Life is a slow dance

She walked. Every morning.

She was frail; that is the first I noticed about her. It was as if her body was fighting a losing battle with gravity, one that was determined to push her down with each passing day.  I could time my clock according to her arrival at the park where I jogged every morning. She would be there at 6am. Every day. She was almost bent double when I first saw her over two years ago. She had abundant, flowing grey hair. It was as though a thousand spiders had conspired to weave a web of silver magic on her head. When the gentle rays of the rising sun bounced off her bent head, it was almost as if she walked with a halo.

And she walked without a stick although I suspect she needed one.

I observed her this keenly because she was one of three people who walked anti-clockwise in the park near our home in Powai. Although, she did not actually walk. She hobbled, painfully. Her left leg was the one that would not cooperate; as though she had to ensure that it didn't get left behind as the bolder and more able right leg propelled her forward. Each wincing step was a small, painful journey for her. Each foot forward, a mini-project. I watched the folds of skin on her face, swelling and flattening like a restless ocean, wave after wave. Her skin would crease and furrow as she dragged her left leg, only to ease into comforting smoothness when the right leg dragged her forward. Ebb and flow. Pain and comfort. Left and right. But she walked every morning.

She must have been beautiful in her youth, I thought. She still was. In fact, I was sure she was a dancer because even as she hobbled along, there was a grace to her walk. The left leg she dragged behind her made a circular movement in much the same way a mohiniattam dancer might. This lady, she danced every morning. Her movement wasn't an ugly yank; far from it, to my eyes, it seemed elegant and graceful. And she had commitment. She could have chosen to sit at home, but no, she was out here in the park, every single day. At 6 a.m. She walked.

Or maybe she danced. -- who can tell -- every morning.

This park has a small 300m walking track; not a big track for someone like me who jogs about six km most days of the week. But it is much better than dodging dog (or human) poo on the main roads of Powai, or jogging with a nose-clamp through the methane-laden smells of Aarey Milk Colony. Of course, I still do my long runs on weekends in Aarey Milk Colony but my daily jogging is still in this park near our home; the park where my silver-haired mohiniattam dancer walked every morning. Anti-clockwise.

In all these days that I had observed her during my morning runs, I had not seen her look at anyone, or smile at anyone. She would struggle through her walk with quiet fortitude and lonely grit. I watched her and grew to appreciate her resolve. She would look at me occasionally and her eyes would signal recognition; however brief. But she had more important things to do. Her left leg would require her concentration. She would look away and prepare for her next step; either a graceful dance movement or a painful wrench.

One day, completely breaking the fabric of quiet familiarity between us, within sight of me, she waved out to someone. Most walkers in our park tend to listen to their personal music systems or talk to their walking partners. Often, one of the walkers or joggers might wave a hello to another. I hadn't noticed the old lady wave to anyone before. But that morning, she did. It wasn’t actually a wave in the true sense of the word. It was half-wave, half-reprimand. She looked up from her hunched position as she approached me and made that movement with her hand. At first I thought she had waved at me. I then looked back to see a most unusual old man, just behind me. I hadn't noticed him before today. I was so immediately fascinated by this man that I stopped by the side of the track and pretended to stretch my hamstring. I was mesmerized as much by him as I was by his strange run. As the old lady hobbled towards us, she too smiled at the old man in an encouraging and knowing manner.

I do not know why I paused that day. But something told me I had to stop to look at the man. Maybe it was the old woman’s half-wave. Maybe it was to see what bond these two old people had. Maybe it was to see this captivatingly eccentric run. Maybe I was just being needlessly nosy. But mostly, it was his eyes.

His eyes weren’t the first thing that struck me about the man though; it was his run. While sprinters mostly look straight ahead, most joggers tend to look at a spot on the ground about four to six meters in front of them. Not this old man. He ran with his eyes fixed straight ahead. It was a very unusual style. He did not run fast, but certainly strangely. His legs would bounce up and down and with them, his hands too. His left hand would reach up to his eyes as his left leg came up. His right hand would reach up to his eyes as his right leg bounced up. Now, most joggers would move their left hand forward, or even upwards, when their right leg thrust forward and right hand forward when left leg moved. But not this man. It was as if his hands were constantly running away from his leg. Sometimes it felt as though he was spot-jogging. But somehow he found the momentum to carry himself forward. I'd often run behind him and observe this quite unique style. Later, one day, I did find out why he ran this way.

But he ran, or rather, spot-jogged; every day.

And that first day, as I overtook him, I also noticed his taut, wrinkle-free face. It was as though he had ironed his face that morning. He did not just have prominent cheek-bones. He seemed to have no face other than cheek bones that cried to be freed from his taut skin. His large, black-rimmed glasses sat uncomfortably on those bones. He had a head full of thick, lovely salt-and-pepper hair; the hair was busy, but always well groomed. It seemed as though, for him, the run was like a prayer; an uncompromising and divine routine that required well-oiled and supremely-honed preparation. His shorts were ironed. His T-shirt, like his face, was ironed too. There wasn't a wrinkle anywhere. Every drop of sweat was meticulously cleaned away with the help of a crisp wrist band that smelled of fragrant washing liquid. Here was a retired army major, I thought to myself. I wasn't wrong. I later found out that he was a retired navy commander. He loved his routine.

And so he marched and ran, his right leg trying to constantly catch his right hand, each time in vain.

His eyes, they were simultaneously severe and kind; deep and simple; firm and yielding; serious and mischievous; exacting and benevolent. On the first day I noticed him, as I paused to pretend-tie my shoe lace and as I stretched my hamstring, apart from his peculiar run, what caught my attention were those eyes. On that day, I looked back involuntarily because I could feel his eyes on my neck. I felt his eyes follow me. And when I looked back, he smiled. It was a caring, benign smile. His eyes encouraged me to run farther away from him. His eyes gleamed in the morning sun and spoke of extreme intelligence, as a complement to it, a wicked playfulness. But mostly, his eyes spoke of a willing reinforcement. He willed me to push myself. Behind these eyes, I could sense experience, contentedness, kindness and some melancholy. I did not know why, but I felt drawn to this man immediately. I continued ahead that day.

This happened every day. I would look at him and he would smile encouragingly at me. I would marvel at his strange jog, his crisp appearance, his immediate smile and his eyes. I would then run ahead.

But he march-ran and his wife half-waved at him and smiled as she crossed him in her anti-clockwise walk. Every morning.

They would dance-walk and march-run every morning for at least 45 minutes. They would do some stretches in the central area of the park and be gone before I completed my run. But one day, I finished early; partly because I was tired and partly because I wanted to talk to these two lovely people. I was thoroughly fascinated by this old couple. I was intrigued by their commitment to a healthy life. I was curious to explore the melancholy in his eyes. I was drawn by the old lady’s encouragement of the old man; or was it admonishment? I also wanted to understand his encouragement of me.

The dancer did not speak. She kept a distance although she did smile regularly at me. But the march-jogger talked. And he talked. He was certainly one of the most loquacious people I have ever come across. In that very first meeting, he told me the various ships he had captained, the fleets he had commanded and much more. In 10 minutes, as he and I stretched, I knew everything about his professional career. I knew all the various towns he had lived in; he loved Bangalore and Vishakapattnam the most. I knew that he lived in Mumbai, “not far from here” and that he did not enjoy retired life. He did not like to read. He did not like computers. “I like to work with my hands and I like to make things,” he said. But he was upset this world had no place for old people.

He appeared edgy and furtive. Even as he spoke, he glanced around him impatiently. It seemed as if the world moved too slowly. He talked quickly and rapidly. It was almost as though the idea that he had would escape from his mind before he spat it out in the form of words. And that is how he spoke: he spat his words out. Not venomously, but with a tangled and intense urgency.

That is when the dance-walker waved her peculiar wave at him.The march-jogger laughed immediately when his wife gestured at him thus. It was a laugh that shook his sprightly frame. It was as though the laugh had to reach every single bone of his body. And that was the first time the park had heard him laugh. The laughter club members who had congregated in one corner of the park turned in unison in our direction to see where this laughter came from. His laughter could easily drown out the combined sound produced by the 10-member-strong laughter club whose sole purpose was to laugh uncontrollably and hysterically each morning. But this lively, nimble, lanky and somewhat emaciated march-jogger was able to laugh out the laughter club! I too was quite taken aback at the roaring bellow and was surprised that his bones held together; he shook so much that I thought his bones might fall off his body. The laugh deserved an explanation and so I wanted one; I raised my eyebrows, waiting, asking.

