The Great Leveller

We all have memories from school days. The strongest memories about school are either the sweetest ones, or the bitterest ones. I remember a teacher in school who was the worst there ever could be. Very harsh and bitter by nature, she almost hated children. She used to rap our knuckles with all her might, and derived sadistic pleasure when we writhed in pain. I don’t remember if I dreaded her more or hated her more, but I’m sure she had a strong dislike for me. I never really forgot her, and like a recurrent nightmare she was often in my thoughts even decades after I left that school. Then one fine day as I sat in my hospital office waiting for the next patient to come in, I saw a frail old lady walk inside with a smile on her face. She kept on looking at me as if prompting me to recognize her. I did in an instant, and froze. Here she was, in front of me again. Clutching a polythene bag in emaciated hands, she was dressed very differently now in a full-body hijab, as her sparse, grey hair peeped out of the head-piece. Sunken and dull eyes, high and prominent cheek bones under paper-thin facial skin made for a sorry picture. She continued to smile as I looked at her dumbstruck. Despite her appearance I felt as if I were the same puny child in front of the monster of a teacher.

‘May I sit down?’ she asked.

Inadvertently, I stood up and blurted out, ‘G- -Good morning miss, please have a seat.’ (Irrespective of the marital status, we addressed all our lady teachers as ‘miss.’)

‘How are you Ishtyaque,’ she said, ‘you have become a doctor; I thought you’d not recognize me.’ How cold I ever forget you, miss. And perhaps this was the first time I heard her address me by my first name, else, I were either a ‘hey, you!’ or at best, ‘hey, Ansari!’

I did not know how to respond. So I didn’t. I just stood there.

Then slowly and fastidiously, she went on to narrate the plight of her family and how poverty gripped them over years, resulting from a succession of misfortunes. I listened in rapt attention and watched her eyes well-up when she talked about her brother’s hip fracture.

‘He slipped and fell in the bathroom, doctor,’ she said pulling out a couple of x-ray films from the polythene bag. From ‘hey you!’ to ‘doctor’ was a big transformation, and I could not believe my ears. The fracture was bad, and needed a major surgery.

‘How much would the surgery cost, doctor? My brother does not have an insurance and..’ she trailed off and I knew.

Two weeks later when her brother was about to be discharged from the hospital, recovering from a successful surgery, my teacher said some words to me that I cannot write here in order to preserve an elderly person’s self-respect. But she pressed into my hands a ‘taveez’ which she said would protect me from fearing anyone in my life ever. I wondered if she could have given it to me in class 5.

Breaking News

Many years ago, when we had only the radio, those jumbo-sized wooden cases, News was a twice or thrice a day affair that started and ended with the trademark bip.. bip.. beeeeep, prompting sometimes my dad to set his wrist-watch. The ten minute broadcast included some humdrum political news, some international news, and finally some sports news. The one thing that I liked about news then was the deep-bass male voices of news-readers like Devaki Nandan Pandey and Ramanuj Prasad Singh, speaking in crisp, refreshing Hindi. Even when television arrived, there were no dedicated 24x7 news channels. The quintessential Salma Sultan presented the news every evening on DD without much fanfare, but I always waited for her to smile ever so lightly while signing off. Among the men, I liked the macho Tajeshwar Singh, who read the news in English. Then, Aaj Tak set the precedent of private news channels and now we have 24x7 news channels by the dozen.

These days there are more news channels than there is news. And since TRP is of more importance than the quality of content, the channels have started telecasting anything that can attract the interest of viewers- from crimes like petty burglary, murder and rape, to freak accidents like a child in a bore-well- all in the name of ‘news’. Such news items run all day long, repeatedly; the same content in every channel, each one of them claiming the news to be its exclusive! When the channels get sensational issues like the recent Ramdev-governament spat, they spare us the trivialities. But when there is no major news for the day, not even the petty ones, they resort to showing us clips from comic and family-drama TV serials. ‘Breaking news’, once supposed to alert the viewer of a major recent happening, can now mean anything from triplets being born to Farah Khan to rumors of Kareena breaking up with Saif. Some news channels have dedicated shows for major criminal events of the week- Sansani and wardaat being a couple of them, anchored by dreadful-looking anchors speaking loudly and theatrically, scaring small children in homes. Curiously, such shows are a big hit what with the public having turned sadistic and voyeuristic- we derive thrill from watching real-life criminal happenings- as long as they don’t happen to us.

The advantage of news arriving at the speed of light notwithstanding, I don’t know if such news channels are helping us in any way or not. Even when there was no TV, we all were fairly well-informed on current affairs, thanks to the metered dose of the news three times a day on the All India Radio, and of course with some help from the newspapers.  

Beep, Beep &%@# !

Whenever we’re watching a movie, I let my wife and daughter get the popcorn during the interval. I stick to my seat primarily out of laziness, but then, off late, I have started enjoying the trailers they run during the break. I had discovered my current all time favourite ‘Chak De India’ during one such interval- a pearl that I’d have otherwise missed because of my decade-long dislike for SRK movies (Not that I made up with SRK after CDI). The last time we were in the theatres for Bheja Fry-2, my bheja was so fried by the interval that I almost volunteered to get the colas but then my laziness got better of me. As I sat watching people around me fiddle with their mobiles, the theatre started playing the promo of ‘Delhi Belly’. Aamir Khan, the producer, looking funny in Charles Bronson moustache, actually warned the audience that the forthcoming flick was full of gaalis, and that it was not fit for children and other ‘boring’ and ‘pakaau’ kind of people. Excuse me? In fact Aamir was addressing the youngsters saying, ‘Be sure to watch this one, only not with your parents around’. Then the promo trailer played its trump-card number, ‘Bhaag, Bhaag DK Bose, DK Bose, Bhaag Bhaag! What the?? The film would be surely released with an 'A' certificate, but what about the children watching the promo? The next day I saw the same promo on TV !!

