The charge of the intolerance brigade

It is open season for intolerance in India. The way this word has been bandied around in the recent months, it seems like it is something readily tangible enough to be felt with the hand. Or smell it in the air at the very least. A dark cloud hanging over the land, casting a shadow of intolerance when it is not raining down hate and drowning an individual's freedom of expression.

Going by the orchestra, led from the front by the Delhi gangsters - the Gandhis and the rest of the congress whos-whos, fanned by an indulgent media, ably supported by the dazzling Mumbai Khans to the shrill accompaniment of the award returning intelligentsia, it truly does appear that India, the once shining beacon of tolerance, the fountainhead of secular ideals and the abode of freedom of expression is under attack from a particularly violent monster.

Intolerance has always been around. As a phenomenon, it is not unique to India nor has it gone up since the change in Government in 2014. I'm no historian but I'm willing to wager that there has been a steady, healthy level of intolerance maintained and handed down the ages. And that must be true to every nation, region and culture on God's earth. Opposition to the other voice/school of thought/faith is carved into the human DNA.

Intolerance is not an issue to me, the average, law abiding, tax paying, vote-casting citizen. I have been inured to it in one way or the other in most aspects of daily life. To the middle class, of which I'm an (Adhaar) card carrying member, freedom of expression has always come with the fear of retribution from the powers that be. Being at the receiving end of intolerance - be it at an individual or institutional scale - has been a way of life. The vast majority sheds no tears over stymied voices.

Who does this intolerant climate really affect?

Let's examine the shriller voices from the intolerance bandwagon that have willingly adopted the orphan child that intolerance till recently was. Ms. Nayantara "Nobody" Sehgal. A clutch of nondescript Sahitya Akademi awardees. Sharukh Khan. Amir Khan. And now P Chidambaram - our very own Einstein in a dhoti. In other words, the fear of intolerance and illiberalism has gripped only the cream of the cream. The top half a percent that are differently enraged compared to the common lot.

Assuming for argument's sake that this is indeed true - that India has indeed become what they say it has - this could percolate down and become an issue to me if the afflicted elite group had been the true voice of the masses, echoing our concerns, fears and aspirations loudly along the corridors of power. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't remember any of the Khans or the Nayantara Sehgals taking up the cudgels on key issues at any point in time on a similar scale as now. Nor has this group criticized the government (of any flavor) on policies all these years as eloquently or loudly as they do so now. And please let us not talk about Satyamev Jayate here. Or PC's track record outside of spouting Thirukkurals during the presentation of the annual budget. It is really sad when artistes start taking themselves too seriously. Page 3 spilling over to page 1 doesn't come to any good. How do I know? I come from Tamil Nadu where the path to power starts from the movie studios.

So what has happened that justifies this sudden, overnight groundswell in the intolerance brigade? Ah, the change in government. Silly me! There is a different cook in the kitchen and the soup tastes funny now. The way I see it, the elite have developed a taste for a particular flavor of secularism and tolerance. One that has routinely turned a blind eye towards most things inconvenient all along. One that was quick to announce that "terror has no religion" every time a radicalized peace lover blew up innocent lives. A brand of secularism that insisted on handling with kid gloves a particular group of the population with an eye on future elections. One that conveniently swept provocation under the carpet and focused only on the reactions. One that believed in falling trees shaking the earth underneath. But alas, we live in a democracy which sometimes serves surprises when one least expects it. And the elections of 2014 turned out to be one such occasion.The biggest intolerance that I can sense is the one towards the current government. A democratically elected one with a sound mandate.

The murmurs of restlessness arising from a pampered group that happens to suffer from withdrawal symptoms having been rudely weaned from a life of being close to the seat of power. This, in my humble opinion, is what is happening. Now that it has gained enough critical mass, this river of intolerance will ebb and flow right through to 2019. Till then, I'm using my Bose noise cancelling headphones. 

The commute Part II - The Pallavan Years

This is a series documenting my many commutes. Here is the first part. Reading that is not going to make this any less painful. Even I would recommend watching paint dry as a better entertainment option. But since you have decided to waste your time here, you might as well get some context and do it in a sequence.

Muthu rickshaw-kaar's demise pitchforked us into the world of commuting by public transport rather unceremoniously. I think I would have been in class V or VI when it happened. That quirky age where you aren't quite a kid but definitely not the grown up yet. Overnight we were in limbo. It was quickly decided that we would take the bus as we were definitely too young to cycle to school in T Nagar traffic. Same home, same school and the same distance but we were introduced to the parallel universe of the bus commuters.

T Nagar to Valluvar Kottam on Pallavan presented us with three options: Route nos 9, 10 and 26. Appa advised us against trying the forbidden fruits of the 47 series buses that could have been a tad quicker but definitely much much more crowded by the time they were in T Nagar. Instead he bade us to take the ones that started out from T Nagar which meant that if we timed our departure from home, we could even get a seat. 

Buses for routes 9 and 10 used to be parked on a side street by the main bus terminus premises. Route 9 - T Nagar to Parrys Corner - wasn't a bad option: they plied on Thyagaraya Road (through Pondy Bazaar), made a left on Nair Road at Holy Angels and went straight through to Thirumalai Pillai Road to our school. Route 10 - T Nagar to Parrys Corner (via Hell), by comparison, was truly a headache. Not only did they have TATA buses which were inferior to the Leylands, (Driver abuse a constant, the Leylands somehow managed to age much better than the rattling Tatas.) but right after Panagal Park, this bus would take us past Ramakrishna School on Venkatanarayana Road on a detour through Boag Road and Maloney Road, serving hitherto unknown parts of T Nagar and thus wasting precious minutes. We always boarded a Route 10 bus with a bad feeling and it never disappointed us. 

