Category: Humour

“GIVE THEM MOBILE”

There is hardly anyone who is not familiar with the infamous utterance of Marie Antionette during a famine in France whilst her husband Louis XVI was the monarch. When it was brought to her notice that people didn’t have bread to eat, she responded, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” (Let them eat cake).

It is said that this story of the princess is apocryphal and that she didn’t say so. It is said Jean Jacques Rousseau is the one who attributed these words to her in his autobiography ‘Confessions’. However, Queen Sonia Gandhi actually used these words for the poor rural people, knowing pretty well that they don’t have food to eat, “Give them mobile phones”. I am reproducing Kureel Manoj’s cartoon on the subject, which says more than any words:

Courtesy: Kureel Manoj

Here are the facts that I picked up from Wikipedia:

“A study by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative using a Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) found that there were 650 million people (53.7% of population) living in poverty in India, of which 340 million people (28.6% of the population) were living in severe poverty, and that a further 198 million people (16.4% of the population) were vulnerable to poverty. A startling 421 million of the poor are concentrated in eight North Indian and East Indian states of Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. This number is higher than the 410 million poor living in the 26 poorest African nations.”

Source: Wikipedia

What’s he use that the UPA wants to put these mobiles to? It is said that giving mobiles to the poor will make government policies to be easily disseminated to them through mass sms. Once again I am reminded of a man trying to sell a transistor radio to a Soviet farmer. The farmer kept resisting it. Finally, the man said, “Look at it this way comrade; with this you can be in any part of USSR and still be able to hear Moscow.” The farmer responded, “No I don’t want it; but do you have something by which Moscow can hear us?”

Why is there so much of disconnect between the people and the government that they choose? I brought it ou in an article on the 2011 Republic Day ‘How Proud Should We Be Of Indian Republic at 62?‘ that we ain’t really a functional democracy. That’s the reason why the above figures from UN 2009 report doesn’t compare well with our “stupendous GDP growth”? Just consider that the richest 10 Indians have 10 percent of GDP between themselves; and the richest 50 Indians have 30 percent of GDP. Politicians are known to have multiplied their income 1100 times in 5 years of their “rule” and decide on ridiculous figures such as Rs. 22 per day to decide whether or not a person is Below Poverty Line. This is a huge challenge. Many government policies such as ‘subsidy’ are meant for the BPL. However, such policies don’t reach their intended targets and funds are siphoned off elsewhere.

Here is an eye-opener about the value of an Indian life:

Infant Mortality Rate is the number of deaths of infants up to one year of age per 1000 live births. Singapore has only 2.60 deaths (average of five years of data released by UN last year) per 1000 whereas India has 60.82. So whilst Singapore is #1 in the world, India at 150 (out of 194 countries) is tucked in between Bangladesh and Ghana ahead of it and Eritrea and Zimbabwe below us. Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate is trying to make us aware of the real problems that are our challenges as opposed to politicians and vested interests telling us that we are nearly there as a super power and hence our people require mobile phones so hat they can be educated about the “glorious achievements” of the governments in India since independence.

As the elections draw closer, such doles from the “rulers” in exercise of their “powers” shall become more and more frequent. I don’t suppose following would then be beyond the scope of the government and the other parties.

Party A Man: Sir, Sonia ji is thinking of giving mobile phones to the rural population. This would be of great disadvantage to us because hey would be smsing the government campaign in the garb of educating people all the while.

Party A Boss: If I were you I won worry about that too much. Phones need to be charged periodically. Fortunately there is no electricity in the villages and hence people won’t be able to use them.

Party A Man: But Sir, we should have a Plan ready of our own. People are fed up of receiving blankets, sarees, TV sets and bicycles jus before the elections. We must promise them something different. Chandarbabu Naidu even distributed the CDs of his government’s glorious achievements.

Party A Boss: Let me think; how about giving them one year free subscription to our latest magazine ‘Hoodwinking People All The Time’; or two free tickets to Canary Islands or Isle of Man?

Party A Man: Brilliant Sir; to a select few, eg, the Panchayats etc we can even give cars. They won’t be able to use them like UPA’s mobiles because hey don’t have roads and buying even a litre of fuel would make them jump above the Poverty Line and hence ineligible for retaining the cars.

Elsewhere:

Party B Boss: Have you come up with a suitable counter to UPA’s mobile policy.

Party B Worker: Yes saar; we intend to promise the people Induction Cookers and Neon Signs to put in each village announcing our party’s new policies.

Party B Boss: You will have to give them gensets too to run these on.

Truly, it is going to be a challenge to win the elections by average candidates in view of high-tech gizmos being offered to the common man by the “rich” parties. One party is even thinking of offering people downloadable video on ‘Exotic Recipes for the Common Man’.

The people’s goose is almost cooked.

LOVE AND A THREE LETTERED WORD

It sprang through woods and grass
Lively and playful
Now here, now there;
Through rains and clouds
Through sun and moon.
It braved rivulets and torrents
Birds and feral animals.
Everyone said:
How lovely it is
Like a new sprout
Like a young deer;
It looks so beautiful,
It looks so tender;
Lets call it Love.
She saw it too
In my eyes.
She heard it,
In my breathing.
Her eyes whispered to me:
“Love is all I wanted,
Thank you for giving it to me.”
We floated on clouds,
We swam in the sky
We walked on petals
And etched our names on the breeze.
We made melodies
We vowed, we cooed,
We laughed, we danced.Then one day
Just as unexpectedly as Love

A three lettered word came between us
And ruined our lives and us.
She was the first to utter it
She got obsessed with it
And I still rue its origin.
Courtesy: sat.collegeboard.org
I should have seen
The look in her eyes
When, through pouted lips
She uttered it for the first time
It hung between us
And I knew she’d want it more and more
She just relished its sound.I still remember the time

When she whispered it;
It was demanding, it was urgent
She couldn’t have waited.
How I long for our love before it,
Before she murmured it with a sigh
The three lettered word called, “Why?”

OLYMPICS ARE BIASED AGAINST INDIANS

 

Another Olympics and yet another time we are thrilled as a nation to have got one Bronze. We compete with such nations as Azerbaijan, Slovakia, Serbia and Mongolia whilst the nation with whom we are made to (or expected to) compete in GDP growth, greatness etc, ie, China, tops the medal tally. After every dismal performance we are filled with renewed zeal: “Agli baar chhodenge nahin” (next time we shall not leave them) (Read ‘We Are Like That Only’). However, when next time comes, we again bemoan collectively that the rules and umpires or referees or judges just didn’t favour us; there appears to be conspiracy against the Indian civilisation.

I have been like all the others denigrating the Indians for their poor performance, lack of focused approach, discipline, sports infrastructure and competitive spirit of our young men and women. But, lately I have started to earnestly examine the ‘conspiracy theory’. Lo and behold; the conclusion that I have reached is that there is adequate evidence to support the charge.

First of all, Olympics are totally opposite of our culture of “peaceful co-existence”; how can we be competing against anyone to win Gold, Silver or Bronze? Once in a blue-moon someone with ‘anti-Indian’ tendencies can stoop so low as to win a Gold, Silver or Bronze in shooting (a la Abhinav Bindra, Rajyavardhan Rathore and Gagan Narang) or in boxing like Vijender Singh; but, we discourage such greed for “material things”. For us, participation is more important than winning. Indeed, as a matter of interest, the expenditure on participation of scores of officials and non-players in the Indian contingent is never allowed to exceed the total sum of money spent on our former President’s foreign jaunts. That’s the kind of respect that we have for our head of state.

Naturally, the Westerns always take advantage of our cultural moorings and devise such lowly games where winning medals is all that counts. We, Indians have values. Winning somebody else’s precious metals is not for us when we have enough of our own. Indeed, we are stashing a large percentage of these in foreign banks and vaults. Also, we have very stringent Customs Regulations; we guide our players not to bring imported precious metals as there would be heavy duty on it. We made an exception for Sachin Tendulkar’s Ferrari and landed up in avoidable controversy.