I remember it all started with Shekhar Kapoor making Seema Biswas shout in the opening scene of ‘Bandit Queen’, ‘Main hoon Phoolan Devi, ##@$%%$!!’ Since then, Bollywood hasn’t looked back- Omkara, No one killed Jessica, Kaminey, Ishqiya, Gangajal- there are so many flicks these days that have their dialogues garnished with blatant expletives- all allegedly for the sake of authenticity. Some directors hide bad words with beeps but then others are much bolder. The beeps don’t help much either because the audience then spends time thinking which gaali it was. Some branded multiplexes strictly don’t allow children for 'A' certified movies, but there are several others who do allow. As such there is no point of such exercise because who’ll censor the DVDs and the downloads? When our daughter was too young, we took her along for all movies as she wasn't expected to understand anything and she too only looked forward to the popcorn and the colas, and to eventually spilling both items on us. But once, when she was seven years old, she asked what *&^%$ meant. Since then I started choosing our movies carefully. Now-a-days it is getting more and more difficult to choose a movie to watch as a family- And most such flicks are downright boring (I did tell you about Bheja fry-2). I wish they make cleaner movies with audible language.

The Leak-Anywhere Men!

Disclaimer: This write-up is biased in favor of the fairer sex; and though I may sound holier-than-thou, I myself, at times, have been guilty of practising the ungentlemanly habit described here.

A few days ago I came across this news item in The Times of India: ‘Lake in Oregon (USA) drained after man pees into it.’ Nearly eight million gallons of water was siphoned-off from the said lake after security cameras caught a man urinating in it. The Oregon state administration clearly over-reacted to the episode, considering that urine of a healthy human is quite harmless, more so when just a couple of hundred milliliters of it goes into 8 million gallons of water. However, a similar administration in India would need to empty practically all water bodies- everyday.  Because irrespective of age, class, education and status, an average Indian male would unzip and take a leak just about anywhere if a loo is not found nearby, and sometimes even if it is. If they happen to be in water- in a river, a lake, the sea, and sometimes even the swimming pool, they’d piss underwater (no need to even unzip then). Don’t look too hard around a car parked by the road with the blinkers on- there is a high possibility of finding at least one man with his pants down. What do men think while peeing this way? They think- I don’t see anyone means no one is seeing me. That’s thinking like the ostrich that has its head buried in the sand. The fact of the matter is that such men are very visible to everyone- even when they stand obliquely behind a tree. This (un)manly habit goes against the women folk in two ways: One, not only do they have to bear the disgust of witnessing such a scene, they have to act unfazed at all times, as if they’ve seen nothing at all. Second, this being a ‘man’s’ world, and hence the civic bodies being ‘for men’ too, nobody in the administration has ever felt the need to build enough public loos for the sake of the ladies. How many times have we heard our ladies whisper to us when in public, ‘Psst! I need to go!’ Every time we’re on the highway on a long drive, the ladies traveling with us are the most discomforted lot. That is why, perhaps, the most innovative ‘dhabas’ on the highways specifically advertise the presence of a ‘clean ladies toilet’ on their premises to woo motorists. The signboard would read, ‘Pure Veg. Ladies toilet available’. And we do pull up at these places irrespective of the quality of food served. In cities, ladies ‘go’ in public places like malls etc. Many times this is detrimental to us men. Once, my wife and daughter went into a mall to relieve themselves. They returned half an hour later carrying bag-loads of shopping. Their trip to the loo cost me Rs. 8335 that night. Therefore, I am in favor of construction of more and more public toilets- the ‘sulabh shauchalays’ are painfully too few, and that too only in the metros and few other big cities.

I’ll sign off with this joke I heard somewhere: Santa opened a new account on Facebook. After thinking hard about the first thing to write on his ‘Wall’, he wrote: Yahan su su karna mana hai! I’d say Balle, balle to that.

Remembering Kallu

We grew up in ONGC’s cosmopolitan colony in Ankleshwar- now home to the largest industrial hub in Asia but back then in the seventies, it was no bigger than a small village. Our flat was a modest two room house with a generous balcony and it comfortably accommodated our family of six. I can write a whole blog on our way of life in those days, but right now I want to write about a ritual that took place at our home on the last Sunday of every month. Sharp at nine in the morning of the prescribed Sunday, Kallu nai (Barber) would arrive at our door-step with a wide grin on his deep brown face, revealing a set of teeth horribly stained from years of smoking. As an eight year old, I remember being extremely fond of this cheerful, middle-aged man who always wore a not-so-clean white linen kurta-pyjama, and a pair of never-polished, worn-out heavy leather shoes that he dutifully removed at the door of our house. He carried his tools in a battered-out tin box which once had two pink roses painted in oil on its lid, now almost fully flaked-out from repeated use. He always stank of tobacco and for this reason our mother stayed miles away from him, and strange as it may sound, I used to stick around him for the same reason! For me, anything that was a mark of being ‘grown-up’ was appealing, and the bidi stink was one of those things. Except for his scissors, mom never let him use any of his things, and certainly not his dirty ‘barber’s cape’, the one that is used to protect customers from getting drenched with loose strands their own hair.  So, mom used to give him a clean sheet for the cape, a comb, a tin of talcum powder, and a small bowl with water in it. Kallu would set shop in the shaded corner of the balcony, and one by one, chronologically from youngest to eldest, we four brothers would sit on a low wooden stool and receive a thorough hair-cut, followed by a short, swift head massage- the champi- something that I loved so much. I also loved his cool water spray and often urged him to do some more till he shut me up with mock anger. Our father’s turn was always the last, and for a good reason. After the hair cut, and a generous dose of champi, he used to get his nails clipped, and his under-arms shaved leisurely. Seeing this, I often ran to the nearest mirror and lifted up my arms to scan my under-arms for the tiniest hair follicle- another of my marks of being a ‘grown-up’. While getting thus serviced, dad used to chit-chat with Kallu, talking about anything under the sun; the talk getting periodically interspersed with later’s loud and crackling smoker’s laughter. It was from them that I had heard the first mention of the words, ‘Emergency’ and Indira Gandhi. The session with Kallu folded up with mom serving dad and him brimming cups of hot tea, and us she massaged with warm mustard oil till it dripped from our sides. By the time we emerged from the bathroom, feeling crisp and smelling of the eternal ‘Hamam’ soap, Kallu nai would have been long gone, leaving behind his trademark tobacco scent which used to linger till late afternoon, reminding me of him every now and then. By evening we used to forget him, only to remember him exactly four weeks later. I don’t recall when Kallu nai stopped coming to our place, and instead we started visiting the ‘Lucky hair cutting saloon’ in the town. Slowly the tribe of such house-to-house barbers became extinct but I still remember with great fondness Kallu, his crackling laughter and his unmatched head massages. Recently I had treated myself to a session at Jawed Habib’s but the uniformed stylists’ text-bookish massages there were no match for Kallu nai’s dextrous champi. 