Route 26 - T Nagar to ICF, the third option, was easily the best. Route 26 was the poor, country cousin of the more prestigious routes plying to ICF like the long-haul 47A. But it had the best drivers and conductors of the three routes. One of the conductors spoke in chaste Tamil and surprised me one day with clean English too. And the driver that he usually accompanied was a gentleman by PTC standards and never swore. But the cherry on top was the fact that this took the shortest route of the three: Panagal Park and straight through the shaded G N Chetty Road to Vani Mahal, left on Thirumalai Pillai Road and onwards to our school, bypassing the early morning Pondy Bazaar traffic altogether. But the frequency was low and the timings weren't quite convenient. But if we did end up taking 26 on a morning, we would be sure that there wouldn't be a late marking on our diary that day.

The world of bus travel truly was educative. First off, it taught us the value of time. How, together with time and tide, PTC buses waited for no man or a kid running late. Quite unlike Muthu rickshaw-kaar who only used to clang his bell if we delayed him but never actually left without us. Then came the art of managing the fellow commuters who made it clear to us that we - the school going future of the society - were truly a menace. If their looks could kill, there wouldn't be a guy typing this drivel out. Not without reason though. For we used to carry heavy bags loaded with books and notebooks that recorded our educational transactions. Oh and also a lunch basket. And the adults those days thought that a seat was truly wasted if only a kid was seated on it. They would always ask us to "adjust" which meant that two and a half men would have to hang from a seat meant for two. Again, I don't remember being sandwiched between creeps. Just the garden variety, annoyed office goers. Then there were the mornings when we would doze off on the bus. If we happened to do that while sitting, there would be more than one passenger that was standing nearby willing to call us out as unworthy of being students and how we had shamed Indian culture.

Then there was the art of getting your "pass" - the monthly season ticket - either punched or ticked by the conductor. For some reason, many conductors staunchly believed that it was beneath them to do this part of their duties and would ask us to do it ourselves. Good luck fishing out your pencil box from the depths of your schoolbag to get out a pen with curses raining all around! Good times. On more than one occasion, I have intentionally not checked it in the morning (and evening) and saved bus fare on later evening trips on that route. Yes, I'm evil, so shoot me. The Tamil Nadu Govt, sensing our troubles, then introduced the "free pass" wherein we were issued a photo ID that we had to carry and produce on demand by either the conductor or the ticket checker. On the flip side, the annoyed passengers had one more reason to be enraged by our presence on a seat: free boarders. As I said, good times.

No story on a Chennai bus commute can be complete without a mention of the ladies special. When we were still in T Nagar, we were pre-teens and it was acceptable for two boys to board a ladies special service. After all, we had neatly parted oiled hair and vibhoothi on the forehead to vouch for our character. Although this was a big deal - less crowded and hence possibility of scoring a seat went up a notch, and fewer swear words used by the conductors and drivers (not that it bothered us one way or the other) - I was somehow totally uncomfortable by the whole idea of traveling in a bus reserved for the opposite sex. Did it make me feel any less manly than my pre-teen self felt entitled to? Was it my lack of interaction with girls of our age that made me feel awkward? I can't tell. But I remember becoming totally self conscious as soon as I boarded and would head right to the front of the bus to occupy the space by the engine and the driver. For some reason that seemed to help my situation. But these rights were taken away after we moved to Adayar and I was officially a teen. That meant wearing pants and that was the act of crossing the threshold for admission. There have been days when we were running late when I would strategically wear my uniform shorts (instead of full trousers as mandated by the school) to allow myself to board these buses together with my brother who still enjoyed the benefits of being a pre-teen. Since I was a late bloomer and also vertically challenged at that time, my costume didn't raise too many questions at school apart from the usual teasing from friends that lived within a mile from the school.

Once we moved to Adayar, we had to take the 47 series of buses that were until then forbidden. There was the workhorse 47A (Besant Nagar to ICF). But the excalibur was the 47V (Thiruvanmiyur to Ambathur OT) - a limited stop service that truly did shrink the distance from the southern suburbs to the western industrial badlands of Chennai. But it would be inappropriate to not mention 47G (Besant Nagar to Korattur) that was right inbetween the other two. The one small problem was that many of these buses skipped our school stop, which was a minor one, and would only stop at Valluvar Kottam - a few blocks away. We had to walk all the way back and more importantly, we had to cross Kodambakkam High Road which was nearly impossible in the mornings. So we would get down when the bus stopped at the red light at that intersection and save ourselves many precious minutes. Besides the risk involved in this method, there was another issue. A couple of members of the faculty - my math teacher Mrs. MS (who traveled from Thiruvanmiyur) and Geography teacher Mrs. H (from Besant Nagar) - traveled on these routes. Since they faced the same issue, they would also alight at the signal. Although two athletic boys were any day more suited to pull this stunt off smoothly than two saree-clad ladies in their middle ages, they were adults and more importantly teachers. And I was in both their classes! There was always the risk of our stunts reaching the ears of the school principal. But as members of the bus commuting fraternity, there was an immediate kinship established: the Pallavan ring of trust, so to speak. Honor among thieves. Omerta. They never once complained about us to the school management and would even help us get to the sidewalk safely right after we got off at the red light.

After a couple of years of doing this, we changed schools and entered the world of pedaling to school. Through the verdant IIT Madras campus roads. Will be back with more of that. 

Thoughts on Thoongavanam

Through the 90s and even the early 2000s, a Kamal Hassan movie brought with it big expectations for me. Though that has faded significantly in the recent years, I still keep my eyes and ears open whenever his movie comes out. So when a friend of mine reserved tickets for Thoongavanam, it was showtime.

For starters, I went in with a clean slate in that I hadn't (still haven't) watched Sleepless Night, the original movie that this is based off. And given his recent movies, most of which I have sidestepped, seem to be fanning his already big ego, I kept expectations to the very minimum. Kamal the actor in the hands of good directors was definitely watchable. But Kamal the philosopher-director-preacher working with his usual suspects? I'll pass. Actors starting to take themselves seriously leaves such a bad taste. I'm looking at you Amir Khan and Sharukh Khan.

