An Idle Mind



Would Newton have discovered the laws of gravity if, instead of an apple, an orange had fallen on his head? (I'm chewing a rather rubbery, dried out fossil of an orange as I type this)

Would Bill Gates have become whet he is had he attended college?

Would Mohandas K Gandhi have become the Mahatma if he was permitted to travel in that first class coach in South Africa?

What would have happened if Mir Jafar had been given the promotion he was expecting by Siraj ud Daulah instead of having been demoted? 

Come to think of it, what would have happened if the 2G telecom scandal NOT happened? Telecom prices, internet surfing - and, ergo, THIS blog - may have remained beyond our reach.

Vive la scams, vive idle minds......

Those "Madrasis"!!!

Originally Written/Mailed on 2nd Jan. 2012

For quite sometime now "those Madrasis" have been fighting among themselves. They're making a big damn nuisance about some stupid old dam called Mulla-something or the other. What rot, I say! Stupid fellows, all.

I mean, what the hell is this all about? First there was that doddering old chap, what's his name, some Maharaja or other of whatchacallit, Travancore. He signed an agreement with those devious goras allowing the construction of that earthern dam or a gravity dam or some such stuff. This was the Mullaperiyar dam, located in the erstwhile princely state of Travancore but supposed to be built for the benefit of the farmers of the erstwhile Madras presidency. 


What's with all this erstwhile firstwhile stuff anyway? Travancore's gone and become Kerala (did you say Karela? Naa, that's different) while Madras Presidency has become Tamil Nadu (Tamizhnadu - c'mon, I dare you to pronounce that tongue twister correctly. If you can do that Mullaiperiyar is all yours!!) while Madras, itself, no longer goes by that name and has become Chennaied....

Anyway, without going too deeply into the pros and cons of which set of Madrasis are more worng than the other (trust the Brits to make sure they leave a mess whenever - and wherever - the leave) will someone please stand up and tell me EXACTLY WHERE IS THE LOGIC in:
taking a stand in the courts that a dam built in 1860 or so is safe and will withstand an earthquake measuring 7 or so on the Richter scale, but
Opposing the construction of a brand new nuclear plant in Koodankulam because they fear that a Fukushima like incidence will cause radiation leakage

At the risk of repetition, those so very apt lines from "Ishquiya" - "Tumhara ishq, ishq; aur humara ishq, sex?"

So, an earthquake in Kerala that can cause the dam to burst - Naah, it won't. The Keralite fears are unfounded. But an earthquake in Koodankulam - Oh Gosh!!! How terrible?!!

Unless, of course, we believe that the Brits built dams to last while the modern constructions have the "Kalmadi-Raja effect"?

 

Duh! Am I missing something?

Pan India!

Originally Written/Mailed on 3rd Jan., 2012

The car pulled up alongside mine at the traffic signal - a new Volswagen Vento, lovely metallic grey, sleek looking. I glanced over, a driver at the wheel, bade saab sitting in the rear. I glanced away (ok, lemme confess, an autorickshaw to the other side with green fingernails certainly did have that li'l bit more appeal!!) This was a rather loooongish red-signal, all of 180 seconds so I'd switched my car engine off.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the Vento had inched ahead, maybe a foot or so. The rear seat now alongside mine - the occupant, an extremely handsome, distinguished looking gent, perhaps in his early 60s or maybe late 50s. Silver hair, a full beard equally thick, well groomed. A mark of sandalwood paste on his forehead, clearly making him look even more distinguished and slightly devout too. Talking on a cell phone, a sleek Blackberry, a solid gold ring just on one finger adding to that look of respectability.

On the FM radio for some strange reason almost all the channels - including staid All India Dario - were playing only "item numbers" and I wasn't in the mood for that. Switching the radio off I was searching for a good CD, maybe a Rafi or an RD Burman.. ah, got it. Inserting RDB into the slot I notice the traffic light turning green.

Engage the clutch, about to move ahead.

The distinguished gent opens his door, leans down and out, puckers his face..... SHEEEEESSSSSSHHHHHH, OH NO, NOT THIS!!!!!!!!!!

SPLATTER SPLATTTTTT - betelnut juice!! Even as I make a face, he has shut the door, oblivious to my disgust.

A day in the life of a Mumbaikar? Naaaahhhhh, not a DAY, this is just one fleeting moment in a day that's made up of a million such fleeting moments....  not just in Mumbai, I think this is prevalent "PAN" India?

If Music be the food of love......

Originally written/mailed out on 13th Jan., 2012

This morning, as I stepped out of the elevator to get to my car, I bumped into my neighbour - wished her a bright and sunny Good Morning and for good measure also threw in a Happy New Year. My bright smile was repaid with a gloomy half frown and a morose "There's a huge traffic jam right outside our gates. Be prepared for the worst" mumble as she elevated herself up to her floor.

