Groomside view

Owing to some eccentricity in our ancestral genes, there was no female birth in our family for almost a century. The only women additions were through the entry of daughters-in law. This meant that the behaviour pattern among the males tended to be towards a degree of arrogance. It is a regular refrain from the incoming spouses that men in our family seem to be excessively independent and tend to do ‘their own thing’. This mismatch also meant that we were always representing the groom’s side at all family marriages and were automatically upgraded to ‘preferred guest’ status. 

I decided to correct this anomaly and last month offered to be the Chief-of-Staff for the wedding of my classmate’s daughter. He readily accepted my suggestion. I had no clue on how to be a bride’s party member so I went for advice to my colleague who had successfully married off three daughters. Ignore the bridegroom’s parents and concentrate on his aunts and uncles, was his advice. According to him trouble starts from there. Also, make sure the coffee is hot. That is the trigger point for all complaints, he added.

It was now time to take the bridegroom for his trousseau. I suggested we go to a venerable tailoring establishment on Commercial Street who had stitched my wedding suit. It was nixed as being old fashioned. We then went to a designer store on Lavelle Road. The design as well as the cost made me cringe but I was not the final authority on this, so I let it pass.

I later paid a visit to the groom’s family to get their suggestions on the catering. The boy’s mother told me that vada and payasam should be a compulsory part of the menu. This put me in a fix. They were from one of the neighbouring states where these items were the norm on all auspicious occasions, but in my family vadas were prepared and served only during not-so- happy occasions. The caterer used his ingenuity to overcome this hiccup by suggesting that the item be in the shape of a bonda.

As the wedding day neared I was running ragged. The bride’s father had conveniently gone on a foreign tour and I was literally left holding his baby. One day I got a call from the groom’s sister wanting to know where the sangeet was going to be held. What sangeet, I asked? The phone went dead. A few minutes later the bride’s mother called me and said that the groom’s family was very upset and had felt insulted? I defended myself by saying that nobody had informed me about any sangeet being organized. Luckily the bride and her pals took care of all the arrangements. My job was to use influence with my service officer friends to get ‘hot’ beverages at a concession for the function.

My travails are too long to be recorded. However, after packing off the newlyweds  to Macau, here I am sitting on my La-Z-Boy feeling proud of my achievement and ready to offer my expertise, gratis to parents of prospective brides. Any takers?

My Flop Shows

I had never performed on the stage while in school. However, in the first year of my engineering course I was persuaded to participate in a Tamil play as part of the college annual day. My prowess in that language was pretty limited but the enterprising scriptwriter made me an NRI so the problem was solved. I got rave reviews for my act.

This whetted my appetite for more time under the arc lights. But offers did not exactly pour in. I even joined a well known theatre group in Bangalore presuming I would get a chance to exhibit my talent. No such luck. The only role I was given was to stand behind the wings holding a tray with some of the props required by the main actors.

I was not the one to give up so easily. A few of my acquaintances had got into television. This time the poor quality of my Kannada was my undoing. Also there were enough actors available to speak with an American accent so even the role of a US returned Kannadiga was out of reach. Finally, I got my moment in the sun. It was a party scene and I was asked to come in a suit. I was finally going to become a star. Not exactly. When the episode was released, there I was on the periphery of the scene with a tumbler full of amber liquid in my hand watching with rapt attention the hero singing a song after being ditched by his girlfriend. It was quite painful trying to stand still holding a glass with a silly smile on my face, take after take. After this I got rather busy with my career and my acting career was put on the back burner.

 A few years back in Hyderabad my neighbour’s daughter qualified for KBC and was invited to Mumbai for the next round. She had a high opinion of my general knowledge level so she gave my telephone number for “Phone a Friend”. I felt as if my acting career was resurrected, though I was not really going to appear before the camera. My bathroom mirror became the Big B and I practiced how I was going to answer the phone when HE called. My tone varied from supreme indifference, to prove that this was an everyday occurrence for me; to one of ecstasy for being called by Mr.Bachchan himself. I also brought it to the notice of my neighbours that the megastar’s parental home was next door to ours in the tony Chanakyapuri area of New Delhi in our younger days. My dream was once again shattered when the girl did not get through the “Fastest Finger First” round.

But I am not ready to call it curtains as yet. My hope lies with a young cousin of mine who, though a Kannadiga, is a well respected star in Kerala. I am expectantly waiting for a call from her producer asking me to rush to Trivandrum for a shooting. Meanwhile I am taking lessons in Malayalam. One can never be too careful.

Romancing the rail.

Rail travel has become rather sterile and unromantic with the advent of air-conditioned Rajdhanis and Shatabdis. Rarely do we get to see the green countryside or the towns whizzing by. I have had my share of lovely train journeys that have left an indelible mark.

It was a biennial feature to catch the Grand Trunk express from New Delhi to Madras (now Chennai) on the way to Bangalore for my school summer vacation. Preparation would start well in advance and my dad would go early morning to the railway station to book our tickets. Those days it was not always possible to get confirmation for onward journeys from intermediate stations. Till we reached Madras Central we would not know whether we had confirmed berths on the Bangalore Mail.

The journey would be in peak summer so our first class compartment would become pretty warm half way through. At Nagpur station we would order for a large block of ice that would be kept under the seat to bring down the temperature. As a standard practice my mother would also buy a box full of delicious Nagpur oranges. Invariably on these journeys I would somehow end up falling sick by the time we reached Bangalore .In successive years I had measles, chicken pox and mumps respectively.