This is a suspense thriller involving good cops, bad cops, drugs (and flour) and drug lords. At the center of it all is a kidnapping which basically drives all the action. After watching this movie, two questions crop up in my mind. Why Sleepless Night? I'm not sure why this movie needed to be remade in Tamil. I mean what was so inspirational from the original to warrant a remake? Second question: Why cast Kamal Hassan? I don't believe this movie required Kamal. Period. The very fact that most of the movie happens in one night took the wind out of the sail since this severely limited the scope of acting that an actor like Kamal is (still) capable of.

Since I don't have the chops to do an insightful review, here are some quick thoughts thrown in in no particular order.

1. The movie should have been made like a 60-m dash but felt more like a 800m race. It was at least 30 minutes too long. One part slack editing and one part stretched out screenplay made it sag through many sections losing to impose a sense of anticipation.

2. Kamal's persona and the concomitant quirks burden the movie on many occasions. Some of them have been shoehorned in to the narration which adds to the sag.

3. Perhaps it was the make up to suit the role she was playing or I need to visit the eye doctor. Trisha looked pretty at the audio launch event but looked ...err...manly? in the movie. While on Trisha, what was with her Tamil and dialog delivery? Sounded like a female robot.

4. This movie required a serious villain to maintain the pressure. (Note, I haven't watched the original and not sure if this is a faithful reproduction) Prakash Raj, who must be on Raj Kamal International's speed dial, dumbed this role down with out of place comedy. In my opinion, Sampath, the other minor villain, would have been a better choice.

5. Hot nurses? In discotheques? Generously locking lips with strangers? Happens only in movies. I mean in Kamal movies. If on the other hand, that girl is really a nurse in some hospital, someone please break my left, small toe nail right now!

6. Too many actors have been thrown in to the mix but end up playing little, blink and you miss type roles. It turned out to be a distraction to me.

7. The kid was really cute and cracks the most genuine joke towards the very end.

An OK film. Definitely no edge of the seat stuff in what should have been a taut thriller. And there is a giant Kamal cloud hanging over it.

I expected to watch a thriller with KH in it. But make no mistake, this is a Kamal movie with a few thrills patched on.

Thank you Viru!

Behind fearlessness is usually a clear mind. A mind intent on keeping things simple. A mind unhindered by the weight of tradition, protocol or what went before. A mind that could come up with its own religion and a sense of what is right or not. Sehwag’s game betrayed his possession of such a mind – tranquil, strong and brutal. The body then became a mere instrument. The hand-eye coordination, the fluid strokeplay and the marauding batsmanship simply flowed forth. Natural. Destined. 

Opening, so we were told, was a fine art. An elite profession strictly earmarked for the products of textbooks to pursue. Temperament, the willingness to see off the shine and guarding the wicket were minimum virtues expected of any aspirant. And into this altar Sehwag bludgeoned his way and broke down all traditions. To put it simply, he played street cricket at the highest level wearing whites and a floppy hat. And he did this right from his debut till the very end. Against the best bowlers. And on pitches of all varieties. There was no slowing down, adapting, changing gears or accumulating. See ball, hit ball.

That he paid little attention to the context of the game perhaps let him play his natural game. And this is exactly why watching his innings unfold was possibly the reason behind my first grey hairs. A waft outside the offstump produced the same grin as did a clean straight drive down the ground. An upper cut over third man? This was the first man whose score in the nineties made me a wreck half way across the globe. Thankfully, though his nineties were plenty, they were all short lived. 

Muddling through numbers to understand his legacy would be futile. His impact lies entwined in the intangibles. Opposing captains delaying their declarations. Bowlers finding their plans in shatters. Opponents redefining a safe target after every over. Necessitating unorthodox field placements. Captains ringing in bowling changes with a prayer. Runs per minute would be a better measure for his batting gave his bowling colleagues not only more runs but also additional time. And above all, shrugging off the label of a "Sachin clone" to create a name for his own. 

Viv Richards is perhaps the only man that merits comparison with Sehwag. Viv “The King” was unmistakably a showman. His game was as sublime as it was arrogant. The famous “stagger” betrayed a nonchalance. And the gum chewing oozed irreverence. His persona was perhaps as feared as was his violent strokeplay. Whereas with Sehwag, there was only the earnestness of a workman. Nothing more, nothing less. In the hands of Viv, the bat was a sword while in Sehwag’s it was more an axe.

His methods may have made purists squirm. There were whispers about technique, foot work and weaknesses against the short ball. But his career bears testimony to his genius. Sehwag changed the job description of a test opener and left his stamp on the game to be truly counted among the best to have played the sport. And, although unsung, he truly did it his way.

Thank you for the memories.

-------------

With Sehwag's retirement (and Zaheer's), an era in Indian cricket comes to an end. For they are the last two players that were, how do I put this...older than me. From now on, whenever I watch the men  boys in blue on TV, I will feel old. Sigh.

One more Israel trip diary

I wanted to continue on the commute series but this trip happened. Now a trip to anywhere in general, and to Israel in particular, is a low hanging fruit when it comes to providing content for another blog post. And given that I find it difficult to sit down and write something for any stretch of time, these quick, bite sized jottings are just too tempting to pass on. Without further adieu...

Day 1: Thursday

Something is happening in Israel. I mean besides the stabbings, killings and maimings that is. Flights are sold out and so are the hotels. Forced to fly out a day earlier than normal. I keep checking CNN and BBC to see if anything serious enough to warrant canceling the trip has happened, but no: trip on. With the kid now at that age when he wants to do nothing but play all the time with me, it is difficult to tear myself away. Luckily I slip out before he is up. (Feel doubly bad for the wife.) Because of circumstances, I'm now enrolled in the United Airlines mileage program. But that doesn't stop me from complaining about how crappy their service is. United Airlines sucks! There, I have said it one more time. And they don't disappoint me this time either.