He said that his wife of 65 years was not a fan of his “nervous energy, his frenetic disposition and his severe intensity” and wanted him to slow down. He was 89 and she was 87 years old. She had been teaching him to slow down and enjoy everything around them. As he continued to laugh and as it tapered off, he continued, “Don’t think she is waving to me with love and kindness every morning. Of course, she is the kindest person I have ever known. But she is not being kind when she waves to me. She is rebuking me and reprimanding me for jogging fast.” She nodded wisely as he spoke to me.

I would talk to him most days after my run and after their jog-march and dance-walk. In that time, I learned that he was a keen long-distance runner in his younger days and had run several marathons; he had a full marathon best time of three hours and two minutes. He had tried really hard to break the 3 hour barrier but was just unable to do it. All of that was before he retired. After retirement, the dancer had put an end to his running. She wanted him to stop being intense and hyperactive. She wanted him to slow down and look at the leaves, the birds, the children and the sunshine. And she would do it by gesturing at him.

I did not learn anything about her. I did not ask. I did not know their names nor did I know where they lived. All I knew was that they lived “not far from here”. I wasn’t curious to know. Moreover, I knew that this garrulous and voluble man would tell me his story anyway; without prompting or provocation. Each day as we stretched, he would tell me a bit more about his life – and never anything about the dance-walker. She would not talk either. Every now and then she would wave-admonish.

Slowly, they became my motivation to run. On some mornings, I would feel unwell or if my muscles ached for a rest, the knowledge that these two people would be out there in the park would be enough to spur me on. I needed that inspiration, that encouragement. Soon, they became the reason I ran. “If they can, I should,” became my stimulus. I never told them that but I think he knew; he was wily,a sly old imp. He asked me one day as I struggled with my post-run stretches, “You were struggling there today. I could see. But for the two of us you would have pulled a sickie today, right? Hahahahahahahahahahaha!”

I nodded while she wave-admonished.

They did not talk to anyone else. Indeed, she did not talk at all. One day I plucked courage and asked her if she had had a good walk. She nodded. When I asked her again she made an incoherent sound. Realization dawned. It wasn’t as though she didn’t talk. She couldn’t. The colour drained from my face.

March-jogger must have sensed my discomfort. He pulled me to one side and started lecturing me about my running. He told me that I did not observe anything around me while I run. He told me to listen to the birds, not your iPod; to listen to the leaves and not the traffic sounds; to smell the rain, not the foul odours from the open drain that ran alongside the park. He asked me to slow down. “You need to enjoy life around you, my friend. You need to look at the world around you and not run through it”. He said he did not see me enjoying my run. “It has become a chore for you, man”, he said. He added that that was exactly what his wife had been trying to teach him all along and it was only now he was allowing it to percolate.

That day, he told me his wife had taught him to slow down. He jogged the way he did because that was the only way he could slow down. His wife had taught him to appreciate the world around him. He told me that she would say to him every day that life is a slow dance. And so as she crossed him every day in her dance-walk around the park, she did not wave at him, but gestured to him, asking him to slow down and appreciate the world around him, to listen to the children, the birds and the rain.

And as he left that day, for the first time, I noticed something other than radiant positive energy in his eyes and his voice. His eyes averted mine and his voice trembled as he spoke, with a tinge of melancholy, “I do not know if you will see much more of us. But as long as I am here, I will remind you to enjoy your morning ritual. Commit to it, but enjoy it.” And with that, he waved goodbye and they were gone.

The very next day, I came out for a run as usual. They weren’t there. And the next, and the next day.

Just as suddenly as they had disappeared, I saw him as soon as he entered the park one day, two months later. Immediately I noticed a decisive difference. The dance-walker was not with him. He was alone. My heart sank. And then as he stumbled into the park, I noticed the rest.

The erect frame was gone; he was frail. He was almost bent in half. It was as if his body was fighting a losing battle with gravity, one that was determined to push him down with each passing day. His hair was still thick and abundant; but it was now unkempt. The black strands had disappeared. The pepper-grey had transformed into silver-grey. It was as though a thousand spiders had conspired to weave a web of silver magic on his head. When the gentle rays of the rising sun bounced off his bent head, it was almost as though he walked with a halo. He wore clothes that were wrinkled. And as he entered the park, I realized that he did not march-jog anymore either. He walked instead. Interestingly, he chose to walk anti-clockwise, like his wife had. But then this wasn’t a walk either. He hobbled, painfully. His left leg was the one that would not cooperate. It was as though he had to ensure that it didn't get left behind as the bolder, more able right leg propelled him forward. Each step was a small, painful journey. I observed him wincing. Each step a mini-project. The once-taut skin had collapsed into many folds. I watched these folds on his face, swelling and flattening like a restless ocean, wave after wave. His skin would crease and furrow when he dragged his left leg, only to ease into comforting smoothness when the right leg dragged him forward. Ebb and flow. Pain and comfort. Left and right.

And so, he now dance-walked.  Every morning. And every time I crossed him, he would wave to me. But it wasn’t a wave. It was half wave, half admonishment. He was asking me to slow down; to listen to the birds, the children and the rain.

Aspirins and music opinions...

On Twitter, I recently noticed off one of the people that I follow say, "Pink Floyd is over-rated."

We then put off one terrific argument. Somewhere and all it went. Here, there and everywhere. Meandering only it was. What and all was said, I don't even know. Mattroffact, I don't even remember half the things I said. But what a jolly good fun I had off aa? I said one thing. The other person twisted it and threw it back at me like 'thoo take it'. I then took something they said, twisted it better and put off 'thooo take this now'. The bigger the thooo, the better the argument. Whatay jolly it was.

In the end, even though we argued and argued like anything, no new knowledge was conveyed. But then, what to do, this Twitter is a really silly medium for arguments and learning no? It is for idle chat about weather, recipes, cooking, putting "aaaaw" over kids photos, or putting "aawwww" over a Junior Master Chef contestant, talking about shoes, and cricket scores and for retweeting an article you have never read. Oh! And also about why IPL is a waste of everyone's time.

After that argument and all was over, after going home, I thought about it little bit more. Then I thought off: 'This argument that I had today about Pink Floyd being over-rated is not really different from the opinions that are put during the Chennai music season in December every year.

'Same to same this is, I thought.'

Opinion after opinion you will hear without substantiation. If you push the opinion-giver little bit they just run off.

Many times you will hear from one of the maamis: "X is chumma over-rated only. Why she is getting so much crowd, I only don't know!" The large maami sitting next to her would then often add to this growing body of opinion, "Ya ya. I agree. They only come to see her clothes and her jewels to take off copy of the latest trend. Does anyone in this audience even know music like you and me? And what gaudy clothes this X is wearing anyway? Too jazzy. Tcha. Will refined people even wear these? Her music is as gaudy as her clothes taste no? But what do do? Her fate and neram is good. Anyhow, I think our Mythili has a much better voice." 

I would lean forward and ask the thin fellow sitting next to large maami (presumably the underfed and malnourished husband): "Who is this Mythili? Which sabha is she performing in? Do you have her schedule?" hoping to catch a concert or two of a new, hitherto unknown talent. Often this would be met with, "Saar just now only she has reached varnam stage. But what my wife is saying is that Mythili has too much potential. Her potential is like anything only. The peoples in these sabhas have to giu chance no? Full politics saar in this place. Too full. Looks like you are overseas based because you are carrying ruck-sack, putting shorts and carry water bottle. You giu chance for her no in the abroad? Here take. Here is my card. Giu yours no?" I would often just run away from there.

Everyone has an opinion on something or the other during the music season.

This concert in Shastri Hall I still remember from a few years back. Full mosquitoes were fighting with each other to take me with them to the roof where they will not be pushed down by fan-air. Suddenly one bad breath leaned across and said to me: "Youngsters these days are all fed on instant coffee. That's why they are like this. See this fellow singing today? His tempo (kalapramanam) is all too fast. Most places taalam doesn't stand only."

If he did not have such terrible bad breath I may have pointed out to him that the artiste was singing "bala kanaka maya" in atana in the slowest kalapramanam I had heard anyone sing up until that concert. But I kept to myself and thought, 'Why and how do people acquire such incredibly bad breath?' Anyhow, how to argue in the middle of a concert with bad breath while at the same time fighting this mosquito army? I kept quiet only. It is not that this fellow's taalam was any good or something. And he was putting gyaan on taalam of the musician! He was putting taalam along with the song, but like he was in an exam or something, one eye was on my taalam. I can't cover my taalam with a towel to put no? So I put taalam and allowed him to copy. Suddenly lights went off. In Shatri Hall this is a common occurrence. Concert continued. What could this man do? Nothing. No taalam and no pat-pat-pat on his thigh. Lost he was. When the generator went "vrooom" and lights came off, this man's taalam also started off like that only after both eyes and head were near my thigh to see what I was putting.

