gappa

Sleep. Dream. Wonder. Repeat.

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 09:10:00 +0000

They say you are never too old to dream. And while one continues to dream, of course completely ignoring the fact most of the dreams never get realized or get delayed , the problem happens when you get recurring dreams at my age. Which is almost 68.

At the outset let me clarify, that while P V. Sindhu and Saina Nehwal have nothing to fear from me, I was a decent badminton player in my younger days when I represented my school and college, and even participated and won in the men's doubles final (there were no womens events, so partnered my husband ) and won, at the Institute where I went to live after marriage.

So I was a bit surprised when I had a dream where I was on a badminton court, and was trying to serve. For some unknown reason (which remains a puzzle to this day) , whenever I tried to serve, the racquet would completely miss the shuttlecock, and the latter would fall to the ground. I would continue trying, to the disgust of the person on the other side (the dream didn't specify who it was) . By and by, I would get traumatised, worried and leave the court in a state of worry.

The interesting thing was that this dream repeated itself several times. You might think that I would finally serve, with all those trials, but , NO. The racquet and the shuttlecock never met. Then one day the dream extended to me returning a serve . Everything below the waist, never connected. Anything that was tossed above, I ended up hitting in a sort of feeble way ; something very upsetting to someone was earlier very good with forehand and backhand tosses and returns.

I am just wondering what these repetitive badminton dreams mean. I mean why not a sport where I might be a beginner , like tennis or squash, or kho kho or kabaddi or whatever.

Another recurring dream I have had has nothing to do with sport.

You see my mother passed away 17 years ago, in a rather sudden fashion.And I was with her in her last moments. One has come to terms with the loss of parents by now and learned to live without their presence, except possibly, in spirit, during important life events.

I keep having this dream, where I am expecting lots of folks to come by for some function, and am trying to figure out the logistics. I decide that my folks would be using the bedroom opposite . I then wake up from the dream, don't see my Mom, see my daughter go into that room to fetch something, and wonder what she is doing there. It takes a while to realize that my mother is not going to come and use that room when she stays with me. End of dream.

But, this dream has re-occurred many many times.

I have failed to understand the significance of these two dreams, which have occurred many times.

I wonder if these are snatches of some old memories stored somewhere in my brain. I wonder if something accesses these memories now when I sleep, and wonder what that "something" is.

I have also heard , and seen it happen (in my fathers's case and an aunt-in-law's case), that folks start remembering old childhood events and people, when a life change is imminent.

I have an academic interest in all this as I have great respect for the way the brain functions, and the fact that each brain is unique.

Normally, one doesn't take dreams seriously. Most of them are fun dreams, and some are even impossible.

But I wonder why I get the above dreams repeatedly.

And am seriously looking for answers . Experts ?

Outside, Inside.....Cattle memories ....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 07:40:00 +0000

My friend Alka Gurha who blogs at this wonderful place Freebird    recently did a great post titled Joy of Flying which was all about short airplane trips, fluids, the desperate urge to discharge , and interactions with fellow passengers and the flight personnel.   And remembering Shashi Tharoor for his observation from his lofty perch, about the Cattle Class .

It brought back some amazing memories .

Alka's were about waiting outside the loo.

Mine are about the insides.

About 37 years ago , travelling to New Delhi from Bombay (as it was then) , it was a popular thing to travel by Rajdhani AC chair car. We had seats near the door , with extra legroom, and were traveling with a 3 year old son, K.   If you leave aside the AC, it was a Cattle Class journey, in the style defined by Mr Shashi Tharoor , who was then, I presume, with the UN , and possibly not yet acquainted with the cattle.

At first we were happy that we were close to the loos, just outside the compartment door, given the last minute expressions of wanting to go to the loo , that the child was fond of.    Then after several episodes of the child exploring the door of the compartment , and getting his fingers caught in an automatically closing door ,   and letting off a frightening yell, thanks to folks wandering in and out in their quest for a loo, his fascination with the door ended .

The time came to visit the loo.   People would look at a child shuffling his feet, looking at me in desperation , and let him go in . Our folks are nice that way. The child needed me to be in there with him.

We entered the loo, and the child positioned himself . Holding on to me for support , as the train kind of lurched this way and that with some clanging noises, which he had not experienced inside the closed compartment. Then he looked down and all hell broke loose. Right down the hole, he could see the rails and ground, moving fast , accompanied by the aforementioned sounds.   He got up, and refused to do what he came for. First it was fearful eyes, then crying, and then a desperate attempt to come out of the loo, saying he wouldn't go in, because he would fall into the hole.

I tried to calm him, explain , showing so many people wanting to go, and no one was worried and so on, but he simply would not budge. One uncle went in, and we watched with great wonder as he came out in one piece and smiling. An aunty went in, a young teenager went in, and everyone came out unhurt. He watched this and ventured in once again. Once again we went through the whole naatak.   This happened several times, with various folks assuring him, while some kept indicating they had reached the end of their patience. We even tried the western style (which i personally do not like). But the view from there too included fast moving rails, ground and clanging rhythmic sounds.

Finally, biology kind of won, and the needful happened as he sat there clutching me, with his eyes shut.

I was just glad that we reached Delhi by 8 am. It was not a nice thing to look forward to another day of fast moving rails and noises and a terrified child.

This child flew an international flight 2 years later , and the first thing he did was look down through the commode. He didn't see rails, ground, or for that matter clouds, birds and sky. This time he went in alone and managed to get stuck because he forgot how to open the folding door from inside. You can imagine the cattle class folks desperately waiting for him to emerge, which he did after some airline staff intervention. They didnt think it was unusual. I think they are trained to do this.

But yes. He always needed a window seat, and he always wanted to go to the loo, when the lunch trays were served, or when the aisle was blocked by the trolley.

I think the cattle class has improved. Today, folks waiting outside the loo, on international flights, do the "pehle app" stuff, when they see kids, and some folks even do bending and losening relaxing exercises etc while waiting for their turn, hoping that their systems will understand.

The aforementioned child is now himself a member of the Cattle Class , and possibly doesnt remember the loo stories. I dearly wish they change the design of the loos in our trains.

I dont care how fast the train moves. And I shudder to think of the effect of bullet trains as a child of today looks down the loo .

Day of the Children...

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 05:12:00 +0000

I belong to the generation that was very much around when November 14, Children's Day was initiated. We were very much aware of the birthday of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, I had personally met him (a subject for a separate post :-) ) , and in those days, we were much in awe of folks in high places , and rarely cynical à la today.

Children's Day was celebrated in our schools and in the city. There were no Malls then , and so the organized celebrations were very organic in nature and mostly in schools.

Today, everyone in the family is an adult, and as such , one doesn't participate much in anything "children" , unless one is invited as a judge, which is a lot of fun.

And so it is with a great sense of learning that I relate this Children's Day episode.

We have recently moved from our Institutional premises , having retired after 43 years, to a much smaller flat nearby. In the interests of maximizing carpet area, the place has no balconies , but plenty of windows and is very airy. There is a certain location of a particular window, which seems to have been created as an afterthought by the builder as it intersects with a larger window of an adjoining flat , orthogonal to ours. As a result , the location is very well protected.

I have been potting various plants around the house, and recently added an insulin plant given by a friend, to the already thriving rose and mogra plants in that window.

Soon after that , a pigeon, which must have been clearly diabetic, decided to settle down amidst the soil of the insulin plant. It also decided to chew away and separate a flowery structure that was blooming and producing roots on one side.

I was extremely upset, and there was an ongoing battle with the pigeon , which I subsequently lost, but I managed to extricate the insulin plant from that pot , and re-pot it elsewhere in a different window.

Very clearly , the pigeon, was "expecting", eggs were seen a few days later, and the pigeon would sit over them for days on end, in a state of what might be called "wings edema"; it would look hugely puffed up, enhanced in size, and sat occupying almost the entire surface area of the pot. No amount of shooing, making noises, waving the newspaper, flinging water etc had any effect . She would deflect the water with the skill of a Sachin, swiping a tough ball to the ropes. She would duck, shake, move, blink, but she refused to vacate.

The family , very sympathetic to the diabetic pigeon and its mothering activities, decided to let her be, and whenever we checked , she would be sitting in edemic glory over the eggs .

Children's Day arrived with a crow. This was discovered by the non stop cawing emanating from that window sill. The crow would be sitting , like, two feet away on the window grill, cawing away at the mother pigeon, and she continue to hold fort, protecting the eggs . Very clearly, he hankered after the eggs. And very much more clearly, she wasn't going to give him a chance.

As the only person at home while the family goes out daily about their chores outside and at work, it has fallen upon me to interfere in the crow pigeon war. The crow's beak, thrusting through the grill looks ominous. The crow can easily squeeze through, but is aware of space limitations and is probably avoiding bloody fights. I admire the other pigeon, who remains there , come what may, sitting defiantly over her eggs.

There are future children to be protected from the avaricious crows.

I decide to side with the mother pigeon. I fold newspapers and wave them at the crow, who ducks a few times as if he is a batsman facing my bouncers. A few bouncers later , he flies off , and continues to caw from a distance.

I am amazed at it all. The unusual location of the window. How no pigeon ever bothered , till I placed the Insulin plant there. The tenacity of the mother pigeon protecting her yet-to-be-born. Perhaps a bite of the insulin plant stem, reinitialized her body energy, needed for producing an offspring. The ability of the crow to spot this random window in a hugely spaced out set of buildings. The threatening overtures by the crow towards the pigeon.

And the defiant attitude of the mother pigeon, as she sits protectively over the eggs, in a extra puffed plumage which appears to breathe on its own.

Unlike what happens in a biped human world, she doesn't care whether her offspring is male or female. Gender discriminatory tactics haven't yet made it into the pigeon world. Yes, gundagiri is there. Crows and possibly other birds, trying to intimidate her and making efforts to snatch the eggs.

And I am extra angry shooing off the crow, whenever I hear him doing his threatening caw-caw.

I decide to side with her.

It is Children's Day. The as-yet-unborn pigeon offspring deserve a chance at life. I let her be, but am extra alert about the crows.

After all, no child should be hurt, and every child , male of female, must have a chance at enjoying a decent, fruitful, flying life.

A "shocking" morning.......

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Sat, 24 Sep 2016 06:29:00 +0000

I never had much to do with nerves, so to speak. Idiomatically or literally speaking.

I cannot recall anyone shaking their head in anger and saying, "My God, she has the nerve ...." or anything like that. Being nervous and showing it was not usually an option, and the thing to do was to always get on with what one was doing and look ahead.

So why suddenly this conversation about nerves ? Because someone decided my nerves were possibly misbehaving, and recommended tests.

Given that all kinds of medical diagnostic procedures were introduced during my adult life, I have had an interesting time doing things like ultrasonography, mammography, smear tests, and MRI's. And later blogged about it. Like the MRI's.

Technologies have since gone through versions . While the technology is impressive in instrumentation, size and capability, one has things to say about preparations for the same. I mean , ultrasound science shows you pictures of your internal tissues by moving a probe over your body, but hasnt been able to find an alternative to all that drinking of water, till you are desperate to go to the loo, and the receptionist telling you to hold on because another patient was inside. Or having to remove your earrings, bangles and mangalsutra for an MRI, wear a hospital gown , and lie down on a plank that slowly slides you into a dark sphere which rattles. No one else in the room , and chaps look at you through a glass pane, and click things on a screen. And whats more, no one can accompany you and sit alongside somewhere on a chair. Some tests are downright embarassing in the postures you have to be in, but you see other folks being subjected to the same , and just join the masses .

A bad back problem, a ankle swelling and a burning feet problem, (the burning akin to standing in a kilo of ground green chillies for one hour), had me losing sleep and peace, and I saw a neurologist . After some physical movement examinations, a lot of diagrams consequent to my asking questions, I was advised two tests NCV (Nerve Conduction Velocity) and SSEP (Somato Sensory Evoked Potential) . Fancy names. Very impressed, and I Googled.

Then I booked an appointment and went in.

Turns out, that these are tests to find out nerve damage , and what kind of damage . The nerves contributing to my feet burning originated in the spine. Old age does things to your vertebral column , and these tests are particularly useful to figure out nerves that may be pinched somewhere, or nerves that may be damaged , say internally .

Went to a big hospital in the suburbs where both recommended tests were done . Surprisingly, while the NCV test is common , not many hospitals will do the SSEP test.

Thankfully , there was no change of clothes into hospital gowns, no drinking water and stuff like that. You lay down on a raised bed, and someone then proceeds to stick electrodes at places on your scalp, hands , feet, behind your neck, and so on. You are not supposed to have applied lotions, oils etc that day , and even then they have some conduction fluid thing which they apply after cleaning your scalp areas and rubbing it strongly before sticking the electrode.