Day 2: Friday

Arrive at TLV. Immigration is a breeze as I bound out of the airplane and beat the swarming crowd to the counters. My colleague? Couldn't make it. He is held at security for an hour and then takes a cab from hell to his hotel. I see multiple events going on at my hotel: which explains why getting a room was tough. The European Regional Conference is happening. In Tel Aviv. If that is strange, I have so far seen 4 Indians attending this conference. Go figure. A fantastic sunset now playing at my room window. Walk to Dizengoff sqaure area to get some dinner. But as expected, I'm not able to beat the Shabat clock: shops have shuttered down. Settle for pizza slices. But my hotel decrees that I can now use their lounge for a nightcap or two. Yay! Trying out Melatonin to hoodwink jetlag.

Side note 1: Amused at the selective outrage of our "intelligentsia" and media in the post-Dadri mess. The Sahitya Akademi (What is this spelling?) circus, kicked off by Nayantara Sehgal is particularly funny. A close second is the TM Krishna article in The Muslim Hindu. And the appropriately outraged UPA thugs have now crawled out of the woodworks and thrown their hat into the ring.

Side note 2: My religion coming in the way of your food is always a problem. And nowhere is that more evident than on a Shabat evening in Tel Aviv while walking hungrily past shuttered down restaurants.

Day 3: Saturday

The verdict is in: Melatonin works! I get almost 6.5 hours of fitful sleep. Wolf down a king's breakfast at the restaurant. Settle down to work in the room. Opt for a super healthy, guilt free, fruit-only lunch: a plum , a pear, a peach and a banana. Rather than walk out to Jaffa for a falafel lunch. Take that LDL and tri-glycerides! Consumed by more work till late evening. Watch yet another gorgeous sunset and head out to Dizengoff center for dinner. Now that I'm sporting a beard, I'm taking care to avoid dark streets that I wouldn't have minded taking while I was clean shaven. Times are such. Market restaurant - a vegetarian and vegan place - provides a sumptuous dinner of rice and a white bean based curry. Slurp. Wrap up some more work with a whiskey.

Day 4: Sunday

Rent a white VW Polo. Rental cars in Israel are usually beat up mules on four wheels. Whereas in the USA it is not uncommon to get a sparingly driven car with even the new car smell still strong, the ones in Israel all have crazy miles, strange stains and strong odors. This one is no exception. I walk in  to the office with a fixed agenda and is of course swamped with nine other items. Email from our travel security desk warns us to not venture out to "mixed cities" like Jaffa (which is a stone's throw from the hotel) or Nazareth and avoid crowds.  By the time I step out of the office, it is 10:00pm. And the car won't start. The nice lady at our reception calls Avis emergency service who replace the battery. Crazy miles, strange stains, strong odors and dead batteries. Return to the hotel and collapse.

Day 5: Monday

Forget to take Melatonin and I'm up at a bit past five. Sigh. I have to collect the refund of a rental cellphone security deposit from last July. The store guy had dodged me before I had left in July and it is now time to collect. I have somehow managed to hold on to the receipt till now. Although I know the general location of the store, I decide to go with google maps on my cellphone. I end up taking the wrong exit: GPS is in miles while Israel follows the metric system. And with about 3 miles to go, the phone dies one me. Super. I start driving from (dodgy) memory. I wade through traffic, take a couple of wrong turns, drive down unknown roads, make exactly two illegal U-turns and voila! I'm at the store. Just when the guy must have thought that the money was his, I walk out of his store with five sweaty 100-shekel notes. Phew!

Day 6: Tuesday

Wake up from a dream involving multiple snakes roaming around in the gardens of an apartment complex that we used to live in previously. Wait 25 minutes for my car to be pulled from the hotel garage. Twenty five minutes at 8 in the morning! Make a loud complaint at the reception. With all the stabbings, shootings and driving cars through crowds going on in Jerusalem and elsewhere, more colleagues recommend that I get rid of my beard. But El Beardo is here and staying with me. Lunch at the 4-flavor falafel shop near our office. The owner recognizes me and plies me with a few spicy falafels on the house. Yum! Pulling another 12-hour day. I'm craving a pita wrap at a place not too far from the hotel. But I choose to drive there rather than park at the hotel and walk. Big. Mistake. Get caught in the vicious one way - no parking cycle that this locality is famous for. After 30 minutes of driving around, I manage to park overlapping grey and red-white curbs. The pita wrap turned out to be less than great but on the plus side, I didn't get a parking ticket - a significant achievement given my track record here. Even steven. Day ends a little past midnight after some lingering emails are finally sent out.

Day 7: Wednesday

Another early start day. I find some time during the day to actually get some real work done vs. running to rescheduled/late meetings. Lunch is at a hummus place close to the office. The boss is away attending a wedding. But the rest of the office says he is out sick. Hmmm...This time around for dinner, I learn my lesson. I park the car in the hotel and walk to Market - the same place from day 3. I walk back to the hotel avoiding dark streets. On the way back, I stop at the parking garage where the friendly parking agent from our previous stay in TLV says he has been attacked and robbed by 7 Arab guys a few nights back.

Day 8: Thursday

The day of the departure. Based on my schedule and the Avis closing hours, I have to return the car at the airport instead of dropping it off in Tel Aviv and taking a taxi. The last time I tried this in Oct 2015, I nearly ended up missing my flight. I plan to start early but as expected, end up leaving the office an our behind schedule. The BKM for returning the rental car at Ben Gurion International is this: ignore all signs for the rental car return. Drive straight to the departures area, turn into the long term parking, follow the well camouflaged signs for the Avis car return and turn the car in. Easy as that. I think I now have a grip of this unless something changes before my next trip. I'm behind a group of Thai army officers returning home in the airport security line. Between the Israeli security officer, a young girl in her twenties, the V.K. Ramaswamy-in-purple evening dress look alike translator and the Thai army officers, their security interview is a multi-lingual nightmare playing out in slow motion.

