and oozing out like something from a Hollywood horror film.

A management guru once said that five percent of all expenditure incurred on shopping goes towards products that an individual does not need. My percentage is much higher, particularly after my frequent overseas sojourns. Our home is strewn with such unused items like baseball mitts, all- weather clogs in case of snowfall in Bangalore, Harley-Davidson motorcycle goggles, and something called a salad-shooter. I bought a pair of expensive stainless steel cocktail shakers from a store in the US called ‘Bed, Bath and Beyond’. On opening the carton I found that they were made in India from Salem steel. I still have a pair of padded knee protectors, bought in Houston after seeing Akshay Kumar wearing them in one of his ‘Khiladi’ films.

My ultimate purchase was a large battery-operated parrot. It automatically repeated twice everything that was told to it. My sons did not want anything to do with the bird and it was lying in the loft for several years. I recently discovered it and displayed the toy at a party. What followed was a raucous session with my friends challenging the parrot with the choicest cuss words in Kannada, Tamil and Punjabi. It was a show-stopper hearing those words repeated in a twangy American accent.

Nowadays it is no longer exciting shopping abroad as most items are available here, maybe even cheaper. But, one always lives on hope.

A catty story

From childhood I always wanted to own a dog. By adulthood I did manage to rear three, all of uncertain pedigree. The first one, Lassie managed to antagonize my mother by tearing to pieces a brand new saree hanging to dry. The second one, Bunty was pretty savvy. An elderly cousin of mine would visit my parents once a month for an hour till 8.00 pm. As her house was down the road I would escort her and also take Bunty for a walk. From then on exactly when that hour struck, Bunty would start pestering her to leave.

Biffy, the third one came to us under false pretenses. We were told that it was a Rajapalayam and we were excited that we had at last got a pure bred, without really knowing how that breed actually looked! The first visit to the Vet confirmed that Biffy’s Rajpalayam connection was a figment of someone’s imagination.

Our family was never into cats. In a weak moment we succumbed to our good friend Ramachandran's entreaty to lighten his responsibility of the umpteen kittens that his cat had littered. With a red ribbon tied round its neck little Pepsy came home in a lunch basket. She began proceedings by wetting our pillow. She soon settled down to a pampered life and generally controlled our life. One day Pepsy gave us a scare. My wife found her lying stiff on her back with all four legs pointing up. We feared the worst and started mourning our loss. To our surprise, in about fifteen minutes she was perfectly fine. Soon we realized this was Pepsy’s way of taking a cat nap and my wife named it the Rigor Mortis pose.

As per the norm in our house Pepsy, too was brought up a vegetarian. As my knowledge of cats was limited I bought the book “Catwatching” by Desmond Morris. The author claimed that cats would go blind if they did not get non-vegetarian food. This put us in a dilemma. Our love for Pepsy overcame any qualms we had. Niligiri’s soon found a sudden surge in their sales of canned Tuna and Mackerel. There was one happy and contented cat after that.

Some months later we had a crisis on our hands. Pepsy, being a comely lass soon had a stream of suitors yowling outside our home. I used a hockey stick to good effect to chase them way. However, we could not fight nature for long. Pepsy’s girth started to expand and D-day soon arrived. As my mother-in-law was a gynaecologist she was roped in to help in the delivery.

This became a regular event every few months. We had a tough time controlling the population explosion of kittens in our house. Soon friends reduced their visits as word got around that they would be handed a kitten as a return gift.

Arty Party

From childhood I was a recluse. I preferred assembling my Meccano set to going out and playing with other children. This continued in my adult life, too. I would sit in my college library and spend all my non-class hours reading up on various serious subjects. My working life followed the same pattern. Evenings would be spent reading from the scriptures or books on philosophy.

Two years back I started subscribing to six daily newspapers. Initially I would discard the supplement pages without even a glance. Then out of curiosity I started seeing the photographs of well-dressed people who generally seemed to be having a lot of fun. As days progressed I found that I would read the supplement first. I got a vicarious thrill seeing the same people being featured day after day. Somehow, I started getting a feeling of emptiness in life. Something seemed to be missing. I had this sudden urge to be with that crowd.

I consulted an old class-mate (now a corporate head honcho but nicknamed Rowdy in college), whom I went to every time I needed advice. Oh, you want to be part of the P3 crowd, he asked? I had never heard of that term before. He told me that there were two easy ways of getting in. I should join a Wine Society or an Art Society. I was a bit shocked at the first suggestion as the strongest drink I had till date was a cola. Plus, I found that I would have to buy at least ten bottles of expensive imported wine every year to retain my membership. The other suggestion was more to my liking. Unfortunately, my only links with art were cheap reprints of amateur paintings of the Eiffel Tower and India Gate respectively.

On my friend’s suggestion I joined a course called “The Science of Art appreciation”. In addition to Early, Medieval and Post-Medieval Art, this course offered Western and European art - modern and classical. Chinese, Japanese and South East Asian Art. At the end of the course I took part in a slide identification examination to evaluate the observation power of the students and their newly acquired knowledge. I was now armed with a very artistic looking certificate. The course also included free membership of the Neo-Artistic Society of South India.

I started receiving invitations to art exhibitions almost every week. Most of these were in the banquet halls of five star hotels. This would be followed by a cheese and wine session (so I had the added bonus of being a wine consumer gratis).Today, I can stare at a mediocre painting and spout such extravagances as “This artist paints with an enormous capacity for absolute empathy; a complete identification of himself with the figures he paints. He sets forth what it feels like to do something; not what somebody looks like doing it."

Life’s good!