After many years, a rubbing of various areas of the scalp really brought back old memories. I actually felt like falling asleep. But didnt.

Then the fun part began. There is a thing like an electrical two pin plug which they touch to predecided points on your body. The fun part is there is a current running in it and you get shocks.

How your body responds tells them something about the nerve and how well and fast it transmits sensations which are detected by surrounding electrodes at a known distance.Your are not supposed to move . Initially the shocks are small, and they gradually increase in amplitude. There are occasional involuntary cries of "Aai Ga", and the young lady tells me to take a long deep breath , and exhale quickly. I see through it and ask her if all that deep breathing has anything to do with the shocks , and she smiles and says no. They tell it to people so it distracts them from the shocks. I tell her to keep the shocks going and ignore my cries . I need to get over with it.

This stuff is repeated for each upper and lower limb, with my lower limbs coming up with some creative shock sensations, thanks to the swellings. A break is announced before the ssep procedure is begun, as an paralytic emergency patient is scheduled for a quick test . I wait outside and try to investigate things on Google on my phone.

I am then called inside for the SSEP procedure . This is basically designed to see how well the brain and spinal cord can react to messages to and from the various body parts. The speed with which nerves transmit the sensory messages, across known distances. Brain to tips of the upper limbs, and likewise for lower limbs. So there are electrodes attached to your crown, again with the nice rubbing , and sticking. A new electrode to your back at your waist, and then lots attached to your ankles. This test doesnt give shocks, but more of a buzz, like a big mosquito bite. Once again they apply voltages/currents, and for some reason the swelling in my ankles seems to behave like an insulation. Time an again i get no sensation from their electric touch, and they keep moving the probe in a certain area, till I overreact, when a slight electric zing is felt. The test proceeds. I dont sense things going up and down my back, but they see stuff on the screen , and make knowledgeable comments to each other. Two hours later , I am through.

I am simply impressed by the two young girls, who handle these complicated tests, with varied patients. In between they interact with the doctors, as well as the administration/billing people, all this while answering my questions, They also have excellent people skills, dealing with frightened types, older people who cant hear or language-disabled types.

I realize that while the body has all these glorious systems ticking away inside, it is the brainy high command up there that is kept informed by the nerves about the status of all. Something doesnt respond to an impulse, something overreacts in pain, something works intermittently. Their are local responses, spinal responses and high command responses. Some nerves, being under an autonomous spinal control, go haywire , and it is sometime before the high command brain figures it out.

Sometimes the nerve itself has gone bad, sometimes the path it follows is in trouble.

And it occurs to me that this is so much like whats going on in our country., Lots of people, locally controlled, going out of control, making random statements, accusing others, performing faulty actions. By the time people at the top find out, it's too late.

Medicine has all these tests for nerves . I wonder if we need such tests in society. Backed by science. So we can take action if the person is at fault, and guide him if he is on the wrong path. The tests also tell you if this is a "gone " case, not likely to recover, and likely to lead to some serious affliction. Even then there are ways of making things tolerable.

As for me, I am still waiting to find out my nerve health, and if they have learned any lessons from the shocks they were subjected too . The report is to arrive in a day.

Just think .Like the country, sixty plus (and more) - decades of tolerating me, right from birth. I wonder what the nerves will have to say. In society, someone can always get up and give a speech and run someone down with choice epithets.

I think my nerves have more class ... :-)

Hopefully, it will not be another "shock".......

Loo Architecture as if people mattered.....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 12:51:00 +0000

Many years ago, in my working days at an Institute of National Importance, there was a flurry of new constructions, and set ups, after years and years of making do with existing stuff. Alumni remembered the Alma Mater, donated, the government too gave decent budget allocations, and our department got a new building , designed by a prize winning architect, who was featured on the cover of a professional journal .

The most prominent feature of the new building was the open spaces inside , the great heights of ceilings, some kind of wide uncovered iron beams across classrooms way up, a few labs without a single window , and a central staircase approachable from 2 sides (which made it interesting to chase people) , and the very roomy loos .

It needs to be understood that folks came to work from the far off suburbs by bus and train, be it rain or shine, and often got completely drenched , quite normal for the Mumbai monsoon. It helped to have a loo where there was a dry area for folks to change into dry sarees and other outfits. .

A few months down the line, it became clear that the western style toilets were not exactly popular with the ladies, and since there was a provision for more than one toilet, there was a move to petition the authorities to convert one to an Indian style toilet.

Such a simple request. But a letter was written, which went with all the signatures through the Head , to the Institute Estate Office that oversaw construction. Mind you, no one thought it necessary to consult the actual users of the building when the designs were being prepared and specifications of fixtures etc were being finalized. In something that always happens , things are approved at rarefied levels without involving the actual users and inviting their input.

One fine day, a committee of folks from the estate office, came by to inspect, various papers in hand. Some of the ladies were called and listened to. Then nothing happened over a period of time. Suddenly one day, some guys turned up and the loo was inaccessible to the ladies for a month or more, while all kinds of banging, scraping, hammering , drilling went on , incidentally , right next to a lab.

One fine day, the ladies got a loo of their choice.

I have never understood the concept where designing with western sensibilities is considered a step up in the world. I mean we were not a multinational. constantly entertaining and working with folks across the world, but a simple request had to go through a Head, had examining committees, comments in writing by people in authority, and so on, before the first demolition could happen.

From buying a system worth lakhs and crores, to a lowly bathroom modification, there were committees. No distinction between professional needs and personal needs.

Years before this , I worked for what was then the leading IT company in India. It is the same today too. Situated in the then iconic high rise Air India building , all the floors had identical patterns where office space and toilets were concerned, the latter consisting of an anteroom , and the actual toilet complex.

The place was centrally air conditioned, and one fine day , on entering the loo, one saw a pair of feet high up on a bunch of AC pipes that ran close to the ceiling and through it. The building was possibly getting AC maintenance done , but this was unacceptable. You couldn't have folks walking around at a height on pipes, in a ladies loo. When our requests were ignored , we wrote to the then GM of our company, who later on was to become one of the most respected people in IT and was once called the Bhishma Maharshi Pitamaha of IT.

An hour after receiving the letter , he himself came with two HR people to check out the situation, invited us to tell our problems, and a letter was sent off to the building management, protesting the whole thing, and asking them for better schedules and procedures of maintenance. The next day onwards, people stopped walking on the pipes high up, and privacy was restored.

Perhaps , it was something that organization inculcated and learned from its founders. There are things where a solution is obvious, and there are situations which require deliberations .

Perhaps this story, illustrates something. (Story courtesy my friend Shanta Konaje)

Ratan Tata was holding a weekly meeting with Tata Steel staff at a football ground in Jamshedpur.

While watching the football match, to strike a conversation, a worker took up an issue.

He told Tata that the toilets for workers was terribly bad with leaking taps, clogged commodes and unbearable stink. No maintenance was being done for workers toilets, whereas the maintenance of officers toilet was very good, with air purifiers, dryers, hand towels, etc

Ratan Tata asked his top executive how much time he would need to set it right. He said 1 month.

Ratan Tata said, " I would rather do it in half a day" and asked for a carpenter.

Next day the toilet sign board on workers toilet was changed to officers and officers to workers. There were instructions to change it back every fortnight.

Quality of both toilets became good.

Excellent example of Efficient Management and Effective Execution.

:-)

Bappa : A State of Mind

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 16:28:00 +0000

The city, alive with Ganpatibappas arriving everywhere.

Some, with the building kids skipping along , chanting Ganpati Bappa Morya with some parent carrying the deity home, lightly covered in the best household silk.

Some, in what look like chariots, emblazoned with the owner's name, escorted with a couple of bands, drummers, ladies in traditional finery (sometimes on motorcycles) , and general leader types, walking at the head of it all.

Some Housing Society Bappas, on carts , being enthusiastically escorted to halls, where the residents wait to welcome him.

And then there are Bappas, who preside over depictions of society ills, victories of truth over falsehoods, congratulating the Olympic heroes, and recommending Swachh cleanliness as being next to Godliness.

Ganpati Bappa, admired by people across caste and religion, an opportunity for folks to visit friends and partake of the celebration.

One goes back to one's childhood home in another city , on a visit.

There are more rooms than people there. Some having shifted for traditional reasons, some having flown the nest . But the walls , chock-a-block with memories.

There are childhood memories of Ganpati celebrations in the house, vociferous artis recited along with visiting friends and relatives; you never really sat down and learned the artis; you simply participated and they imprinted themselves in your memory , as you continued to bring clarity to the words as you grew up. The excitement of distributing prasad, evenings when folks gathered and kids recited things , performed dramas, and a whole bunch of small kids giggled behind covered mouths as they observed an elderly aunt singing something classical, and performing difficult taanaas . Someone always glared at them, but Ganpati Bappa never did.

Then there would be the day when Bappa would be leaving to return to his own abode. Prayers, artis, prasad , and there would be a Shidori or packed refreshments of Poha, dahi, jaggery etc that would go along with Bappa .

Lots of singing of "Ganpati Bappa Morya, Pudhchyaa warshi laukar ya " , lots of bravado , and a mind , not so happy at the departure of a special guest, Bappa. A procession winding around the colony, making its way to the well nearby, a final arti, an immersion, and a quiet return home, with some soil from the immersion site.

Sometimes , for a moment , strangely one feels like Bappa.

Once a year, a homecoming. To a place , where there isn't anyone, but just someone you have known since childhood, who took care of you and assisted in the house. He is almost 80 , and has an amazing memory. You are in touch with him, mostly on the phone, and he never fails to ask about family who stay beyond he seas. Their children and their children's children. You are never at a loss for words and conversation when you meet him.

There isn't any special decoration, but the walls come alive with old photos on the wall, some huge crossstitch embroidery laboriously done by you as a child, still displayed above a door. And old radio plays AIR , not the commercial version, but the local station; bhaktigeet in the morning, patriotic songs at some point, and assorted small audio plays and announcements and news. Like Bappa, you are there only for a day or two, so you do not want to get involved in getting the kitchen fully operational, meals and all.

The phone rings. Someone has found out one has arrived. Lots of conversation, reproaches, promises made to come later. One also has to make some calls , and for a while the technology rules.

The daughter who has accompanied you for her own activities, take a round of the terrace; your bad back prevents you from rushing up and down with her.   She comes back gushing about the amazing coconut palm, huge colocassia leaves, and a wildly blooming ajwain bush. All nurtured by him .

He busies himself in the kitchen as you get organized for the day. The homecoming demands a home meal, and he looks disapprovingly at the daughter talking bout eating out. He has learned so much from the matriarch of the house , who is no more. For a while you don't see him, busy as you are with getting refreshed with a wash, a rest beneath an old creaking fan , and a quick cup of ginger tea.

An hour later , at the ancient dining table for a simple lunch, steaming plates of rice and a potato rassa as only he can make it; the children of the family , and the children's children, swear by it.

And then he brings out the piece de resistance; the prasad of the day, as it were.

While we were getting settled in, he has gone to the terrace, plucked a bunch of colocassia leaves, made a stuffing of spiced besan, steamed the colocassia rolls, and is now , having fried them, urging you to taste Aluwadis अळूवडी, made from home grown ALu अळू or Arbi leaves.

These are special leaves, he explains, not like the ones you get in the market, which often leave a scratchy feeling in the throat. This is Doodh-Alu , which is never scratchy, and a broken stem generates sweet white sap , hence the name.

There are no words to describe the meal and the Aluwadis अळूवडी. Much urging to have some more. Finish the rassa , he says , because he is "keeping a fast" .

It isn't just the food.

It's a homecoming like no other. To an otherwise empty childhood home. A single day when it all comes back to you.

An almost annual visit, sometimes much delayed . But what a homecoming.

You leave the next day . Full minds, full hearts, full eyes.

Like Bappa, who also stays for 1.5 days.

Like I said, sometimes strangely , for one infinitesmal moment, one feels like Bappa.

Truly, Bappa is a state of mind ......

Twittery lives ....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 07:16:00 +0000

My first day in the US in 1969 when I went for grad school. Before that, I had never flown in a plane, never seen foreign currency, and never been driven on what I was convinced , was the wrong side of the road.

One of my first queries was to ask, where were all the people ? (This was California)

Miles and miles of residences and apartment complexes, empty roads, closed cars swishing by, that too without honking.

Coming from a place where at any given time on a road outside your house, people may be seen going somewhere, cycling, pushing carts, biking, some even driving cars, just sitting around, having a cuppa, or calling out to someone, the silence on the American roads was deafening. Your mornings were never punctuated with three pressure cooker whistles from the next house, and no one stood in doors, debating the state of the world with folks in other house doors.