Most games in Olympics are against our civilizational values and we in India lay a lot of store for values. Can’t we have some realistic games suited for Indian conditions? Can’t we have games that suit our natural ability and talent? Here are some that I suggested to Mr. Jacques Rogge, the President of International Olympic Committee:

Me. Mr. President, I suggest that a game called ‘Traffic Decathlon’ be added from the 2020 Olympics that may be held in New Delhi. We could have a driver from each participating country being given a over-burdened lorry without adequate brakes and lights and asked to go on an Indian highway.

JR. Sounds interesting; what would be the rules?

Me. Aha, Sir, ‘Rules’ is a totally western concept, alien to us. We shall let the contestants make their own rules.

JR. Alright; but the challenge would be if they have to reach somewhere; simply being on a highway won’t do.

Me. No, no, Sir; once again, reaching somewhere is a Western concept; being ahead of the other vehicle by hook or by crook is the object of the game. And, Sir, you have no idea of the “challenge” in this; trust me.

JR. Fine; I shall put this before IOC. Let me hear your other suggestions.

Me. Sir, this is a brilliant game that we play in India; it is an adult version of ‘hide-and-seek’ or ‘treasure hunt’. In this a large sum of public money just vanishes from under the noses of the authorities and they form themselves into committees and go looking for it….

JR. ….and the one who finds it, is the winner, is it?

Me. I am afraid, Sir, you are still looking at things from a western perspective. The money is never to be found. Looking for it is great fun though and everyone has a rollicking time. Many a times we spend more money looking for the disappeared money than the original amount.

JR (catching on): And I guess here too there will be no rules.

Me. Bingo, Sir. Here is another: In this game a complete locality is flooded – as it happens with us during rains – and a team has to reach across a stretch of road.

JR. Doesn’t sound very exciting; any Olympian swimmer should be able to do that.

Me. You think so, Sir? Once again the competitors would not have any idea of where the open manholes and drains are and whether or not live electric cables are submerged.

JR. Oh, I see. Any more new games, especially for women?

Me. Ok, Sir; now this is the ultimate test of any contestant’s ability. In this a contestant is asked to look at our overcrowded local train and asked to board the train and alight at another station without loss of limb or life or gold chain or without being molested.

JR. What’s the point of this game?

Me. The point, Sir, is free amusement of the males who are otherwise bored with life.

JR. I like this because at least the goal of the game is clearly stated. What does the woman have to defend herself?

Me. There is something called pepper-spray, Sir, but points will have to be minused if someone uses it.

JR. Alright, I think you have given me some good ideas. Now, tell me one last one that should have a lot of excitement and challenge.

Me. Okay Sir; I don’t know if the foreign teams can really practise it in the next eight years; our people have vast experience. This is called ‘Sprint to Touch Congress High Command’s Feet’. You can be in any part of the country but you have to accomplish it before your rivals can do so. There is real challenge in it; you can either lose something called kursi (chair or seat) or win it. We have been practising it since independence waiting for our glorious moment in the Olympics.

JR. Bravo, this is really adventurous, like the Afghan sport of Buzh Kashi. But tell me, Sunbyanyname, if Indians are so good at all these really tough games then how is it they don’t win many medals in Olympics?

Me. Simple, Sir, it is against our culture to compete or contest and ask for material things. As an example, Sir, when British came to India we decided that we’d rather fight with each other than against our beloved guests from a foreign land. One, Nawab of Oudh, for example, in relentless pursuit of spreading Indian culture, kept up with music and poetry whilst the British took over his entire kingdom.

We Indians really love our culture and are ready to do anything to preserve and display it. Ask Ms Madhura Honey who walked in front of the entire Indian contingent at the opening ceremony of Olympics at London. She spread Indian culture in blue jeans and red shirt and became far more important than the contestants. That’s the way we always have it: anyone and everyone is more important than the contestants. She is going to be our mascot for the 2020 Olympics in case we win the bid to host them at Delhi.

DESPERATE JEALOUS WIVES

As soon as I started writing articles in my blog, I wrote one titled ‘Loose Emotions’. In this I brought out that the deadliest Loose Emotion for women is Jealousy or Envy. Recently (just two days back) a Nigerian businessman  by the name of Uroko Onoja realised the hard way (or soft way, whichever way you look at it) that having sex with his youngest wife of a pack of half dozen would evoke the jealousy of five others and they would demand the same treatment. Now, I know, all those medical books that we used to read about in our school days used to tell us that no one can ever die of sex since the body has its own safety valve. However, if there is a great gap between intent (forced on by a pack of five desperate women) and capability, it can be fatal. Do you remember the school time joke of ‘Big chief, no shit’ (from a region close to Onoja’s)? Finally, after the doctor kept increasing the laxative dose, it was ‘Big shit, no chief’. A similar thing happened with Uroko Onoja.


Nigerian Uroko Onoja realised polygamy may not be as attractive as it appeared (Courtesy: bvinews.com)

Men will never know how desperate jealous wives can get. Some of them, like Onoja, die before they can learn. John Wayne Bobbitt realised it when he was still alive but most men in John Wayne’s condition, won’t really call themselves ‘alive‘. John married Lorena on 18 Jun 1989 (her maiden name was Gallo and the pronunciation of it should have cautioned John). However, John, oblivious of what waited for him, flaunted his infidelities with other women to Lorena. On the night of 23 Jun 1993, when he thought he would do to Lorena in his apartment in Virginia what he was subjecting the other women to, he had no idea his fun would be cut short. And mind you, if it hadn’t been for the police doggedly searching for the severed fun (or should it be spelled with a g?), and reuniting him with his instrument of desire, he could have claimed to have the world’s fastest sex change.

During the trial, it came out that Lorena was not only jealous because of John carrying his acts outside the Virginia apartment, but also because she claimed that he derived all the orgasmic ecstasy from their conjugal enactments whilst leaving her high and dry.

Many a man has come across the jealous wife imagining woh (As in ‘Pati, Patni Aur Woh‘ (Husband, Wife and She)) even when none existed. Like the wife who used to spot different shades of hair on her husband’s coat in the evenings and concluded that he was having affairs, one after the other, with a blond, brunette and redhead. One evening, she couldn’t spy out a single hair on his coat and she bemoaned, “Gawd, he has now started dating bald women too.”

Two and a half months back, I brought out in an article titled ‘Jill The Ripper And Satyamev Jayate’ that, in London, they now suspect that Jack the Ripper was a DJW (Desperate Jealous Wife) Lizzie Williams who was so fed up of the infidelities of her husband that she targeted all those who she thought had affairs with her husband.

The English playwright and poet William Congreve in his 1697 tragi-drama ‘The Morning Bride’ wrote: “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,”

I know the question foremost in the minds of Indian men would be, “Nigeria, yes; America, yes; but is there anyway the bushfire would reach India?” My advice is ‘don’t take chances’ . For example, Sections 97 to 106 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) deal with the ‘Right of Private Defence’; but, there is no section dealing with the ‘Right of Defence of Privates’. Gouging eyes of the other women is become passe‘ these days. The other methods of teaching lessons to men, as described above, are becoming more common now.

An Indian Saint called Vidya (Knowledge) Balan (Young) (Or ‘Knowledge for the Youth) had this advice to give men in The Dirty Picture, “Tujhe holi khelneka bohot shauk hai lekin teri pichkari mein dum nahin hai.” (You like to play Holi but your ‘Fountain Gun’ isn’t loaded).

Alas Uroko Onoja, the Nigerian Businessman, like other men, realised that the Pichkari cannot remain loaded forever. In other words, during school-days, we used to learn the main difference between Dark and Hard: the difference is that it can stay dark the whole night long.

BLOGGING – RACE OR STAMPEDE?