Some people couch their opinion with somewhat of an apology. One fellow said to me once: "Saar I do not know too much technikel aspects of music and all, but this musician no... I have some advice for him. If you know him, tell him no? His uchcharippu ... you know, pronunciation ... is not good at all." I did not know the musician at all, but I wanted to know more about this "uchcharippu" business. On further questioning he said, "Saar, I don't know about ragas and all. That and all too technikel for me. For me mohanam and bhairavi are all same to same. But Sanskrit is difficult to sing. I know. No one can sing Sanskrit like MS Amma. All these fellows must listen to tapes of MS Amma singing and then go to Sanskrit college and then only come here to sing. In Sanskrit, the initial consonant should be properly aspirated." I felt I needed an aspirin too. I wanted to tell Sanskrit man, 'Dei. Listen to the music no? If you want to hear a Sanskrit lecture, listen to a Krishna Premi devotional lecture or something like that. Why come to a carnatic music concert and complain you did not have much aspirin that morning.'

What raa? Where do we find such people?

And then there are a bunch of people who might know a little bit more and are able to venture an  opinion with a little bit more substance. In one concert, one fellow sitting behind me said to his friend, "This musician fellow has such a poor voice. How did he come to such a level. He must be well-connected. Must be influence based no? Whatay poor sruthi shuddam this is. Range-e illai saar. And what a meek voice also no?"

This went on for a while. So I turned around and said, "Saar, clearly you do not have a meek voice. First listen to the concert no? Then you may be able to hear a stronger voice." When he started saying that he had also paid for the ticket, I quietly changed my seat to another place. How to argue against a fellow who says that his payment gave him the right to talk over anything that is being sung and complain that the artiste had a weak voice?

Then there was this fellow who sat next to me in a concert of a young musician. It was an afternoon concert where the young musician launched into a wonderful bhairavi raga. This fellow sat next to me and within a few lines of the raga, started saying that the bhairavi that was being sung was more like maanji. "What is this nonsense? These young fellows must be properly trained and then only sing. This is maanji only" he said. These are rare arguments, but sometimes you do come across precise opinion like this. And this is easy to argue against because you can refute this with observation and fact. This was argument-gold -- a rare opportunity. And so, I immediately pointed to the presence of sgrg phrases, the absence of an elongated dhaivatam in the sndp phrases or the absence (haha, yes, an "eschewing") of the pmpgrs too. I pointed all of this out to this bhairavi-maanji man and said, quite proudly "Saar, so this is bhairavi only."

But this fellow was adamant, "I don't know this-that-all-that. But I know I am right. This is maanji only. To my ear this sounds wrong." I simply said, "Saar, how can I argue with your ear?" and changed seats again.

But as I said, opinion is very cheap during season time. And even outside season time, chumma people will have some opinion or the other. I ask for substantiation of such opinion. But most times I have to argue with the ear of someone. How? People will just put off opinion like "I don't like this person, too much body shake happening". Arre, close your eyes and listen no?

One fellow pronounced a definitive verdict once about a popular musician, "This fellow needs to take a two year break,". A full fight only started off when I said, "Why? You take a two year break from him no? Not possible aa?"

Only last year, during the season, one fellow said to me as we were exiting the venue after a concert: "This fellow's repertoire has been exactly same same for many years now. Same songs again and again he is singing" I said cheekily, "Everyone sings the same mangalam only no Saar?" He got very angry at that point, "You impertinent fellow, you are teasing me aa? I am talking of his entire repertoire. Same songs again and again for two years." I did not think so at all. Indeed, I knew it too. The singer had changed completely from a Kannada based repertoire to an entirely Sanskrit repertoire with lots of aspirin. But I said, "Saar, you must know that the word you used is not pronounced reper-tear," and ran away from there.

But the worst kind of opinion that I generally stay right away from is that which starts with "Back in my days music was..."

That is when I know I really need an aspirin...

-- Mohan (@mohank)


Ps: This piece is quite influenced by @localteaparty who wrote a hilarious piece on "looking good". The above piece started off in a different tone, but the tone was changed somewhat after reading the "Good looks. And then?" piece.

A life-long Ohrwurm...

My grandfather was an incredibly wise man. I do not remember him doing much but that was because he had retired from whatever he did for a living by the time I could remember details about my life. I do not remember anyone talking to me about what he did for a living either. So perhaps he did nothing at all throughout his adult life. Perhaps he was a man of leisure; a person with incredible wealth and social position who merely followed his hobbies, passions and interests. Then again, he appeared to have very few hobbies or expensive tastes and precious few personal friends. He had very few compulsive habits and only a passing interest in sport and radio. Nor was he wealthy.


But that was somewhat irrelevant to me as he was my hero when I was growing up.


I remember that he smelt of vibhoothi all the time. He would plaster it across his forehead, his arms and chest three times a day. It was a ritual that he followed. He chided me in the most kind manner when I purchased my first bottle of deodorant; he asked me to use vibhoothi instead. "This vibhhothi is natural no," he would say  immediately, and add with a naughty smile, "and besides it is at one-fiftieth of the price too!"


He spent a lot of time in the pooja (prayer) room of our house, doing his stuff; it was his refuge. On most days he would spend at least 4 hours every morning and 2 hours every evening in the prayer room. Perhaps this was his escape from the world. 


I didn't quite understand what he did in the pooja room, but he would often spend hours on end, chanting. I am not convinced he focused much on his prayers. First, he wasn't really a pious sort of a person. He was a good man, a very good man, but not God-fearing and pious. Second, every time someone gossiped in the living room about a vagrant neighbor or an irritant uncle or the raucously painful laugh of a distant aunt, he would be the first to offer a mild opinion from the inside of the prayer room, "He is not really that bad no, what makes you think he is as terrible as you say he is" he would ask, with an air of absolute innocence, in a subtle attempt to keep the gossip fire burning. Or he would say, "The laugh could be grating, I agree. But poor thing maybe no one has told her yet no" he might offer as sympathy, only to stoke the burning frustration of the people participating in a discussion on that topic.


Whatever the topic, Mr Ramasubramoni (or Ramsups as we called him) would have a view. One that would be mostly expressed from the confines of the prayer room. And it would always be expressed in soft tones. I do not believe I have ever heard him raise his voice or get angry.


But, as I said, it seemed to me that he spent way too much time in the pooja room even though he was not what I might call a very religious man and even though he participated in all family discussions. I think it was just his way of escaping the acid tongue of his wife, my grandmother. 


My grandma, Ponnammal (referred to by all of us as Kopaks -- don't ask me why, for it is a long story) was a loving person too. But she would never step back from a fight. She would call a spade a garbage truck, this lady. People who define "political correctness" should enshrine her words and phrases as litmus test. 


I remember this occasion when our maid was sweeping the floor in a somewhat hurried manner. My grandma pulled up the maid, pointed to a corner of the house and told her, "Last time I checked, this corner was also part of our house only. It does not belong to a neighbour!" ("yevati, indha moolai-um namma veedu thaan" she said in Tamil).


Another time, a visiting cousin of ours was acting rather too friendly with his heavily pregnant wife who playfully pushed him away. Kopaks, who was in the middle of her own prayer, snapped, "idhulla nee pannaradelllam panniyaachu, ippo porum nirutthu." ("you have participated in this child birth process to the extent you need to, now stop your amorous behavior and get lost").


A cousin of ours had just been to the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala. On his way back, he stopped at our home before heading to his own home in Kolkata. He had not had a bath for the near 20 days of his religious expedition. As a result, he was rather unkempt. It is a custom for an elderly person to pour the first bucket of water on a person returning from this religious expedition. So there we were, all bunched together in a small shower cubicle, watching Kannan, our cousin receive his first post-expedition bucket of water. Kopaks stood on a wooden stool, with a bucket full of water. Kannan raised his folded hands above his shoulder, exposing his underarms. I must declare I was shocked at seeing the growth in Kannan's armpits. I gasped, but kept my respectful counsel. Not Kopaks. Instead of participating in what was essentially an intense religious ritual, she dropped the bucket of hot water, pointed to the raised under-arm and yelled, "Dei Kanna. Ennadu daa idhu. Indha anyayatha pinni vittudalaam pol-irukke!" ("What is this under-growth Kanna? It is so bad, you could even plait the darned thing!")


Little wonder then that Ramsups spent nearly 5 hours on a pooja that ought to have taken him an hour! It was his escape from the brutality of Kopaks!