One of the first things I was told, is that in the US, you didn't ring your neighbour's doorbell and drop in unannounced for a chitchat. Also, if you borrowed even a single penny from someone you gave it back. There was no concept of paying 25 paise for someone, and then it being waived off as too small to get involved in repayment. Something that was part of our life back home.

And while it looked like here was a society that functioned strictly according to rules , where privacy and the adult individual was supreme, it kind of brought home the fact that this was an exclusive society as opposed to India, where we had a very inclusive approach. Sometimes bordering on the intrusive, but never mind.

Which is why , if you think about it, Twitter and Facebook began in the US. A formalization of informal communication. Designed to bring folks "closer".

Chances are, that majority of the folks who worked on the software design etc, were from India. And one wonders why the need for Twitter and FB was never felt by them in India.

And then there is this thing, that whatever the West introduces, we swallow. Without chewing. And where Twitter and FB are concerned , we also , spit out. Sometimes pointlessly.

Cell phones have digitized us to such an extent, that today , most folks function in a kind of autonomous-response way; without getting the brain involved directly. We are infatuated with immediate responses, and so, frequently, no , almost always , we bypass the brain.

I mean who would have thought that photographs of what you are eating might interest anyone worldwide. So puri and batatyachi bhaji photos got forwarded and broadcast, someone drank coriander leaves juice with cucumber and karela, and a thousand people indicated that they "liked" it ; Someone thought they looked like Madhuri Dixit in a sari and posted portraits occupying half a computer screen, and fellows who would have been otherwise glared at by elders, or who might have even daringly whistled, went to town giving "likes" and "wow" and "thumbs up". Very clearly, we lost our original communication style, and slavishly followed the Western model.

But in all this desperation to match international folks, there was always a collateral damage to reckon with. There are folks who think and tweet, and then there are those, who do not think and tweet . Things that would be earlier discussed in fun amidst friends are now stated in a tweet visible to the public. Folks in authority , lose sight of accuracy in the urge to tweet desperately before someone else does. The more public the better. (I have always wondered . Was there a world before Twitter ?)

And so you have ministers tweeting at random, messing facts, mixing names. Causing a plethora of abusive responses by those offended by it all as well as those simply reading for fun and joining in . You have absolutely uninformed random types, tweeting what they think, are golden nuggets of useful information, like Usain Bolt ate beef and hence the Gold Medals. This causing another tsunami of tweets in response. Folks from news channels, fight with others of their ilk, at a level one did when one was in school ; calling people names has become a developed art. Absolutely anyone comments on anything, any subject, and an entire twitterized Facebooking population, desperately types and clicks to be heard themselves.

Sometimes, with expectations of instant responses, and perhaps an occasional lack of that thereof, I think peoples brains are actually affected.

And so daily, your newsfeed has outrageous news items like , some guy throwing a woman out of a running train because she refused to shift; a discussion was never an option ? A guy chases someone , hoping for a positive response. A lack of that response leads to him physically harming the girl . There is a general societal tendency , not just to go digital, but behave in a binary fashion; this or else. There are stories you read about a guy demanding a particular cell phone, and commiting suicide or homicide because he didnt get it. There are stories about fathers abusing daughters, elders being abused and videos being made about it, and this outlandish demand for instant decisions, probably throws brains into chaos. Dehumanising is the word that comes to mind.

Kids are constantly glued to phones at home,and perhaps a day will come when a mother whatsapps from the kitchen , saying food is ready, and some kid responds with emoticon implying a grin. Then she whatsapps saying she has made puranpolis , and the fellow immediately responds with thumbs up sign, while of course , checking FB in another window.

A day will come when Google, and such types will work on a software that converts emoticons and gif's to audio. Perhaps they already do. And I am sure our fellows will be at the forefont working on that software. Which will come on Playstore as an App , and the whole of India will download it.

Such a collossal waste . Its like you waste an entire generation , simply to come back to the same place you started from. And in the process , addle peoples brains.

Maybe 50-60 years from now, people will have atrophied thumbs and index fingers from overuse . Eyelids will have a permanent downward orientation, due to a lifetime of watching the phone screen . And someone at John Hopkins will do a study and publish a paper on this.

I am not sure I like all this.

I still hark back to communication where one uses not just words, but tones, eyes, facial expressions , hands and so on. It hurts to see crowds of folks at bus stops, busy clicking away on their phones all by themselves, when I remember making friends, chitchatting and discussing, say, the state of the roads, potholes, crowds etc .

The only saving grace in all this massive digitization, is the very Indian concept of introducing the "missed call" and its numerous uses. "Making a missed call" is itself confusing for anyone else to understand. You either make a call or you don't. You either answer or you don't.

Perhaps, doing something, and going through the motions, with the end result already known , is a very Indian thing to do.

Ask any politician.

We, the shameless....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 04:22:00 +0000

Reading the newspaper and listening to television news these days, is very disturbing, and it makes one wonder if human brains are actually " devolving " and changing for the worse.

There is a severe lack of reason, an avaricious attitude towards quick earnings, and a complete lack of ethics. There is no respect for life, women, parents, fellow beings, children, animals , and it appears at times, that animals have more sense of right and wrong compared to humans. An alarming tendency to take the law in one's own hands, and pride in being a liar .

Coming to a fork in the road and taking the wrong road seems to be in fashion. 2016 seems to be the zenith of such things.

And then I came across this information , which astounded me.

The Bhagwat Purana , one of the eighteen holy Puranas of Hindus, consists of 12 books (skandhas) covering 332 chapters (adhyayas) . The 12th book, has something to predict about how society will have evolved in Kalyug.

You dont have to be a believer in the theory of all these "Yugs". It isn't as if a bell rang somewhere in the universe, and Kalyug began. It really is a gradual sinking of human society into what maybe called the quicksand of blind thoughtless selfish desires

Personally, I am not very religious or ritualistic, fairly apolitical, and tend more towards a spiritual thinking mode. But whether you believe in anything, any religion, Kalyug, or God, or not, you cannot be anything but astounded at what has been predicted by Veda Vyasa thousands of years ago and documented in the Bhagwat Purana.

(Each of these actually elicited, in my mind, a snide comment related to current events. I've refrained from writing those comments here alongside each prediction. It would interesting to see what comes to your mind reading thee predictions. )

Check out the predictions here. Reproducing them below for quick perusal.

1. (12.2.1) Religion, truthfulness, cleanliness, tolerance, mercy, duration of life, physical strength and memory will all diminish day by day because of the powerful influence of the age of Kali.

2. (12.2.2) In Kali Yuga, wealth alone will be considered the sign of a man’s good birth, proper behaviour and fine qualities. And law and justice will be applied only on the basis of one’s power.

3. (12.2.3) Men and women will live together merely because of superficial attraction, and success in business will depend on deceit. Womanliness and manliness will be judged according to one’s expertise in sex, and a man will be known as a brahmana just by his wearing a thread.

4. (12.2.4) A person’s spiritual position will be ascertained merely according to external symbols, and on that same basis people will change from one spiritual order to the next. A person’s propriety will be seriously questioned if he dos not earn a good living. And one who is very clever at juggling words will be considered a learned scholar.

5. (12.2.5) A person will be judged unholy if he does not have money, and hypocrisy will be accepted as virtue. Marriage will be arranged simply by verbal agreement, and a person will think he is fit to appear in public if he has merely taken a bath.

6. (12.2.6) A sacred place will be taken to consist of no more than a reservoir of water located at a distance, and beauty will be thought to depend on one’s hairstyle. Filling the belly will become the goal of life, and one who is audacious will be accepted as truthful. He who can maintain a family will be regarded as an expert man, and the principles of religion will be observed only for the sake of reputation.

7. (12.2.7) As the earth thus becomes crowded with a corrupt population, whoever among any of the social classes shows himself to be the strongest will gain political power.

8. (12.2.9) Harassed by famine and excessive taxes, people will resort to eating leaves, roots, flesh, wild honey, fruits, flowers and seeds. Struck by drought, they will become completely ruined.

9. (12.2.10) The citizens will suffer greatly from cold, wind, heat, rain and snow. They will be further tormented by quarrels, hunger, thirst, disease and severe anxiety.

10. (12.2.11) The maximum duration of life for human beings in Kali Yuga will become 50 years.

11. (12.3.42) Men will no longer protect their elderly parents.

12. (12.3.41) In Kali-yuga men will develop hatred for each other even over a few coins. Giving up all friendly relations, they will be ready to lose their own lives and kill even their own relatives.

13. (12.3.38) Uncultured men will accept charity on behalf of the Lord and will earn their livelihood by making a show of austerity and wearing a mendicant’s dress. Those who know nothing about religion will mount a high seat and presume to speak on religious principles.

14. (12.3.36) Servants will abandon a master who has lost his wealth, even if that master is a saintly person of exemplary character. Masters will abandon an incapacitated servant, even if that servant has been in the family for generations. Cows will be abandoned or killed when they stop giving milk.

15. (12.3.32) Cities will be dominated by thieves, the Vedas will be contaminated by speculative interpretations of atheists, political leaders will virtually consume the citizens, and the so-called priests and intellectuals will be devotees of their bellies and genitals.

This is not a Nostradamic prediction, or something predicted by an obscure Bulgarian personality who documented her visions, actually "saw" events, and is supposed to have predicted 9/11.

It is a commentary on how society would develop . So many of the above predictions ring a bell , pointing to recent happenings and observation of behaviours , not just in India but across the world. Every single prediction above will remind you of something you recently heard, saw , or read.

I do not know what the solution is. And how to implement it , if it exists.

In 12.3.51 , the Bhagwatam suggests that the solution lies in chanting the name of God , to raise ourselves spiritually, and achieve transcendence , despite being in a terrible Kalyug.

I fear that.

So many of our problems today are happening because , across the world, so many chant the name of their own Lord , with evil motives in mind.

Minding other people's business.....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Fri, 20 May 2016 05:34:00 +0000

We are all so excellent at NOT minding our own business.

It is one thing to be interested in someone/something and keep those opinions to yourself, regardless of how thrilling/good/bad/complimentary/abusive the opinions might be.

It is quite another thing to compulsorily listen to someone you don't know, or simply know by sight, passing an opinion on you, unasked.

As a child , one learned to ignore and keep one's own counsel, and clarify things with parents, and this translated into an adult, who could deal with any nonsense comment and opinion, , by simply pushing it aside and devaluing it out of the mind, and classifying the commenter as, hitherto, persona non grata .

And so in high school, (I still remember the bullying senior girls, who passed disparaging comments on me (for no reason at all , since i hardly knew them) , and ensured they reached me via a classmate of mine ). It troubled me then , but I overcame it.

And I still remember admiring the grand but completely inappropriate , outfit worn by a newly acquired relative-by-marriage, just for walking down a prominent downtown Mumbai street with her husband, and then hearing a comment from her, (complete with a sideways meaningful glance) about how she doesn't like shabby dressers . :-)

And much later, another similar female personality, who greeted me at a family event where I went rushing from work, juggling a kid and Mumbai windblown /sweaty traffic etc, to be asked , "Why do you look so haggard ?" and I resisted an impulse to say I was practicing being a witch.

A lifetime of dealing with completely unacceptable questions and unasked-for advice about choices, complexions, kids, purchases etc, convinced me that level of education had nothing to do with the ability to poke your nose into some one's business, and give unasked for advice, which was outrageous and sometimes , even wrong. In fact I was convinced that the higher the level of education, the more stupid the suggestions. (I still stand by that ). I also noticed that it wasn't just women, but men also who thought they were doing a favour by giving opinions.

A few decades down the line, folks have given up interfering , or so I thought.

What has stood me in good stead, is the ability to not take any offence at what anyone says (regardless of how personal it is) , brush away these folks from my mind, and ignore them, while quickly checking out their suggestions (for random useful points) , before forwarding them to Recycle Bin .

But destiny has now thrown up a completely different set of folks who are desperate to advise me.

I think twice before visiting the much prevalent Handloom and Handicraft exhibitions , which in addition to the normal things, always have a few stalls with acupuncture footwear, massage rollers, oils and stuff, as well as stalls with all kinds to chatpata amla, ginger, and other spicy stuff which is salted, candied, and sold in packets.

The reason has been my lumbar belt, which I have acquired in the interests of saving what remains of my bedraggled lumbar vertebra, thanks to a lifetime of a habit of lugging inordinate loads myself, be they luggage, shopping or anything else, combined with the vagaries of "old age".

You turn the corner between the Haryana Handlooms bedsheets and Kolhapur Silver jewellery, and there is a guy sitting behind the jeera and tamarind golis, suddenly asking me about the belt, and then advising me on weight, what I should eat, not eat, hot water, cold water, food timings, special herbs to be eaten just so.