It was an interesting experience to go to Srinagar those days. We would catch the train to Pathankot and then take the Dakota flight to Srinagar. That aircraft did not have the power to fly over the mountains so it was a scary experience flying through the valley till we landed. Our return journey was by bus from Srinagar to Jammu. I ate curd rice at one of the highest altitudes at a dhaba in a place called Rambhan. At Jammu we caught the train to Delhi .The sleeper berths were different than what we have now. They were comparatively wide ones along the two sides of the compartment.

With apologies to the supporters of the Darjeeling and Nilgiri toy trains, the most scenic rail journey I have been on in India is from Kalka to Simla.  After hogging on freshly made puri and sabzi at the station platform I caught the Railcar which was slightly bigger than a bus. Half way through we stopped at one of the quaintest railway stations at Barog. It was very British in its architecture and we had a delicious breakfast in the dining hall served by a bearer in an all white livery complete with turban. As the train neared Simla, it started to snow. I managed to reach my hotel before the road got blocked.

Internationally, I would put right on top the train journey my wife and I took from Interlaken to Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in Europe. It is a unique cogwheel train that passes through the Eiger tunnel and gives a beautiful view of several glaciers.

I have not been on an overnight train journey for several years now, what with airlines offering more attractive fares for long journeys. But, the experience is not the same.

My quest for quick money.

My father bought one lottery ticket every month. He would then inform us on the proposed distribution of the winnings after the draw. Unfortunately our dreams on what we would do with the wealth would always remain in the realms of speculation.

Some of his genes rubbed off on me. I graduated to buying five tickets every month distributed over different state lotteries. I expanded this to ten tickets after one of my wife’s relatives read my palm and confidently informed me that I would win a big lottery. Unfortunately, my total winnings over the years stood at Rs. 5. Luckily for me, my salary did not get frittered away as there was a ban on many of the lotteries some years back.

I more or less gave up my quest for easy wealth after that. But there was always a sense of regret every time I saw people going around in their swanky German limousines or hosting barbecue parties in their garden, with a bartender from a well-known lounge bar churning out exotic cocktails.

A few years later I was on a work visit to Pune where I stayed in a new five star hotel. The room had a brochure where I had to answer three simple questions and also write a slogan in one sentence about the hotel to win a prize. While checking out I dropped the filled-in form in the designated box. From past experience I completely forgot about this. Some six months later I received a phone call from the hotel informing me that I had won the contest. I thought it was some friend kidding me so I rang up my Pune office and requested them to verify the news. Yes, it was true they confirmed.

Soon my wife and I landed in Pune to collect our prize. It was a car. All decked up with balloons and streamers. The press was invited for the function where I was ceremonially handed over the keys. Photographs of my wife and I standing next to the car were splashed on the front page of local dailies the next day. Unfortunately, the income tax department played party-pooper and collected a considerable sum in advance before the car could be handed over to me.

There are times my eyes light up when I receive polite emails from total strangers informing me that I have won $1000, 000 thanks to my mobile number matching the winning draw in some foreign country. I get tempted to send the person a small sum in advance to reimburse the processing cost. However, my prudent, if not unadventurous wife dissuades me and points out the news about some Nigerian citizens being arrested for similar scams, including duping a former senior police official.

Even now I never miss a chance to buy a product where all I need to do is to scratch a card and win exotic gifts. Our dustbin is testimony to my efforts.

The Great School Chase.

Two days after my granddaughter was born I found my son and daughter-in-law in intense discussion. I asked them whether I could be of any help. I was stumped when my son said that they were worried as they had to think of a suitable school for their child. Here were the two set of grandparents still debating about which genes baby Janvi had inherited and it seemed it was already time for her to pack her tiffin box and head to school.

To my wife’s dismay her school, a rather prestigious one on St. Mark’s Road, was vetoed immediately. Next was my daughter-in-law’s school on Palace Road. Finally, it was decided that the most suitable one would be a third one where the maternal grandmother had high level influence.

When Janvi was a little over fifteen months old the hunt for a play school started. School A was great but too expensive. School B looked a bit tacky. I did not realize that even play schools had a pecking order and there was a selection process. As the only one in the family who generally had a lot of idle time I was the designated training manager to prepare Janvi for her play school interview.

On Day 1 I began with the obvious question. “What is your name?” The fact that her nanny watched TV on the sly in the parents’ absence became obvious when Janvi struck a pose and lisped in a sing song voice, “My name is Sheila, Sheila...”Debriefing her was time consuming and exhausting. Then it was time for nursery rhymes. I took out my iPad and logged in to YouTube. It was an education for me that long familiar nursery rhymes could be sung or recited in so many different ways depending on who had uploaded them. I stuck to the UK versions in preference to the American ones.

Meanwhile my son and daughter-in -law were doing some background research work on the likely questions that would be asked at the interview. I am sure even an IIT-JEE aspirant would not be going through all this. Does Janvi know where her father works? Janvi, show your left toe…

At the age of two Janvi is now ensconced happily in her play school. But this is only the beginning. In another two years her real test will come when she has to move to a regular school. A strategy has already been put in place. Janvi’s parents have bought an apartment in the geographical vicinity of the targeted school so that there is no last minute hitch in her eligibility.

A similar drama is being acted out in London where my other daughter-in -law is traipsing from play school to play school to register my grandson for selection for the next academic year. Shantanu is all of eight months old.

Who says the younger generation has life on a platt

A hot cup of Java,anyone?

Every morning I drink one large mug of coffee. I make it exactly as I like it - extra strong and I savour it over the four daily newspapers I read. Page-to-page.

I was brought up watching my grandfather filtering coffee using a muslin cloth. He had one old black cast iron coffee grinder which was used every day to grind freshly roasted coffee seeds. At my parents’ home in Delhi we used a conventional stainless steel coffee filter. The coffee powder would be from Madras Stores, the saviour of all south Indians in the north. We then graduated to a coffee pot filter with spout launched by Coffee Board. However in Assam we faced a major problem as the only coffee powder available was tinned Polson’s French Coffee.