I enjoyed the equability and poise with which Ramsups handled most things. I often wondered if I would ever acquire that Zen-like state he seemed to exist in. Perpetually. Nothing would ruffle him. He took on every task with a smile. He took every rebuke on the chin.


He could never get shopping right. He would get a kilogram of cherry tomatoes. Kopaks would yell, "Who do you think will chop these many? The neighbor?" The next day, he would get large tomatoes and he would get told off, because the large tomatoes, "tasted like cement, did he not know."


I would often go to South Indian classical (Carnatic) music concerts with him although, more often than not, I had no idea what the artistes were singing. I remember vividly asking him why we were listening to an old man with a kudimi (tuft of hair tied at the back of the head) sing. This was Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Ramasups' favorite singer. I remember being scared listening to another old man, also with a tuft, and a frightening squint! We were in the first few rows. I remember screaming because this singer frightened me with his on-sage contortions. This was M. D. Ramanathan. Ramasups had to run out of the venue with me and we heard the rest of the concert from behind a convenient pillar in the auditorium. But Ramasups did not chide me for my unacceptable behavior. He understood and held my hand. We listened from afar. 


I had no idea if Ramasups understood what these artistes sang. At that age, I did not. But I would look with much respect at Ramasups. He nodded his head in appreciation and much knowledge. But I am not totally convinced he knew what they were singing. I am convinced he went to the concerts to escape his wife's continuous rebukes! For, if he understood what these musicians were singing, he might have hummed a line or two or even sing a song every now and then. 


But no. 


The only musical phrase he ever hummed was a short phrase in raga bhairavi. For the 30 years I knew him, he had no other variant on that one phrase! Perhaps he did not believe in improvisation. Perhaps he did not know how to improvise. Perhaps he felt that his life was complicated enough with that one refrain. He must have played that line in his head over a trillion times. I would have heard that line a million times myself.


It was simple: “sa sa sa ri ni da pa” was all he ever sang. All his life.


According to Kopaks, he only sang that one phrase for over 60 years. Of course, that phrase is not quite definitive enough to pin it as raga bhairavi. But that is what he thought it was and that was good enough for me. His life was simple. His life was uncomplicated. I never asked him, but I don’t believe his life was ever boring. 


A earworm is the calquing of the German phrase "Ohrwurm" that is used to suggest a portion of a song or a tune that repeats in one mind over and over again. It is used to suggest music that is stuck in one's head. I have had earworms every now and then, as I am sure you have. I even had full earworm days. I have known people to have been afflicted by the earworm, "I just can't get this song out of my head," is a commonly heard plaint.


But I am yet to come across anyone with a life-long Ohrwurm.

-- Mohan (@mohank)

Satyamev Jayate: Opportunistic or Responsible?

Satyamev Jayate: Opportunistic or Responsible? 

Time will tell...


Opinion is cheap. And there is plenty of that going around after the first episode of Satyamev Jayate aired, Sunday 6 May 2012. The show's producers may harvest all of these to construct the show differently. Or, they may not.

I have many people to thank for many things. For now, I will start with thanking Aamir Khan for my re-introduction to Bollywood cinema. I saw precious little commercial cinema that came out of India for over 13 years. One day, I stumbled upon "Dil Chahta Hai". I was hooked. Khan, the lead in that cult movie yanked me back into Bollywood. I reconnected with the genre and saw many a movie subsequently. However, I soon found out that the movie was as much an accident in this complex genre as my accidental encounter with it was! Bollywood, perpetually in search of a formula had merely found another one to exploit.

It is therefore, not surprising that Indian commercial TV follows the same idiom that Bollywood uses. The template reads: Continual and perpetual search for the next "formula". Serve flop after flop. Hit the jackpot with the formula of the year/decade. Milk it for all it is worth. Rinse. Repeat.

The TV 'formula' that seems to be working now is the reality show hosted by a major Bollywood personality. Have pretty face or stunning six/eight/twelve-pack? Fans stand outside your home in Bandra for hours on a hot Sunday afternoon to see you wave from your balcony? Come in. What? You haven't cooked a single meal in your life? You do not do extreme sport? You think an electrolyte is actually a new form of electricity? Do not worry. We will sand-paper the rough edges. We just need your face and body, not so much your intellect.

And so, I sat down to watch "Satyamev Jayate" with a healthy dose of cynicism. I admit. I was (potentially) just about to subject myself to another Bollywood actor telling me things he knew absolutely nothing about in an utterly convincing manner. After all, Priyanka Chopra had attempted to teach me about extreme endurance sport. Amitabh Bachchan had showered on me his expansive knowledge on all topics. Arjun Ramphal had taught me conflict resolution skills. Akshaye Kumar had taught me how to cook.

But I watched it because of Aamir Khan. I also watched it because I had been assaulted by the pre-show publicity. Even people living under a large immovable rock couldn't have missed news about the show. Social media was full of references to it, so were the papers. Although, as Harini Calamur (@calamur) records here, not many in the industry knew what it was going to be about. She says:

"I was curious about Satyameva Jayate, especially given that industry at large was scratching its collective head at both the timing (11 am on a Sunday Morning) and the content (serious, chat show, with no embellishment. Real people, real clothes, little make up – a show that puts the real back in reality). Many I spoke to, some as late as yesterday evening, were not sure if the show will be accepted by the audience."

The reach and canvass was broad. It was simulcast on 10 different TV channels and in 7 or 8 different languages. The Karnataka Government did not allow a Kannada dubbing of the show to be aired, ostensibly because it is against dubbed TV, although dubbed porn being viewed inside its Parliament building appears acceptable or even encouraged. The show was aired via community TV in many villages across India.

This, then, is a massive show. It has a popular figure asking tough questions. Each episode focused on one elephant in the room. The show will never run out of elephants or rooms. India is replete with elephants in search of a room; which is why I believe the producers are onto a gold mine here. I have no idea why no one has thought of this concept or the frame earlier.

And there is another bold move that sets this show apart. It is aired at Ramayan-time. A bold move. From my limited knowledge of the way Indian TV works -- assuming it does, that is -- apart from Star Wars, Mahabharata and Ramayan, not many other shows made it big in that Sunday-morning slot. The 11am time is family time in India. To show grotesque images of disfigured and badly punched up faces on a Sunday morning at 11am was as courageous as it was experimental. I would not have shown such graphic images. I may have issued a warning so that young unsuspecting kids did not accidentally see the gory and bloodied images that were shown. But then, perhaps the show did not want to air brush the truth. The images told the story of the victims. This was bold TV at family time.

But then Aamir Khan has always been bold.

After a monologue at the start, the show hit you. It took you on; played with your sensibilities. At one point in time, Aamir Khan had a tear in his eye. There were some irreverent and gratuitously pernicious suggestions on Twitter and other social media that the tear may have been made-for-TV drama. I refuse to accept that they were false tears. The stories were too raw and too hurtful. Any person with feeling and emotion would be affected by it -- even a brilliantly successful method actor. I had a tear too. And I act as well as I write. It was impossible not to feel hurt or anger at the stories that we heard. They were depressing. They were compelling. They weren't new. But they made you simultaneously angry and sad.

The show was well made. Harini Calamur has talked about it in her review. It had indeed put 'real' back into 'reality'. The victims spoke. It was their story. Aamir Khan did not tell us what we had to do. The show questioned us, our morality, our values, our silence and our tolerance of a continuing atrocity: female foeticide. And there are many more such societal ills that will follow. As I said, there are many elephants in search of a room.

But it wasn't as though we were seeing something we did not know already. Then again, did we really know it? Do we, as a society, need Khan to tell us we have a problem? And we do. Let us not stick our collective heads in the sand. And as G. Khamba says in another multi-layered review of  'Satyamev Jayate':

"The intention is noble, and props to him for even trying something like this on Indian television. He’s using his star power to “raise awareness”, and while personally I will always skeptical of that ... I hope some good will come of it. What and how? I don’t know, and I don’t even think anyone cares. People are just happy that Aamir Khan is “doing something”! And we as a people seem so starved of role models and hope that even “doing something” is enough..."

But there lies the problem too. A society that needs Khan and his star power to highlight these substantial ills needs some serious introspection. We need Amitabh Bachchan to ask us to think about eradicating polio. Until that time, we will not care about it.

The Government throws its hands in the air. The problem is just too hard. "Where do we even start?" it asks. The poor people throw their hands up in the air. "This problem is not ours," they say collectively. They just want their daily bread on the floor.

The lower middle class just wants to escape the lower middle class and become just-right-of-center middle class. For them, just putting bread on the table (yes a small hand-me-down table re-surfaced last year with a polished formica finish, but covered with now-dirty lace cloth) is hard enough.