Another time, I was admiring some crochet work and heard someone words from below a counter just behind me . I was thunderstruck to hear a guy mention the thyroid. Just like that. The guy was having his lunch below the counter, and noticed me standing. He must have noticed my swollen ankles. He said I had a thyroid problem (I do) , then weight, and started giving advice of many things including footwear.

But the most prize winning performance has been a couple of days ago .

We often prefer to take a ricksha to near by places because it solves the problem of parking your vehicle, having it towed by authorities, and then one spending hours getting it back from some place else.

The minute we got into the ricksha, something clicked "ON" in the driver's head. He started analyzing my back problem, identified the actual dorsal vertebra, explained the causes of low back pain. Then he went on to explained the concepts of the vertebral column abnormally straightening instead of keeping its S shape. Vitmain D made its entry in the lecture, with him ruing the fact that no one got up early these days to take benefit of the early morning Sun which was full of Vit D . He mentioned ancient early morning, post bath worship of the Sun. He then came to the sitting postures, and described what we did wrong. In between sudden braking, swerving to various sides to avoid , say, other nonscientific ricksha wallas, he explained rules of diet, when we should eat, what we should eat, and how drinking warm/hot water works wonders.

At a traffic light, I asked him if he came from a family of "vaidyas", which might explain his interest. He answered in the negative. He started college, but had to leave after a few years due to financial compulsions, and started driving a ricksha. But he had great interest in the human body and health, and so had continued to read up things in biology, and human anatomy , simply as a useful hobby.

Maybe I am getting affected by this business of poking one's nose into someone else's business.

I dearly wanted to interview the fellow, and do an article on him, where he grew up, his family background, his education, and what brought him to Mumbai. How he developed this huge store of knowledge that he brought up good naturedly, each time he found a likely target, like me.

I wonder about all these folks who spend their entire lives doing something totally unconnected like selling bedsheets, or chatpata stuff and pickles in exhibitions, while actually pursuing some kind of native interest in anatomy and health.

I wonder what would have been the case if they had good schools and colleges where they hailed from, where merit was rewarded , and schools and colleges allowed to benefit from funds allocated to them, instead of finding their way into pockets of unscrupulous politicians.

But what brings a smile to the mind, ( in the face of my experience of a fancy orthopedic person, in a fancier orthopedic place, unwilling to check the swollen ankle to classify what kind the swelling was), is the guy having a dabba meal behind the exhibition counter, amidst sarees and dupattas, noticing my ankles from below the counter , and giving his diagnosis.

Great minding of other people's business , hmm ?

Ball games...

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Mon, 16 May 2016 13:05:00 +0000

"Life is a ball !"

No.

And this was not said with stars in her eyes, and visions of stepping around in a gossamer skirt with a diameter equal to her height.

It was said with a wisdom and experience , collated over the years, in the face of the complicated society we have become.

She lay, with sparse hair, bones protruding, with a lot of fire in her eyes. The big C at a young age, her singular chemo fight , and now the conclusion. A gifted, intelligent , hard working young girl, now twentyfive years down the line, ruing it all , having lost her faith in the male of the species. Thanks to her experience. Bitter about her treatment, having to encounter the public face and the private face of the man who she lived with. A slow rubbishing over the years, initially ignored by her , and now extrapolated into a future which did not include her. The last few years she was being encouraged to leave and go. Where ? Away . Anywhere. She was not needed.

She looks up.

"Yes. Life is a ball.

Mostly football. Its about being kicked around, chased around, and applauded by shameless guys in the stands. When someone is kicking you , there are others trying to take over, participating in the kick festival. You are flung across metres, and you hope to have a safety net at the end of it all, but they even have someone there , to get you back into the kicking mela again.

In some places, they even run away with you, chased by other folks, and then everyone falls over each other with scant regard for the ball. Some guy pretending the salvage the situation comes with a whistle, but it is more about calming down the violent ones, than concern about the ball.

Then there is the hockey types. They think they can just play with your emotions. twiddling you around a stick with a turn at one end, running all over the place, with simply no way to know whats happening; others with sticks trying to interfere and take off with the ball, and then all of a sudden , there is a whack . The surprise of your life, as you fall into a net. You think you stand a chance, but no. Someone screams "penalty", and you think finally someone is being punished for some wrong . How wrong can you be ! It's all about you being whacked once again ...

But the worst is the cricket ones. The most mercenary minded ones. There are those who slather mud on you, spit on you, and some even surreptitiously get hair oil on you , and then pretend to polish you . One after another, you are flung with great speed at some guy waiting with a piece of wood. And then begins the worst time of your life as you are whacked, beaten, flung, whipped, reverse-slapped; sometimes flush along the ground, and sometimes high up in the sky. You are momentarily mislead into experiencing freedom, till you come down to earth and find someone waiting to take over, clutching you as if his life depended on it.

There are guys who pretend to clean up the dirt, and actually unravel the seam of your life when no one is looking. Sometimes they get caught, but nothing happens.

In all these efforts, there is always one guy who pretends to be really posh, and wears gloves when dealing with you. It has nothing to do with being decent. The ultimate aim is to throw you hard and dislodge two foolish pieces resting on 3 pointy sticks behind the hitter.

All this violence in the life of the ball, and like some governments, they make rules, and pretend to give you a break , as they choose another one to abuse from a box .

What kind of a society, celebrates the whacking violence on a ball, by having scantily clad, leaping girls , jump up and down waving at the audience in the stands ? What kind of mercenary society congratulates those who promote the maximum violent attack on the ball ? What kind of society , changes rules and forms of the game, encourages situations where no ball is left untouched, but whipped , whacked, beaten, sliced, with greater and greater frequency ? "

She pushes herself help against the pillow, refusing any help. She looks for and finds her glass of water. An empty plate below her bed is the only sign of intake of food. The effort tires her, and she settles down again, a sad smile playing on her lips.

" He asked me to leave again. This time, said he will pay me 30,000 a month " .

There is fire in her eyes again.

"I just asked him if the IPL was affecting him. I mean they buy and sell people there. Perhaps this was a form of buying my departure in installments ? ...."

She is tired . Her eyes close. A sharp and courageous mind, fighting to the end.

Tomorrow will be another day. Another game.

Mothers , Fathers and Mothering....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Sat, 30 Apr 2016 05:19:00 +0000

Falling badly sick after decades, and somewhere in between worrying about housework, delays, running out of provisions, and other mundane stuff you normally did without thinking, you lie in bed at some point, unable to sleep, stinking wet with perspiration, hot in a Mumbai summer, and you sink back to your childhood in time, hankering after that old reassuring hand on your forehead, and much needed rubs on your back, a gentle nudge to sitting up , leaning against the pillows, and a magical wipe with tepid water that gets you feeling fresh again, fever or no fever. The little glass of limbupani-ginger, or chaas; the small semi liquidy portion of freshly ghee tadka-ed rice with turmeric and jeera, eaten slowly, under her watchful eye.

Except it is only a memory. Because the reassuring hand as been gone for more than a decade. And with it, a certain way of "mothering".

And then. Her story.

She lost her mother when she was a small child. She and her two brothers, one older and one younger were brought up by their father alone. This was the first quarter of the 20th century, and her father refused remarriage , because of his concerns for inflicting a "step-" relationship on his children.

From an extremely difficult, economically tough background, but with a great dedication towards learning, he became an engineer, and rose to a job in the civil services. He got married, had 3 children, and then suddenly was a single parent again. His only daughter , a middle child, would talk about never missing out on anything the other girls did in school, despite not having a mother at home.   He was posted in Mumbai, and they lived in Andheri for a while. This was in the late 1920's , early 30's , and she would often talk about an certain type of hair braiding the girls would do in school; there was no one at her home who would do that. Her father quietly drove her one early morning to Bandra to visit her aunt, who did the braids for her before she reached her school. I recall hearing about an elderly aunt who lived with them, and very clearly , for a girl coming of age, there were some puzzling things you needed to get answers for , and this worked well for everyone.

While he indulged in his children, he was very strict too, and insisted on taking academics seriously. His daughter loved academics , and he encouraged her , not just then but even after she had her first child , in 1945, and suddenly got an opportunity to do a Masters at Columbia accompanying her husband who was going for Graduate studies in the US. He looked after his 1 year old grandson in India while she completed her stuff. There were other family "mothers" around, but few willing to step in like he did . Bringing up his children , particularly a daughter , in those days, when people still sneezed at higher education, he gave her confidence to go forth and learn, getting her married, settled in, and then basically staying out of the picture as she adjusted herself to a another house with another thinking.

Was this "mothering" ? Did the daughter imbibe her mothering concepts there ? Do you need to be born with XX chromosomes to get the magical ability to mother ? Does being a XY combination make you deficient in mothering ? Is mothering all about indulging ? Is mothering all about sticking and following societal mores ? Is mothering all about believing in something, something tugging at your heart, and you moving heaven and earth, to ensure that not only does your child get what you think is the best, but also realizes what went into it , so he/she values what he got?

Perhaps , an XX combination predisposes you towards mothering, but it would be wrong to equate a social concept like mothering, with a goulash of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, Oxytocin, Prolactin , Estradiol, and Progesterone, and possibly others , that we women all automatically get drowned in , as certified "mothers".

That daughter was my mother . While her instincts might be her own, she picked up her Mothering concepts from her father. Those of us lucky to have had both father and mother throughout our childhood , take so many things for granted.

There are so many fathers who mother without us realizing it.

I have known sons who amazingly mothered their own mothers in the evening of their lives. Ensuring after a long day at work, that she didn't feel cold in bed as old people are wont to do, there would always be a hot water bottle waiting for her in bed, and sometimes even giving quick ankle rubs as she lay there, in a quiet chitchat, before he returned to his own different world of kids, projects etc.

And so life continues.

Those who are not yet mothers also mother .

I have had occasion to wake up during the high fevers , to a ready, fresh hot simple meal, cooked by a very young family member; you wouldn't know the pleasure of being given a cold cut apple in a katori, with a glass of something cool to drink, on a hot afternoon , when you don't know if it's the the fever or the weather that is heating you up, and turning over on your side is actually a chore, and you have just woken up drenched in perspiration.

I have also been admonished by the same family member for not closing a tap properly , thanks to my tired finger muscles.

Yes. I think she is learning well.......

And then I often wonder about "mothering", why every single dictionary specifies the inclusion of "mother" while defining it, and things like FB suddenly flare up with mothering "dares", with mothers posting photos with their kids.

Perhaps there are all these imminent Days that we are supposed to celebrate.

Perhaps a presence on social media in an appropriate forum proves something, to God knows who.

And then when everything is done and "posted", and the brouhaha has subsided, some truths still remain.

It is possible to not have a uterus and still mother .

It is possible to have a uterus, but insufficient infrastructure, and still "mother".

Mothering, truthfully, doesn't have much to do how the child was born. It has much to do with how the child was cared for, and is being cared for. What the child has imbibed , and taken forward.

This post is dedicated to such folks who have opened my eyes and pointed me to what mothering really is.

It's tough. Like algebra. Whether you are XX or XY.

But if you try hard enough, there is always a great solution.

Fevers, Dreams and Crocodiles

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Sun, 17 Apr 2016 06:14:00 +0000

I don't get fevers too often. I mean, in the last four decades or so, while one has battled all kinds of colds and random infections, even surgeries, there have been no opportunities to lie down reeling with high temperatures, sweating it out every 6 hours , as paracetamol concedes defeat and defers to some antibiotic.

The last time this happened , I was in school. Class 9. I wrote about it here.

Coming home from school with a high fever one evening, I had everyone running around in concern, with tepid water spongings, ice-water strips on the forehead, lots of fluids, and the fever refused to abate for four days. I kept going deeper into sleep , and had even our family doctor worried. Then one morning as they debated about calling in for a second opinion, it seems I suddenly I started muttering something in a sort of disturbed way, broke into a sweat, and opened my eyes, saying "I'm saved, I'm saved".... (My mother's version) .

Despite the relief at my awakening, my mother wanted to know what was going on, and it seems I told them of a dream , which was continuously happening. There were two hills on two sides of a valley. The entire valley floor was populated by crocodiles and alligators wandering about in a "lunch" mode. For some reason I was doing continuous desperate jumps from one hill top to the other, across the valley.

I must have been at it for a longish period and gotten complacent. Because during one such jump, I missed out and started descending into the valley, heart in my mouth, terrified, and shaking my head wordlessly screaming NO, NO! .....I could see the greedy alligators below , maybe licking their lips , and suddenly, something held me in a big hand, and stopped the fall. The entire shock must have been too much for the fever, because that's the point at which I opened my eyes, saying"I'm saved! I'm saved !".