Much later, at Mysore I was told that the ideal coffee powder should be a blend of Peaberry and Plantation A. This to me was all Greek till I worked on a brochure for Coffee Board where I learnt all about Bababudan, Arabica and Robusta, stem borer, advantages of high range coffee, and Coorg coffee versus Chikmagalur coffee. One thing I definitely know, though it may sound blasphemous to some. I hate chicory in my coffee.

Thanks to my long stint in the IT industry which entailed international travel, my discovery of coffee strains encompassed the world. Though Brazil was the largest producer, the coffee aficionado swore by Colombian coffee. In fact, to me it came closest to Indian taste buds. I then explored coffee from Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Though the taste was uniformly good I couldn’t feel the ‘body’. A colleague suggested Kenyan coffee. Yes, it had a certain life but no patch on the strong Ethiopian one.

By now I had almost become a coffee fanatic. I read up everything one needed to know about coffee. From Starbucks I bought an electric coffee seed grinder. At Harrods in London I managed to get a hand grinder. I acquired an electric coffee maker, an espresso machine, a French Press and even a traditional Italian coffee percolator. 

By now my coffee seed stock included Sulawesi, a pretty strong one. My relatives and friends thought I was one of those mad scientists one reads about. They humoured me by bringing me gifts of coffee powder from various places. I had a Breakfast Blend, an Evening Blend and a Continental Blend. Dark Roast. Medium Roast. My wife complained that the whole house smelt of coffee (and she, poor misguided soul, is a tea drinker!)

There are times my reputation is a strain on me as friends drop in unannounced and expect me to serve them some exotic brew. But, whenever I want to get away from it all I walk across to the nearest Darshini where a coffee is a coffee!

Food for thought

I am a true blue Kannadiga with my ancestors hailing from a hamlet called Sosale in the heartland of the erstwhile Mysore state. The gastronomical inputs in my growing years were such Mysore delicacies like Maavinakaai Chitranna, Nuchina Unde, Hulitove Majjigehuli with a reward of Gasgase Payasa on festival days.

I presumed that one day I would marry a pretty damsel from T Narsipur or Arsikere and my food preferences would be taken care of in the manner I was accustomed to. In fact I would have encouraged my bride to add Gojju Avalakki to the menu.

However, fate had something else in store for me. I ended up marrying an Iyer girl from Palghat. Since then the dining table is full of dishes with tongue twisting names like Keerai Moologootal, Maangai Araitchukalakki, Vazhakkai Mezhukkuvaratti, Nendrapazham Pulissery, et al. In fact my wife goes gaga over something call Olan. Once she made light brown chutney which I sort of liked. She quickly corrected me that it was Parippu Thogayal and not chutney. I retorted that I knew chutney when I saw one. This argument went on for several years till the well known writer V. Gangadhar (also from Palghat) wrote in his column, “Slice of Life” that Thogayal and chutney were two different items. That newspaper cutting, now yellowed occupies pride of place on our fridge door under a magnet.

However, being an eternal optimist I put all my hopes on my two sons marrying dainty girls from Narasimharajapura or Hosagrahara. I was confident that our dining fare would be become a cheerful congregation of delicious Hurli Saaru, Kosambari and Kayi Hollige.

Thanks to the machinations of my wife and her crony my elder son married an Iyengar. Now the dining table repertoire includes Kandathippili Sathamudu, Vazhaikai Kariamudu and

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Akkaravadesil .It was rather confusing in the beginning when my daughter-in-law referred to something called Thirumadapalli. I later found out that was the Iyengar reference to the kitchen.

To rub salt on my wounds I had to utter et tu Brute when my younger son somehow persuaded a Gujarathi girl from Kutch to marry him. With the addition of Bajra no rotlo, Guvar nu Shaak and Dal Dhokli our household menu reads something like the one in the Indian cuisine restaurant at the Taj.

I have somehow survived my sacrifices over the years. Unfortunately my culinary skills are limited to heating food in the microwave so I could not really overcome the deficiencies in my diet. Driving all the way to Malleswaram to eat Akki Roti at New Krishna Bhavan is not practical. It is particularly stressful for me when the Avarekai season arrives. Imagine a life without Avarekai Uppitu or Saaru…..

The Real Big Bull

By S V L Narayan

My father was so scared of losing his meagre savings through banks collapsing that he divided the amount equally among five nationalized banks. I inherited his genes of financial conservatism.

In my early career I was invited to a lot of soirees at five star hotels. I was quite a misfit among the chiffon-clad, diamond dripping society women and the Christian Dior suited men. I was happy standing at a corner nursing my tomato juice till it was time to make a quiet exit. One day I saw an ad in the newspaper for a course in “The Art of Small Talk”. I went through sessions on how to integrate with people whom I thought were more sophisticated than me. I was taught to read up on a subject just enough to start and hold a conversation. My focus was on some person called Harshad Mehta who was referred to as The Big Bull.

I devoured all the information available on the financial pages of dailies and magazines and was soon ready to be let loose on an unsuspecting P3 crowd. At the next party I joined a group of five people who were discussing the stock market. One worthy was talking about FMCG stocks. I butted in and said, “The future is in banking stocks. Harshad is very positive on SBI.”This immediately had the attention of the group. As the evening progressed I harped on the profits to be made on stocks in the metals and pharma fields. By now my audience had swelled to half the guests.