The just-right-of-center middle class is tired of being just-right-of-center middle class for decades and  wants to get to being upper-middle class. "Just getting to work and back is a problem already."

The upper middle class just wants to escape being the upper middle class. "Sending our kids to the best schools is expensive enough. Don't distract us from the JEE exams and UPSC exams please. We are all studying for it. Yes. As I said, all of us are studying for these exams."

And the upper class just drive around in their expensive cars dissing the poor class for all the filth on the streets and the chaos at their airports.

Simply put, we have all, collectively, stopped caring for anything other than that which we need to worry about in our own lives. So yes, we do need Aamir Khan to tell us that we must care. We do need Aamir Khan to tell us that we need fundamental education in this regard. Such education on fundamental values ought to be provided in our homes and in our schools. However, are we enlightening our kids at home and school to think critically and in an ethically correct way or merely training them to get into good jobs that pay well? I am convinced it is the latter.

So the fact that we need Aamir Khan to "do this to us" is a much larger worry than the amount he is getting paid.

Ah yes. Khan's payment-per-episode. We focused on the amount he is getting paid first, as is our wont. For, if we do not like the message, why not shoot the messenger? In other words, every message has a bakra messenger. We collectively train our focus on the messenger as a mechanism to conveniently deny the very existence of the inconvenient message.

So, in the tried and tested manner that we have all become familiar with, Khan was severely criticized for charging Rs 3 Crore per episode. As G. Khamba said in his review: "I know for a fact that some of my friends who have been working their assess off on the ground for a pittance will be irked at so much attention being showered on issues they’ve been crying hoarse about for years and years purely because Aamir Khan has said it – but that’s just how we’ve become."

My irrational fear, however, is that we -- all of us -- will think that watching the show is our monumental and singular contribution to rectifying the ills that a show like this might highlight. After all, no one took notice when our Prime Minister called female foeticide (wait for it) a "national shame".

We are like this only. Even such derision has lost meaning.

My fear is that the show will be forgotten. The daily ride to work and back and constant quarrels with the auto-driver will completely occupy our 'bandwidth' and make us impervious to the ills around us. The truant maid will test our patience enough to distract us from the real ills that surround us. The re-surfacing of the formica table-top will occupy us so completely and thoroughly that all we have energy for is a commitment to watching the show at 11am every Sunday.

The show does play a role. It may remind us and fill us with guilt... Until the maid, auto-driver, metro journey assault us with their realities. But for that one hour on a Sunday and perhaps for a few hours after that, the show must occupy our minds. Perhaps a few people will get affected and decide to do something about these elephants and the rooms they reside in. The show is, therefore, good in my view.

But I do have one substantial problem with the show. And it worried me tremendously.

To the best of my knowledge, the show did not interview or showcase the work of a single NGO in the area that was under the microscope: female foeticide. And there are many NGOs and individuals that are doing substantially good work in this space already. Organisations like Jagruti, or Population First, for example. Or indeed, the work that Aamir Khan's colleague, Gul Panag has been doing in this space.

In that sense, by not standing on the shoulders of people and organisations that had preceded it, the show had a "messiah" feel to it. It ought to have acknowledged, more powerfully and more directly, the scale of the problem despite the work that is already being carried out by other people/NGOs.  And instead of being a mere promotional tool to increase "fan following" the show ought to use its online presence, social-media presence and online brand, as well as its strong brand in the non-Internet-enabled rural India to point to the wealth of resources that already exists.

The show has garnered interest from all walks of society. Of that I have no doubt. The show has two choices now: (a) It can remain a mere 'highlighter' of issues and reside in our collective conscience for a few hours before we get assaulted by practical realities of life, (b) It can also become a vehicle that points to useful resources that already exist, measure its impact and become a vehicle for real change.

We have many people who care enough in an "all care, no responsibility" mode of operation. We do not need another such entity. If the show chooses the former path, it should not cry foul if it is seen as an opportunistic commercial enterprise that made money through a society's collective misery, its ills, its warts and its pimples. The more responsible path would be the latter. It is a real choice that faces the producers. Now.

I am willing to give 'Satyamev Jayate' time to see if it indeed goes down the more responsible, latter path. I am not a cynic... not yet!

-- Mohan

PS:
9-May-2012: There have been shows like this in the past on TV. Shows like Visu's "Arattai Arangam" (on Sun TV) and Lakshmi's "Kadhaiyalla Nijam" have attempted such people-focused, socially-relevant issues in a "regional" context and setting. "Satyamev Jayate" is perhaps the first attempt to tackle social issues of national relevance, prevalence and importance and take it to a national audience.

Confront that surrealistically familiar stranger...

In an article written a few weeks back, Mr Sumedh Mungee wrote a piece on why he left India (again). His article received a fair bit of attention on blogs and the Interwebs. The article had over 400 comments on the NY Times site. Each of these comments had several "Recommends" too. Many of the comments spoke, sadly, to a "Good riddance, please do not come back" theme.

The reaction to a frank and honest article was along expected lines. 

But I was struck by Mr Mungee's conclusion: 

"I know India will rule the future. It’s just that I’ve realized—I’ve resigned myself to the fact—that I won’t be a part of that future." 

It is easy to dismiss that sentiment, like several of the respondents have, and say that it is Mr Mungee's loss and India's gain! That would be lazy. That would be egregious. 

I would like to request, instead, that Mr Mungee considers a return to India in the near future. 

After making several trips over the last 4 years or so, we decided to relocate to India last year. It wasn't an easy decision. There were many unknowns. However, we were clear about one thing. Just one thing. We were clear that we would come back with our eyes completely open and with clearly set/accepted/understood expectations. Expectations of others. Expectations of ourselves too.

At the time of writing this, we have now been in India for 18 months. It has been a crazy ride. It has been thoroughly confusing at times. It has been deflating and unrewarding at times. The paradoxes are too many to list although a healthy dose of humour helps (see this and this for examples).

But then "eyes open" and "clear expectations" are weasel words. 

What exactly do these mean?

****************

Mr Mungee gives the impression in his introductory comments that he left USA to return to India not to "fix India's problems". 

There is an implicitly hidden neat assumption in there that (a) there are indeed problems, (b) that these need "fixing", and (c) these are easily fixed by returning NRIs. 

Yes. It is entirely likely that there are problems that may be fixed (only) by returning NRIs.

But let us ignore that for a minute. Mr Mungee says that he wanted to leave the USA to "go back to Shri Thomas Friedman's India: an India that offered global companies, continental food, international schools and domestic help; an India that offered freedom from outsourcing and George W. Bush."

So it is clear that Mr Mungee did not want to come to India, but to an India that Shri (how nice) Thomas Friedman sketched for him. He did not wish to return to Manmohan Singh's India or Abdul Kalam's India or to the India that he would discover for himself. He wanted to return to an imagery and expectation of an India that had been conveniently -- and perhaps even erroneously -- sketched for him by Shriman Friedman.

And how did the lovely Sarvadhikari Shriman Thomas Friedman arrive at his sketch of India? As Sarah Leonard (@srl2126) noted on Twitter with a tinge of sarcasm, "Tom Friedman visits a country of 1 billion people this week, immerses himself in the great sea of humanity, meeting CEO after CEO after CEO."

And therein, potentially, lies Mr Mungee's own first problem that he might wish to spend some time fixing before embarking on fixing India's myriad problems. Mr Mungee probably built for himself an image of an India that was drawn for him by Shri Thomas Friendman. He wanted to return to Shriman Friedman's India and not the real India. They are different. 

Shriman Friendman's India is a bustling, thriving, lively crush of humanity that cannot crush India's confident march out of poverty, because there are cellphone towers, engineering schools and biotechnology schools at every street corner. It has billboards that advertise physics degrees, for heaven's sake!

It is a nice picture. It is a romantic picture. It is not a clear picture. Indeed, it may even be a wrong picture. But all of that is moot. The real issue here is that there is no Friedman's India. There isn't even a Kalam's India or a Chetan Bhagat's India or Nehru's India. 

India is what you make it out to be. India is what you experience it to be. India is.

And that is what I would use as my argument in attempting to convince Mr Mungee to return to India. Do not come back to Friedman's India or an India that needs fixing. 

We came back to India, instead, because we needed fixing.

And that is precisely where this "expectation setting" begins. This does not ignore the existence of India's many problems nor does it talk to the possibility (however remote) that we might contribute to alleviating these problems. That may well be the case. However, that is not the reason we returned. We returned because we needed fixing and India provided us with an opportunity to do so!

****************

Mr Mungee does state in the initial few paragraphs that he came prepared to experience an India that was "visually familiar but viscerally alien".