Getting into my car I found that her half frown had been contagious. Switching on the ignition AND the radio a few seconds later I heard that India were playing at 58 for the loss of 2 wickets, Sehwag having got out (expected) and Dravid too having joined him (expected but not hoped for). The half frown grew bigger by half again - in need of some mood lifting music, I switched over to FM Gold, hoping to catch some hard rock. I'd have been delighted to get some Joe Satriani or a Jim Morrison.

                 
Eager to listen to hard rock what I got instead was pure magic. The station that, at this time of the day, every day, plays western music was spouting a chorus of swaramalas, disembodied voices singing in perfect cadences, the sapthaswaras resonating melodiously, changing the mood of the day instantaneously. I was mesmerised even though I did not know which was the kirtana being played. 

That traffic jam outside my gate was there, as big and as bad as promised - it might as well not have existed. I was at peace. Everything seemed to be just right in the world. Some time later, THAT song ended and the piece - de - resistance followed, "Entharo Mahanu Bhavulu". One of my all time favourite songs. Especially when sung by Balamurali Krishna. Today, it was sung by a hundred anonymous voices, perfectly in harmony, and I was, as ever, spell bound. Pure Magic, yet again.

I don't exactly remember at what stage I reached office and parked my car - I sat, till the song got over. And then, continued to sit in silence for a while, savouring the feeling, in solitude.

Serendipity - a word that means "an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident". Example: Christopher Columbus (the explorer, not the Hollywood director) set out in search of India and stumbled upon America. I set out in search of Jim Morrison and his tribe, ended up having Thyagaraja Aradhana from Thiruvaiyaru, with the promise of more to come tonight, live, from the Thyagaraja Festival, tonight at 10........

Superb. Even the fact that India was at 70 for 4 did not change the mood :)

BPL?

The road was dug up. A faded, rusty old sign said "Men At Work" I didn't see any - men, that is. There was a gang of women, all ages, doing all kinds of work. Sweeping, cleaning, carrying head loads of cement-concrete, etc. Of men there seemed to be a distinct shortage. 

There were little children, too, playing right in the middle of all the work that was going on all around - toddlers, perhaps a year old and going up to 3 or so. Playing with empty plastic bottles, playing with discarded rags, the "older" ones looking after the younger... 

I remembered, suddenly, a scene from many, many years back - in Madras/Chennai, my brother's flat was getting ready. The superstructure had been built, the interiors were getting done - plastering, painting, the woodwork etc. The mason, as usual a male was barking orders at the workers, mostly women. One girl in particular, an uncle pointed her out to me. (The uncle in question was known to have a roving eye - and, it is rumoured, I take after him.)

She was black as coal, young, perhaps around 17-18, and beautiful to a fault. Wide eyes, shining white in that coal dark face, competing to outshine her pearly white teeth. My uncle told me to just watch her when she enters the bed room where the carpenters were busy working, setting up the dressing table and the wardrobe.... she stood there, in a corner, frightened to step inside, afraid that the carpenter would give her an earful. Meanwhile, the mason was shouting at the gang to keep moving...

My uncle told me "Just watch this" and called the carpenter to the hall to discuss some "issues". She stepped in gingerly, and stood in front of the mirror, a full length mirror, and she gazed and gazed at her own image. Eyes widened impossibly, mouth agape in a big round O - and I stood, looking at her, rapt in the expressions that flitted across her face. My uncle, finished with the carpenter, stepped in to the room and asked her playfully yet gently "What are you looking at?"

Her reply was so spontaneous and innocent - "My Goodness!! Am I so beautiful? I have, till date, never seen myself in a mirror like this, fully from head to toe. In my hut we use a small broken mirror where I can see only my forehead or my eyes or my chin but till now I've never even seen my full face!"

And, in that moment, I understood what all our planning commissions mandarins still do not - poverty has it's own way of hitting one in the face.

What if???

How often have we watched those really funny laugh gags on TV? Remember Cyrus Broacha doing his rib tickling MTV Bakra?

He was always good for a few laughs, wasn't he?

Someone sent me THIS clip earlier today, one of those amazing gags that are too good to be true.... watch this link and tell me, honestly, wasn't this truly zany?!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=KVVWQ_cQp0Y


I laughed, sent this clip on to a few friends and then sat back and wondered..... what if?

Watch the clip again - tell me, what if instead of a well dressed lady doing the gag it was a dirty looking, ill kempt beggar?