I would have left it at that, and attributed it to an extra fertile mind then growing wild under the influence of exciting books .

But it happened again . And made me wonder about my crocodile connection.

After so many decades, last week, the fevers revisited. A week of 102 degrees fever, fatigue, loss of appetite , and loss of taste due to paracetamol, and the prescribed antibiotic did not work. The meds were then changed . Most of the time I was half-asleep, alternating between heat and sweat.

Very early mornings would be the time when some decent sleep happened, and one morning, I had a dream in which I looked up at a sunny window bar up on my right, to see a crocodile sitting there. Don't ask me how it got there. I was too stunned to see it. The interesting thing was, as I watched, the crocodile recreated itself in kind of "transformers" style, and continued to sit there, looking at me.

I was relieved to get up and notice that nothing was sitting on the window grill bar.

The dream repeated the following morning. Once again, the "transformers style" reconstruction of the crocodile. Once again the looking down at me .Once again, I did not question anything, just watched. Possibly I was between two fluid states ; dream and half-awake.

My fever abated that day, and the dream has not reoccurred so far. I am now on mandatory medication for 14 days, fever or no fever.

But I wonder about my crocodile connection. Between my 2 crocodile dreams , I have lived majorly on the banks of a lake, infested with crocodiles, that occasionally come out to sun themselves on protruding rocks in summer. I have never come face to face with a croc except in my dreams. (I am not sure I want to come face to face with one anyway ).

I read about dreams that mention being chased by crocodiles, eaten by crocodiles, fighting a crocodile. But really nothing about crocodiles calmly sitting at a height , of all things, on a window grill bar, itself a circus like situation.

And the "transformers" aspect of the crocodile. It was fascinating yet frightening to see the rough exterior of the crocodile cracking up and rejoining and reconstructing itself as I watched. Unlike the earlier childhood fever dream, there was no element of fear .

The last crocodile dream was almost 55 years ago. Clearly, I am not going to be around for my next crocodile dream, even if it might be 20 years from now.

First it was jumping across valleys infested with crocodiles. Now, in keeping with my senior citizen status, there is no jumping , but a sedate watching of crocodiles reconstructing themselves in various avatars on my window grill.

Who knows, the next time around, the crocodile might just digitally smile and sit next to me as i do a blog post , deleting as I write.

I have had it with fevers and crocodiles. Can we have some dreams with flowers and icecream, and stuff ?

These dreams. I wonder what they mean . I was looking up dream interpretations regarding non violent crocodile appearances.

One site mentioned that it simply implied that "Seeing a crocodile in dreams indicates that you have not found the meaning of your life yet."

Sometimes they can be so spot on , na ?

Insula Devi of Pain.....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 13:36:00 +0000

Insula Devi of Pain.

Regardless of religious persuasion, she resides in all of us. Actually,we actively participate in her life; an amazing life, which she shares with someone called Prince Amygdala . Together, they keep watch on how we feel pain, how we interpret stuff happening around us, how we react, how we learn from what we see and experience , what kind of temper we exhibit, and how , sometimes, they are helpless , and end up activating the 'gunda' side of things.

Growing up inside our heads, she is very alert, and learns from many things. Mainly the environment in which we grow up.

If it is an environment where we are constantly threatened , or constantly viewing altercations , whatever the cause, she tends to believe, that's the way to go, and Amygdala rubs his hands in anticipation.

Sometimes, it is an environment you are helpless about, for whatever reason; social pressures, economic pressures, perceived slights, and even peer pressures.

These actually define the makeup of the Insula Devi in your head, and the simplest thing she can do when a decision is to be made, about any pain, is to let go, mindlessly, with some unnecessary encouragement from Prince Amygdala.

And so if you have battled all your life to get where you are, left your family to keep house and company with those who struggle to maintain a semblance of life amidst inhuman conditions and tweaking morals , earn something which is never enough, and all the while, seeing others do well all around you, the Insula Devi in your head becomes a militant type, given to knee jerk reactions.

But sometimes, you grow up, in an environment, where you feel secure; there are skirmishes, of course; but there are reasons discussed, lessons learned, and people around , who ensure that , any action is always preceded by some thinking. Sometimes, you are only human (pun intended) , and you still do knee jerk reactions; but then you are firmly told off, and penalized in some thoughtful way. You learn not to be intimidated by someone else's successes, or someone different from you, who seems to have a happy life laid out on a platter.

The Insula Devi is such people's head, is in a much happier situation, she takes decisions regarding pain perception in a different way. She actually thinks, and also encourages the Amygdala to follow her. Yes, there is pain, often due to no fault of yours, but there is a stopping-and-waiting-to think-and work-it-out attitude that is present. Something the Devi learns by habit.

Which brings to mind the Delhi Dentist's case. A young Dentist, home a bit late from work, finds his child waiting to play a few balls with him; they toss around a bat and a ball in a small compound, and a ball, suddenly finds its way out, hitting a passing bike rider. Altercations ensue. The bike rider goes away and returns with a gang of people with hockey and other sticks. They attack the Dentist and beat him to death.

The law will take its course. As they say. 5-6 people will see even worse environment, in a place populated with everyone even worse than them. They will be decreed, hopefully, a stiff punishment. So the Insula Devis in other heads might learn.

In the meanwhile, a family stands shattered, a young mother and a son left to fend for themselves, confused and worried about life and the future. They too slogged for a future. Studied, passed exams, followed a profession , and, like everyone else , had dreams.

The Insular cortex, seat of Insula Devi and her sidekick Amygdala , in our brains, is the seat of feeling/deciding pain, deciding emotions, and activating responses. It sits hand in hand with the Amygdala, which more or less acts in a "listen-to-me" fashion. Across our brains, is what is called the Gray matter . Turns out that there isn't enough of gray matter with the Insula Devi , in those folks , that perform gunda reactions. Researchers have found that youths with behavioural problems, obsessive behaviour, aggression issues and anger have noticeably less grey matter, particularly in their Insula Cortex and Amygdala areas.

So how do we work with that?

Part of it is a a complicated issue of overpopulation, lack of employment and resources in rural areas, migration, quality of life in cities, and even pollution. It is reported that Toxoplasmosis , caused by a common brain parasite, that gets transmitted via cat feces, undercooked meat and contaminated water, is often the cause of what is called IED or Intermittent Explosive Disorder , a big cause of road rage .

While some are complicated huge societal and country issues, one may yet concentrate on something that can be worked on at the personal family level. For one thing, the proclivity to attribute everything to "beta hai, galti to karega" must be rubbished. Gender discrimination must be deemed completely unacceptable at the family level. Parents need to give time to children, and be aware of what they are up to, and who their friends are. And a tendency to mindlessly violently respond must be noticed, recognized and some treatment/corrective action taken.

A philosophy of constantly endeavoring to keep up with the neighbor Joneses and trying to match up by any means however shady, must be discouraged. Somewhere , a deterrent must develop, that says , "wait, let me think..."

I once lived on a campus with lots of open spaces. And lots of kids, who simply enjoyed all kinds of ball games . Batting, kicking the ball and running with it. Sometimes , it rolled out on to the roads inside, which we used to walk to the market. I was on my way once , amidst a lot of exciting games going on, and all of a sudden there was a quiet, followed by a big thud on my head. A big ball had accidentally fallen on my head. For a minute I was stunned, and then my own Insula Devi calmed me down. I was fine, still standing. Nothing was wrong and no one had any khunnas against me. Amidst cries of "Aunty, sorry, we didn't see you; are you hurt ...." etc, I simply turned, smiled at them, said it was just a game and it was OK, and then to every one's surprise, I tried to kick the ball back to them . (I've always secretly wanted to do that. :-) ), much to their vast amusement; it is not everyday, that you see an old lady in a saree kicking a football.

There have been other times. An ankle hit hard by a "season" cricket ball, while taking a shortcut through Azad Maidan in the monsoons, while Kanga league matches happened all over the place; a fielder kind of looking in worried anticipation, at an old lady noticing the ball, then bending down and performing an almighty throw to him, and the team members applauding. I mean when was the last time a cricket team applauded you ? Actually, your Insula Devi ?

But this was because right from childhood, sport was a greatly encouraged thing, assorted injuries were part of the sport, and you did not make a fuss and kept playing the game. It gave you a very balanced view about what was important. All children , male and female , were given the same careful bringing up where these things were concerned, without special considerations for females.There was no fawning and sighing over what are really routine injuries , we developed a great respect for our bodies' ability to repair and recover. Yes, parents worried when we were hurt, but it only taught us how to deal with these things.

Your own Insula Devi needs to be nurtured and worshipped in your brain. There are things one may do to empower her. Research has found that meditation and stuff like Vipassana, leads to increase in the gray matter in the area where the Insula Devi and Amygdala live. Research has also found that youth with behavioural problems, aggression, drugs habits etc, show a noticeable lack of gray matter in that area.

It is easy to say all this. It is not easy to initiate or implement this, given the problems faced in big cities today, the lack of facilities, various undesirable attractions, and outrageous costs of living.

But I think much can be achieved by mindful bringing up of children; it is OK to act tough with them at times. Some do this in a binary fashion. They either fawn over their kids , and then lose tempers when something goes wrong ; there need not be physical violence. Growing up is not about power play.

Today there is so much politics about religious places, and the residents of these structures are either forgotten, or used for winning violent arguments.

Why am I not surprised, and is it possibly a sign of the times, that Insula Devi of Pain remains traumatized in growing number of minds today ?

Tea and Society

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 04:27:00 +0000

This is an ad for Lipton Red label Tea , sourced from Youtube. It is shown often on regional TV and I have watched it in Marathi.

I often wonder how , when and why things change in our society. If at all they do . The casting of folks in this ad is so perfect. I have met people like this. Whoever scripted this, appears to be a great observer of human behaviour and double standards in society. .

I grew up at a time when there was no TV. Only radio. No ads. Societies then had different standards, that basically trickled down from older days, and "inconvenient" thinking was blithely pushed away , in favor of good old hand-me-down standards .

And it intrigues me to think about what kind of reactions this ad might have evoked then , vis a vis , now.

Circa 1950's , the fellow's role would have elicited nods of approval. "Sensible" conservative thinking, "prudent" unsmiling behaviour; "I-told-you-so" reactions to the wife not able to find the key she is sure she put in her purse; "Pat-on-the-back, that's-my-son" reactions to the guy coming up with concerns of his wife's knees paining. With a knowing disregard for the timing of that statement. The woman (wife), with excellent acting skills, highlighting the "Now, wouldn't you know..." twist the story takes, when they decide to go in for the offered cup of tea. And so on .

More than half a century later, circa 2016 ,with millions of channels and TV ads , such guys still exist. The lost key and the need to wait for whoever to land up, is implied as the lady's fault. Unsmiling reactions to the hospitable neighbor lady. Then the guy gets distracted by the fragrance of the tea, as it wafts out of the main door of the neighbors. Still maintaining his unsmiling countenance, he hears his wife say how inviting the smells of tea are, emanating from the neighbor's open front door.

He could have taken a deep breath, smiled, and said ,"Yes, so true, why don't we take her up on her offer and share a cup while we wait ? " .

But no. The so called image of a benevolent man of the house, must be maintained. His wife's knees are suddenly in the picture. Her knee pain tugs at his heart springs , or should I say taste buds. He zeros in on them as an excuse . And very clearly impresses no one when he says "Your knees must be bothering you; lets go into their house and wait. ". What follows is a hearty tea session with the fellow shamelessly asking for seconds.

I don't know who he thinks he is fooling.

It tells you nothing has changed in sections of society which attributes a plethora of qualities to someone the minute he belongs to a certain sex. These sections of society , still applaud the fellow's generosity in showing concern for his wife's knees. And the sudden catapulting and going in for tea ? Aiiyo, why mention the knees ? One needs to be thrilled at the feet crossing the threshold to have tea !

I don't think the maker of this ad set out to show a universal truth regarding human evolution in patriarchal societies.

But every time this ad appears, I get the same reaction. I just wonder how everyone else reacts and whether anyone is bothered by the fellows opportunistic fake behaviour.

Or am I, not much of a tea drinker , making an unusually big strong brew from a handful bunch of tea leaves ?

Minds and Superminds...

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Sun, 20 Mar 2016 07:57:00 +0000

Geriatrics was not even a word , in my childhood.

People seamlessly glided from middle age into a senior stage , and thence into a super senior stage . As the younger folks too simultaneously slid into various roles over the years. There were elders to turn to for advice, family doctors who knew your three generations who patiently explained things, and it did make accepting the inevitable a bit easier.