That is, once again, off the mark in my view. India can not be about either familiarity or instinct. It is about experience. And it talks to individual, personal experience.

Mr Mungee's expectations of his experience were wrong, in my view. He proceeded to set up home in upper middle-class, suburban Bengaluru. His daughter went to the best schools. Even his home was "American-friendly".

A friend of mine once went to Kenya for a holiday, stayed in an upmarket hotel and did not step outside the block that the Hotel was immersed in because it felt "so much like downtown Sydney"! Much like her, Mr Mungee may have missed the point too. I am not suggesting that Mr Mungee ought to have lived in the gullies and by-lanes of Suddhaguntapalya. But the fact that he aimed a re-creation of an American (or America-like) experience in India suggests to me that he did not work hard enough to create a personal experience for himself that was distinct, special and very possible -- India offers that to everyone that wants a personalized experience.

Much like my friend from Sydney who wanted to see and recreate downtown-Sydney in the very different and far-away Kenya, Mr Mungee gives me the impression that he wanted to carve out his own downtown-US-city experience. Which is fine. But such an expectation should come with a statutory warning: "Expect to be disappointed. Repeated and bullish insistence on this expectation is likely to lead to extreme depression and/or severe disappointment."

And this is precisely where this "expectation setting" continues. If I insist on recreating my little pocket of America or Australia inside the carefully constructed cocoon of my existence in India, I will have missed the opportunity of being confronted and assaulted by myself.

****************

Many people have tried to classify and categorize India. Neatly. They have mostly failed. Few people have succeeded. 

One legend that understood India for what she is, and, more importantly, did not attempt to change it, was the late Yehudi Menuhin, the legendary violinist. He says in his autobiography, "Unfinished Journey" (an excerpt found here) that he recognized early on in his interactions with India and her music that Indians rely predominantly on the individual spirit and an entrepreneurial mindset. Indians prefer that to a systems-organisation-mindset. In his autobiography, Yehudi Menuhin also says that a symphony orchestra type organisation for Indian classical music would just not work because each musician would want to express themselves differently, the way they thought was right or necessary! 

"Just because the Indian would unite himself with the infinite rather than with his neighbour, so his music assists the venture. Its purpose is to refine one's soul and discipline one's body, to make one sensitive to the infinite within one, to unite one's breath with the breath of space, one's vibrations with the vibrations of the cosmos. Outside the family, the Indian's concern does not easily fasten on the group. Europe's genius, on the other hand, has been to form individuals into communities, each accepting loss of freedom in the interests of the whole. Hence collective worship, hence armies and industries and parliamentary democracy, and hence chorales in which each voice has a certain independence but is nonetheless severely constrained by other voices."

One read of the above and you know why neat compartmentalization of India is impossible. So, attempts to classify India into neat compartments or buckets invariably fail. There aren't 1.2 billion buckets in the world, leave alone identifying labels for each of these 1.2 billion buckets!

Yet, Mr Mungee talks to three (yes, three) neat buckets to classify India: "airplane India", "scooter India" and "bullock-cart India".

Neat. But what about buckets like "scooter India but with iPhone in hand" or "bullock cart India but with the most modern LED TV in the thatched roof home" or "airplane company India" or "a few airplane companies and steel companies but still dependent on (and work with) bullock cart India", or the "airplane India but I will still not purchase the latest A. R. Rahman album, instead preferring to download the pirated copy" or the "autorikshaw driver India but will insist on either purchasing Dork 2 or not reading it at all". 

Each of these India's are unique, distinct and different. And there are more. Many more.

India cannot be classified neatly. And most attempts to do so have fallen flat.

At best I might marvel at how "scooter India" can fix "my Bose speakers" while, simultaneously chiding "tricycle India" for running over the feet of people who walk to some unknown destination on non-existent pavements.

To even begin to understand India in the manner of bibliosoph or a cataloger is, in my view, exercise in utter futility. It is complex system that does not attract bibliognosts readily. It is a multi-dimensional, complex, nonlinear, dynamical system with utterly unpredictable behaviour. We expect completely deterministic results. What we get instead is confusion to the chronicler/observer. Welcome to an anarchic chaos trapped inside a complex and seemingly orderly democracy. We are dealing with a complex chaotic system.

To try and find neat/precise solutions in such chaotic dynamical systems is a somewhat specious and nugatory exercise. And that is what chroniclers like Mr Mungee have tried to do. They try and find closed form descriptions by defining it as a problem that is in need of a solution! 

A more compelling and persuasive approach would be to ask if there is a steady state in such systems and how we might approach such a steady state which is even partially describable!

However, we did not come to classify (or even understand) India. We came, instead, because we needed to classify and understand ourselves. 

****************

So Mr Mugee arrived with an expectation of seeing Shriman Friedman's India and immediately carried out a task of cataloging that a senior librarian would have been proud of.

Immediately after that, he saw himself become more and more Indian and he hated himself for it. And that is where his problems really commenced. And this is where we begin to address the "eyes open" weasel word. 

Mr Mungee started to hate himself for designating separate dinnerware for his maid and for his family, because his children were down with amoebiasis! He was advised that it may have arisen from his maid's lack of hygiene. The maid who probably cooked his clean food and cleaned his house of unwanted bacterial elements was sadly responsible for introducing these unwanted elements into the body of his family. Ironic. But that is not the point. The point is that Mr Mungee designated separate plates and hated himself for it.

Like all his workmates and friends, Mr Mungee's cycle of distrust in his driver drove him to despair. 

Mr Mungee was locked in a road-rage incident against a hawker who dared to block his car's path. How dare "bullock cart India" block the progress of "airplane India"?

Mr Mungee saw him being continually confronted by deception and with each such mendacious behaviour, he found himself sucked into a vortex of trust-deficit that afflicts much of Indian society. And he hated it.

These are very honest accounts of a journey that Mr Mungee did not like. His was a compelling battle against who he was becoming! For him what he was becoming was a constant affray on his senses. And he was losing. Constantly.

He took the only action he could, to rebel against the "surrealistically familiar stranger" inside him. He quit to escape from inertia and denial.

This is really the crux of the decision in my view. Factors like "appropriate expectation setting" and "cataloging librarians" are useful but not critical in any journey like the one Mr Mungee undertook. What is of greatest importance is the battle within. 

And this is the battle that one faces in India. And provided one does not lapse into either inertia or denial, the resulting lesson is one that India is most capable of teaching.

We made the decision to move back to India because it presented us an opportunity to confront ourselves; it presented us a valuable opportunity to face our own worst enemies (ourselves). To accept defeat in such an exercise would be akin to the surrealistically familiar stranger in me mocking me for having won the battle against myself!

As I say in an earlier post, my life in Australia had become too regimented. Too planned. Incredibly structured. Too well-organised. There was an absence of anarchy in my life. There were few surprises to life. Moreover, my senses weren't attacked constantly. My principles weren't brought into question periodically. 

Here, it is. 

And when I see it alive, I know I am, myself, alive. I have made it define my existence. I constantly fight the "high-fidelity bigotry" where I can. I battle the "surround-sound-enabled stereotypes" when I see them. I also aim to battle the "chronic amoebiasis of the soul".

I am not going to provide examples here because these examples would serve to trivialize the exercise into one of bluster and self-aggrandizement. 

It is sufficient to say that we now have the opportunity to look at the surrealistically familiar stranger within ourselves and strive for sharper congruence and alignment. Again, we came back because we had to understand ourselves better. 

****************

So my message to Mr Mungee is simple: 

Come back to India because you want to see Mr Mungee's India and not Shri Friedman's India. Come back to India not to solve her problems (and these exist, let us not deny them) but so that you may undertake a journey to solve your problems (and these exist too, let us not deny them). The process of you confronting and vanquishing that surrealistically familiar stranger may well lead to India's problems being solved too. If your process of discovery does not solve India's problems, you will have undertaken a journey and benefited from what India taught you. 

And India affords that to any honest explorer.

To give up and head back would be to give up on oneself, and that just cannot be acceptable.

-- Mohan (@mohank)

How clean is your milk?

In an earlier post, I wrote about how we struggled to settle into a new life in Mumbai after living overseas for several years. I continue on that same theme in this post too...

After living nearly 20 years overseas, my Tamil, Kannada and Hindi had gone quite rusty. On reading the above, please do not make the assumption that my Tamil/Kannada/Hindi was on solid footing at some point. To make that assumption would be a bit like Himesh Reshamaiyya saying he could not sing on the night because he had temporarily lost his voice! 