Does this "gag" become "different" then? The essential act remains the same, a total stranger actually stealing your food, no? But, somehow, just because the "thief" looks so perfectly "one of US" we're unable to get truly offended??

We're willing to put up with this (and even more) if the person doing it to us is "decent", is it?

(On a more WONDERING note: what if the wife of the man had really taken offence and accused him?!!)

Mind Your Language

Reading today's paper my eyes were drawn to a headline -

All the legislation are stuck in Parliament 

 

 

All the legislation ARE stuck? Should that not be IS stuck, I wondered? Or, what is the plural for legislation? Is it not "legislations"? Or is legislation a word similar to fish and furniture? The plural of fish is fish (now does that sound fishy?) and the plural of furniture is furniture (yes, well, we have tended to get away with fishes as well as furnitures - just as we tend to get away by "pre-poning" a meeting instead of advancing the same)

 

All the legislation ARE stuck sounds rather odd, doesn't it? Well, then perhaps it IS correct simply because it does sound odd! (Similar to "He is taller than I" being the correct, yet more odd sounding than "He is taller than me")

 

Funny language, English - just like every other language, no? (I am yet to decode the gender issues in Hindi, for example - "Bus aa rahaa hai" or is it "Bus aa rahi hai"? Those who know me from 1987 would perhaps remember my foot in mouth "Meri naam Satheesh Kumar hai" - Hmmmm, hoon!)

Ponder This!

What we tend to call as the "good old days" is actually TODAY, viewed from the safety of the distance of time several years later, aided by distorted memories!

So, instead of waiting for a few more years to look back and enjoy THIS day, why not simply stop grumbling and get on with making the best use of today?

A sense of a loss

I've been "away" from this blog for almost 3 weeks. From the studied "casual" remarks made by a few people I know some of my readers (dare I say "fan club"!) have kind of missed me.... and that is what THIS posting is all about....

I've never actually had anyone give me a real solid whack, a knock out punch. Have seen it in the movies, have seen it on TV when one watches a boxing encounter or some such thing. Have read about it in novels. Have never really actually had someone give me a right royal huge big punch right in my nice and ample stomach. So, truly, honestly, I don't know how that would feel - literally speaking. But, FIGURATIVELY, I've come close to that feeling. Recently. And have staggered with the almost physical pain of the moment.

And have not yet come to terms with that pain.

When the phone buzzes at 5 on a morning you know it is bad news. It was. 4th April 2012, I felt a sledge-hammer blow somewhere in the region of my chest. A very close friend (no, that is not fair - someone who I've always considered as my BigB) called to say that another very close friend had died. There's no way to couch the news and reduce the pain. The death, especially the sudden, entirely unexpected, untimely death of a very close friend is a pain with no anaesthesia of any sort.

Dipankar, 48, colleague, friend, ever smiling, ever pleasant, a keen insurance professional with a level head on his shoulders, feet firmly on the ground, head sometimes up in the clouds dreaming dreams that helped me and him bond in non-insurance ways.... Dipankar, husband, father, loved by virtually all that knew him.... strange how much I will continue to miss him for all time.

The end, when it came, was so sudden, so shockingly sudden. Just the previous day we had met, spent a memorable evening together, generally chit-chatting, having fun the way we usually did, some gentle leg-pulling ("D", as we used to call him, had this wonderful way of making fun of one without causing the slightest offence, that smile on his face giving such a wonderful feeling even as he joked about one). We parted after a lovely dinner, continuing to crack jokes and planning the next meeting, sometime soon... early morning, before 4 am D was gone.

Just like that?! No more jokes, no more smiles, no more sharing thoughtful (why, even thoughtless!) sms's or technical discussions... No more?!

Leaving behind God knows what! A grieving wife, of course. A son who needs a father's guidance at the threshold of his life, that too. God knows what else...

Sudden deaths can be so brutally messy, no? Life, unfortunately, consists of so many inter-connected (and, sometimes, even unconnected) compartments. It does not offer one the luxury of an "Annual Accounts Closing Date", no 31st Marches, no auditors, no balance sheets, no schedules.... rarely, death comes with a prior notice period, giving one an opportunity to "prepare" as one may. More often, it steals one away, leaving those still alive with the bits and pieces....

This is not the first time. Once before, another close friend, Bhaskar, left equally suddenly - 17th November, a date burned in memory.

I'm still in a state of ...... shock? Grief? Depression? I don't really know what this feeling is, how to describe this... what I know is this: somehow, the "muse" that kept me writing on strange, off beat topics, that muse seems to have taken a vacation. I do not feel all right, I do not feel like writing, in fact this whole damn post feels so clumsy and inept.

In fact, I feel as if with D's going away a part of me has gone away too.