The Webster dictionary describes the word ‘Stampede’ as: “A sudden panicked rush of a number of horses, cattle, or other animals“. Lately, however, the description has also come to include people, eg, “There was a stampede at the temple on the hill. When reports last came in, 23 people had died and two were in critical state in the hospital.” The four key words are: sudden, panic, rush, animals. Why, oh why, do bloggers indulge in it? Where is the panic? Why the rush? Who are the animals? What is the suddenness, haste, hurry? Where is the race?


Courtesy: sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com

When I retired from the Navy in end Feb 2010, I picked up a job on the civvie-street and discovered that people are steeped in, what is known as, corporate culture. They work, and work, and then – just to break the monotony – work some more. Your status and actual power that you command is often meausred in terms of how late you work in the nights in the office. Since I am in the Energy business, I find it rather ironical that we should ourselves be dissipating so much of energy to save the world or India from an energy crisis. So, whilst in the Navy, I worked five-day weeks, on the civvie-street I had no choice but to work six-days-in-seven like the rest of the corporate guys and gals and then spend the sabbath day with the family. This would really make mind dull, I thought to myself. The question that came to me was how to keep body and soul together in this mad race? And then I saw a little light across the tunnel of my mind: write, it said; let creative energies flow. It would rejuvenate those little brain cells that are dying due to old age and inactivity. A blog was thought by me as the equivalent of sudoku; it would give me enormous joy to do it at a leisurely pace without having to beat the world record in speed.

Strange are the ways of the bloggers, though. Little did I realise that I would get out of one race and get into another. Race is at least something orgainised with everyone hurrying in one direction. Blogging scene, I soon realised, is like a stampede and that’s how I started with Webster’s.

What went wrong? Well, how can you pinpoint what goes wrong in a stampede? However, I shall try to do a small analysis. Here goes:

Initially when I wrote a few of the cognoscenti read it and either called me or mailed me about the quality or lack thereof of my writing. One sabbath day, when I had a little time to myself, I started wondering what other blogs looked like. I typed out the word ‘blog‘ on google search and landed up with 10,560,000,000 results. I realised that if I had to go through these it is quite possible that my great grand children would have come to the end of the search. So, I tried to become narrow-minded and typed ‘Indian Blogs’. This produced 286,000,000 results. As I scrolled down, I came across something called indiblogger. I clicked on the link. Looking back, I am reminded of the second standard boy of a primary school who accidentally presses an innocuous looking red button during his school’s visit to a nuclear reactor. Just like him, I din’t know I had started something I would find it difficult to control. Indiblogger url is http://www.indiblogger.in/. Why ‘in’ I asked myself at that time? Now I know the answer: it is ‘in’ because there is no way out.

Indiblogger has Indian bloggers vying with each other to obtain popularity through a simple, scientifically proved tenet that can be expressed as: ‘you scratch my back, I scratch yours’. There are bloggers and fans, or writers and readers – all cyclic, all within a loop. In short, when A writes a blog, B is a reader and when B writes, A is the reader. This is a very fine arrangement since otherwise blogging is like an Indian regional political party, say, Akali Dal in Punjab; to start with there was one combined Akali Dal with one leader on top. Then, a suppressed potential leader thought of splitting the party into two, with the faction loyal to him having his name’s first letter as a suffix to the original party name, eg, Akali Dal (S). This fissionable process continued until they landed up with more parties and leaders than partymen. Fortunately, Indian bloggers have potentially as many readers as writers.

Indibloggers also remind you of two rabbits being chased by foxes; after running some distance the he-rabbit turned to the she rabbit, “Should we keep running or should we just stop for a while and try to outnumber them?” Indian bloggers are in a stampede to outnumber the others in number of posts, votes and comments. This process is simplified by indiblogger by giving you an indirank dependent upon MozRank. which “represents a link popularity score. It reflects the importance of any given web page on the Internet. Pages earn MozRank by the number and quality of other pages that link to them. The higher the quality of the incoming links, the higher the MozRank.” Then there is Alexa Rank, which brings out the global ranking of your site in comparison to other sites based on its popularity. Then there is ‘External Juice Passing marks’. Then there is frequency of posting to judge whether you are a rabbit or a fox. In case you are like me, enjoying writing at leisurely pace, indiblogger is more likely to tell you that “your blog is starting to appear neglected”. All this for a simple hobby of writing for pleasure? Hardly, sirs and ma’ams; writing and reading for pleasure is for the nincompoops. Indibloggers behave like drivers in India; the idea is to somehow be ahead of the driver adjacent to you. Now, at this juncture if someone were to ask the indibloggers or the drivers as to where are they headed, you are likely to receive he response, “Why should we worry about that? I started at a ranking of A; and now, after three years, I am at 2A. I must be getting somewhere.” Philosophically and culturally we are Indians; for us the journey is more important than the destination.

The result of the stampede is that bloggers ‘promote‘ other blogs and ‘comment’ and ‘vote’ as if it is a contest or election. The idea is to offer a tit for tat. It is not rare to find fellow-bloggers commenting on your blog without reading it at all and – this is a must – leaving the url of their own article in the comment to enable you to scratch their back too.

The dynamics of the race or the stampede are such that it is sacrilege to question it. It is like telling a driver who cuts lanes that it won’t help. For 37 years I was in the Navy and I had to make peace with ranks and promotions. Indiblogger has brought it home to me that others care about these even more than we did. And, most indibloggers are more at sea than we were.



Courtesy: magical-marketing.com

Many blogs actually appear like the social media such as facebook. The blog post is as small as the status on facebook, followed by dozens of comments by friends and back-scratching hopefuls, as if repeating the words of the popular song from the 1973 Hindi movie:
A: Mujhe kuchh kehna hai (I have something to say).
B: Mujhe bhi kuchh kehna hai (I too have something to say)


Carry on fellow indibloggers; some of the rewards of the blogging are reaching me too:


CLOSED UP ON THE BRIDGE

Bridge is a very sacred place for the executive officers on a ship; this is the place from where the ship is controlled navigationally and to some extent for exercises and operations. At sea, Bridge is the place that is humming with activity. There is a swivel chair for the Commanding Officer; irrespective of the rank, he is called ‘the Captain’. If the Fleet staff is embarked, there would be another swivel chair for the Fleet Commander who is of the rank of a Rear Admiral.

The ship’s routine is divided into ‘Watches’; viz, Forenoon Watch, Afternoon Watch, Dog Watches, First Watch, Middle Watch, and Morning Watch. Each watch is of four hours duration (eg, 0800 to 1200 hrs is the Forenoon Watch) except for Dog Watches, which are of two hours each (First Dog and Last Dog) so that in a three-watch system (the normal system on board during peace time) people won’t be doing the same watches over and over again.

The one officer in whose charge the ship is at sea is called the OOW or the Officer of the Watch. He may have an assistant OOW with him, communication staff, navigation staff etc. The Bridge is invariably supported by an Operations Room, which is normally a few decks below, from where all the ship’s operations are controlled (sensors, weapons and operations with other consort ships, submarines, helicopters and aircraft).

A Bridge is to a ship, what cockpit is to an aircraft (Pic courtesy: ww2db.com)

Bridge (Contract Bridge), as you know, is also a cards game. People are as passionately involved with Bridge, the game, as, say, golfers are with clubs, balls and holes. Indeed, Bridge is one game that competes with Golf over the number of jokes about the game and the players and of course their spouses. As a young Lieutenant I served on a ship that had, by a curious coincidence, over a dozen officers (nearly the entire officer complement) passionate about the game Bridge; and that included the Commanding Officer. So, after our sea sorties, when we would return to harbour, we literally secured from one Bridge (the navigational Bridge) and closed up on the game of Bridge. We used to have as many as three foursomes in the wardroom.