One aspect of re-settling into a life in India that did scare me initially was language. I was worried I would continually make an ass of myself. Even though life had prepared me, through a series of valuable experiential learning opprtunities, to recover well from a series of seemingly hopeless and relentless "Oh!I made an ass of myself... Again!" situations, not being able to communicate in an articulate manner was something that bothered me a lot. 

So, our initial few months were spent polishing and practicing our Hindi. We had to communicate with people effectively in Hindi and it had to be 'reasonably perfect Hindi' we thought. It was only later that we realized that anything goes in terms of Hindi in Mumbai.

But the initial few months were frustrating. We had to interact with numerous tradespeople, workers and suppliers. It seemed as though we just could not get things right in terms of communication.

I believe deficiencies in language are brought out maximally when one is frustrated and/or angry. In those initial months we would often sputter and flounder maximally when we were frustrated with tradespeople or furniture delivery people. 

No one would arrive at the appointed time and those that did would often not bring the required tools or equipment with them. And this would inevitably mean more delays in an already delayed process. Getting the right words out was always a struggle in those desperate moments. We would often launch into English or Tamil in the middle of a high-pitched Hindi-based diatribe. We would then look at each other and break into a laugh. 


Try yelling in a language that you are not totally comfortable with! 

Sometimes we would translate from English to Hindi and get it messed up totally. For example, in response to a request from a friend for us to visit their place on a very busy day for us, I blurted out: "patha nahin yaar. kaan se khelna padega" ("I'm really not sure. We will have to play it by ear?").

A colleague of mine insisted on speaking with me only in Hindi. Indeed he took it on as a challenge that I would be proficient in written and spoken Hindi before I completed my contract in India and before I headed back to Australia! 

In one particular meeting that both of us attended, I wanted to communicate to this colleague that the situation we faced was almost impossible. It was a bad "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. 

The first phrase that came to my mind to describe our situation was "We are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea". The next thought was "We are the meat in the sandwich". And the third was "We are caught between a rock and a hard place".

So, here I was, saying to this colleague: "hum shaitaan aur neela samundar ke beech mein khade hain!" That comment sank faster than a Uday Chopra movie! 

So, I used the next option and rattled off confidently, "hum bread ke beech mein ghost ban gaye". At that point, all blood drained from my colleagues face. He looked like a bit of a 'ghost' himself!

I gave up on attempting the third phrase. Had I tried, my colleague would have picked up a rock and flung it in my direction.

Translation from one language to another just does not work. 

For example, on another occasion a friend of ours was visiting us. They struggle with their Hindi as much as we do. We were talking about a mutual friend of ours who had a large farm in Australia. Now this common friend specialized in growing fruits and vegetables on his farm. I asked how this friend was doing. In response, after a quick translation, pat came the reply, "Woh to ab ghay me ghus gaya" ("he has entered a cow")!

I immediately choked on the samosa that I was munching! The picture of a hapless Malcolm being stuck in a cow's underbelly was both funny and tragic! It was only when I did a literal re-translation did I realize that what was meant was, "He has gotten into cows now!"

There are several similar lovely examples of single-language (mainly English-to-Hindi) translations, particularly in those early days that provided us with much mirth and also significant learning opportunities! But it is when one has to do a double-translation to convey meaning that you lose the plot quicker than a Himesh Reshamaiyya melody!

An early classic was when Girija was trying to communicate to our maid that yogurt had to be cultured. Now "culturing yogurt" is a process and we hadn't got to that degree of refinement in our language construction. We were struggling with nouns and adjectives in those days. This was a difficult phase. When we got gender right, we'd often launch a week-long celebration! So, pronunciation or lyrical efficiency were not top on the priority list! We had not yet got to mastering the Hindi equivalent for the activity/process of "culturing yogurt".

However, the activity had to be communicated to the maid.

So, what does one do? Girija's mind quickly jumped to the nearest possible translation opportunity, which was to translate from Tamil to English and then, from English to Hindi! Now, in Tamil, this process of culturing yogurt is known as "tozhkaradu". Indeed that word in Tamil is common to the process of "culturing yogurt" and "washing clothes".

So, here we were, on a Monday morning, about to rush out to work. Girija communicated a series of instructions to the maid and remembered that yogurt had to be cultured for the first time at home since we moved to Mumbai.

So she said, "arre haan. aaaj doodh ko... doodh ko... matlab... [double-translation affected effortlessly from Tamil-to-English-to-Hindi]... haaaan! doodh ko dhona hai!" ("Oh yes, the milk needs to.. needs to... I mean... the milk needs to be washed!"

The maid looked at us as though we had just descended from another planet! She must have thought that we were funny people with weird tastes. She slowly re-attached her jaw to her face. She probably did not know what to say. She wanted to laugh, and she did. A bit. But she wanted to be polite too. She also had no idea what we meant and was scared she was taking on a task that would eventually land her in trouble. 

So, she stared at us blankly and said somewhat innocently, "Madam, doodh ko kaise dhona hai? vaise bhi, doodh to safed hi hai" ("Madam, how do I wash milk? In any case, the milk is already white!")

We ran out of the house. 

We purchased ready-set yogurt that evening! 

-- Mohan (@mohank)

Ps: The right phrase for that process is "doodh to jamana hai"

Settling into life in Mumbai: A Licen...

It is now 18 months since we moved back to Mumbai. Girija and I had lived in Australia for many years prior to that. 


A few days back, we had organised a Twitter-inspired get-together -- a TweetUp -- at our appartment in Mumbai. The evening has been captured wonderfully in a blog-post by the lovely Naren Shenoy.

During the evening, I recounted -- badly, of course -- some of the initial struggles we had when settling into a "new normal" life in Mumbai.

"You are so incredibly bad at telling a story Mo," Girija said. She is good like that! She calls a spade a shovel and keeps me grounded. Always!

As I sulked and slithered into a corner that was happy to receive me, perhaps out of extreme sympathy, one of our guests (Twests, perhaps?) said, "Why don't you write these experiences down?"

I thought that that was a sensible idea since I do write better than I narrate -- now you know how terrible my narrations are!

And so, here I am... Using my hitherto suspended blog to write once again about things other than cricket.

The invitation and encouragement to blog about my experiences may have been driven by a momentary rush of face-saving empathy on the part of my friend. However, on reflection, I think it is a good idea to write because I believe I am caught in the middle of a truly fascinating process; a process of re-connecting and re-discovery.

I moved back to Mumbai in March 2010. I had been away from India for some 24 years. That is a long time to be away from a place. I needed to re-establish connect with the place and her people. Of course, in the time I had been away, I had made the pilgrimage to attend the Madras/Chennai "Music Season" almost every year since I had left. However, we soon realized that living in a place is quite different to making fleeting annual appearances during which one eats out almost everyday and when one attends classical music concerts in well-appointed air-conditioned halls.

"Living in a place like India is very different to visiting every now and then," I was warned by a friend!

"Unless you stand in a queue to purchase a train ticket, you have not really lived here," said a another.

I had lost all sense of what it was like to live and work in India.

It is now 18 months since we moved back, to live in India; a year and a half of immense paradoxes.

Initially, when we had just moved back to India in March 2010, I used my "Face Book" (FB) Status updates quite a bit to connect with the friends we had said goodbye to in Australia -- I wasn't much on Twitter then. I used my FB status updates to talk about life here. I would marvel at things that astounded us. I would also whinge and moan about things that weren't 'quite right'! Even when I whined, I was trying to laugh at the situation in a mock-tragic manner rather than ridicule the situation and the actors in it. That said, I did also post positive messages of some amazing things that we were seeing. I did marvel at the fact that we had our MTNL connection within 12 hours of applying for one -- that too on a Saturday! I did marvel at how 'easy' life had become in India. But "perception" is a funny thing! People remember the negative comments more than positive appreciation/affirmation.

One of my FB friends who lives in Chennai called me immediately after one such 'negative' FB status update and snorted angrily, "If you don't like it here, just pack your bags and go back."

I accepted and empathized with that sentiment even if I did not support it entirely. Mainly because that sentiment resonates strongly with a picture I have of Indians as people that love humor and love a laugh except when it is on us! And even when the laugh is on Indians, more often than not, only an Indian can be the originator or creator of such self-denigration.

In those initial days, I wasn't Indian enough; I had not earned my self-sledge rights. So the "go back" comment was par for the course.

Witness the Edison drama that played out when Joel Stein wrote an article in The Times. The 'race card' was used and waved quite easily. If the same article had been written by an Indian-Indian -- like say a Karan Thapar or Rajdeep Sardesai -- I submit that it would not have registered a blip on the race-card-scale!