This continued for the next few years long after the worthy Mr. Mehta. By now I was clued in about Futures & Options, too. Invitations to parties increased manifold. At one gathering I distinctly heard a Hugo Boss suited gentleman whispering, “There goes Bangalore’s Big Bull.”Thanks to the new TV Business channels and the Internet, information was spouting out of both my ears and I switched over to another flavour of the season. At the next party a Neiman Marcus clad gentleman asked my opinion about shipping stocks. As if on cue I pontificated, “Stocks are passé. The direction to go is Commodities. The Rain Forests in Paraguay are being denuded. There will be a global shortage of Mentha Oil. There are millions to be made trading on that.”

My wife is paranoid about speculators sending goons after me to recover their losses. I have not put in a paisa of my own in any of these activities all these years. I still live in my modest apartment in Jayanagar. And, yes whatever little money I have saved is safe and sound in State Banks of Hyderabad and Mysore.

Weddin chow-chow

When I was a kid I remember my parents talking about their wedding that was spread over four days.
I could never imagine how the guests spent their time for such a long period and also the strain that
must have been on the hosts.By the time it was my turn to wed the whole process took just over a
day.That was more or less the norm for south indian marriages during that era.

However, of late the saas-bahu serials and surfeit of Bollywood films extolling the ceremonial virtues
of north indian weddings seem to have penetrated the mindset of people in the south, too. Thus,
Mehendi, Sangeet and Bidaai seem to have become an integral part of most nuptials that I have
attended in Bangalore.

Recently, not realizing the enormity of the situation, I agreed to be part of the baraat at the wedding
of my friend’s son.I was ordered to come for dance practice at his house.We were met by a
professional choreographer imported from tamil films.The briefing given to us was that we
were to beat the bride’s family in the dance face-off at the Sangeet. The next few days revealed
to me the number of disused muscles in my body.Some of us oldies had a tough time keeping
steps with the younger members.Meanwhile, my wife was busy as she was part of the mehendi
group.Unfortunately, we were trounced at the dance competition as the opposition had younger
and more energetic members, plus they wore matching costumes.

The other custom imported from the north is the practice of the bride’s side hiding the groom’s
footwear and then selling it back to him at a price.At my nephew’s marriage in Mysore,in their
innocence the bride’s family,who had been raised in the north did just that.Unfortunately,they
had not reckoned on my sister-in-law’s reaction.When she got the the information of the filching
she marched purposefully to the bridal party’s room and in a no-nonsense tone demanded the
chappals back.Taken aback,the other side meekly returned the footwear.

With many NRIs holding their weddings in India, some of the western procedures have also
been adopted. One such is the Toast, normally delivered at the reception or Sangeet. Thanks
to having raised Toasts a couple of times at my Rotary inaugural functions, I seem to have been
targeted by friends and relatives to write one for them. In most cases, depending on whether one
is from the bride’s side or the groom’s the idea is to pass light-hearted comments about the pitfalls
of marriage and the opposite sex. Thanks to online bookstores I have a large collection of quotations
to draw from. Without a qualm I pilfer liberally from them. Needless to say, some of the quotes could
be termed chauvinist.

Overall,these weddings are great fun for the guests but pretty tiring for the hosts.But one regret that
I have is that I have never been invited for a ‘Destination Wedding’ where guests are flown in
chartered flights to exotic islands. Maybe someday…

Taxi,Taxi!

It was heartening to read in the press that our very own Ambassador was voted the best taxi in the world. Over the years, I have travelled in taxis in several countries right from a Maruti 800 to an obscenely ostentatious Lincoln stretch limo. The experience varied from place to place.

I love getting in to conversation with taxi drivers. Unfortunately, my pseudo "Burra Sahib” ego stops me from sitting in the front passenger seat. However, this does not prevent me from holding unfettered discussions with the cabbie. I suppose that being cooped up in the front seat the whole day, the driver also craves for some banter.

Taxi drivers in Singapore do not encourage idle gossip. The distances are short and they are already looking for the next passenger. They return your change exactly and are on their way. So is the average London cab driver. He is polite but the way the taxi is designed, there is no way one can have a proper dialogue. The private taxis in the UK are slightly different from the London cabs. On my first visit, there was this smart guy in a black suit with a board with my name. I presumed that he was a senior executive or the owner of the taxi company. I later found out that this was the standard uniform for these drivers.

The China cabs are a bit funny. The driver sits inside a fibreglass cage. I was quite puzzled until I was told that it was to protect the driver from a possible car-jack. Apart from this, of course, is the language barrier. At the airport, they help you with a diagram to your destination that you hand over to the driver. So, until the destination there is no conversation.

In the US, things are a bit different. It is not in every city that you get a proper city cab. New York is a good example to chat with drivers as they are invariably from the Punjab (it does not matter from which side of the border).I have had a tête-à-tête in my poor Hindi about Bollywood films, the popular stars and their personal lives.

In Detroit, I had a Pakistani driver. He was a qualified doctor from a proper medical college in Lahore. His was an arranged marriage with a US citizen and so relocated. Poor guy could not practice in his new country. He revealed to me that unlike Asian doctors, the US medics would never come to a quick diagnosis, in spite of clear symptoms, for fear of medical malpractice suits. There were times when the local doctors consulted him for his opinion.

However, in India itself there are varieties of taxis. The most “dented-but-not -painted” ones are in Kolkata. In the seventies right in Park Street, my driver parked his car, got out and joined a morcha that was passing by. I looked silly sitting in the back seat not knowing when I would reach my destination.

One danger of becoming too familiar with the cabbie is that you end up being morally bound to be generous with the tip. Nevertheless, that is a small price to pay in return for some verbal stimulation.

Queen of the road

QUEEN OF THE ROAD

In the early nineties though we had a car for several years my wife did not show much interest in driving. However, one morning out of the blue she insisted that I should teach her to drive.