I have seen my grandmother in her last days. She was in pain, but coherent in mind, and communicative. Perhaps having a lot of people around keeps you from noticing little things.

My father lived well into his late eighties, and survived my mother by six years. Hers was a completely unexpected instant passing away, and we took a long time coming to terms with it.

As an extremely fit person, who confounded his doctors by his recovery from a very bad herniated disc solely by exercise, as a lifelong practitioner of yoga, meditation, naturopathy and ayurveda, and a published writer in Marathi , on subjects like popular science, the US, and health issues, it was perhaps traumatic and confusing for him to realize that age was catching up, that too at 87.

First it was a fall, then a aortic aneurysm diagnosis , and BP medication. He more or less rubbished all of it, continued his physical activities. His doctor alerted us to the aneurysm size, and the need for someone to be with him at all times. I was his only child resident in the country, his sole caretaker, and since he refused , in fine stubborn parental tradition, to come stay with me in Mumbai, I did the frequent commuting from Mumbai , trying to juggle a job, children's board exams, and all kinds of stuff.

For someone who was always learning and writing , almost on a daily basis , I was surprised to see him one day, surrounded by his books, papers and references, and staring at the opposite walls, not writing anything. When I asked him, he kind of waved me away saying nothing, but this was a beginning of something.

He never wrote after that. He would forget many things. He would get angry with himself and shout at whoever was around. In a house where there were more cupboards with books and papers than anything else, he started to sift through things, shredding things he thought shouldn't be there. For many months after that, while his writing completely stopped, he would sit with a pair of large scissors, cutting up what he thought was junk ; this often included, old articles, letters, photographs, newspaper cuttings , bills, sometimes entire magazines , and old notes belonging to the rest of the family.

Sometime that year, my son who was leaving to go abroad for his doctorate went to visit his grandfather and spend some time with him. My father was very pleased, there was a slight lull in the cutting, and when my son left , my father gave him a file meant for me. He said it was my childhood stuff, poems and stuff i published as a child, all carefully preserved by my parents.

The file remained in my cupboards as I rushed back to be with my father , who shortly after that, became bedridden . His mind further upset and traumatized by that, he became delusional and would say he had just returned from a 5 mile walk, he would forget he had had lunch, and fire me for not getting his lunch; he kind of slipped in and out of real time, and slowly stopped recognizing anyone, except me and the house faithful who had always been with us.

It was interesting to see that while his mind was in a tumult most of the time, sometimes with uncontrolled unconnected talk, there was a small part of his mind, or , supermind, as I used to call it, that was aware of what was happening to him. There were some people he couldn't recognize; there were other family members he did not recognize, but his supermind made him aware of that, and he would smile and fake a generic welcome to them , making them thing he recognized them. The same supermind , must have alerted him to the existence of my file in the midst of all that cutting up of paper.

The slow descent into blankness and energy deficit continued, and a few months later , on a rainy November night , shortly after his daughter had fed him some light soup, he kind of lay back, rested , and quietly , passed away , with only his daughter sitting by his side. But not before , he struggled to emerge out of the mental chaos , to hold his hand out to her, and touch her face and head in a final blessing. Somewhere , the supermind , showed up when he needed it.

10 years later, this January, we shifted residence after 43 years. While packing a massive amount of books , suddenly this file shows up. I think I know what is inside. I untie the string outside and check.

And out falls a manuscript, in Marathi, written in blue ink, in my fathers handwriting; slightly shaky , reflecting the onslaught of age.

Turns out that this is a Marathi translation of a book called "Know Thyself" by Swami Shivay Subramaniaswaami , published in 2000 by the Himalayan Academy Press , associated with the Kauai Hindu Monastery in Hawaii. I was aware that my parents had visited this place with my brother in the late 90's on a US visit. I vaguely remember seeing the original book around the house.

Somehow, in all the excitement of cutting up paper , (which it turns out is sometimes a typical onset symptom of dementia ) his supermind, as I call it, realized the value of this work, and included this manuscript of around 50 pages along with my childhood publications.

What made him take these decisions ? How did he decide to preserve my papers and his , and send them away with my son, to me ? Was his supermind aware of these in the midst of a normal mind trying its best not to slide into dementia ? They say it is all about disturbed and insufficient blood supply to the brain , in old age. So how come the supermind, as I call it was always safe ? What is the supermind ? And does it exist ?

In another 10-15 years i will find out for myself. I am not sure i will even reach the age that he did . I have facilities like the Net, electronic storage, Drive and so on. A shaking hand doesn't shake the keyboard, and the screen is always nice and unaffected.

In the meanwhile, I started transcribing onto Google Drive in Marathi, the entire manuscript that I have received . I just finished it a few days ago, and am doing a final edit .

I do not know if a Marathi translation exists. The original book(let) was published in 33 countries, and so far queries on email have had null response from Hawaii . It describes lessons you can follow on a daily basis over 14 days, and is in the form of a conversation between a devotee and a Guruji . It would be nice if one could have a Marathi version.

So far , no response from anywhere . I've just found out a US Mainland office address of the publishers, and got some friends there, involved in contacting them to find out the information I need.

It doesn't matter.

I think it is something that my father would have wanted me to do .

And I think he maybe simply vastly amused wherever he is , to see that his daughter , who is not very ritualistically religious , or heavily spiritual, just enjoyed doing this transcription work , and actually enjoyed reading the stuff along the way.

His supermind still at work ?

Dimag Ki Batti ....अभी ना जाओ छोड़ कर.....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Sat, 13 Feb 2016 12:46:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, I sensed a sudden streak of light at the outer edge of my left eye, as I turned my head, to close a door.

It was night, and dark, and for a moment I thought it might be lightening; then I thought it was the street lights I must have seen , say in a fast neck turn. So I closed the curtains and did another test in what might be called pitch dark, and lo behold, the streaks of light, more like a vertical sword flash , continued every time I turned.

Strangely, this didn't happen at every turn but was fairly random. Happened during the day too. As is my wont, I started reading and checking out things, and everyone said, "go check with your doctor, don't delay!"

What happens is that our eye can be said to have a front end processing and a back end processing.

The front end is all about the aqueous humor, which is a fluid floating around the front of the lens of the eye, between the cornea and the lens. This is a watery fluid, that carried nutrition for the cornea and the lens , and is constantly replenished by our body. It also carries away waste from the eye region.

The back end is about directing the rays of light from the lens on to the retina (or screen) through a gel like substance called Vitreous Humor. This Vitreous Humor, also performs a supporting role, keeping the retina in place, maintaining the shape of the eye, and also acts as a shock absorber. At birth , this vitreous humor has the consistency of egg-white. Over the years it thins out, and the gel kind of clumps here and there. Sometimes a separation between the gel wall and retina ensues, and in a worst case scenario , a bit of retina gets yanked off by the wayward truant gel.

The aforementioned flashes in the eye , happen when this clumped gel or even thinned gel misdirects rays of light and activates photoreceptors where it should not.

This is a kind of old age thing. And there is nothing humorous about the humors.

I mean back ends malfunctioning after 65 years cannot be too bad. (So many multinationals and companies would give an arm and a leg to know the algorythm.)

Think of the eye as a sort of typical family . The Retina is a Patriarch, in much association with the Optic Nerve which is almost like a ancestor. The Vitreous Humor , is like a Grandma Matriarch, who must keep looking after the welfare of the patriarch, as well as keep an "eye" on the happenings at the front end. How the lens behaves, does it keep itself clean , is the Lady Aqueous Humor, in association with the Cornea, managing the upkeep of the front end well, and keeping it healthy ? In a world of fine rules, and finer anatomic machinery, is there adequate protection, and is there decent drainage of everything undesirable?

The stay-at-home Grandma , is these days of both parents working, often gets fatigued and old age takes its toll. Like our hair , memories, and so many things, she becomes thinner, loses a bit of gelliness, and the Patriarch Retina feels the change. Sometimes, he too feels the age, when she clutches on to him and tries to move.

And so one needs to avoid these situations, by getting checked at an early stage, so some corrective action may be taken to strengthen the retinal walls. Say in the form of drops to be put in over a set of many weeks. (What I have been advised)

Something similar happening in our society today.

We are a society , actually, with a very reliable, strong back end. Playing by the rules, keeps the back end healthy and running well.

But today, the front end, comprising of the lens, and the fluid that carries nutrition to the eyeball and lens , is not in a very happy situation. There are all kinds of influences that mix with the aqueous fluid thanks to mindless imbibing , and adulteration; both chemical, and of thought. The front end often is unable to handle the pressures it creates. The rich diseases quietly line up at the edges of the inside eye, and changes are seen in the back ends as well as front ends. There is debility in the entire system, a thickening of paths, a thinning of objectives and purpose, and our sight gets affected. As a people, we see things in a wrong way, because we are limited by our earlier careless and stupid behaviour.

In my younger days, and fluorescent lighting in houses was then very popular, when someone acted dense, the others would often tease the person saying, "So has the tube light switch on yet ?" or as they say in Marathi , my mother tongue, " ट्यूब पेटली का ? "

I like to think of these streaks of light in my peripheral eye, as tube lights switching on, trying to send me some sense and knowledge.

Not for nothing do we have a concept across languages, of something lighting up in the head.

As they say in Hindi , another one of my country's several languages, "दिमाग की बत्ती जला दे..... (Light up that light in your head ...)

Somewhere , some light must have switched on. Because a very popular old song, from a very old movie " Hum Dono " starring the late Dev Anand and late Sadhana came to mind, and this poem happened :

Lady Vitreous Sadhana,
tired of sitting subdued
and clumped together
since birth,
lorded over
by Sir Retina Dev Anand,
and the seeds of independence
suddenly sprouting
as she holds herself
aloof and close
and dithers in doubt,
shaken up,
looking for an exit path.

Sometimes she pulls away,
still attached to him,
and he responds
with an angry flash,
only to have someone
interfere
with ocular drops of advice.

And Sir Retina Dev Anand,
much more aware now
of the life long support
by quiet Vitreous Sadhana,
looks up to see
rays of lights
in the distance,
nudges the
Rod and Cone chamchaas
and bursts into a song
for Lady Vitreous Sadhana...

"Abhi na jao Chhodkar,
ye screen abhi bhara nahi ..."

:-)

On the move.....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 13:24:00 +0000

These are strange times. You mention "Shift" , and folks look at their keyboard. It has evolved from a verb to a proper name of a key.

But I still hang on to the old school . And "shift" generates lots of memories.

Shifting, per se, has evolved. From being a family event to a managed event. In keeping with the times.

My earliest memories are from my college days in Pune. I stayed in the college hostel, and every vacation was spent at a new district place , since there were parental job transfers. I never really participated in the packing , and loading , and intense discussions about what to discard and what to take. By the time i came home , everything was well set, and one set out to discover the joys of small town Maharashtra .

My earliest memories of shifting , per se, are from the mid seventies, when my folks shifted back post retirement from Mumbai. There were many discussions, trips to internal areas of Mumbai to get good but cheap jute material in large quantities. Aunts came to stay, and much time was spent sitting with tough looking huge needles , through which you threaded jute rope , and stitched up the jute covering around sofas, teapoys , small tables and so on. Newspapers were stuffed in places where a collapse was anticipated . Big gunny sacks were filled with odd shaped vessels and metal kitchen implements , and put in another gunny sack and stitched up. Folks would keep talking about how so and so shifted and three dining room chairs had their legs broken due to bad loading practices, and once again we would rush around with big needles, ropes and jute coverings. Old sarees were put to good use .

I came into my own on moving day, after the truck's arrival was excitedly announced. Those were not days of movers and packers. Neither did they come with a container type transport. Benevolent looking chaps in dhoties and kurtas came and lugged things into the truck, and it fell upon me , as the only offspring present, to ensure that heavy things were not loaded on , say, glass tops . Much to the consternation of the hi fi ladies of the neighborhood, I climbed on to the back of the truck , holding on to a chain dangling on the right, and stood there directing the loading, almost till the truck was ready to leave. The stress of the shifting , the finale to a career, and age, meant that folks were happy to leave things to their child to manage, and i joined them in a heavily loaded Ambassador car filled with stuff "you couldn't send in a truck" , with aunts/cousins who had come to help. They dropped me off at my marital home and proceeded on a hugely rainy monsoon evening , to climb the ghats , behind the truck.

The next time i moved was when , in our institutional premises, i moved from a hostel room to a bigger flat. The hostel room had its own furniture, there was almost nothing to move. Perhaps just the fridge and the gas cylinder. The fridge was under warranty, the fridge company truck was mandatory, and the elderly fellows who came to shift on their own offered to also shift our gas stove and cylinder, once they noticed large red Kokan "chira" stones that we used with old metal abandoned Godrej metal shelves to store our books and create tables. They hailed from Kokan and were only too pleased to transport the tables to a largely empty , fairly big flat.