Day 9: Friday

Land in NJ at 4 in the morning. Scoot into the lounge and kill the 3 hours before my flight to SFO. Menu: cream of rice porridge. Which must be French for arisi kanji I suppose - a dish I'm familiar with from whenever I had a fever as a kid. I gulp down a bowl of that nonetheless knowing pretty well that the 6-hour hop to SFO will be meal-free. Return home and surprise the kid who is caught unawares. And per his specific request, we play indoor soccer without even a wash. Happy to be home.

The commute - The Rickshaw Riders

I'm now stuck with a very long commute. 42 miles one way. Don't ask me how I ended up here but this is my situation till I figure out a convenient car pool or move.

KQED notwithstanding, it is a punishing drive what with the traffic, boredom and the thought that much of my time is spent behind wheels and not at work/home instead. This got me thinking of the various commutes that I have had over the years. The combination of the various homes and the various educational institutions and work places have called for interesting commutes.

So with nothing worthwhile to offer for your reading pleasure here, I'm kick starting a series on the various commutes that I have done. Anything to keep this blog running and cough up a few words every now and then.

Now this could be a bit interesting if blogger has an app that can take dictation (I'm patenting this idea now!) while I drive and publish a post by the time I reach my destination. But till that time, I regurgitate the thoughts while I drive and put them down after I get off.

Without further adieu, here is part 1.

--------------------

My earliest memories of commuting are of my father driving me to school on our trusted white and blue Lamby. Of holding my father’s hands and being firmly but gently shepherded from the school gate towards my LKG class room, to a waiting Mrs. Mallika Ramnath. The commute was a grand distance of about 4 kilometers that would take us from our home on South Usman Road through Burkit Road, taking a left on South Dhandapani street and onwards to Venkatanarayana Road. We would pass Panagal Park on the east side on to the green cover of G N Chetty Road. Appa would then turn left at Jeeva Park (Jeeva poonga) and drive straight down Arulambal street to our school. It was a journey of a few minutes that has stayed in my memory – my father reciting Adithya Hrudhayam and me standing the front and later hugging him from the rear seat when I was tall enough. I also remember transferring briefly to Sahadevan’s rickshaw at some point in time, perhaps coinciding with my brother’s arrival. For I remember Sahadevan pulling up in front of the nursing home, not too far from his rickshaw “stand”,  in the afternoon where our mother was in and me jumping off the rickshaw and racing to the upstairs room to meet my mother and my newly minted brother. Sahadevan, a gentle soul (compared to Muthu rickshaw-kaarar who will soon make an appearance) with a greying beard and a ready toothy grin, calling out from behind to not forget my bag. It was back to the father-son-Lamby-Adithya Hrudhayam routine in the years leading up to my brother joining me at the same school.

Having a working mother required a different style of functioning. She had to be at her work place much earlier than my father. Luckily, her office was midway between home and school. So the four of us would pile up on to the Lamby every morning. Once Appa dropped her off in front of her office, we would drive out to Jeeva poonga where Appa would give us our breakfast on a concrete park bench. A picnic style breakfast almost every weekday morning in a park in the heart of the city. To my father’s credit, he had to wrap up the picnic, drop us off at school and then head out to work across town, if he was in a hurry, which I’m sure he was on many days, he never showed it. While this continued for some length of time, given the logistic challenges that this routine posed, we migrated back to the classic middle-class mode of commuting to school: the rickshaw.

I’m not sure why Sahadevan was not hired when the two of us were rickshaw-ready. Perhaps he had retired or had an incompatible school route/schedule but Muthu rickshaw-kaarar was chosen as the charioteer. Mr. Muthu’s stand was just a few blocks down the road from our home which is where my father would have known him from, I’m guessing. He was already taking a few kids from our locality to our school which acted both as a reference and a convenience in choosing him. Muthu rickshawkaar was a character in every sense of the word. He always sported a week’s stubble: I don’t ever remember having seen him clean shaven. He had his towel tied around his head which offered some protection against the heat. His first few buttons were always undone and was always wearing a lungi that was in need of a wash. He was a rugged guy and somehow reminded me of Rajinikanth in the vasanta kaala nadigalile song from the movie moondru mudichu. He was a raging alcoholic and that is only putting it mildly. But considering that there were only very, very few days that he didn’t show up in the morning and thus putting us in a fix, he somehow managed his drinking and hangovers rather admirably. Till it killed him a few years later.

There were seven kids in the rickshaw: the two of us - yours truly and my brother, Rishi, Vijay, Manav, Kumar and Vasu. There was for some time Ashwin and his cousin Vishnu thrown in to the mix as well. Rishi was the only kid that came from the other side of the tracks from West Mambalam. He was a few years elder than us and was a real fast runner. I later learned that he had joined the Indian Army, was posted in Kashmir during the Kargil conflict in the late nineties and had lost a leg in action. Vijay, my class mate, was the charmer of the group with his good looks and the ability, even as a kid, to engage adults in adult-like conversations. I remember once when Muthu was smoking a rolled cigarette without a filter instead of his usual beedi, Vijay queried “Enna rickshaw-kaar, cigarette ellam pidikkareenga? Neraya panam vechirukkeengala?” (How come you have moved on to cigarettes? Have you become rich now?) He was from a musical family and roped me into learning the mridangam at his place and also Hindi classes later. He used to live somewhere off Madley street behind the R1 Mambalam police station before moving to a house on Burkit road and then later to Mangesh street. Don’t ask me how but he took the commerce stream in class XI, completed his B Com and ended up in Accenture doing project management. I’m still in touch with him and he is now in Chennai after a stint in Bangalore. Manav, in the same class as Rishi, was the Settu – a Marwari kid that had a home on Ranganathan street. Yes, people used to live on that street! He was a hothead and would always pick up fights with other kids and sometimes with Muthu himself. During one such fight he yelled that he would ask his father to not pay Muthu, jumped off the moving rickshaw and ran back the few blocks to his home. Muthu waited to see that he reached home, let lose a few choice expletives and carried on. Kumar and Vasu, the other set of brothers. Vasu was my classmate and Kumar was Rishi’s. They used to live on Govindan street, before moving to a house on G N Chetty Road and later to Tilak street. Vasu, whose father I met many many years later, had failed to clear the class XII exams and Kumar had developed some mental problems. Ashwin and Vishnu were cousins and were Kannadigas. Ashwin, the quiet spoken kid was my brother’s classmate and Vishnu was fresh from Karnataka and had a strong accent. But that is not why he was everybody’s whipping boy on the rickshaw with Rishi leading the roast every evening. When things got out of hand, which was more often than not, Muthu would turn around and land a blow on whoever’s leg, thigh was within his reach.