We set off from home off MG Road and reached Cubbon Road. I showed her the various controls. She immediately wanted to take over. That was the exact moment when I started greying. The car took two jerks and the engine stalled. The stop and go routine continued for several days. At the cricket stadium we would turn left and on to MG Road and then back home. Every time I gave her advice on braking or releasing the clutch she told me not to distract her. Each day once we reached home it was recriminations from both sides which ended by her accusing me of not wanting her to drive. This situation was resolved when she joined a well-known driving school. Soon she flaunted her driving licence and promptly stopped wanting to be mobile.

After we shifted to Hyderabad she again had the urge to drive. But now she claimed that the traffic in that city was disorganized (this coming from a Banglorean!).So off she went and joined a driving school near our home. Pretty soon I had to buy a second car(a brand new bright red Santro) to satisfy her wanderlust. Every time there was a scratch or a dent the fault was always the other person’s. “I had the right turn signal on and also put my hand out, but still that fool kept coming straight and hit the side”, was a constant travail. But soon she got used to this love-hate relationship with Hyderabad traffic and the roads and it was quite peaceful for the next few years. Meanwhile, she had also managed to renew her licence, courtesy her best friend’s uncle.

We then returned to Bangalore in 2005. By now she was older, wiser and more patient so she did not crib about the Bangalore traffic. She happily drove around handling her chores or visiting relatives and friends. One day she found that her licence had expired four months earlier. Further, as we had shifted cities there was the issue of change of address, and NOC. There was panic all around. One tout offered to get a new one for her for Rs 4000.My wife being rather prudent with her purse strings refused. She found a better solution, in which she had past experience. She discovered a driving school in our neighbourhood and immediately registered with them. Every morning she would drive to their office in her  new Hyundai i10 and then get in to their training car. She soon graduated from her Learner’s licence to the real one. Every now and then the Bangalore Traffic Police smartphone spews out her misdemeanours. But she has reached a point of no concern. After all I am always there to pay up the fine.

Now she has ambitions to drive my pristine white,unscratched SUV.Like hell!

Big Brother is still watching you…

In his book “Nineteen eighty-four” George Orwell had coined the term “Big Brother is watching you” basically to postulate a theory of state surveillance on citizens. Today, the ominous tone of the book may not be there but increasingly the internet has provided a flexible media to various commercial organizations to peep into our lives.

Last week I made an internet search for hotels in Amritsar while planning a visit. After browsing through some of the hotel sites I moved forward to other subjects. Imagine my surprise that in less than 24 hours I started observing advertisements of hotels in Amritsar whenever I opened any online newspaper or magazine pages; on social media sites, and even received emails promoting hotels in that city.

This was not an isolated case. The story repeated when I showed interest in shoes, blue-tooth headsets, coffee-makers, etc. Some unknown entity seems to be fully aware of all my interests. Not only that, now has it even known the locality I live in, because out pops up advertisements for stores near my house.

This should not have come as a surprise to me. In the early nineties when I entered the IT industry I had never sent an email nor knew what a “url” was. Increasingly we started hearing about the term “search engine”. Those were the early days when the now defunct Alta Vista and Netscape were glamorous brands. Our technical team started briefing us on terms like “web footprint”, neural networks, data mining, analytics, etc. We were told that the more we browse the internet the more it understands our behavior and likes and dislikes.

Today web technology is slowly trying to take over our homes with what is referred to as Internet of Things (IoT) where all our appliances are also networked. Every evening our maid gives me an inventory of vegetables in our fridge. Based on our requirement she cuts the vegetables for the next day’s meals. Imagine, soon that interaction is replaced by my refrigerator sending me messages that I have run out of ridge gourd, or beans, or pumpkin. Or, god forbid, the washing machine telling me that my golf trousers are so dirty that they need a longer cycle of wash.

Some decades back along with my sons I would watch a TV serial called “Knight Rider” where the driver would have a two-way conversation with his car. It is hard to say whether the American entrepreneurs were inspired by that serial but today they are already testing driver-less cars that take verbal orders over the net.

But now my favourite gadget at home is a voice activated speaker. Alexa obeys me implicitly and plays my favourite songs or the latest news any time of the day. But even she draws a line when I ask her awkward questions, particularly on politics or personalities. But she does regale me when I ask her to tell me a Rajnikanth joke.

Blame it on the genes.

Owing to some eccentricity in our family’s genetic code there were no female births in our family for almost a hundred years.

My parents had four sons and my two elder brothers and I had two sons each. This obviously played a major role in our rather one-dimensional approach to life as we grew-up. With the most influential part of our life being spent in Delhi the typical South Indian way of life was for the most part missing. I presume it was a rather a lonely furrow to plough for my mother to bring in our usual festivities. For us Dussehra was watching Ram Leela and no display of dolls at home. No tinkling of anklets and no Bharatha Natyam teacher or Carnatic music vidwan. Instead it was the cacophony of sibling fights, stinky socks and sweaty school uniforms. Once there was a Kurukshetra battle even on the rear seat of our car.

When it was time for us to get married it was rather monotonous being always on the Bridegroom’s side. Presumably we were supposed to behave with a certain dignity and not let down our hair. The only time we had a bit of a laugh was when my eldest brother was driven round the streets of Coimbatore in an open Rolls Royce. Later at my nephew’s wedding baraat in Los Angeles the steed became a bit frisky and gave us all anxious moments.

Things had become so matter-of-fact that when my elder son was born my father, over the phone asked my younger brother about the sex of the baby and was told “the same.”However, the advantage my sons had while growing up was an unending stream of hand-me-downs from my nephews in the USA.My wife used to look longingly at little girls in pigtails playing in our colony park. I thought I heard her sighing once or twice. Particularly once when my younger son climbed up the window curtain and brought the pelmet down.