Film Review: Bheja Fry-2

Saturday night we went to watch Bheja Fry 2. My daughter’s quarterly exams had just got over and we were looking forward to unwind with some laughs. But the movie only lived up to its name literally and fried our brains. How many times has it happened that the success of a movie has prompted a film-maker to make a sequel, or a part 2, and has ended up spoiling the whole thing by overdoing it? It is not that Bheja Fry-1 was exceptionally good, but Vinay Pathak had made us laugh in that 2007 flick.

The start looks quite promising but ten minutes into the movie and everything starts to fall apart. The director starts so many things simultaneously but fails to hold on to anything at all. Kay Kay Menon is a fraudulent business tycoon squandering his father-in-law’s money much to his wife’s dismay. Kay Kay’s character looks promisingly villainous with his eyes darting across anything dressed skimpily in his vicinity. He is shown having an affair with his secretary, and perhaps on the verge of having another one with his best friend’s wife- Aditi Gowitrikar- obvious by the way they both look at each other in the first few scenes. But then Aditi vanishes from the film altogether, appearing only briefly here and there doing nothing at all. Kay Kay then stalks Minissha Lamba but lets her go when she says ‘I’m not that kind of a girl’. Villains would soon be out of business this way.

There isn’t much of a story, but income tax officer Vinay Pathak happens to win a holiday on a cruise on a reality show. The producer of this show is Kay Kay’s friend and Aditi’s husband, who persuades Kay Kay to join them on the cruise, who in turn agrees on learning that Minissha Lamba too would be on the cruise as a part of the show’s team. Suresh Menon, another income tax officer, and on Kay Kay’s trail for tax evasion follows him on the cruise. With everyone on the cruise, and Kay Kay confusing Pathak to be the income tax officer who’s after him, and Suresh Menon disguising himself to evade Pathak, the plot finally seems all set for some good comedy of errors but suddenly Kay Kay and Pathak fall overboard and reach a remote island full of jungles. Perhaps the financers fell short of funds for the cruise ship’s rental  The second half of the film is spent on this island with the two actors making a buffoonery of everything, including tackling a monkey to recover Kay Kay’s pants. The director probably thought of this scene with the primate so good that he notified the audience in the beginning of the movie, along with the credits, that this particular scene was shot in Indonesia. So? It might as well have been shot in Timbuktu, who cares? Then, out of the blue, they suddenly discover a fully-furnished house complete with electricity supply, a telephone and a radio set- in the middle of a jungle!! The owner of that house is another of the many unsolved mysteries of the movie.

There’s nothing much to write home about the performances. We fail to understand what Minissha Lamba is doing in the film. If she’s there for the glamour, she isn’t producing any. In fact she looks awful in heavy make-up. Bad looks cannot be hidden under tons of paint. And despite her surname and the pencil-sharp heels, she looks awkwardly short when she stands next to Kay Kay- as if he’s talking to her from first floor to ground floor. And even this singular piece of better-than-nothing glamour is entirely missing from most of the second half of the movie. Therefore the director, perhaps by the way of compensation, makes a foreign model run helter-skelter on the island’s beach in a flimsy bikini for a few minutes. This plastic-like girl is so thin that one would think that her legs were candle sticks and arms incense sticks. The saving grace of the film is a few comical lines by Vinay Pathak. Kay Kay has acted according to his abilities. Suresh Menon has been thoroughly wasted. The rest of the cast are so impact-less that I don’t remember them as I write now. Rajat Kapoor is terribly missed. (He was very good in BF-1). Don’t waste time and money on this one. Go and have Bhel-Puri at the road-side thela instead. It’d be more fun.

Facebook Mania

Mania: n: An excessively intense enthusiasm, interest, or desire; a craze

Nothing has touched the lives of the internet users across the globe like Facebook has. With over 500 million users, it is easily the most popular social net-working site ever. So, love it or hate it, you cannot ignore it.  People of all ages are now hooked, and though the official age for being on FB is 13, I have seen 5 year olds updating their statuses with innocent mirth. My own daughter has an account since she was 11 years old (she’s 13 and a half now). I had shown her the relevant ‘Terms and conditions’ page, but it didn’t take long for her to discover that all she needed to do was tweak her DOB just a bit to take the plunge. Recently there was news of a group of pregnant women opening accounts for their unborn babies! They even made their fetuses have mock chats with each other online! -I’m kicking now, I'm somersaulting. God!