Nature , or better still, we, cannot tolerate a vacuum, and so the flat got slowly filled up with simple furniture. A larger flat meant folks could come to stay with us. Slowly and surely, the size, variety and need for furniture increased. Every subsequent move to a better flat (of the same size), and we shifted twice after that in 43 years, had us sorting and discarding stuff. Much more after the children happened.

It was recently time for us to move out of our institutional premises after 43 years. We were not young any more. Like when my folks moved, the daughter was around to help.

But there was a difference.

We had movers and packers now.

Some smiling folks turned up that morning, checked if they had the correct address and proceeded to lug in reams of broad plastic, millions of large bags, rolls and rolls of some kind of corrugated cardboard, and innumerable tapes. One guy with a trained eye would point to stuff, another would load the stuff, and wrap everything in plastic securing it with copious amounts tape. Another fellow took over the machines , and the fridge, TV, washing machine and other electronics were very quickly, carefully and comprehensively packed in corrugated coverings and taped around as if tape was going out of fashion. They even packed your photo frames carefully (and i have a lot of them) , and smiled approvingly when you mentioned that late Maaji's photo might get a scratch on the glass in all this hurried stuff, and to individually pack it.

Some other guys kept lugging these things down the lift into the foyer, and two hours after they arrived, 4 rooms were emptied and were being loaded on to the truck. Another road trip in the afternoon, and we were shifted. The nice thing was, they shifted stuff , into the new premises, where it was intended, unpacked stuff , and powered on the electric stuff to confirm that it was OK. When i walked in, the refrigerator was in the kitchen , humming.

But luggage isn't the only thing you shift.

In the old days, it was.

Then as an after thought, you wrote post cards to everyone informing them of change of address. You went to your bank, where they accepted the letter, with small talk about schools , admissions, and how do you like the new place etc etc, and quickly changed the address in a ledger with an outlandish body mass index. Phones were not easy to get, and your request for a shift got acted on suddenly after a bunch of weeks, there was overhead wiring , and the linesman would climb on the old cotton tree or mango tree to position the phone wires and direct them .

Today, no one believes anyone. Your word is insufficient as address proof. You need bills to show what your address is. You cannot change your address for these bills unless you have some other address proof. And having spent much of your life as a programmer, "loop" comes to mind. You show someone a legal registered , notarized rent agreement, and they ask you to get it verified and so declared by the housing society authorities. I mean the society would hardly allow a random entity to shift in with all kinds of luggage and people , if we did not have a proper document vetted by them.

Everyone has their own levels of demanding address proof. Sometimes , it is unusually simple. Sometimes , it borders on the offensive. Sometimes, two people in the same organization, give diametrically opposite information and instructions. In an age when everything is supposed to be electronic, reams of paper get exchanged in the process, and Xerox continues to prosper.

But life has a way of settling in. My newspaper delivery boy , who has delivered over the years, asked me where i was shifting and when . Turns out he serviced that area too. So i casually mentioned the date to him , and asked him to deliver there. and bill me at the end of the month as usual. All this in a very hurried way a week before shifting.

On our first early morning in the new premises, boxes strewn all across, getting tea started on the stove , I walk across to the front door , with its complicated latches, open it , and find a newspaper stuck in through the grill of the outside safety door.

Some folks need no address proof. They believe you. They don't do KYC again and again.

A new day has begun.

I take a deep breath. Life is not so bad after all.

I sit down with a cuppa to read the paper amidst all the unpacking chaos.

The Case of a Misleading Net...

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Wed, 30 Dec 2015 04:38:00 +0000

When you are inching towards the end of the seventh decade of your life, and there are two days before the year ends, you not only look back at the year , but years, decades and half centuries.

And somewhere you realize, that things have a habit of coming full circle. Where living in a society of humans is concerned.

As a child , like today, our lives were lived in compartments like home, school, sports and other activities. But interactions with other people were numerous.

Beside interacting in predecided ways at school and other organized places, we interacted with colony friends, neighbors, relatives , friends made in the pursuit of hobbies like music and sports etc. You did errands for neighbors without "documenting" the fact so to speak. Chit chatting with friends , arguing , fighting, ganging up, making up, consoling, celebrating were all things that happened in the natural course of living. You learned how to interact with friend's parents, elders, seniors, small kids , and even rank strangers. There was no TV, transistors were kind of looming on the horizon and were considered a huge luxury, if you had a telephone you were somebody, and by and large , you maintained your individuality in a world where very little was standardized , except, what constituted goodness.

Things were pretty much similar way into the late seventies, early eighties. Then came the computers and phones, and everything changed. In big cities, this kind of augmented, societies taking to the "flat" culture , in a big way.

You didn't know who your neighbor was. Everyone had a cell phone. People wore out index fingers tapping phone messages , which were earlier voice communications with instant responses and good laughs . If you forgot your house key, you sat on the landing staircase till someone turned up , while a neighbor's maid leaving the house gave you strange looks; where she lived, the neighbor would ask you in , offer tea or a meal , but then , they were old style, lived 7 to a room , and shared bathrooms, clothes and opinions.

You never really knew many relatives, and you basically exchanged standard polite greetings when prodded by parents on unavoidable social occasions. Your closeting yourself in a room to pour over a screen, was defined as individuality, work, he-is-like-that-only etc.

Then someone came up with the Internet, or Net. You started speaking on Mail, or with images on computers. People introduced a kind of club on the Net and called it by different names, where you met and spoke to unknown people, and thought you were being really smart. The Internet started happening on Phones .

Till Facebook happened, and those who went through life very happily with, say 25-30 very good friends , suddenly got documented as someone with 1000 "friends" and followers. Meeting few good friends over snacks and tea, a gossip session over a meal, or spending time listening to something new somewhere got replaced by people being wished with expressive punctuation, sending automatic greetings to all and sundry who were listed as your friends, and even fighting and abusing on the Net.

In an earlier life, when you didnt know something, you badgered the hell out of some folks and pestered them to explain, visited the library, borrowed books from folks who were friends of friends, and ended up making many friends , and perhaps a few enemies.

Today, you Google. Social interaction is zilch, and you lose out on learning about human aspects of information , unless of course you have the time to read through one million links thrown up by Google. Google will show maps, and a lady with an accent will tell you on your phone where to turn left or whatever, but it doesn't beat asking an old grandma in a rickshaw where some place was, she saying she is going the same way, and offering you a place alongside her, chitchatting with you, she ending up knowing your aunt, and then offering you and the rickshaw driver a banana each from her shopping bag , at the end of the ride before getting off.

So.

Now that you have been so greatly individualized, you must learn how to communicate with others. The circle is complete.

A generous backslap has been replaced with standardized emoticons, a possible development of an ability to do verbal debates is replaced by Twittering and Facebooking, and the new generations are being taught how to interact with other humans. By Liking, Commenting and Sharing.

We did that individually, in real life, with flesh and blood people . Since decades. And have emerged with better perceptions of society and how to deal with humans.

Life clearly is coming full circle, with a big exception.

We used all our senses and lived.

Today's social media emphasizes majorly the sense of sight, and perhaps, at some point, hearing. With an ability to keep someone's response at bay. And so we have lost our sense of reacting to people.

Young people, jumping on with alacrity onto the bandwagon , react to situations with the same alacrity, and a lack of patient situation analysis. Knee jerk reactions to negative responses, excessively violent behaviours towards the female friends, and occasional deep and dangerous depressive responses in stressful situations.

In my time, someone in the family or friends , might have noticed, asked questions, mediated, or helped.

Technology is good when it is appropriate. It does not work, away from the natural ethos of a given society. One would get unexpected results.

Almost half a century ago, I learned a statement in school which i did not understand then .

"Man is a social animal".....

I do understand it now. Very well.

I just wish Technology was a person and understood it too ....

SMART and smart....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 04:54:00 +0000

The defintion of "Smart" changes with time.

About half a century ago, we used to call some people, Smart. It didn't always have anything to do with their grey cells.

For most of the smart types, it was the outward impression they projected .

1. Well turned out, quick thinking, articulate and so on.

2. There were also situations and people , which were unsavoury, and those who emerged unscathed from them, ethically or unethically, were also called Smart. We have a surfeit of such folks today.

3. And then there were those, who regardless of looks, size and connections, simply exuded a certain inner smartness that had you gaping in awe.

For some reason, today "smart" is often misconstrued to mean some kind of jugaad that someone indulges in , despite the system. Sometimes at higher levels .

In the big rush to e-fy our lives, screens and chattering printouts are considered more important than truth and simple security measures to maintain data integrity.

A big nationalised bank, at a major city branch, had a manager who blithely codified some new account number that was identical to mine. The new person with the account number was listed at the aforesaid branch's extension counter, and not main branch, and the manager , forgot to codify that. For 6 months , large sums would magically appear in my account and disappear the next day. Till I demanded an explanation , and figured it out myself since no one including the manager had a clue. In my old IT job 40 years ago, when "e" was not yet in fashion, they would have fired me for this. When i explained to them what caused the error, the fact that the managers ignorance was exposed was more important than the need for errorfree careful codification practices as per training manuals, and they couldn't wait for me to disappear . Then i found out no one knew where the system user manual was.

So smart.

At a leading National Institute, there is a careless attention to who can read and who can modify data pertaining to employees. Normally, sensitive employee data is handled at the highest levels of HR , and modify rights are given to responsible well trained entities, who are conversant with the HR practices followed . Perhaps a sense of euphoria at being e-fied has shut their eyes to the fact, that the security section folks, who are charged with creating identity cards for employees, have data modification rights which are sometimes used with ignorance of facts. They are oblivious to various new titles, posts, and their entitlements, thanks to a blissfully unaware HR section, and have been known to ask questions for clarifications to those seeking a knew ID card. Why security sections should , in the first place , be able to modify HR data is puzzling. At most places, HR does the decisions and makes appropriate modifications , and others just read and follow procedures. But we don't.

So smart .

At another place, an employee notices an error in the monthly e-salary slip, and brings it to the notice of the concerned staff. A correction is requested. Since salaries are processed in batch mode each month, the employee is told he will be issued a physical salary slip, reflecting the change. (I am sure, the existing system is designed to cater to changing data, recalculating, and printing/uploading the correct salary slip, but instead of being trained in the system, shortcuts rule , with a complete disregard for what will go in the archives. ) . Someone creates a screen shot, modifies some stuff, prints out the salary slip, which is blindly signed by some higher up, and carelessly sends it off. Very clearly, it has to pass through several upper levels before despatch . Maybe it did not. Because the person in question, got a slip showing the correct amounts, and a printout at the bottom, saying that the salary for June was being paid at the end of May (of the same year) ! A case of bad copy-paste careless jugaad. And Time Inversion. Who cares ?

So smart .

There are endless examples.

But then sometimes, a nondescript city office, understands it all.

Applying for copies of a death certificate , one submitted paperwork relating to the doctor's certificate, cremation office certificate and so on. On checking back on the appointed day, one is told that there is a descrepancy between the date of death as seen on the doctor's certificate and as mentioned on the cremation certificate. It is clear that someone at the cremation office has been careless. One is then told, that data as it is submitted has been uploaded, the system has pointed out the mismatch, the particular city office is not empowered to make corrective changes, and one needs to go to a specific office at the Corporation Main Office, with specified timings. One rushes there with the requisite paperwork and application letter, the modification is done , recorded and signed by a person with the requisite authority, and one rushes back to the original regional office, where the work is done.

Someone , somewhere has applied thought, and trained folks regarding that. Kudos.

It is admirable, that despite so many places that have other considerations before someone at a window presses "Enter" and generates a paper , this place continues to follow the original definition of "service" , in the face of e-fication of lives.

And so I actually shudder at the thought of cities becoming smart. It is all fine to hanker after catching up with the world. But we need a citizenry that understands and respects rules. And by extension, leaders who also follow rules themselves.

And thereby lies the catch .

For some strange reason, this business of Smart Cities, keeps bringing to mind, this concept we have, of Sister Cities. Mumbai has 7 sister cities . Berlin (GER), London(UK), Los Angeles(USA), St Petersburg(Russia), Stuttgart(GER), Busan( and Yokohama.

Two mayors meet, present to each other the "keys" to the cities, someone signs some memorandum, they shake hands and voila! we have sister cities. And no one learns anything from the other.

Perhaps we need Guru-Shishya cities .....

I wish everything was as simple........

Swachh and Safe .... ?

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Sat, 12 Dec 2015 06:24:00 +0000

"Always go to the bathroom when you have a chance".