On one such occasion, the Fleet Commander was embarked on a sister ship. We came alongside first on a naval berth in Cochin channel and the Fleet Commander’s ship was still a distance off from coming alongside our ship. It is customary for the Captain to receive the Fleet Commander’s ship but seeing that she would take some more time to make its approach, our CO suggested that we don’t waste any time in closing up on our other Bridge in the wardroom. In our foursome, I was partnering the Captain. The first two games went one each between our opponents and us. In the third game, we got very good cards, and between the Captain and I we arrived at a contract of Seven Hearts, a grand-slam. Captain had to play the hand and I was the dummy.

It was very exciting for us since it is not everyday that you bid and make a grand-slam. It required a great deal of concentration on the CO’s part; to make the bid at least two finesses were required, one each from the East and West players. In the meantime, there was an announcement from the gangway that the Fleet Commander’s ship was approaching and berthing party was required to close-up to assist that ship in coming alongside us. The announcement was clearly heard in the wardroom too but our Captain who had just made two tricks only with eleven more to go was in no mood to rush up on the quarterdeck to receive the Fleet Commander.

Bridge game in progress (pic courtesy: en.wikipedia.org)

Imagining that the CO might not have heard the announcement, the Officer of the Day (In harbour, usually, the ship is in charge of an OOD as opposed to OOW at sea) sent a sailor down to tell him about the Fleet Commander’s ship approaching. By this time the game and hence the CO had become very tense. It required a great deal of dexterity on his part to have made four tricks and the grand-slam was nowhere near sight. Sailors are not allowed to enter the wardroom and it was a steward who conveyed the message to the CO. CO told him to convey to the OOD that he was on his way to the quarterdeck.

Meanwhile, we could hear a series of announcements on the main broadcast about Fleet Commander’s ship making its approach, throwing heaving line and eventually passing berthing hawsers. The Captain was also very close now; he had successfully made ten tricks despite the East and the West players trying to make his efforts abortive.

The Assistant OOD came running down to the wardroom that a brow (gangway plank) between the two ships had been secured and the Fleet Commander’s Flag Lieutenant (the Navy equivalent of ADC) had sent a message that the Fleet Commander would be leaving for shore shortly; and, since he’d be crossing our ship to do so, not only that our CO should see him off (as is the custom) but, (seeing that our CO had made no attempt to receive his ship) the Fleet Commander had expressed a desire to see our CO.

The CO successfully made the eleventh trick and now a smile had started forming on his lips as he sighted the first grand-slam in our wardroom (the one that would, no doubt, be talked about for months). He dismissed the Asst. OOD with, “Just tell him I am on my way.”

As the CO made the next two tricks, we heard the four pips (quartermaster’s pipe being blown sharply four quick times) on the ship’s broadcast indicating that CO was required urgently as the Fleet Commander was crossing our quarterdeck.

He had triumph on his face for a job really well done in securing the thirteenth trick as he rushed up and back to the quarterdeck. This was an experience not to be missed. So as the CO went down to quarterdeck from the starboard (right) side, I rushed from the Port side.

He reached the quarterdeck, took in a glance the about-to-burst Fleet Commander, saluted him and said: “Very sorry, Sir; we were still closed up on the Bridge.”

I don’t know whether that bridged the gap between them or not but the Fleet Commander responded coldly, “In any case, it was nothing very important” and left the ship.

I am sure our Captain would have liked to tell him how important a Grand-Slam was to us.

KACHCHE AAM KA ACHCHAAR (RAW MANGO PICKLE) – A RECIPE BY THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

After the recent petrol price hike, the Congress functionaries and supporters – of which there are a few thousand, especially in the media and think-tanks – came out in support of the hike on the grounds that the aam aadmi (common man) suffers or has nothing to gain by extending petrol subsidies that only the middle class and the rich enjoy. They claimed that such subsidies do nothing for the aam aadmi since he has as much use for petrol as the male of the homo-sapiens has for sanitary napkins; he doesn’t bleed (by a petrol price rise) and hence doesn’t have to contain the bleeding in a sanitary napkin of subsidies. Aam aadmi? First of all, I find it rather strange that I and my ilk are not included in the aam aadmi. I am reminded of Spike Milligan who started one of his hilarious books (I think it was ‘Monty – My Part in His Victory’) with this observation, “Every sunday I used to accompany my parents to the church and give money and alms for the poor. I used to find it strange since we were actually the poor.”

What is the definition of the aam aadmi? He can’t simply be the poor man because then he would have been called ‘Garib aadmi’. Thanks to the abysmal failure of our policies and family planning measures, we keep adding to the number of the poor in the country. At last count, in the eight northern states of India, we had more poor than in the entire Africa continent. Could it be that the rural people in the country are called aam aadmi? But then, after spending 37 years in the Indian Navy, I turned out to be the poorest in my village in Shimla Hills. No, it can’t be. I think very possibly, it is a term coined by the Congress to indicate people other than those who make noise about lack of governance, lack of government policies and visions, and about rampant corruption. Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev and millions of their supporters can’t be the aam aadmi since they are routinely subjected to measures ranging from derision to forceful eviction and even arrest. They are often told that the “supremacy of the parliament should be respected” since parliament has been elected by the aam aadmi. Could it be that aam aadmi is the one who votes blindfolded?

RK Laxman’s aam aadmi or the common man

I think it gets more and more complex and we shall never get to the bottom of what exactly is the aam aadmi, except probably the perception by the government that the aam aadmi has already been rogered enough and can’t be rogered any more. Could aam have anything to do with the king of fruits in India – aam (mango)? Initially, when the idea occurred to me, I brushed it aside as a figment of my contorted imagination (the only type that God was left with after giving the best to Congress functionaries and supporters, as given above). But, the more I looked at it, the more I got convinced that that’s what Congress means: aam aadmi is the one who can afford nothing more than an aam (mango) with the above-poverty-line budget of Rupees 28.65 in urban areas and Rupees 22.40 in rural areas. And certainly not an aam of Alphonso variety; most probably the kachcha aam (raw mango).

Here I must indulge in a bit of nostalgia (to hell with my own ‘Nosey About Nostalgia’). When I was small, this is how my nani (maternal grand-mother) used to make kachche aam ka achaar. She used to pick raw mangoes and chop them into smaller manageable pieces. Then she would keep them spread out on a white sheet on a cot and let the sun season them for several days. This would reduce them to approximately half their size or less. Then, one day, she would garnish and season them with various spices, seasonings and salts and then put them in a jar of sarson oil. Kachche aam in jars would be kept like this for several days in the sun until nani would declare one fine day that they had matured and had been pickled. A similar process is followed by the government for the aam aadmi. You would guess the comparison, starting from cutting them on the lines of religion, caste and creed and ending with seasoning them in oil. Nani could very well have been made a minister in the government.

Here I must let out a secret. Initially, this article was called ‘Kachche Aam Ki Chutney’ but then, one spokesperson from the government, someone named Abhishek Singhvi, got in touch with me and said it would be too revealing after the (shocking) petrol hike of Rupees 7.50 and would give further “fuel-for-fire” to a certain Didi from West Bengal.

One of my friends, in his fit of frustration, went to petrol pump today and the following conversation took place:

Attendant: Kitne ka dallun? (How much should I pump in?)
My Friend: Bus do teen rupaiye ka spray kar de; gaadi ko aag lagaani hai (Only spray worth two-three rupees; I want to set my car on fire)

I was reminded of a RK Laxman’s old cartoon; in this a burly sardar taxi driver had gone to the bank and demanded angrily, “Remember, you gave me a loan to buy this car? Well, I want another to buy petrol now.”

I am told that in India, now onwards, petrol will be called ‘Cough Drops’; a few drops and you have to cough up more money.

Oil drop or cough drop?