Like everything else, FB has its advantages and disadvantages. In real life, we all have passed through time-zones- Early and late childhoods, adolescence, youth and adulthood. We all had friends in each stage of life. Growing up, we separated from the old friends and made new ones, seldom remembering the oldest ones, often forgetting what they looked like. Before FB, most of us had a ‘current’ group of friends, and probably had been in touch with people who crossed us within the last five years or so, through as much as annual phone calls. Then, came Facebook- Bang! We started re-connecting with our oldest friends, dating back to even the kindergarten! The thrill of discovering long-lost friends from two, three decades ago, and sharing with them old sepia photographs; enquiring upon parents, siblings and teachers; reminiscing first crushes and dates was unmatched. Suddenly FB made us board a time machine and fly back to those times! Such virtual reunions re-kindled old-times’ emotions and prompted scores of people across the world to arrange physical re-unions. Apart from old friends, has FB allowed us to make new friends sharing common likes and dislikes.

It is not that only those people, who are thousands of miles apart, and belonging to the older times, connect through FB. Even people concurrently living in the same city, area and street prefer connecting through the FB!  Spouses talk with each other on FB, wishing each on their birthdays and anniversaries!  Children extort new gadgets from their parents- My dad is giving me a new I-phone on my birthday! Yippee!  Yippee, my foot.

Log in any time of the day and you’ll find a variety of status updates- happy and somber; romantic and poetic; angry and frustrated; bored; thrilled; tired and pissed-out etc. People also make all kinds of announcements on FB- A new car, a new house, a new kid, and perhaps a new wife, career achievements, children doing well in exams, or a recent holiday- garnished with carefully chosen and photoshopped snaps from the trip. In short, FB is about everything- one can chat with someone across the street, or across the seven seas- dressed in as much as a pair of pyjamas! No hassle of dressing up and becoming presentable! And no matter how you actually look like, you’re free to choose your best picture from ten years ago and use it as a profile picture. It is easy to display talent- art, poetry (original and plagiarized), photographs, or simply tell jokes- FB is a ‘everything-goes’ or ‘do-your-stuff’ kind of site.

FB is also a number one gossip site. Check other people’s statuses and put a comment or two; update your own status and see what others have to say about it; ‘like’ a comment, laugh at others and scoff at some… keep a tab on everything around the world all at your convenience.

Like all things with advantages, FB has loads of disadvantages as well. Foremost disadvantage is addiction. If not checked in time, FB can become as addictive as marijuana, if not more. Recently, perhaps sensing such malady afflicting him, a friend of mine on FB declared that he was tired of logging in and out, checking statuses and comments, and had decided to say good-bye to FB for ‘a good 6-7 months’. There were congratulatory messages for him for his brave attempt, some were sad that he was leaving the scene. Others, like me kept quiet, because we knew that he would come back much earlier than the ‘6-7 months’. And indeed, he did come back- in just 2 weeks, announcing his return with much fanfare! Such is the pull of FB…Jaani, yahan log aate apni marzi se hain par jaate hain Mark Zuckerberg ki marzi se!

Another disadvantage is the embarrassment of finding an old flame on facebook, and worse is finding your wife’s old flame on the next page!

On a serious note, the worst disadvantage is perhaps the loss of personal, physical touch in relationships. Now-a-days we seldom call-up friends, meet-up even less. Everyone is online. Have we become data? Thousands of gigabytes of data in form of pictures, videos, text messages and updates? What has the future in store for us? Will we all become humanoid robots similar to the ones shown in the Bruce Willis starrer sci-fi movie ‘Surrogates’, where the real flesh-and-blood humans lead a life of misery, while their surrogates put out a bright but false and deceptive version of themselves to the world? Think. Somehow, I love and hate Mark Zuckerberg at the same time. 

Indian Road 'Ways'

Driving on Indian roads is an art. The skill needed to be able to drive and survive in India is much more than has been deemed obligatory by the Road traffic Authority. That is why, perhaps, the regulatory authority is absolutely carefree about issuing driving licenses. They have almost a come-and-take-it kind of attitude. My wife, who procured a driving license for a four-wheeler in 1997, is still learning how to drive a car in 2011, and her license won’t expire till 2017. In fact, I often think why have a licensing authority in India at all? Half of the motorists don’t bother to get themselves a driving license; and those who do, procure it only to use it as a ‘photo-ID’ in matters of more importance like opening a bank account or getting a mobile phone connection. It is a common sight to see children barely ten years old zip-zapping on their gearless two-wheelers, scaring the wind out of unsuspecting motorists and pedestrians on the way. And it is now a fashion statement for teenagers well below eligible age to race their parents’ expensive cars and SUVs on city roads (the fashion statement being more for the parents than the kids). The poor traffic cops on duty don't bother stopping these errant kids knowing only too well that a few phone calls would in fact endanger their own chances to that already elusive departmental promotion.

PUC, or ‘Pollution Under Check’ certificate is only a tool used by the cops for extorting bribe from the motorists not possessing it, for everyone knows that the possession of such a document means nothing vis-à-vis pollution control. Kerosene-operated auto-rickshaws moving with deafening rattle, spewing tons blinding and choking smoke from their exhaust pipes is a common sight. But if you dare the driver of such a vehicle, he’d quickly pull out a crisp, laminated PUC certificate and stick it on your face. These three-wheelers are often the scariest objects on Indian roads. I call them the ‘Bugs’- from their uncanny ability to dart from one lane of the road to the other like nobody’s business. Such bugs are constant, mobile threats for everyone else on the road. They’d move and stop; change speed and direction with gay abandon. Often overloaded, the bug drivers never use light indicators, or try to give off a manual signal before stopping or taking a turn (the electronic indicators in most rickshaws conk-off out of disuse). The most considerate of the rickshaw drivers would indicate the direction of their motion with their foot peeping out from the bottom of their cubicle, and you should have sharp and darting eyes not to miss such momentary, I’m-doing-you-a-favor kind of a signal. In case of a mishap if you confront the driver for his failure to indicate, he’d pounce upon you saying he did poke his foot out, and it was your fault to have missed it. Next time if there’s a bug on the road ahead of you, keep an eye on the right lower vicinity- a foot could pop out anytime to indicate a right turn (Don’t ask me what they do to indicate a left turn!)