Muthu rickshaw-kaarar was loud, smoked beedis non-stop, drank every night, took salary advances from nearly everyone’s parents. But he was also responsible enough to not lose a kid, not molest anyone, drive the rickshaw without any accidents and kept it running till he died.

I must take a moment to talk about the simple times. When a parent could hire a rickshaw guy without elaborate background checks, trust him with their kids to be dropped off at school and brought back home every single day. And the bloody system worked. Neither the non-alcoholic Sahadevan or the raging alcoholic Muthu ever misbehaved with any one of us. We were safe in their hands. And I don’t remember there being any untoward incident reported from our school that involved an erring rickshaw man during our years there. 

Reminiscences of an India trip Part II

And the reminiscences continue...

The RX135 experience

Although our first love was the Yamaha breed of machines, after much deliberation, we settled for a rather conservatively styled, easy on the gas, 4-stroke Bajaj Caliber when we (finally) bought a bike in the year 2000. Life usually has a twisted sense of making your wishes come true though. Fifteen years later, when the college going me has been put to pasture somewhere in the deeper recesses of the mind, I got to ride an RX135 across the city to my heart's content. This bike, borrowed from my cousin,  has clearly seen better days, has logged over 40,000 kms and could do with a wash and a real lock instead of the chain and lock arrangement. But it is a Yamaha RX135, remember? And that makes up for all the shortcomings. It is a fast bike and can still turn heads with its mating call engine roar. Or as I call it, 15 years too late. If my wife is reading this, I really love you honey! Within an hour of driving it, two people came up to us at a red light and offered to buy it. True story.

A man, a bike and his 4-year old son: it is a beautiful thing. My son would perch himself on top of the petrol tank in the front and demand to be driven around the block every time I came back from somewhere. At the end of that ride (at perhaps 20-25kmph), he would make an appreciative comment or two about my speeding skills. I need a tissue please. *sniff*

A test victory and the day-after Hindu write up

Savoring an Indian cricket win abroad live on TV, then wading into the sports page the day after and later analyzing the game threadbare with friends at college was a religious experience. A Sachin special followed by an R. Mohan or a Nirmal Shekar special in print (on a plain vanilla, black and white The Hindu) the morning after was like having good, cold beer with fresh, crisp onion pakkoda on the side. So while I was in Chennai, India won a test in Colombo and later the series. And our copy of The Hindu was at the doorstep even before I was up. Now, the series itself was good from an Indian fan stand point and the cricket was intense given the circumstances. The come from behind win in spite of missing both the openers mid way was heartening. As was the performance of the spinners, the openers and the fielders. The tail even wagged when it mattered. My only wish: drop Rohit Sharma and go with Che Pu instead. And I get this feeling that this team would be better served if they are aggressive in intent rather than behavior. But the magic was somehow...missing. Can't really pin point why. Oh and The Hindu? I continue to start reading the paper from the sports section even today although for an entirely different reason: to avoid actor Prabhu with his 3 chins jumping out from page 0 peddling jewelry.

The Avani Avittam reduction

As mentioned here, the fervor that once surrounded avani avittam in our house has all but evaporated. From a full blown man-festival replete with silk veshtis, ezhai kolams and meals with payasam in the nineties, avani avittam around the house has now become a mere ritual devoid of any fan fare. In 2008, in the wake of our mother's passing away, the three of us had donned our respective new poonals at different cities in India. In 2009, it was just me and appa going about the routine at home that day, while I doubled up as the cook too. Well, tripled up as the makeshift vadhyar too. If those were bad years, I think we hit rock bottom this year. Appa, unable to sit on the floor on account of a recent surgery, changed his poonal seated on a chair. In fact, he was wearing it after having been without one on medical advice! And this time, I didn't even try to put on my cook's hat. And so the post-poonal meal? Curd rice at Saravana Bhavan. Changed times, new reality.

The one bucket bath

Super: It's the super. We're installing new low-flow showerheads in all the bathrooms.

Morty: Low flow? I don't like the sound of that.

We are true T Nagar old timers what with our family calling the very heart of T Nagar, or Mambalam as it was known then, home since the early 1930s. In other words, we know water shortage. Ever since I was a kid, a half bucket of water was all that was allotted for the daily bath. Even was we moved to relatively water-rich locations across the city, water frugality as a habit has stayed with us. Things have changed with moving abroad and all. But this time, I went back to the bucket. No surprise that it is the most sensible thing to do anywhere in the world. Made me re-realize how much cleaning can be accomplished with under a bucket full of this precious commodity. 

Reminiscences of an India trip

The boxes have been unpacked and set aside. Jet lag is definitely on its way out. The snacks are half depleted and homesickness doesn't singe like it did a few days back. As the curtains come down on yet another holiday trip to the old country, there are myriad thoughts that come to mind. Here are a few of them in no particular order.

Three functions in the home and as many hospital visits. Two cities and two trips between them. Two lost cellphones. Plenty of housekeeping and walking the family politics tight rope. And a half a dozen temple visits woven into the already hectic schedule. If our vacations were movies, they would carry statutory warnings urging the general public from undertaking such activities.