The argument that the petrol prices should be raised because the aam aadmi doesn’t use petrol makes me think that the government can raise the prices of almost everything in the country since the aam aadmi, if I have got the definition right, hardly uses anything at all.

pic courtesy: aeonestudy.com
This morning, when, as usual I drove to my office; on the way, I saw some badly bruised people sitting on the road-side. They told me they were hit by a hit-and-run reckless vehicle. I went a little further and saw hundreds of stunned, bruised, injured, robbed and deceived people. I asked them what happened? They said they were hit by a reckless government. (Read ‘How Proud Should We Be Of Indian Republic At 62?’)

THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN

He is everywhere; even before Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen discovered him. He is in India or abroad but he is never too far from getting into the thick of an argument. Public debate? Intellectual pluralism? For heaven’s sake what is the big brouhaha about it? Indians just love to argue. If at any place and time there are two or more Indians sitting, standing, half-asleep, playing, eating, or even just passing time there is potential for an argument developing. It is as simple as that.
Pic courtesy: newslaundry.com

I have come across many an individual who has to take the opposite point of view just to maintain his/her individuality. You can’t agree with him/her at all. Even praise won’t help to make him/her agreeable. The argument would develop in the following manner:

You (at your agreeable best): Mr. Saxena, I really like the shirt you are wearing.
Mr. Saxena (seriously offended by it and releasing steam through his nostrils): Do you have to make fun of me all the time? You should know that this is the worst shirt I have and I normally don’t wear it even though I paid all of Rupees Two Thousand Five Hundred for it. But my daughter, who would be a graduate soon, wanted me to wear this horrible thing for her friends; and I did this as a favour to her. But, you had to notice it and pull my leg. Ah, if friends are like this, what can I expect from enemies?

All along the harangue, you keep scratching your head and curse yourself whilst wondering what was offensive about your compliment. And now, you do the worst ever; although at the time when you say it you have no idea it is leading to further vitriol.

You: All I did was to praise your shirt Mr. Saxena.
Mr. Saxena: Now don’t sound so innocent. You wanted to show me down. You have been trying to do it for a long time though not succeeding because of my reserve. Tell me what exactly is likeable about this shirt? You probably want to pull the rank on me since you have over a hundred shirts. But, I can tell you I too have quite a few though I don’t show them off vulgarly like you do. Ask yourself this: do you really know anything about shirts? Back in America, I get invited as a judge in fashion-shows so often that I have lost count of the number of times. I see best branded shirts from Armani, Arrow, Lee, and Luise Phillip etc. I should know what a good shirt looks like. Ha.

I don’t know which race in India has the crown for becoming the most argumentative since I don’t have experience of all. But, since I have an experience of the Punjabi, let me tell you how to make a Punjabi do a near impossible thing: challenge him that he won’t be able to do it. For example:

You: Bhai sahib, it is virtually impossible to jump from this bridge.
Punjabi: Oh, yeah, who told you that?
You: No one told me; I read it in a book.
Punjabi: Bookish knowledge everywhere with the modern man. Hold my thaila (bag) and I shall show you how easy it is.

The argumentative spirit of the Punjabi is honed with everyday incidents. For example:

Punjabi: Kinne bhra ho tussi? (How many brothers are you?)
Innocent Passerby: Saara (Sir) randa  or two.
Punjabi: Nahin je tin hunde tanh mera ki bigaad lainde? (No, but if you were three what could you have done to me?).

Two Punjabis sorting out an argument between themselves (Pic courtesy: explow.com)

Arguments are taken very seriously in India since they can lead to rage (for example, on the road because of traffic). Two years back, on the Vashi Toll Plaza, a driver killed another driver with a screwdriver over an altercation about jumping lanes. This year, in Gurgaon (Delhi) a driver killed a Toll Collector over dispute about the toll fee. Recently, a boy killed another over a squabble regarding a facebook picture and comments.

Traffic agreements in India start quite innocuously (Read ‘If You Drive In India Part I’ and ‘If You Drive In India Part II’). Lets say you and your family are going merrily in a lane. You won’t have noticed but the lane to the right or the left of you has suddenly gone very slow or stalled totally due to an obstruction. So, the car to the left or the right, without warning, cuts ahead of you, making you brake suddenly and almost lose balance. Within no time the lane-cutter’s earlier lane starts moving faster and you, full of indignation, go across to that lane and come alongside the lane-cutter. You lower the window and tell him as politely as you can, “Bhai sahib aap ko signal dena chahiye tha; accident hote hote bacha” (Brother, you should have shown indicator; it nearly caused an accident). The lane-cutter gives you a look as if you don’t belong. Then he searches and selects the juiciest out of his repertoire of filthy abuses and just to help you get the gist of it, he indicates the meaning of the abuse with his two fingers. You find it very unfair and drive the car in front of him causing him to brake suddenly just as you had to a while back. He comes out of the car and so do you. The other drivers jump into the fray taking one side or the other depending upon their moods. This happens frequently and none of us have been able to find a solution yet. However, whereas the earlier intention was to cut lanes and reach the destination early, now, everyone is delayed endlessly.

That’s really the great beauty of the Indian argument: no one ever lets go. In such a scenario, the vakeel or the advocate advises you to file a suit against the other party so that he can take the burden of the argument from you at your expense, time, and energy. Indians now have more cases pending in the courts than the current lot of judges can handle in a century. (Read ‘The Great Indian Judicial System’)

There is nothing to beat the NRI (Non Resident Indian) arguer. He has the better of both worlds. Whilst in the foreign country he contends how good is the life, customs, traditions, people, places, food, and music of India. Back home, he brings out, without being asked, how good is the life etc of the country of his immigration, say, America. “We have a lot to learn from the Americans” he starts his argument with authority, “I have spent three decades there. It takes a while to understand the American system; but, once you do, you realise it is really the best in the world.”

Then there is the political arguer or arguer about the decline in our values. This breed has the debating skills of a bull on rampage. He dexterously takes the opposite view of whatever you say. There would be people around, who, if they have the presence of mind, would point to him that in his hopping from argument to argument, he has well nigh forgotten which side was he originally. Nevertheless, he is the torchbearer of the nation’s endless debates on corruption, politicians, industrialists et al.

I just want to describe two more perennial arguers in our society. One is the cricketing arguer. He is forever debating the poor strategy on the part of the team he has taken upon himself to back and the unsportsmanlike attitude of the other team, fans and the umpire. This type is a no holds barred argument that leads to a brawl. One’s rank or status in society is considered worth mortgaging to somehow winning the argument even if it is with the security forces.

The other is the arguer who argues for you too; since he doesn’t find you capable of building up an argument on your own. That argument goes like this:

Arguer: And now you will say that I am an idiot. (At this he includes all around him for support) And now you tell, bhai sahib, this fellow is calling me an idiot and should I keep quiet? (He again addresses you) You would probably call me a mother-f—–r too. And mind you, you are calling me names but I am not saying anything. You think people who keep quiet are weak? Just because I am being gentlemanly……etc

There is no way you can ever win an argument in India. The argumentative Indian just loves arguments; winning or losing would end the argument, much against what he wants. That would end all the fun, isn’t it?

The saying ‘Don’t argue with a fool; people around you won’t be able to make out the difference between the two of you’ is never taken seriously in India. At the first hint of an argument developing you jump into the fray and it scarcely matters whether you come out alive or not.

Life goes on.