 Then there are big people with bigger egos in their biggest cars. These vehicle owners drive as if the crores they spent on the vehicle included the cost of the roads they’re driving on. I call these cars and SUVs ‘Super-bugs’ as they display the same disregard for everyone else on the road as their poorer cousin- the auto-rickshaw. Only their drivers don’t pop their feet out to indicate direction- you see, they can’t, with the central lock and all.

Helmets don’t serve any purpose in a traffic that moves precisely at 9 kmph in rush hour but then there is a compulsion to either sit behind a wind-screen- like in a car, or wear a helmet and a rain-coat when on a two-wheeler. No, not because the rules say so, or it might rain anytime, but to protect oneself from the rain of guthkha-laden saliva spitted out without warning by the biker ahead of you. This is especially important in the morning hours when you wouldn’t want to reach office with maroon streaks on your pristine, white shirt, not to talk of the ‘scent’ you’d let out.

P.S:

If you’re residing outside India, don’t let your foreign friends read this, lest India loses out on precious tourist revenue.    

Joke Killers Inc.

Our society is full of inequalities. Financial, social and intellectual inequalities are the most obvious ones. But with age and maturity everyone eventually learns to cope up and live harmoniously. However, one variety of inequality that I have been unable to cope up with is the inequality of sense of humor (SOH). Nothing turns me off more than the company of a person with a pathetic sense of humor. You may be in a group of ten people having a blast but just one guy with a poor SOH is enough to spoil things for you. I term such people as ‘Joke killers’.  Joke killers would typically wait till the laughter has died down, and then would look blankly at you and say,

‘So?’

So my foot you idiot, eat your soup!

Others would try and find logic (showing off their intelligence) with your joke.

‘Blondes aren’t actually stupid. Statistics say so!’

‘Oh, yeah? Now eat the main course, moron!’

Still some others would try to play goody, goody.

‘What language, man! Tone down a bit; we have ladies and kids around.’

Then why don’t you go join them?

I remember being in a party once and the guys got together and started shooting off jokes. I volunteered with this one:

‘Hey guys, check this one out: How to keep a group of idiots in suspense?’ After an appropriate pause, looking at the faces of my pals, half of whom had already broken off into a smile in anticipation to the punch line, I concluded, ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow!’ 
The place was filled with crackling guffaw, but everyone simply doubled up with laughter when this guy who didn’t seem very amused said,

‘Not fair, you know I’m flying off to the US early tomorrow morning, so you might want to tell me now!’

Yes, and I hope Barack Obama keeps you forever!

There’s another variety of joke killers. These people not only have a deplorable sense of humor, they are blissfully oblivious of this little fact. Worse, some of them think they are clowns of the first order and no sooner the ambience turns jokey, they’ll jump in from nowhere and try to grab the limelight with third-rate, ten-year-old jokes, told in such irksome manner that you’d feel like pulling out your hair. Not only that, they won’t even notice that no one has laughed at the ‘joke’ and would enthusiastically shriek immediately after,

‘Here's another one...!’

Which way to the loo?

Justice for 26/11- When??

It has been two and a half years since 26/11, and apart from ‘maintaining’ an expensive Ajmal Kasab, India has achieved little towards securing justice for the Mumbai victims.  Given the rogue nature of the failed state called Pakistan, where the shots are called by the very people who are suspected to have perpetrated the assault on our pride, it is worthless to expect any co-operation from their so-called elected representatives. The nexus between the terrorist organizations, ISI and the army is almost a parallel, clandestine government that dwarfs the democratically elected regime in every way. People like Zardari, Gilani and Rehman Malik are mere puppets- for display to the rest of the civilized world. I don’t know how to put it more politely but I think it is a good fortune for India that there were six Americans among the 166 people killed on 26/11, otherwise people like Tahawwur Hussain Rana and David Headley would have never been caught and put to trial; and therefore we’d have probably never known that the handlers of the Mumbai terrorists were members of the ISI and the Pakistani army. The fact that Bin Laden had been living lavishly for minimum five years right under the Pakistani army’s nose is further proof that at least some members of the army and the ISI are supporters of the Al-Qaeda and the affiliate terrorist organizations. While India, despite its proximity to Pakistan, has chosen tons and tons of paper-work over a military offensive, the USA, from thousands of miles away, could neatly and precisely hunt, ambush and kill its prime target Osama Bin Laden right in the heartland of Pakistan. And it was not just because of the millions of dollars in aid pouring-in from USA every now and then that prevented Pakistan from reacting in any worse way than a mere whimper- it was the bully in the heart of every American who wanted to see Osama dead that drove those seals to Osama’s bedroom and shoot him in the head. We, in India, need to have that zeal to act in a similar fashion and flush out our most wanted men from the terror heaven called Pakistan. 

The Mobile Cacophony

I’ll start with a clichéd, but very agreed-upon statement:- The advancement in technology is a double-edged sword- while it brings comfort and luxury; it also robs us of peace! The particularly nonsensical technological marvel I wish to dwell upon here is the cellular/ mobile phone, or quite simply- ‘the mobile’. Almost a decade ago, in India, the cellular phone made its first grand appearance- huge, heavy and showy handsets from Motorola were the first ones, but despite the inconvenience of handling these monsters, their owners flaunted them with glee. And why not? Handsets the size of a watermelon cost 15-16 thousand rupees- a fortune in those days; and the usage cost was even more preposterous- Rs 18 /min for outgoing as well as incoming calls! No wonder, only the stinking rich could afford mobile phones at that time, which they proudly held in fake leather pouches tucked in worn-off belts under protruding bellies. When in public, they’d let the loud, cacophonic rings play until everyone in the vicinity noticed that a call was being received on the mobile phone. Slowly, days changed and within no time telecom companies cropped up all over the country like wild grass. The resulting price war came to the user’s rescue and we can now get a comfortable mobile phone device in the cost of one month’s usage bill of the year 2000. The reduced usage cost and availability of cheap handsets- by the kilo- enabled my car-wash man to compare his handset with mine:

‘Sir, aapke mobile mein blue wala tooth hai?’