Vacation - the misconception

Most people that I know take a vacation with the aim of relaxing. Taking a break from the daily grind. It needn't necessarily be a picturesque place with stunning scenery and a resort to kick your feet up. One could vacation in a godforsaken place like Ambur or Guntakkal, no personal animosity towards either of these two towns, and still emerge fully rejuvenated. The idea, I would imagine, is to not prepare a running list of action items and get into a race against the clock. But that is the routine for normal people. We do vacations slightly differently in our family - with a strong sadomasochist flavor. Imagine trying to run a marathon in 9.79 seconds. On barefoot. Even before the dates are finalized, there are at least two sets of diverging tasks with shuffling priorities. Once we arrive in India, a third and a fourth list with a dozen different items each, get added on. Long story short, by the time the day of the return flight dawns, there are compromises, unfinished tasks, missed chances and plenty of guilt to carry back home. 

Chennai - the city that was

A city that threatens to cut all remaining connections with its roots at breakneck speed. What are those roots? The answer depends on the individual. My attempt to define Chennai's roots would be a shamelessly nostalgic exercise by yet another caught-in-a-timewrap-NRI and so I won't do it here. But there seems to be a certain desperation to affix on its lapel the cosmopolitan city tag and lose its cultural/traditional identity in a hurry. If it pained me to see McDonald's, KFC and Subway outlets in Bangalore in 2013, I'm pissed beyond words to see KFC, Domino's and Papa John's at every street corner in Chennai. When there is absolutely nothing wrong with the idlies, vadais and pongals available at the bhavans and cafes.

Earlier (as in, when I was a kid, which was, sadly, many years ago), restaurants that served meat had special, unmistakable names: Colombia, Runs, Coronet, to name a few. The aroma (foul smell) from within the confines would be strong and just scanning the handwritten "Today's special" board at the entrance would give me shivers. The clientele would be mostly men. And those places invariably had a cigarette stall at the entrance that also sold beedas to the well fed patrons stepping out. Cut to 2015. Going by their sheer numbers now, I realize that meat consumption at restaurants must have risen exponentially and that such establishments have gained acceptance as family sppropriate places.

Busy, crowded malls, SUVs hogging available road space, late night shows running to packed houses at multiplexes, organic grocery stores and The Hindu that sells its front page to the highest bidder: this is a Chennai with a strange flavor to it that old timers may find hard getting used to.

Kalam - El Presidente par excellence

An ex-president whose passing away brought together people in a way not seen in recent history, transcending regional and religious identities. Flex boards bearing his face, a quote and a few words from the local folks popped up at every street corner in Chennai. It is difficult to imagine such a genuine show of love and respect for an individual without caste, cash or Dravidian party affiliations in Tamil Nadu. An inspiring story of a truly simple man that stood really tall among the politicians. It was also sad to see that it quickly went from a natural outpouring of respect to the "right" thing to do. Many commercial establishments jumped on to the Kalam-grief bandwagon and started placing the token Kalam picture by the entrance only to not be left out.

MTC - Pallavan in a new garb

Forget the brand new Chennai Metro. I took a ride in an MTC (the erstwhile Pallavan) bus. From Vadapalani to Adayar. In a throw back to the olden days, I boarded it not at a bus stop, but in running at a busy intersection. But I stuck out rather starkly from the regulars that day. And how! For starters, I was in shorts and a t-shirt - a definite give away that I was truly not a regular patron. I had in my hand a black helmet. Stuffed with sweets and savories from Gowri Shankar (Chennai's best wheat halwa and sonpapdi maker to date!) And I was clutching a pink ladies' purse on the other. And I misheard the fare as Rs. 70 and without batting an eyelid, handed the conductor a hundred rupee note when he had actually asked for Rs 17. So. Out. Of. Touch. The conductor now has a device for ticketing but still doesn't go to the passengers to issue tickets. Old wine in a new bottle anyone?

Mysore - the clean thorn in my flesh

This city, where from hails my wife, was announced as the cleanest in India's swachh Bharat campaign. People that made the announcement obviously didn't marry a dyed-in-the-wool Mysorean udugi. For someone that already had her nose in the air when it came to matters concerning general cleanliness and hygiene in public places between the two cities, this announcement making it official (across all of India) made her float on air. Oh the ribbing that I had to endure in both Mysore and Chennai! Especially when the train was just pulling into the northern outskirts of Chennai. Ouch! My only feeble come back? I could recharge my mobile internet dongle at 11:30pm in singara Chennai and not in heritage Mysuru. Aha!

Parking woes in Tel Aviv

Here is something that I wrote when we were in Israel earlier this summer. For some reason, this was languishing in the drafts section and I have decided it is time to inflict this upon my unsuspecting reader(s).

---------------------------

Parking in Tel Aviv is a nightmare. And from talking to the locals, it doesn’t appear to be a recent problem either. In the book of the Carinthians (12:8, isn’t it simpler to write 3:2? I once scored a ‘centum’ in maths in a class test in class VII. I think.), it is said, I shall lead my children to the land of overflowing honey and milk but you’re on your own for parking your camels. Thy shath be screweth mwa hahaha. *To be verified.*

The place where we stay is near a popular beach along the beautiful Med coast.  And on Fridays, the place is swarming with people heading into the warm waters for fun and frolic in beach wear that leave nothing to imagination. The streets look like there is a giant Pothy’s around the corner holding a grand aadi thallupadi sale on itsy bitsy teeny weeny bikinis and nearly everyone from as far away as Beirut, just bought themselves one. Net result: The best ever traffic jam I’ve ever been in. I’m stuck in a car looking for a spot that doesn’t exist while one half of Israel wants to show off perfect beach bodies and the other half wants to look at it.

In less touristy suburbs (like Syria), the streets are lined with cars of residents on both sides all the time. Rumor is that if you find a great spot, very close to your apartment, you work from home for the rest of your career. At a conservative estimate, there are at least 3 parked cars (and nine cats) per person in Tel Aviv. The ones driving about the roads are just clueless tourists looking for a spot which explains the traffic jams. So on any day, you are more likely to run over a few cats than find a spot.