PRAYER OF THE MAROONED

[lineate][/lineate]How’d you feel,[lineate][/lineate][lineate][/lineate]If one morning you wake up,[lineate][/lineate]And look around;[lineate][/lineate]But, there is no one in sight[lineate][/lineate]You feel you are marooned[lineate][/lineate]And indeed you are shipwrecked[lineate][/lineate]On a remote island[lineate][/lineate]No sounds but the waves breaking[lineate][/lineate]Against the rocks[lineate][/lineate]Or of distant birds and crickets[lineate][/lineate]Dotting the eerie silence?[lineate][/lineate]

 

Pic courtesy: artcyclopedia.com

 

[lineate][/lineate]There is sweat on your brow[lineate][/lineate]And fear in your guts[lineate][/lineate]The sun is out now and it scorches your skin[lineate][/lineate]Soon your lips are parched[lineate][/lineate]Hunger and thirst invade you[lineate][/lineate]Like powerful and wicked aliens from Mars[lineate][/lineate]How long would you last?[lineate][/lineate]Will they find you alive?[lineate][/lineate]Or many years later as a skeleton of bones?[lineate][/lineate]Is there any hope of survival?[lineate][/lineate]

But……

[lineate][/lineate]You have grit,[lineate][/lineate]You have faith[lineate][/lineate]You can’t give up so easily[lineate][/lineate]God gave you precious life for a purpose[lineate][/lineate]And lifting your weary arms above you[lineate][/lineate]You reach out to God[lineate][/lineate]And pray to Him:[lineate][/lineate]”God, all that I need here[lineate][/lineate]Is Internet[lineate][/lineate]To connect to my friends again.”[lineate][/lineate]

 

NOSEY ABOUT NOSTALGIA

The Present is just a moment – a fleeting moment; whereas the Past is an accumulation of memories. Our memories are based on personal experiences and hence they are dear to us. We, therefore, idealize the past and yearn for it. This is called Nostalgia, a word derived from the Greek νόστος (nóstos), meaning ‘homecoming, and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning ‘pain, ache’. Just like Depression, Nostalgia was, at one time, thought of as a psychiatric condition, a form of melancholy. It is only in the early Modern Era that the word got associated with yearning for the ‘good old days‘.

We have nostalgia concerning all our five senses of Hearing, Seeing, Smelling, Touching and Tasting. We are, therefore, nostalgic about, for example, old songs, sepia coloured pictures especially of our childhood, smell of crayons in our first classroom, the touch of our mother’s hand as she guided us through the busy city streets and the taste of our tiffins carrying lunch that we used to savour sitting under a tree next to the playground.

Are there any scientific studies done on Nostalgia? Yes, there are but not enough. Scientists feel that the recall of our memory about something gives a stimulus to amygdala or that part of the brain that gives us emotions. The trigger for Nostalgia is something from the past. Our emotions about the past can be happy or sad. However, in the present context, Nostalgia is generally about happy memories of the days gone by.

What exactly is Nostalgia broken down to its commonest sense? It is a fact that we do like the present when it becomes past. There is a good one about a mother telling her son who was making fuss about eating what she’d cooked, “Eat it. Years later you’d be telling another woman how good your mother cooked.”
As long as we are aware that we like all Nostalgia about a miserable present until it becomes past, we shall be happy with that old gramophone we struggled with and which still gave screechy sound in comparison to crystal clear digital sound of today.
Pic courtesy: ucl.ac.uk
In our minds, we should go back to those exact times that we are nostalgic about and see if we really liked them at that time. A friend of mine put up a facebook post about the era of the postman and nostalgically reminisced about the postman visiting us leisurely and reading to us our letters and delivering money orders. Others have written about walking to the school (there were no buses those days) and breathing in the invigorating air. It is yet another thing that we hated being chased by the street dogs and hated walking in the scorching sun but the filter of Nostalgia leaves out the bad memories. But I guess if we don’t have nostalgia we can say bye bye to about 50 percent writing in the world; including this one.
 There is, therefore, romanticism about Nostalgia. For example, this Kishore Kumar song from the 1964 movie ‘Door Gagan Ki Chhaon Mein’ (Far Under The Sky):
Albele din pyaare, mere bichhade saathi saareHaay! Kahaan gaye, haay! kahaan gaye(Wonderful lovely days, all my friends I parted from
Oh, where are they now)
Koi lauta de mere beete hue din,
Beete hue din vo hai pyaare pal chhin.
(Someone, return to me my past,
My past, those dear moments)

Main akela to na tha, the mere saath kayi,
Ek aandhi si udhi, jo bhi tha leke gayi
Aaj main dhoondu kahan, kho gaye jaane kidhar
(I wasn’t alone, many were with me
A storm came, what was there it took away
Today, where should I search for those that were lost)
Beete hue din…

Mere khvabon ke nagar, mare sapno ke shehar,
Pee liya jinake liye, maine jeevan ka zehar.
Aise bhi din the kabhi, meri duniya thi meri.
(The towns of my dreams, the cities of my imagination
For them only I drank the poison of life
Those were the days, when my world was my own)
Beete hue din…

And for those who’d prefer to hear this thought in English, here is Mary Hopkins singing ‘Those Were The Days’:

Finally, the Moral of the Story: Treasure every moment when you have it rather than when it is gone.

In short when you get a tooth pulled out you miss the slow pain it used to cause and your tongue goes to the exact spot nostalgically. However, you should relish the moment at the dentist’s chair too.

God, I am becoming a Saint in my old age. Let me love it now rather than later when everyone has finished hating me for writing this post. One of my friends feels that the word ‘Nostalgia’ gives a feel as if it is a nose-related problem. In which case, one can imagine a doctor prescribing a tablet like DCold to have with warm water twice a day after meals. Sounds far fetched? Think again: the other day a drug called scopolamine was in the news. If the powder is blown into your face you have an instant loss of memory and are immediately cured of Nostalgia. Perhaps later scientists will discover a drug whose powder, when blown into our faces will convert all our bad, sad, horrible and unpleasant memories into ‘good old days’.

Nostalgia indeed.

BOND WITH THE BRAND

So Daniel Craig, as James Bond, is going to be swigging a beer in his next movie and not his trade-mark Martini. Heineken has already thought of it as the best thing that has happened to them since they started brewing the bubbly in 1873. I am reminded of the time when a corporate honcho sought an audience with the Pope and Pope was visibly disturbed and screamed “Noooooo”. All that the corporate boss wanted the Pope to do was to change just one word in the prayer; instead of ‘Give us this day our daily bread’, he had suggested, “Give us this day our daily Kellogg’s”

Whatever way you look at it, Martini suited the Licensed to Kill eminently especially with his bevy of beauties. Great many jokes, limericks and ditties came up about the cocktail of gin and vermouth that James Bond sipped whilst lounging on a beach with danger lurking not far from him. One of these is:

Martinis, my girl, are deceptive,
Have two at the most;
Three, you are under the table,
Four, you are under the host.

I think it was Noel Coward who said, “The best way to make Martini is to have gin in a glass and then wave it in the general direction of Italy.” That’s the reach of advertising; you find the ads everywhere asking you to do this, wear that, eat this, drive that and so on.  You are swayed a little. However, nothing sways you with the same force as when a celebrity endorses it. When Kapil Dev told us, “Palmolive da jawab nahin” (There is nothing like (shaving with) Palmolive), a vast number of men got convinced that it would not only give them a good shave but also may help them to become cricketing all-rounders amongst the best in the world.

Opinions would be divided whether a beer drinking Bond would appear as svelte as he appears nursing a glass of Martini. After all, beer is more associated with a belly than with belles; burp more than with melody. However, chances are that beer drinking may get associated with laissez faire after Bond has sipped it and about to throw the can away and sees in the can the reflection of an attacker getting ready to attack him from behind.

Other than Bond with his Martini, the world of advertisement is nostalgic about ads about smoking. How coolly the hero used to take the last puffs of a cigarette, stub it out with his white shoes and then only turn to the pack of ruffians waiting to be thrammed by him. Ah, the promise of Marlboro country where men would be men and horses would be horses. Or the guy who would effortlessly win a sailing regatta and the first thing that he would do after that would be to puff at his Scissors, with his sexy dame on his side, and the voice over would say, “For men of action – satisfaction.”