‘Nahi, wisdom tooth hai…chal ja apna kaam kar!’

I stopped displaying my phone in public.

A cell-phone in every pocket prompted another kind of nuisance:- Unsolicited calls and text messages. All you need to have is a bank account and a cell-phone to have dumb-sounding girls, speaking bad English in strong vernacular accent, to call you up dead in the middle of the afternoon when you’re having your siesta, and ask if you needed a loan for house, car, business, child-education, under-garments- anything.

‘Sir pliss, I have very good interest.’

‘No, I have no interest (Go to hell).’

Or they’d call you up and tell you of a multi-bagger stock on the BSE, surely to double your investment in 6 months.

‘Oh, yeah? Why don’t you then invest your 2 rupee in that stock instead of wasting it on this call (you idiot)?’

Initially, like many similarly harassed people, I’d get angry upon receiving such calls and in the event shoot up my blood-pressure and spoil the day. Soon, I realized these call-centre guys are trained to hear abuses and they make no difference to them; they go about their business, calling up the next unsuspecting chap on their list. I then thought of a way of getting even with them. Sample this conversation:

Caller: ‘May I speak with Dr Ish..ti..aaa  queue Anshari?

Me: ‘Who’s this?’

Caller: ‘I’m calling from blue-chip investments, we have a very good investment scheme in the stock market. Do you invest in stock markets?’

Me: ‘Yes, I am Dr’s assistant speaking; sir is very, very interested in investing in the stock market, but please, could you hold for a while? he’s in the toilet, having a bad stomach.’.

Caller: ‘Sure, sir, I’ll hold.’

After this, I’d put my phone aside without disconnecting and go on with my work

Intermittently, every 2 mins or so, I’d pick the phone and say, ‘please hold, the sir will be right back; I can hear the flush now..’

Not wanting to lose a chance to chat up with someone very, very interested in investing in their scheme, the caller would hold for 7 to 10 mins before swearing to himself and disconnecting, probably promising himself never call this number again, much to my relief! Try this trick, it works!

The Ramdev saga

Until a couple weeks ago, for me, Baba Ramdev was someone who woke up people at 3 in the morning to teach them how to sleep well. I am essentially a lazy man, and I occasionally walk the treadmill at home only because I happened to spend a small fortune on the stupid walking machine. For this reason, the Baba mattered to me as much as Mungerilal did (whoever he is). However, of late, the poor Baba has managed to be on national television on times other than his allotted slot of 3AM to 6 AM. In fact, in the last few days Baba Ramdev went off air on TV news channels only for commercial breaks and the weather report. He had purportedly turned his ‘yoga shivir’ into a protest ground at the Ramlila maidan in New delhi, where the Baba started an indefinite fast, demanding from the government stringent and sure-shot measures to bring back crores of black money stashed away in clandestine foreign banks. The ruling UPA government (read Congress), quite sheepishly went on the back-foot ever since the Baba made his intentions public, what with the senior cabinet ministers including the finance minister Pranab da meeting up with the Baba at Delhi airport to win him over with negotiations. This panicky attitude of the Congress bigwigs made the top brass in the opposition sit up and take notice. It may be recalled that the matter of Indian black money in foreign banks was first brought out by Mr LK Advani, the perpetual prime-minister-in-waiting. They were in awe of a simple yogi who suddenly seemed to have more than a fair chance of doing what Mr advani couldn’t do in so many years. And better still, he was immediately seen to have the potential to pull away the voters from the congress- an invaluable feat for the opposition in context with the next general elections. And Lo and behold! All of the BJP, along with the sangh parivar band-wagon, started supporting Baba Ramdev openly, the Baba's claims of being 'politically neutral' notwithstanding. Everything was going on fine, and the government really did not have much to worry about; it had ruled too long to be bogged down by protests like this one.  But suddenly, the government lost its mind and cracked down on the peaceful protesters in the middle of the night with lathis and tear-gas shells. While this caused physical and mental harassment for the protesters, and one can only thank God for saving those gathered from a major mishap like fire or a stampede, the opposition got on platter a fully baked issue to pounce upon the government on, which it did without mercy. The condition of the injured members of the public is not known as the plight of the common man does not make good news material for the media, and the focus immediately shifted to the blame game- BJP sitting on Dharna at Rajghat with Sushma Swaraj dancing to patriotic songs, and Diggy Raja calling her a 'nachania'. Meanwhile, the Baba, having been driven out of Delhi, and denied permission by UP government to protest in Noida, commenced his fast at his Haridwar ashram, and according to the latest news, he has been shifted to a Dehradun hospital for his deteriorating condition owing to a seven day long fast. I am sure the politicians on both sides are busy calculating their gains and losses from this episode, while the Yogi Baba  battles with starvation-related maladies for the country's cause...May God help the Baba...

Noble profession?