When the boys got married I took the easy way out and told the respective Sambandhis to conduct the wedding as per their custom. I didn’t want to go through the tension of our priest standing on ego and fighting with his opposite number.

But after a cold winter can’t spring be round the corner? One fine day there was rejoicing when my eldest brother had a grand-daughter. We all felt that the family had turned the corner. Then arrived our grand-daughter. My wife went berserk. All her pent-up desires boiled over. I think she secretly wanted to buy stuff which she had wanted in her childhood. Off she would go every now and then all by herself. She would return with bags full of girlie dresses, hair clips and bands, sandals. She even parted with her own childhood doll and gifted it to the little girl. Life seemed fulfilled.

But then my younger son had two boys…

Water Woes

We left for Mercara  on an early Saturday morning for a wedding. As the previous day was the Bandh we expected   road blockages on the way. To our pleasant surprise even the usual traffic on the Mysore Road was absent and we made it to Mercara in a little over five hours. The next two days were all fun and rejoicing and bonding with friends. We presumed that our return journey too would be event free. How wrong we were.

The Monday morning drive till Mysore was quick and comfortable. Just as we were to turn onto the Bengaluru highway outside Mysore cops stopped us and asked us to take a diversion further up. The alternative road was pretty nice and when we crossed Malavalli we felt  happy as we knew that we would be home a little after lunch.

That was not to be. At Hadli village there was a traffic jam with farmers blocking  the road. Several policemen stood around looking bored. No one had a clue when the blockade would be lifted. I walked across to the demonstrators, several of whom were sitting on the road raising slogans. A few travelers on the road were heard telling the cops that they had a flight to catch. It didn’t cut any ice. By now over an hour had passed since we were stopped. We finished the biscuits and namkeens that were in the car. A nearby bakery supplied me with soft drinks. 

Another hour passed. Hunger pangs stuck us. There were no restaurants nearby. I spied one more bakery that seemed to have more stock. I asked him for sandwiches. He had no clue what I meant. Then I asked him for a loaf of bread. He did not stock any butter but he had sachets of jam. I guided his assistant on how to cut the loaf into thin slices. Spread the jam and and made him cut the edges. Lo, I had a whole lot of jam sandwiches. If anyone ever gets stuck at Hadli village remember that there is one bakery there who can supply you jam sandwiches. A little later the same bakery supplied us with hot tea and even provided a steel tray for me to carry the cups to the car.

Four hours had passed by then. I chitchatted with the demonstrators. The cops told me that it was fortunate that we were stuck here as the demonstrators were a friendly lot. One old man sitting on the road insisted on shaking hands with me. At 5.30 pm a gentleman came and addressed the demonstrators and thanked them for their support and said that the blockade was over for the day. All of us rushed back to our respective vehicles and began what we thought was our quick return home. We spoke too soon. Just a kilometer way there was another blockade and another wait for an hour. There seems to be some unwritten rule in bandhs that the agitation should stop by dusk, just like the battles of yore. Finally we were off.

 The journey till we reached the Bangalore portion of Kanakapura Road was uneventful. Then the nightmare began. At every crossing there were burning tyres and we were forced to take diversions to unknown roads . The last four kilometers to my home took me two hours.

We started from Mercara at 9.15 am. We reached home exactly twelve hours later. The jam sandwiches at Hadli village were our savior.

Stock Market blues

Every Thursday afternoon I have a masseur who comes to give my body a work over, presumably to make me fit enough to show-off my imaginary six abs. While he is pummeling my body he also taps me for information on the stock-market. I have no clue how he imagines that I am his ticket to quick wealth.

Thanks to reading financial dailies and magazines, and of course watching the television channels I have gained some knowledge of how the bourses work. But, it is still a mystery to me how one goes about making a fortune there. Initially, I presumed that all one needed to do was follow the tips given by the so called experts and then laugh all the way to the bank.

A couple of years back one worthy suggested that I buy sugar companies stocks as the government was going to make compulsory the blending of ethanol with fuel. No fool would have ignored such good advice so I put in a good chunk of my money in some well-known sugar units. My investment has become rather anaemic since then, as later it was found that ethanol content may affect some rubber components in the motor vehicle. Similarly with steel, ports, FMCG, financial services. Whichever stock I was recommended to buy by the experts seem to wait for my cheque to be encashed before they started the downward journey.

But one thing I have failed to understand is how one day the stock market zooms to a stratospheric level because of the situation in the European Union and the next day it goes in to a free fall for just the same reason. On Monday the stock prices of banks shoot up as business sentiment is good and Tuesday they crash as the situation in Greece is a bit dodgy. Why on earth should the poor investor sitting in Channapatna be affected by the financial shenanigans in Athens is a real mystery.

Some years ago I was closely involved with the listings of my company and its subsidiary on NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange. An Initial Public Offering is all about glamour. The listing company is to be exhibited as a successful one so we all stayed in one of the best hotels in New York. On the morning of the listing we all trooped to the bourse in shiny black limousines. NASDAQ is more automated like our NSE but in NYSE there is a lot of showmanship on display. There is a ceremonial breakfast with the head of the exchange and then the traditional bell ringing and cap throwing ceremony. A lot of bonhomie is on display which becomes euphoric when the stock opens at a higher price. But when they study the balance sheet the poor investors will be left scratching their heads at the cost they have borne for the public issue.

Now coming back to my masseur, I somehow escape any physical damage by giving him vague suggestions and telling him that the time was not yet right to invest.

A touch of nostalgia

Recently I attended a get-together of my batch mates from engineering college. As is the norm on such occasions the initial fifteen minutes were spent on a lighthearted discussion on our expanding girth and receding hairline. Soon we graduated to the pleasant memories of our college years. That set me thinking that nostalgia is a key ingredient of our life.