Cold drinks or soft-drinks are the hot – nay, cold favourites of the ad-makers; nothing has changed from the time a young Rekha sensuously sipped on her Gold Spot and suggestively crooned, “Taazgi ka maza lijiye, pyaas apni bujha lijiye.” (Enjoy the taste of freshness; quench your thirst); and, all of us watching the a mango juice drop, in slow motion, seductively falling on Katrina Kaif’s lips. “What good luck has a drop of yellow juice, as compared to us, who only watch those succulent lips from a distance”, thousands of men bemoaned .

Ads on detergents too have been the kind that do everything except deter gents; ladies’ views are reserved on this since they are often shown to be using the soaps for bringing back the whiteness in the clothes, whilst wiping the sweat on their brows. One can think of Surf Excel, or a numbered detergent like 501, but the ad campaign that took India by storm was, without doubt, that of Nirma Washing Powder. It became iconic and decisively showed what ads can do to the popularity and hence, sales of products:

Other than sensuousness, and coolness, humour in ads has been a great sell. The funnier the ad, the more people see it and like it. I remember the time when Coca Cola was selected as “Official sponsor” of the Cricket ODI World Cup, Pepsi came up with a highly successful, imaginative and comical ad, “Nothing ‘official’ about it.”

So, now that Bond has to ‘Officially’ drink beer, perhaps the day is not far, when Bond, like our own action hero Akshay Kumar, will do anything to ‘Taste the Thunder’. Bye bye, Martini.

HATS OFF TO GENERAL VK SINGH

Army Chief General VK Singh, if his supporters are to be believed, achieved the following by his Trishul of Date of Birth assertion, Allegation of 14 Crore Bribe, and Letter to PM regarding Poor Preparedness of Army:

1. He has increased the prestige of the Army and the armed forces.

2. He has become a respected and respectable person in public eyes.

3. He has brought increased focus on the ever-present corruption in defence procurement deals.

4. He has covered himself in glory by his own honesty, and accountability towards the state of affairs of the Army that he controls (The more mud-slinging you do about your own service, the more the country is convinced you are the right person to command it).

5. He is like a lotus in the filth of senior officers before and after him.

Pic courtesy: blogs.outlookindia.com

6. Now when any fauji visits the bureaucracy and district administration (say on leave), they would stand and salute him for being member of the same armed forces as have produced role models like Gen VK Singh.

7. The country has emerged stronger because of him.

8. There was no other method left for him to expose all the corruption and deficiencies except through assertions about his date of birth, which he himself said was a purely personal matter.

9. People who oppose him are either corrupt or don’t have country’s best interests in their minds or know nothing about nothing.

10. He averted a situation like that existed before the 1962 Indo-China war simply by asserting his date of birth. Anyone feels differently? Well don’t. Please consider that when you become a Chief there are hardly any options available to you to expose corruption, inefficiency etc except through a “personal issue” of date of birth.

And thank God, he had two dates of birth. A person with just one date of birth would be hard-pressed to start public debates about these extremely important issues of national security.

What changes do we expect due to the relentless campaign by Gen VK Singh to battle evil forces through the controversy regarding his date of birth? Here is a short list:

1. From now onwards, MoD has to carefully scrutinise the dates of birth of all army officers of the rank of Colonel and above.

2. When your dossier is called for by the Ministry to check your date of birth, you can start patting yourself on the back for having credible chance of becoming the Chief in future.

3. All new homeland security equipment including spy cameras and hidden machines should then onwards be utilised to record all conversations with shady officers, that is, all those other than you.

4. Anywhere and everywhere you go, you have to carry the proof of your date of birth with you; particularly when dealing with babus and netas.

5. When anyone says that it is a “purely personal matter“, we should know that he wants to “awaken the conscience of the nation“.

“Young Child with Dreams – Dream Ev’ry Dream on Your Own”

Is it a milestone? Sunbyanynameis all of two on the First of March. Is it a milestone, after all? It should be only if one considers that I work my bottom off, as a Senior Vice President at Reliance (which has got nothing to do with this blog and views expressed in the blog are entirely my own), six days a week; and the seventh day, my day – the Sun Day – is all I have to think and write, write and think; and yet make my wife and sons feel that I am a good husband and a father too.

 

Illusion of fame. A little child in a Tiny Tots nursery was asked his name by the teacher.
He replied, “William Shakespeare”.
The teacher was taken aback and asked, “But don’t you think it is a famous name?”
And the boy replied, “It should be; I’ve been around for two years now.”

The beginning. Sunbyanyname toddled along not knowing where to go on the 1st of March 2010, just a day after I retired from the Navy on 28th Feb 2010. Having a blog whilst in active service in the Navy is sacrilegious and against all sorts of rules, regulations and norms. We are not cleared to publish anything. We are supposed to take three steps backwards, two to the left and four to the right when the Press or the Media asks us a question. The reason is that the people in the armed forces really know their stuff; and hence, if the Press or the Media were to publish what they utter, it would be utter disdain of the Official Secrets Act, which is nearly nine decades old, and can be justifiably called archaic as well as arcane. No such danger exists from the politicians or the bureaucrats as their utterances can never be construed as flouting the OSA. In their case, the country tries hard to keep their ignorance a secret.

This ‘n That. Anyway, let me get back to this two years old baby called ‘Sunbyanyname‘. Initially, in search for a name for my blog, I scratched my head, pulled my hair (a habit I had until very few of the grey matter was actually left) and came up with the name ‘This ‘n That‘. Aha, it sounded best to hide my confusion whilst sounding intellectual. I didn’t know what subject to have the blog on. So, I selected a secion called Humour, another called Poems and Limericks, yet another called ‘Stories’ and another two called ‘Navy – No One Asked Me But…’ and ‘Navy – Nostalgia’. All my serious writing I put under ‘Opinions’ and all that the four letter word called ‘Life’ has conveyed to me under ‘Life is like that’. Later on, I felt that I needed to write about ‘Philosophy’ too to spread my confusion about the ‘truth’ of life amongst all those who can be duped to read it. Finally, I added ‘In Lighter Vein’ for funny anecdotes and ‘Music and Cinema’ to express my love for both these. I also added a section on Travel. The only thing left for me to do is to add Plays in ‘Music and Cinema’. It was a little of This and a little of That.

Change of name. No, it was nothing to do with police and the authorities being after me or a trick learnt from the Pakistani Jehadi organisations. I had to change the name after I realised that the world has lost count of the number of blogs and other artefacts simply called ‘This ‘n That’. It lacked individuality and character. I know that those of you who have read William Shakespeare – not the two year old infant in Tiny Tots nursery, but the bard who regaled the world by anything from Comedy to History to Tragedy to Sonnets – will testify the truth of Juliet’s saying in Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) , “”What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” But, I somehow didn’t let Shakespeare interfere with my plan and changed the name of the blog to ‘Sunbyanyname‘. Initially, people thought it was the south Indian Subramaniam spelled wrongly but later people got used to it.

Making the rose smell sweet. This was the difficult part; I had ideas but no time. For more than a year after the blog was born (until end May 2011 to be precise), it lay atrophied like any other public project in India whose foundation stone is laid by a minister with great fanfare, but, whose f stone resembles a tombstone a few years later. Suddenly, one fine day, a Sun Day to be precise, an idea stuck me. It wasn’t as earthshaking as Newton discovering an apple falling from a tree; but, nevertheless its pull was as strong as that of gravity. I reckoned that I was a tad too harsh with myself; thinking that I should write only if it could be published under the ‘World’s Best Dissertations’. Why not just write as it came to me with no frills and repeated editing to make it sound the work of a great intellectual. And the darned rose, the subject of Juliet’s assertion, started to smell if not totally sweet, at least not pungent too.