We doctors have the unique distinction of being the people who make their fortune from the misfortunes of others. An elderly lady who was happy with the treatment she got in my hospital gave me this blessing- along with the bill amount, of course- ‘May your hospital be always full with patients!’ I smiled and humbly accepted her blessings, but upon reflecting I realized that while she wished well for me, she inadvertently ill-wished for several others! Another interesting parlance in medical practice is ‘season’. A low season means bad flow of patients that leaves the doctor worried about his practice, and vice-versa, a good season means an out-patient department full of patients, prompting the doctor to plan perhaps for his next car. I remember a particular epidemic of chikungunya a couple of years ago in my part of the country, which saw such boom in the practice of some doctors that they named their new cars as ‘chikungunya car’! So, if everyone, everywhere, starts leading a healthy lifestyle, eat properly, exercise well; and drivers drive so carefully that there are no accidents, would that be good news for the doctors or bad news? If they succeed in eradicating malaria, tuberculosis etc, if somehow humans stopped having appendixes, and if they succeed in ‘switching off’ the cancer gene, what would happen to so many doctors? I shudder to think about my receptionist telling me at the start of the day, ‘No appointments, sir!’ We doctors like to see our waiting rooms brimming with patients. As an orthopedic surgeon, I confess that the sight of a gurney being pulled into my emergency room makes me hope that the fracture is a major one- it is a sadistically pervert thought, but true. Sometimes a normal x-ray report of a patient suspected to be having a hip fracture makes me almost think ‘bad luck’. I sometimes wonder if a doctor’s profession is really a noble one. Or if it has continued to be a noble one. I think a noble doctor would be the one who would treat his patients selflessly; one who would make a living out of his profession, and not a fortune; one who would be as happy as the patient on hearing that the reports are normal. I hoped to become such a doctor, but unfortunately, I too have been sucked into the band-wagon of I’m-going-to-be-stinking-rich kind of doctors. 

This world cup, that world cup !

Before 2 April 2011, India had just one moment of true glory in the world of cricket..and that was the 1983 ICC-Prudential world cup victory- at Lord's. Will this recent triumph overshadow the earlier one? I hope not. In 1983, India played as the underdogs, and the victory over the hot favorites West Indies in the final was indeed exhilarating. In the early eighties, cricket as a game was followed in the country, but not yet at the level of madness. That victory brought madness to the fans of the game in India; that victory brought out the desire in the likes of the then young Sachin to pursue the game; that victory had made him want to play for India and win another world cup. And after playing 21 years of international cricket, Sachin Tendulkar repeated the feat for India, making his own dream come true. So I hope the dazzle of the recent victory does not dilute the sense of triumph brought by the first one ever; I hope the media-men do not forget to bring out the Kapil Devs and the Roger Binnys out of the closet every four years to take us down the memory lane with them. Every one of us has probably heard how Kapil Dev felt while lifting up the trophy that year, but still we want to hear it all over again; we all know that game almost ball-by-ball, but we still want to know how Mohinder Amarnath felt on being the man of that match; we all have heard hundreds of times how difficult a catch was the one that dismissed Viv Richards, but we want to hear about it just one more time.. I would never want those sepia images of Kapil dev's men posing with the trophy to fade away from my mind because I owe my love for cricket to those cricketing heroes of our country, because I owe my first moment of true cricketing glory to them...

Naughty after forty?

There are many woes of being over forty. When I was in my mid-thirties, I kept hearing of the adage ‘Naughty after Forty’ and therefore had actually looked forward to that milestone. But here I was, all of 44, and I never got my chance to be naughty, and all hopes crashed when women as old as 34 started addressing me as ‘uncle’. Devastated, I sought refuge with my best friend- My wife. She sympathized, and assured me that women were just being respectful. Could the respected be expected to be naughty? Considering that my wife could have her own vested interest in mothers of 2-3 children calling me uncle, I decided to talk to some of my friends. It was duly deduced that the culprit could be my graying, and fast-disappearing hair. Once a proud owner of a fulsome mop of flowing hair, I had painfully witnessed over the years the receding of my hair-line and the paucity in its volume. And now the gray strands added to my hairy misery. Hence came before me the question that foxes not-so-young men and women- To Dye or not to Dye. My wife immediately dismissed the idea, giving a variety of reasons against coloring of the hair- allergy, hair-fall etc, and favoring the silver strands by saying that the ‘Salt and Pepper’ look enhanced my personality. Oh, yeah? My personality incidentally looks enhanced by twenty years! After much deliberation, I decided to dye my hair and ordered my barber of many years to do it for me. Despite the risk of being detrimental to his business, he tried to deter me from the act. After an earful from me, he gave in with a sad look on his face. When he finished after 45 boring and messy minutes, I immediately knew why. In the mirror, I looked like an old Fiat car with a fresh coat of cheap paint. Out of shame I changed my barber forever. Then I waited patiently for several months as the colored portions of my hair was gradually replaced by my natural hair. A proud owner of whatever has remained of my God-given hair, these days I give my sincerest blessings to all those who address me as ‘uncle’.

Net Lingo!

When we were in school and college, and I’m talking of nearly 30 years ago, we had just  about one informal acronym in use- LOL, which we used to scribble at the bottom of greeting cards, and which meant, quite simply, ‘lots of love’. Quite recently I came to know that now-a-days the acronym is more often used for ‘laugh out loud’, in internet parlance. Internet has been around for a few years now, and I always considered myself an ‘updated bloke’ on technology, very proud of the fact that I was aware of newer terms in the internet lingo viz BTW (By the way) and CU (see you). My pride took a serous dent the other day when I sent across a humorous text to my daughter. She immediately replied with ‘ROTFLOL’. Assuming that she made some mistake punching in the keys on her keypad, I called her up to inform her of the oversight. Sounding seriously disappointed with me, she told me that she was too deft with the keypad to make silly mistakes and that I should look up the meaning of ROTFLOL. After spending just a few minutes on Google, not only did I realize that ROTFLOL meant ‘roll out on the floor laughing out loud’, it dawned upon me that she had actually been considerate to her poor dad by not replying with ‘ROTFLMFAO’, an acronym that I cannot possibly expand here for decency’s sake. Google offered links to sites fully dedicated to internet and even Facebook lingo. There was even one paid site- $1.95 for 50 acronyms! God!