I say "Indian-Indian" to indicate Indians who live in India. The Indian-Indian has self-sledge rights by virtue of his/her residency. Indians who live overseas are not considered "Indian" enough. The overseas-Indians who only visit here during their children's school holidays or for "Music Season" visits are commonly referred to as NRI's. Non-resident Indians is the official expansion of the acronym, although Not-Required Indians is a commonly accepted expansion too!

So one needs to earn self-mock stripes and you only earn it after spending (read: suffering) enough time here. It is like a prison sentence.

Indeed, a few months after I moved to Mumbai, a friend of mine said to me, "I totally agree" when I whined about needless traffic delays in Andheri West caused by a truck moving the wrong way on a one-way street!

I said to her, "But when I whined about exactly the same issue last year, while I was visiting, we had a three-hour argument! We argued about the impact of population and then moved quickly on to how discriminatory the ICC was against India, Ricky Ponting's misbehavior, Adam Gilchrist's ears, Arjuna Ranatunga throwing his weight around and the need for Sri Sri Ravishankar to have two titles in his name!"

She said, "Ah! But that was different. Now you have earned the right to complain!"

But I accept that some of what I wrote in those initial few months (on my FB updates) could be seen as "grating". In that sense, the "pack up your bags and go back" friend was right. But the intent of those FB Updates was less to "make fun of" or "laugh at" and more to share my somewhat unique experiences. 


I was seeing India with a different lens.

And to be constructively balanced about it, I was having an incredibly rich experience! My life in Australia had become too regimented. Too planned. Incredibly structured. Too well-organised. There was an absence of anarchy in my life. There were few surprises to life. Here, in India, at least in those initial months, every hour threw new surprises! I learned to cope in a highly ambiguous environment, interacting with highly ambiguous personalities! I soon acquired inter-personal skills that were hitherto buried or latent. I had to hit the ground running. I had no choice. I sharpened these hitherto absent skills considerably in order to "cut through" on many issues. As a mentor of mine often says, "In India, there is no point in climbing stairs, you have to land on the terrace using a helicopter!"

But, simple/small things used to get to me initially.

For example, I would constantly get irritated by the fact that people pressed the "Up" and "Down" button on elevators. Simultaneously! "Surely, they don't want to go up and down at the same time," I'd think to myself.

One day, I plucked enough courage: "Why did you press both buttons, madam", I asked one of these Up-Down-lift-button-pushers politely.

"Mein neeche jaane ke liye lift ko upar bula raha hoon," was the assured response ("I am calling the lift up so that I can go down")

A novel explanation for why both buttons needed to be pressed. I had no come-back to that.

Initially, I marveled at how simple English errors would cause me to break into a smile or a laugh.

For example, the other day, I was at a hotel in Bangalore. I had asked for a cab to pick me up at the hotel at 8.30am. At exactly 8.30am, I got a call from the hotel concierge. He said, "Sir, your car has been reported!" It took me a while to realize that my car had reported to the front desk and that it had not "been reported"!

And there was that bandh last year where some political party was protesting against price increases. A party spokesman claimed victory and in a passion-filled speech he said, "Prices have begun to rise. We are revolting!" I had to agree with the second statement!

And then, there would be some deeper frustrations.

For example, I would often get worked up about the fact that not many people would respond to a meeting request 'appropriately'. Back in Australia, I'd get a, "Yep, you are on mate." or a "You got to be kidding. No way. Get stuffed." The best I would get initially in India would be "That time should be ok" or "That time would be ok". Now what exactly does that mean? It took me a while to figure out that the presence of would/should/could in response to a meeting request means that the person is buying an option on a potential future cancellation! This made life quite complex for a neurotically organised and frenetically structured person like me. But I guess that is my problem and not their problem! And therein lies a fundamental dysfunctionality in the landscape -- far too many people worry about their issues and problems.

But like much else over here, I got used to that too... 


Until a few weeks back that is, when, in response to a meeting request, I had the person at the other end of the line saying, "I think that in all probability that date-time would be possibly ok!" Now, I can buy one option on a future cancellation. But I counted at least four in that particular form of extreme dithering!

Nothing, however, prepared me for my drivers' licence experience. The test was the biggest joke played out on me in the initial 5 months of my stay here. The way it works these days is that one has to go through a driving school in order to secure a drivers' licene.

So on the appointed day, my local driving school piled on 15 of its test-ready candidates into 4 cars. It is a surprise that these cars traveled 20 meters! However, somehow the 4 cars managed to reach the RTO office in a place called Wadala, located some 20 kilometers away! We were warned the previous day that we had to get there "on the dot" at 10.30am. "We cannot keep the inspector waiting," we were told.

So, we got there at 10.30am and waited... and waited... and waited... in the rain and out in the open and right next to an open drain! There were 5 other driving schools with their gaggle of test-ready candidates. In all, some 90 people, 20 cars and only 10 umbrellas waited patiently for the arrival of an inspector.

The inspector finally made an appearance at 2.30pm. By then I had already devoted 5 hours to this utterly useless exercise, and that was already 4 hours and 45 minutes too many. I was quite irritated -- especially considering the fact that I stood out in the rain and alongside an open/smelly ditch.

When the man arrived, there was a mad scramble by the entire collection of hungry, irritated test-ready candidates to get into the cars of their respective driving schools. The driving instructors from these schools meanwhile jockeyed for positions on the circuit. This was akin to a Formula-1 grid where cars and drivers often duck, weave and swerve in order to eke out a starting position on the grid for themselves: "Mark Weber would have no chance of surviving this mad scramble," I thought to myself.

Anyhow, the result of all of this frenetic activity was that 20 cars lined up one behind the other on a busy highway in Wadala. I was in car number 15.

And so, the procession set off with the candidate who was to be tested in the driver's seat and with the portly inspector in the front passenger seat. After each "test", which would last no more than 300 meters, the portly inspector would ask the candidate to stop and get out of the car. The test-driver would move to the back seat and the next candidate in the back seat would move to the driver's seat and take the "test". Once all test-candidates in one car had completed their "test", the portly inspector would get out of the "now completed" car, shoo that car and its contents away and move to the next car in the queue!

This uniquely ridiculous procession made several U-turns on this very busy highway. Several large trucks traveled on both directions on this highway. The fact that I did not witness an accident that day was a minor miracle. It was totally surreal and incredulous!

I had never seen anything quite like this before... ever! One part of my brain was exploding. The other laughed so hard, I had a head-ache. I sat there shaking my head at the ridiculousness of it all. This "procession test" went on for an hour before portly guy settled into the car I was in -- car number 15 in the mad-grid-scramble earlier on.

Portly guy asked me to sit behind the wheel and drive. I was quite irritated by then. Frankly, by then, I didn't care if I got my licence or not.

Portly guy announced: "Licen Test shuru!" ("Licen Test starts now!")

A point to note here is that the traffic inspectors call it a "licen" here and not "licence". I could never figure out why, but I would soon have the answer.

I settled down behind the wheel with the express intention of irritating portly guy. I asked him, "Should I wear a seat belt?" to which he said in Hindi, "No. Not required". I continued with tongue-pressed-firmly-in-cheek and asked if I had to adjust the rear-view mirror. I was met with a stony glare and a terse response, "I haven't got all day. Just drive now, will you?"

I drove fast. I changed three gears in 20 meters! I was angry.

Portly Guy: Stop! Looks like you have driven before.

Me: Yes

PG: Why did you not say this before?

Me: Why did you not ask me before?

PG: It is not written in this form.

Me: It was not asked on the form.

PG: Ok. Do not try to make too smart. Get down. (zyaada smart math ban-naa. uthar jaayiE)

As I got down from the test-car, I asked Portly Guy in my broken Hindi:

Me: "ab kya hoga?" ("What will happen now?")
PG: "ab aur kya hoga? Licen mil jayega do hafte mein". ("What else can happen now? You will get your LICEN in 2 weeks")

Pleased as punch, I pressed on, innocently:

Me: "Sir, isko aaap Licen kyon bolte hain?" ("Sir, why do you call it a LICEN")
PG (looks at form and then at me and says in a brusque and angry tone): "aaapko ek hi chahiye naaa?" ("You want only one no?")
Me: "haaaan, ek hi chahiye". ("Yes, only one")
PG "to theek hai. Licen hi hai. Ek Licen, do licens" ("So that is right. One Licen. Two Licens")

I had my licen in two weeks. But more importantly, I was finally able to figure out why the traffic cops call it a LICEN in these parts. One licen. Two licens!

Since then, that word has become part of our vocabulary at home. I need a licen from Girija to drink one glass of wine. If I feel like a second, I need a licens! A licen for one morning coffee. A licens for two!

Precious lessons, these.

-- Mohan