Joining indiblogger. It is at this stage that I joined ‘indiblogger‘. I heaved a sigh of relief when I realised that there were any number of these prolific writers whose blogposts would take as much space as half of what Juliet said in the quote above. I was reminded of a pair of rabbits being chased by the foxes; the male rabbit told the female, “Shall we out run them or wait here for a while and out number them?” Alright, Sunbyanyname, I addressed the blog, “Go for it, boy; write a blogpost a day and keep the doctor away.” After a few days ‘Sunbyanyname‘ found me, like WW, in vacant and in pensive mood, and rattled out without preamble, “Why do you want to keep the doctor away? She is a Pretty Young Thing (PYT) and worth having better than an apple or a blogpost a day.” “Brilliant” I told Sunbyanyname, “It is ideas like these that have changed the world. Lead on and let them know you are unique and original as the Sun. Don’t worry even if you write a few times a month when the idea strikes you rather than breaking the world record with ‘I breathe in and breathe out blogposts’.”

Miles to go before I sleep.  “Are you and that blasted ‘Sunbyanyname‘ of yours happy?” you may ask. Well, ladies and gentleman, now you are getting me into deeper waters than I have been during my Navy career. I admit that I am unhappy about the following:

  • I have visited several places in India and abroad but I haven’t got adequate time to recount these.
  • The darned pictures take a long time to be inserted and yet they never appear where I want them to appear. From the available time, much precious percentage of it is lost on this.
  • When I write Humour and In Lighter Vein people lap it up readily but the number of people who read ‘Opinions’ can be inscribed on the back of a five paise stamp, leaving enough space there for inscribing the number of people who died in both the world wars.
  • Sometimes, when original ideas strike me, I am busy in some official meeting or so; and hence, before I can jot them down somewhere, they vanish like snowflakes.
  • Existential pangs; that is, what is it all leading to? Is it just This ‘n That?

Light across the tunnel. Still, there is some light across the tunnel. I believe that if a certain political party in India comes to power in the next general elections, they have promised to make days, by an act of parliament, as long as fifty hours and Sun Days as long as hundred. Sunbyanyname and I will have all the time in the world to write some really good stuff. Even at that, on the second birthday of my child, I sing like Waheeda Rehman in 1963 Hindi movie ‘Mujhe Jeene Do‘ (Let Me Live):

“Tere bachpan ko jawani ki dua deti hoon,
Aur dua deke preshaan si ho jaati hoon”
 (I wish your childhood would blossom into youth,
But, after wishing, I become nervous (about you future))

HI SEXY – ‘GATEWAY TO FUTURE’ FOR INDIAN WOMEN

Another International Women’s Day is here (Read my ‘Is There Reason to Celebrate Women’s Day in India‘). My article for which I have provided the link was published in Mar 2010. This was around the time when Xinhua reported that Chinese scientists had created the world’s first genetically modified cow, in Jun 2009, that can give milk rich in Omega-3 fatty acid. On the right is a picture of that cow.But, why the moniker ‘Hi Sexy’, you may ask. Well, the fact is that the Chairperson of NCW (National Commission for Women) has, in a recent seminar called ‘Gateway to Future’, in Jaipur, has exhorted women to take it as a compliment if they are called ‘sexy’. Should the genetically modified Indian woman be happy that just before IWD 2012, she is to be excited with the idea of men appreciatively calling her sexy? This should convey to her that she is ‘charming and beautiful‘ and not an object of desire.

In a related news, Bombay High Court has also given a gift to Indian women by giving the legal sanction to retain their maiden name even after marriage. I can visualise the following situation:

There was a time when the double entendre contained in the proposition ‘Aati kya Khandala?‘ for the 1998 Hindi movie ‘Ghulam‘ (Slave) was a subject of heated national discussion about the vulgarity of such a proposition. Even though a boy named Aamir Khan was the slave in the movie, others were salivating about what they could do to or with a girl if she agreed to the proposition. It is only 14 years later – exactly the time taken by Lord Ram to spend time in a forest with his wife Sita and brother Laxman because a ill-tempered and ill-willed woman asked him to do so – and we already have it official that women can now be called sexy without inviting the provisions of a certain Code regarding outraging the modesy of a woman. We are making progress really.

But, I guess, it was long overdue. If a man could be called cocky for being overly self-assertive and self-confident; why can’t a woman be called sexy? But, I suggest, men would be wise to restrict themselves to this one word sanctioned by Mamta Sharma, Chairperson of NCW, and not use any of the synonyms given in the thesaurus: aroused, horny, randy, ruttish, steamy, turned on(predicate), autoerotic, coquettish, flirtatious, erotic, titillating, blue, gamy, gamey, juicy, naughty, racy, risque, spicy-hot, intimate, sexual, juicy, luscious, red-hot, toothsome, voluptuous, lascivious, lewd, libidinous, lustful, lecherous, leering, lubricious, lustful, prurient, salacious, orgiastic, oversexed, highly-sexed, pornographic, adult-provocative, raunchy, sexed, sex-starved.

Conversely, if ‘sexy‘ is to be taken as ‘Charming and Beautiful’, as Mamta Sharma would have us believe, imagine a boy telling his grand-mother, “Granny, even at this age you look really sexy”; and the granny sending him in outer space without the astronaut’s suit and equipment.

On a serious note, yesterday, I was reading the (24th Feb 12) New York Times article by Nilanjana S Roy titled ‘Homosexuality in India – A Literary History’. The last part of the article read, “In her 2010 book, ‘Leaving India: My Family’s Journey From Five Villages to Five Continents’ Minal Hajratwala writes: I have come to understand that queerness is a migration as momentous as any other, a journey from one world to the next … I am the only lesbian, and the only writer, in the recorded history of our clan.”

My comment on the article was: I guess, in every generation, some people would always be “different” because the majority is on the other side. For example, in Indian society, a disciplined person is looked down upon since the majority is used to living in personal and collective chaos. I might just be simplifying the bias but homosexuality is to be seen in that light; it is not the done thing as seen by the majority. The bias against it is as justified as the Christians’ ealier bias against having women as helpers in the church. But, slowly, as more people supported the idea, the bastion fell. As far as ‘history’ is concerned, we don’t have to justify our current beliefs based on the ‘wisdom’ of the past generations unless backwards to the future is the intention.

In the 18th century Royal Navy, since men were at sea for long durations, their women were allowed on board. They used to sleep in the hammocks; which were well suited for comfort and rest but not so well suited for Charles Darwin’s ‘Theory of Evolution’. The only place to practise such Theory was on the deck spaces between the ship’s guns. Willy-nilly, a lot of illegitimate children were born. Such a child, if of the male sex, was callled a Son of the Gun because of his conception in the space between the ship’s guns. However, two and a half centuries later, a man perks up and acts cocky when someone calls him ‘Son of a Gun’.

Likewise, I am sure, after the licence given by Mamta to call women sexy, a time will come when we shall no longer read or write such articles, or call a woman so, by meaning anything other than ‘charming and beautiful’.

Greetings to all my friends on the International Women’s Day; especially to those who are sexy. But, then, I haven’t yet come across a woman who is not charming and beautiful.

WHY THIS VALENTINE VALENTINE DI?

Yo boys I am singing song
Love song
Hate song
Why this Valentine Valentine di
Why this Valentine Valentine di
It feels “foreign“-uh
Why this Valentine Valentine di
No overboard please-uh
Why this Valentine..di
Guardian of moral-uh moral-uh
Moral-uh color-uh white-uh
White background porn-uh porn-uh
Porn-uh color-uh blue-uh
Why this Valentine Valentine di
Why this Valentine Valentine di
“Foreign” skin-uh girl-uh girl-uh
MLAs heart-uh black-uh
Phone-uh phone-uh watch-uh watch-uh
“Foreign” girl in stark-uh
Why this Valentine Valentine di
Why this Valentine Valentine di
No wishing V-Day, V-Day
“Foreign” culture spoil-uh spoil-uh
Watch-uh watch-uh porn-uh porn-uh
And-uh be good Indian boy-uh
Why this Valentine Valentine di
Why this Valentine Valentine di
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