Upon returning from a recent vacation, I updated my status with proper and perfect English words, trying to sound as poetic as possible about our trip. However, I was quite flabbergasted by my daughter’s status who had this to write on her wall: ‘Had ma gr8test vacs eva with ma fmly n frnds…srsly njyd ma best!! :) :D’ ‘Now what sort of English is that?!’ I asked my daughter. She smirked, ‘who wants to read boring perfect language on the net, dad? Look at the number of ‘likes’ and comments I get for my statuses and look at what happens to yours…’ she almost said tch, tch. Indeed, she had comments pouring in from her friends in much the same language she used…And my status was responded to by a    ‘few old men and women’- as she put it!

Is it now da time to frgt the good ol’ English and swich ova to the nu nd fab net lingo? Tell me, k? CU..!!

Bheja Fry

As someone has said correctly, humor is just about everywhere; we only need to have the sense for it! Medical practice involves, by default, interaction of us doctors with all sorts of people. Some of them are really funny in their own ways. This piece is not intended to make fun of anyone; I’m just trying to portray how situations can turn really funny without anyone in the scene trying to be a joker. Sample this conversation with a lady patient of mine who was otherwise a complete stranger:

‘Doctor, I have hurt my ankle.’

 ‘When did this happen?’

‘Umm…lemme see…ah, yes, the day my son got married!’

Oh yeah..I was in the baraat and was dancing away to ‘Sheila ki jawaani’, and so I should know the exact date of your injury.

‘Ma’am, I wouldn’t know when your son got married, so could you be more specific about the date?’ I asked politely.

‘Why,’ she said pointing at her brand new bahu who sat shyly on the opposite chair, ‘Nilesh and Reena got married as soon as we returned from America!’

And I was the travel agent who arranged for your tickets, so I should know that too.

Luckily for me, Reena sensed my growing discomfort and intervened with answers that made sense.

Another obsession with some patients, mostly those from the rural areas, is regarding the dietary advice. And although very few medical conditions warrant limiting citrus food in diet, there is an inexplicable phobia for sour foods among the populace. In early days of my orthopedic practice, where the patients are otherwise medically healthy, I was vehemently against severe dietary restrictions, except when the co-existing conditions warranted, like in diabetes, hypertension, or gout.  

The conversation in those days used to go somewhat like this:

‘…And what should I eat doctor?’

‘You can eat your regular food.’

‘You mean except sour foods, right, doctor?’  

‘Wrong, you can eat everything, including sour foods.’

The patient would then look at me as if I’d secured my medicine degree by fraudulent means, and fly out of my clinic, never to come back. Slowly, I mended my ways, only to save my practice, and made it a point to strictly warn patients, wrongly of course, against eating anything sour lest they should aggravate their conditions. But that did not bring end to my woes either.

More recent conversations go somewhat like this:

‘…And what should I eat doctor?’

‘Everything except sour foods.’

‘But I can surely add some lime juice in my dal, doctor? And what about tomatoes, doctor? And buttermilk? I will surely not touch tamarind.’

How about my bheja fry?

Mumbai Masala

My brushes with the enigmatic city of Bombay, or Mumbai, if you must, have always been by the way of transit- I have traveled through parts of the city either on the way to airport from a railway station, or from one railway terminus to the other. The historical and other important tourist attractions of the maximum city notwithstanding, the bad traffic conditions and worse weather conditions have deterred me from taking an extended tour of the city itself. It is funny how so many million people adore Mumbai despite, or shall I dare say, because of these inconveniences. Some say their day does not get over unless they are themselves part of one of the hundreds skirmishes within the local suburban trains or at least witness one during their commuting hours. Others swear by the stink that Dharavi emanates. Some are fans of the sticky, humid summer months; others simply love the time spent on traffic signals with street urchins begging to buy their trivial merchandise.  

Recently I was on the way to the airport from Churchgate, via Haji Ali, in a cool cab, with my family. The taxi driver from, where else but Uttar Pradesh, was chattering off to glory, convincing us that his wife did not let him speak at home. The humdrum Mumbai lanes were already getting on to me and I was looking forward to the familiar signboard that said, in proud Marathi, ‘Vimantal Pudhe aahe’. Suddenly, the driver excitedly pointed in one direction and said, ‘There it is!’ My daughter and my wife were jolted from their slumber and we all looked to where his finger was pointing. We couldn’t spot anything spectacular and told the driver as much. ‘Arre sahib, dikh nahi raha? Mukesh Ambani ka Antalla!’ Oh, so he was trying to show us the majestic multi-storey residence of Mukesh Ambani- Antilla. We had seen pictures of the now famous building so we could easily spot it standing taller than most of the other buildings in its vicinity. We can’t claim to have passed by it, as the building was quite far off, visible only because of its size, and fame. ‘Weird shape,’ said my wife, Sangeeta, in the compulsorily-find-flaw-with-something-that-can-never-be-yours tone. ‘No, it is quite cool,’ countered my daughter Maliha. After a pause, Sangeeta asked, ‘How much do you think the Ambanis spent on it?’ ‘You wouldn’t want to know,’ I said. After another brief pause, Maliha asked, ‘Dad, how many people live in there?’ ‘I really don’t know, dear,’ I said, but then went on to tell her, as much as I knew, about the Ambani family- how Dhirubhai Ambani started the first of his businesses in polyester yarn trading, and then went on, over the years, to become the chairman of one of the largest companies in the world- Reliance Industries Limited. I also told her about his two sons, and how they continued to expand their businesses, and by default their personal wealth. Perhaps completely mesmerized by the wealth of one single person, something that she had hitherto seen only in Richie Rich comic strips, she asked me one final question, ‘Does Mr Ambani wash and reuse his underwear or simply buy a new one for each day?’ I did not have an answer to that. And I guess no one does.