Much like a degree in philosophy, finding street parking in Tel Aviv is time consuming, pointless and there are no clear rights or wrongs. Only wrongs. And there are more people doing it than you think.

To add a further layer of confusion to the already difficult process, there are, at last count, 23,619 different shades of curbside paint codes with varying implications. There is the ubiquitous yellow and red which means that Rafael Nadal will one more French Open title if you park your car there, they will tow your car, punch you in the face and steal both of your kidneys while simultaneously sullying your otherwise spotless lineage. Very different from the red and white curb where the same rules apply but they steal only one kidney. Then there is the more common blue and white about which no one is quite sure. Then there is a grey with dog poop stains not to be mistaken for the grey with urine stains. And so on. 

But there are always accompanying rules for each color code for the harried user. Stated very clearly. In Hebrew. Or perhaps ancient Aramaic. But some of them are so complex that it makes no difference in which language they are posted. Here is a smattering of the more straight forward ones that I have decoded:

•        You can park only on the right side of this street unless you own an apartment on this street. (English: At Tel Aviv real estate prices, LOL)
•        You can park only on the left side of this street unless you are a tenant and if your landlord was born on a full moon Thursday while a partial solar eclipse was happening over Easter Islands. (English: Keep driving, ROFLMAO)
•        You can park here if your idea of fun on a Thursday night is to retrieve your impounded car from the city office after paying a $100 fine to a lady with an attitude and an unlit cigarette hanging from her mouth sitting inside a blue, dimly lit, rusting cage. (English: OK to Park)

Add to this the complex one way system in which all streets slowly lead you away from Tel Aviv. In anticlockwise circles. On many nights, I have parked in Damascus and hitched a ride home from some sympathetic ISIS fighters. They even confided that they don’t mess with the Israelis because they know they can never park their tanks in Tel Aviv without getting a ticket.

But the situation isn’t all that bad, really. There are many parking lots available that charge a ransom but compensate by having interesting lot attendants. One of them in the lot close to our apartment offered a good rate but his only condition was, and I wish I was making this up, that I talk to him every night after I parked my car. There was one who kept asking me for lens cleaning solution every time I walked past the booth. And I don’t even wear glasses. Then there was the other guy who insisted that he had to physically sign the ticket but then had no pen on him. And asking me to sit in his booth, went in search of a pen at ten in the night. Good times. And every morning there would be the cone-of-shame sitting on my car. The cone of shame is a big, black, worn out traffic cone which cries out to all and sundry that the owner of the car it was occupying had cheated on parking fees and may be morally bankrupt. They may as well have tattooed “parking fee cheat” on my forearm like they did in the eighties movies. But you can’t expect class or subtlety from parking attendants can you?

After dealing with these people for a week, my colleagues recommended that I pay a monthly rate and get it over with. Although they did warn me that I had to drive a bargain myself. And then burst into uncontrolled laughter. Thus on a Friday afternoon, I was negotiating with a lot attendant that looked like a young Moammar Gaddafi having a bad hair day. I would type in my offer ($20, a bottle of lens cleaning solution and 30 minutes of quality talk time with the attendant between 8:30 and 9:00pm on weeknights) on his sticky cellphone. He would snigger, shake his head and type in his counter offer ($36,899.99, my left kidney and unlimited talk time plus free sms). After a few iterations, we settled on an amount that I’m too ashamed to type here. I’m not saying that I overpaid but I’m confident that with the amount I paid, cancer could have been cured and world poverty erased with the leftover change. Or the equivalent of a 2BHK apartment in Puzhuthivakkam with world class amenities (English: about 18 hours of power supply, twice a week).

But on the positive side, I tactfully negotiated to not have to talk to the attendants. Only sing and dance with them. For right after I ‘clinched’ the parking deal, the lot attendants have all turned very professional and friendly. One of them that looks like a middle-aged Jesus with a fanny pack around his waist even dances with my son every night singing an allegedly Bollywood song that goes like “Jimmy jimmy…aah aaja aaja”. And then asks me to talk to him.  

Its official: I'm old

Last night, I received the latest yet strongest signal that I'm officially old. O.L.D. Yes, I've been trying to snip the odd grey hair or three. And I'm guilty of listening to (nothing but) Ilayaraja and I have just got a handle on what Whatsapp really is. But if they were all warning bells, including being referred to as "Uncle" by kids, as opposed to the much preferred "anna", I received the clarion confirmation last night.

Armed with a cold, beer, I felt compelled to watch, on youtube, the highlights of the memorable India-Australia test at Kolkata from 2001 March. Or as most Indian cricket fans would call it, the test.

14 years and change. One of those test matches that can still make you travel back in time and relive the past. The one from which you remember every minor detail. Where were you when the last wicket fell on day 5, what were you doing that very moment, who were you watching it with, the weather, the menu that day. Just typing this gives me goosebumps. 

My son was watching it along with me this time and asked a few questions about the game in general (ippo four-a?, idhu outa? why? out-na time out maadhiriya? kadhava saathiduvala illa opena irukkuma?), about that particular test (Appa, nee chinna paiyana irukkarchappo paathiya indha match-a? *sniff*) and the principal actors (ivan peru enna? avan yen gudhikkaran?). 

After the about 45 minute clip ended (the beer had ended a bit earlier), he brought out an empty 1.5L water bottle (that is nearly half as tall as he is) for a bat and fished out his blue ball and asked me to bowl to him. In the living room. And I obliged. I mean, I had to. Even though it is well documented that my post-alcohol bowling skills are reduced to the same level as a sober Venkatapathy Raju's. Seriously, what was he doing in that XI? Anyways, the kid had a few knocks till my wife spoiled the party reminded that it was past his bed time. 

Note to self: Buy a small cricket bat on the next trip to India. And coach the kid to hit it in the "V" along the ground rather than hoick it over midwicket. Screw T20! IPL be damned! Put a price on your wicket, see off the goddamned new ball...

As I said, this uncle is old.