College days, particularly as hostellers, in NIT-K, Surathkal were pleasant. With no parental supervision our evenings were pretty activity-filled. The only source for movies was in Mangalore, around 20 km away. Friday nights were particularly exciting as all of us wanted to see Bollywood films on the day of release. Just after dinner, fleets of Ambassador taxis would land up at the hostel blocks. Generally eight students would fit in to the car, which would wait for us at the theatre and bring us back. The theatre would be noisy as most of the audience would comprise our college mates. The next day it was obvious which students had gone to the movies as they would be singing songs loudly while having a bath.

Growing up in Delhi, we were far removed from any security restrictions as it is today. On Republic Day youngsters would be sitting on dhurries along Rajpath, near the saluting base. Pandit Nehru would get down from his official Cadillac car and walk along the low railing and wave to us even as we raised a cry of ‘Chacha Nehru’. We would wait excitedly for the fly-past after the parade. Those days the modern aircraft that our Air Force had were Hawker Hunters, Mysteres and Canberras. As a grand finale there was a formation fly-past by Toofanis which broke away just over the saluting base leaving behind a trail of tricolor smoke. It is sad that nowadays youngsters cannot even get close to VIPs at public occasions thanks to their security cordon.

My grandmother’s younger brother suffered from Arthritis which restricted his movement. Every evening he would get in to his big American car all set for a drive. One of my uncles would be the designated driver for that day. I was a student in Bangalore so I would invite myself for the ride. We would first go to Vidhana Soudha where my uncle and I would take a stroll while the old man sat in the car. My financial position would be precarious so I ended up getting treated for some chaat or spicy puffed rice with slices of tomato. The next stop would be the fountain in Cubbon Park(yes it actually functioned well those days).Here the snack would be boiled peanuts. The final halt would be MG Road where we would park perpendicular to Plaza theatre. Here, of course, was the compulsory visit to Lakeview for an ice cream.

In the years to come I wonder what type of pleasant activities people would be recalling when meeting as a group? I am sure life moves on for every generation.

Walking the talk

When I moved to Bangalore a few years ago I didn’t exactly have a svelte waistline. In the flush of moving to a new place and also to impress my new neighbours I made a resolution of going for morning walks daily.

First, I needed to take care of my sartorial requirements. I had plenty of multi-hued T-shirts free of cost courtesy my company. The Camel outlet in Jayanagar solved my shorts problem, though my wife did give me a strange look seeing me in knee length cargo style shorts. I pretended to ignore her.

One day a Mr. Raghu accosted me outside my apartment. Do you walk every morning he queried? Yup, I answered in a smug voice presuming my athletic build impressed him. Why don’t you join our walking group he suggested? Well, there was nothing wrong with that idea as having company did add interest to a walk. Also, a walking group sounded very professional. So I immediately acquiesced and thanked him for the invitation. He asked me a strange question after that. Do you have a car? Sure, I said. Let’s meet tomorrow morning at six sharp in the car park, he continued.

The next morning I was in the car park well in time for the assignation. Raghu came in a few minutes later along with two cohorts whom he introduced as Ramesh and Ashok. I was informed  that we were heading to Lal Bagh. I was quite impressed at their dedication because Lal Bagh was at least three kilometres from our building. To my surprise, Ramesh opened the door of one of the cars and the gang got in and signaled for me to get in, too.

As this was my first trip with the group I decided to be friendly and asked the obvious question. Do you think it will rain today? There was a stony silence till we reached Lal Bagh West gate. After a bit of light limbering exercise we began our walk through the park. I wanted to walk briskly but seeing that the rest of the group was strolling leisurely I had no option but to slow down.

We finally came out of Lal Bagh Main Gate. My companions crossed the road and we arrived at Mavalli Tiffin Room (MTR). In spite of the crowd the group managed a table. Very soon we had a repast of Khara Baath, Rava Idly and Puri/Palya washed down with a hot cup of strong coffee. Ramesh then excused himself and exited. By the time we had paid the bill and came out he was waiting in his car. We returned home.

For the past five years this has been my routine. Each of us takes turn to bring his car. The families think we are sweating it out in Lal Bagh but are a bit surprised that our respective waistlines don’t seem to reduce.

I Bet…

Recently I was observing the antics of two of our building kids. Obviously, even at the young age of eight they seem to be in a competitive mode. One of them said, “I bet I can run faster than you.” I am sure people would remember in their childhood how as a natural reaction they would come out with the words “I bet…”. “I bet I will get you out first ball. “I bet my handwriting is better than yours.”

Notwithstanding the brouhaha over match fixing, everyone has sometime or the other indulged in betting.

In our engineering college hostel, small time betting was a daily occurrence to while away our evenings. It could be on anything. We had a classmate, nicknamed Moshe who specialized in dismantling any piece of machinery. We would then have bets on how quickly he would assemble the item back again. Even then there would be some sort of skullduggery. One interested party secretly added a couple of extra components to a disassembled table fan. Poor Moshe went almost crazy wondering where to fit the extra elements. In the process the perpetrator of the crime made some money.

The other bet was on lighting every stick of a matchbox with one stroke each. It sounds easy but as the friction side of the box gets worn out the sweat starts forming on the face of the participants. In most cases the match ends with a matchstick sliding off the side without lighting up. Being from a middle-class government servant family my participation would be limited to that of a cheering spectator.

My earliest exposure to the sins of betting came from watching Hindi films of the sixties and seventies. Invariably, either the father or brother of the unfortunate heroine would lose his shirt at the Mahalakshmi race course and had to be bailed out by the hero. Thanks to an invitation from one of my friends I did get a chance to attend a derby in Bangalore some years back. I decided to be adventurous and put in a bit of money on one of the races. I had no clue on how to select the winner and decided to go by the attractiveness of the name. Unfortunately, Silver Streak did not really live up to its name and ended up last. That also ended my career as a punter.

PG Wodehouse had a whole list of characters who indulged in what would be described as ‘having a little flutter on the side”. My favourite was The Great Sermon Handicap where betting took place on the length of the sermon delivered by various vicars at village churches. The plot included all the ingredients of a horse race, including probable starters and handicaps and also inside information about the health of a ‘runner’.

The deep-rooted influence of betting at a tender age was brought home to me recently. While having lunch my four year and something old grand-daughter suddenly burst out, “I bet I can eat faster than you.” Touché.

Click. Buy. Pay

I am in trouble. Deep trouble. I have been diagnosed with an incurable disease called ‘onlineshopitis’, and it is becoming worse day by day. But, this is not something that happened overnight.

As a teenager I used to see advertisements released by two correspondence course institutes in a well-known, but now defunct, weekly. Without bothering about the consequences I cut the enclosed coupons and posted it to the colleges. About ten days later the postman brought two big bundles containing the prospectus and application forms. A couple of weeks later a further letter came inquiring about my application. This continued for some more time with the institutes wanting to know whether the fees were too high and offering me a concession. By now I was in a blue funk expecting the authorities to land up at our door step. Luckily, the institutes soon gave up on me.

Soon after I got a job, I seemed to have got on the mailing list of a well-known monthly magazine. I started receiving direct mailers from them saying that I was in the shortlist to win sweepstakes worth crores of rupees. Who was I to fight fate. With the sight of currency notes floating in front of my eyes I subscribed to the magazine. Well, I presume someone somewhere must have won the sweepstakes, but definitely not I. But did I learn a lesson from this? Definitely not. Soon I subscribed to a weekly where I received a shoddy toolkit. Then another one where the promised bag looked nothing like in the picture. Now I am awaiting a car bottle cooler that also has a radio. Meanwhile there are a lot of unwanted magazines in my house.

The internet has been my final downfall. It makes things so easy. I discovered this well-known American online apparel store. I started by ordering a pair of suede shoes. Then another. Now I have a whole lot of them in different hues and textures. But my ultimate purchase is something called all-weather clogs. These will keep me in good stead in case of a snowfall in Bangalore.

Now my sights are on the Indian e-commerce sites. My purchases have made the owners attract mind-boggling valuations. I mean which self-respecting, red blooded individual will let go the opportunity to receive five shirts for only Rs.999/-, when the original cost was nearly Rs. 10,000?The shirts are still lying unused in my cupboard. Then there was this mobile phone for just Rs. 2500/- that was an ‘exact’ replica of that iconic brand named after a fruit. Our dustbin bears testimony to the early demise of that instrument.

Today, I am well-equipped to face any eventuality of a breakdown of equipment in our house. Wireless routers, mobile phones, cameras, watches, Bluetooth speakers. My latest discovery is this site that sells spectacles. They are even offering the first frame free. So under different identities I have hoodwinked them and ordered reading glasses, distance one and even tinted glasses. One should never be caught unawares without specs!

Is there a cure for my disease? Let me check it online.

TGIF

"Thank God it's Friday"(TGIF)  expresses the joy one feels in knowing that the work week has officially ended and that one has two days off with which to enjoy. Through most of my career I was fortunate to have worked in companies that had a five-day week.While a two-day weekend sounds enjoyable it does have some pitfalls.

As a bachelor in Bangalore I did not have any friends, being new to the city.It was only so much that one could impose on kind-hearted uncles and aunts during the weekends.Some of the single men in our firm thought out-of-the-box.As a rule we were entitled to lunch if we attended office on holidays.So every Saturday I would land up at office on some pretended urgent work.Coincidentally this would end exactly at lunchtime. A few colleagues and I would make our way to a haven for creative people called Embassy Bar (sadly now defunct) near Shivajinagar. By the end of the third hour we would be giving our take on what ails the world.When I got engaged to be married I was horrified to note that the owner of the bar lived next door to my in-laws.

Many years later in Hyderabad,after my sons grew up and flew the coop I was at a loose end,particularly on Saturday mornings.My wife had her own agenda with domestic chores.I would start off from home and visit electronic and appliance stores.Successive salesmen would religiously brief me on the merits of various brands of televisions,fridges,washing machines and airconditioners. Each time I would give the excuse that I needed to consult my wife and that I would return later in the day.After a few months I had run through all the major stores without spending a  rupee.

It was then the turn of the car dealers.Hyderabad had a stretch of open road around the Tank Bund that was ideal for test drives.During the next few months I knew every bump and pothole on that road while I tested out the specifications of all the brands available at that time. I also discovered that car salesmen usually make four phone calls to a potential buyer after a test drive before giving up as a lost cause!

Even after  retirement , when every day is a weekend, I still yearn for a Saturday morning outing.Thanks to Bangalore’s burgeoning real estate,developers are bending backwards to sell their apartments and villas.The Friday newspapers feature advertisements for housing projects  and entice people to come and see their model apartments.One phone call is all that I need to arrange my Saturday schedule.The developer sends his vehicle to pick me up and show me various projects.This also has helped me understand common real estate jargon. Example: when a developer says five minutes from the centre of town, it is based on a speed of 100 km/hour.

During my working days I used to enjoy my afternoon siesta on Saturday as I knew I had one more coming on Sunday.I presumed that once I retired I would enjoy this luxury every day.Unfortunately,this did not turn out true.I wonder what is the medical term for “afternoon siesta insomnia”?