..... King George V

(While this is something all mothers might approve, he might have paid a bit more attention to the situation in his then empire ... Just saying !)

We are almost at the end of 2015.

162 years since trains began in India , and counting.

And then one reads this.

"Senior Citizen's leg gets stuck in commode of train toilet for 10 hours".

It is an Indian Style toilet. And the pictures across social media show her ankle visible from outside the eventually detached train compartment, when engineers had to use gas cutters to cut the toilet contraption to free her .

Which leads one to ponder about the design and development of railway toilets over the last century and more.

The first train ran from Mumbai to Thane in 1853. By 1867, the Allahabad-Jabalpur line was started and by 1875, 95 million pound sterling was invested in Railways by the British , most of it in expanding the reach. By 1900 , we had the government getting in, with the Great Indian Penninsular Railway, and the network expanded , with the first electric train arriving in 1908.

Like in many other aspects, development happened, as if people did not matter.

The story goes that one Okhil Babu, got completely cheesed off and fired of a letter as below :

and this was the precursor to the railways seriously incorporating toilets in trains.

A peculiar problem, native to India, was the need for Indian Style toilets; more beneficial to our anatomy, clearly more hygienic to use, and which the native population preferred to use.

(The propensity to gravitate to a western form of toilet, housing that needs a special request to incorporate an Indian Style toilet , and approvals given to government office buildings with all western style toilets with scant regard for the user profile is perhaps a subject for a separate post . I wrote something about Progress and Sanitation in 2009. NOTHING has changed. )

And so they introduced very simple toilets , with minimum maintenance costs. Hole in the floor style.

The Railways expanded, millions of miles were added, speeds of trains increased, freight train systems were developed, air conditioning happened ; as of 2012 , a population of approximately 25 million was transported by Indian Railways daily which amounts to around 9 billion a year, but alas, by and large the Indian Style train toilets, or Hooper Toilets, remained unchanged.

There is something alarming about the design, where a simple glance down in a running train toilet, shows you the rails and ground rushing by at great speed accompanied by rhythmic loud sounds.

I've been witness to the trauma, of a toilet trained 3 year old , travelling from Mumbai to new Delhi in the early 80's, in in one of the Indian Railways highly touted trains, trying to use the toilet, getting alarmed with the hole in the floor, the noise, and the view of the rushing ground below the train, and then trying to escape , while still desperately trying to use the toilet. You could not use the toilet when the train was stationary, when there was zero alarming noise and disappearing tracks. Cajoling parents, approving other passengers, fear, unavoidable body procedures, the discomfort, it was like a performance, trying to find a mean between finishing up your stuff soon, and not inconveniencing other passengers, in a train with an alarming passenger-bathroom ratio.

The lady in the aforesaid mishap on the Konkan Railway, was 65, clearly used to train travel, was using it at 3 am, and although this might have been one of her bad/unlucky days, one wonders why the Hooper Toilet has not undergone any hitherto noteworthy research and development, particularly , with respect to its hole-in-the-floor design.

Yes, the lady slipped while opening the door (the floor is always wet), but has anyone thought of using some more metal/porcelain and making the waste path stuff longer as it is discharged, either out into the tracks, or into a tank ? Why a straight down vertical drop ? The lady's foot slipped inside, and went straight down , and could be seen from outside the compartment , when they isolated the train bogey.

Perhaps a longer horizontal path and a possible curved exit might have avoided this.

One wonders why , while efforts are made to figure out more civilized ways to manage disposal of the waste products, by introducing chemical toilets, or other mechanical methods, why minimal attention has been paid to the shape and gradient of the disposal pipe, from the point of view of passenger safety.

But seriously, there appears to be a disconnect where railway toilets are concerned.

And then you read about the amazing logic, dated Nov 2015, used by no less than the Railway Board , to decide that NO TOILETS were needed on a DMU train in Odissa , (a Diesel Multiple Unit train where no separate engine is required as it is incorporated into the carriage itself) covering 160 kilometres, presumed to be covered in 4 hours. Furthermore , the train would be halted for 30 minutes between its origin and destination.

The National Human Rights Commission has slapped a notice on the Railway Board to file a report on this absence of toilet facilities. Read about this here.

I assume the Railway Board is aware of senior citizens, old age health situations, small kids, ladies, all mostly compelled to traveling by passenger trains.

While the Railway Board decides when and how peristalsis happens in a citizen's intestines, and how powerful his/her sphincter muscles should be, per kilometre of railway track , and letters and notifications are slapped on each other regarding this, perhaps it is time for someone to hold a nationwide/worldwide competition for an improved design for a safe Indian style train toilet ?

Swachh , yes . How about , Safe ?

Commentaries on Correlations....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 06:16:00 +0000

"Illness makes you unhappy but unhappiness itself doesn't make you ill, says study"

This was the title of a news item posted this morning and it referred to research undertaken in the UK, where a million British women were studied to find out whether happiness or the lack of it was connected to mortality.

Then you suddenly see news items like "Text messages that end in a period seen as less sincere" based on a study carried out at the Psychology Department , SUNY Binghampton, NY. The big excitement is that texts ending in, say, an exclamation mark are seen as more sincere.

Sometimes, it is "Eating to impress: Men eat more food when dining with women" , something declared by research done at the Cornell University Food and Brand lab.

While one has the utmost respect for the type studies done and published to define the use of certain medicines for patients of various ages/types etc, or the utility of certain diets/therapies for people with unusual health conditions, I often wonder whether common sense situations today are digitized simply because quick correlations are available thanks to computers. Digitization, also gives a certain false sense of "documenting" , which is what publishing papers in journals is all about.

Happiness and unhappiness cannot be digitized regardless of how much Intel is Inside. It would not bother me , if sickness causes unhappiness or vice versa.

I've seen a little boy, forced to stay home from primary school, due to an infectious disease, feverish and sleepy, and he suddenly perks up when his best friend from the neighborhood, drops by with a bunch of Chacha Chowdhury comics collected by her at various Railway stations while travelling. She isn't allowed to spend time with him, but for the next few hours, his room reverberates with guffaws and cackles. Possibly his fever abates a bit. He has a great nap post that, and the disease runs its normal course. His happiness has been a temporary mix of the happiness of having a friend visit, bring him his favourite books, and a temporary victory of Chacha Chowdhury and school bunking, over a scratchy itchy skin and a mild fever.

I've seen a lady undergo a mastectomy 25 years ago, people visiting her in hospital over the next few days, with fruits and flowers,   she and her caretaker relative deciding that the fruits might go waste, and then peeling and cutting them and mixing them with yogurt ordered from the hospital pantry. It doesn't end there. They offered a bowl of this to the doctor who came on his rounds the next morning, who remarked favourably on her cheerful frame of mind.

Mind you, she ate only what was prescribed for her post surgical situation. No doubt, she was yet coming to terms with her traumatic surgery and future, but what you saw was a sense of making the most of a tough situation. Even the doctor remarked favourably. I don't know if this qualifies under happy, unhappy, smart or anything more. But what had to happen , later happened.

And so it is really about a bringing up where you learned to ignore the troublemakers, and enjoy things that made you feel optimistic, albeit temporarily. Sometimes , it is about keeping busy , a ploy all mothers know.

About the research regarding text messages mentioned above, I so wish they had met my 3rd standard English teacher in school. So many things we have known over decades , and someone does correlation studies simply because some machines do them so fast, and publishes them. And I wonder if there are studies forthcoming about the effect of colons and semicolons, not to mention question marks.

It is naive to think being happy makes you less ill. Or that if you are ill, you are going to be unhappy. Happiness is a dynamic mix of a sense of physical well being, a sense of mental relaxation, and a feeling of being cared for. Happiness and unhappiness cannot cause mortality or survival.   What is physical well being for one person, maybe over-the-top fuss for someone else.

Most of all , we need to stop digitizing life. It isn't about being 0 or 1.

But a great and fluid mixture of many fractions, having to do with hope, despair, cheer, anger, gratitude, and perhaps, relief.   Publishing such "research" in forums which also announce new pharmacological discoveries to treat cancers, hitherto considered untreatable, is downright wrong.

And about that research about men eating more when dining with women to impress them, I wait with abated breath to read research studies, about Statin usage by men vis a vis women, whether eating more is a function of happiness or vice versa, whether the woman being a vegetarian mattered , whether the amount of alcoholic drinks imbibed has something to do with the temporary happiness, or once again, vice versa.....

But wait . Here is a new one. "Color affects ethical judgments of brands, research suggests.." Companies choose colors are part of their brand identity. And University of Oregon folks did research on how color shapes our opinion about whether companies are eco-friendly and so on. This was published in the Journal of Business Ethics. Turns out that blue is greener than green where consumers are concerned about someone being eco-friendly.

I so wish someone would come to India, and do research on Fairness Creams, the connections to ingredients banned abroad, Fairness , beauty, fairness, ethics , truth, lies, the ability to land a job, and the making of money.

The question is which multinational will be willing to fund the research.

Publishing is दूर कि बात ......

Luci of Thiruvanathapuram

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 13:51:00 +0000

There is what one may call the Somersault Theory of Growing Up.

There is a time in your life, when being able to do somersaults is supreme. You dont care what you are wearing, you dont care who is watching, but you revel in doing somersaults; by yourself on bars, gate railings, carpets, anywhere. And you get a lot of joy.

Then there is a time in your life, when you start minding p's amd q's , as they say. You still somersault, but you are very conscious of what you are wearing, how you come across to people , and you sometimes worry about your peers and what they think.

Clearly, there is again a final part of growing up, when somersaults are an indulgent history , which brings a smile to your now occasionally sagging face, and you wonder if you can somersault at all . And if you could, would you somersault at all , traumatizing your downstairs neighbors , and cause untold breakages at various places in your house ?

While it is very clear that I am firmly ensconced in the third category, I was greatly delighted recently , to meet Luci Shail, who, appears to be hovering at the cusp of the first two situations.

Luci Shail, all of four, is the subject of a delightful canine blog, owned by Shail Mohan, who is commonly referred to as her Mom. I've been fortunate in being associated with Bozo, another canine blogging friend in Mumbai, and have very keenly followed Luci's activities and growing up as depicted by some lovely stories and photographs by Shail.

Luci, a powerhouse of energy, instant decisions, and great determination, lives in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. We had the good fortune to visit the place recently, and my daughter and I decided we had to meet Luci.

Whatsapps, FB messages, telephone calls etc led to a great meeting one afternoon as we got a unplanned tour of Thiruvananthapuram, thanks to staying at a place far away from Shail's place.

A quiet lane, and we hesitantly pushed a latched gate. The sound was so small , I am sure even our car driver did not hear it. But we could suddenly hear an almighty barking somewhere, and a smiling gentleman came out to welcome us. It was kind of embarrasing that the first query we had was not about him and Shail, but about Luci, as the barking continued in the background .

Very soon we were seated, and Shail came in with a harnessed Luci , who probably knew exactly what was happening. People had cameras, like her Mom, and she hoped the birds wouldn't be interfering during this visit. She came to us, wagging away her tail in excitement, looking up to be scratched and rubbed, wandered in great excitement, and then quietly lay down, no doubt secretly listening to all of us waxing eloquent on her. Once in a while she would get up, the excitement was too much, and then she would kind of move around a bit, and then rub her face against your feet, and asked to be rubbed. It was like she was participating in the meeting of the bloggers.

We had some great tea and typical Kerala snacks, and Luci intially got up to inspect things , and then pretended not to be interested. However, she did show interest when the daughter held some chips in her palm, and invited Luci to imbibe. All the while, Luci was on her amazing exemplary behaviour.

I actually expected jumps up to my shoulder, general excitement and shaking of the body as if brushing off water drops , with Shail commanding her to get down, and stay down etc. Luci , as I have known from reading about her, is a very strong willed, determined, active, and vocal person, who doesnt hide her feelings, but simply tells it like it is, and lets go.

But I think she is kind of growing up into the second somersault stage. She knows who to ignore, who to worry about, and she is concerned about how she comes across. She doesn't throw herself around wildly in company, unless of course , she sees some neighborhood cat in the vicinity. It is possible, that like all kids , she enjoys being troublesome in the house , and chewing up things , and running with mud feet on the clean floor. But she is old enough not to do it when folks visit . She knows they may write about her.

Almost an hour of chit chat with Luci amidst us, and we get up to leave. We must have a keepsake foto with Luci. She reverts to her original self as we stand on the verandah steps. She has spied the gate, and someone outside, a vehicle too, and she needs to know whats going on. Shail has the harness on her , and makes her sit for the photograph.

A lovely canine teenager , now coming of age, surrounded by folks who admire her. The camera clicks, and we have lovely memories of our visit to store away and remember. Shail presents us with a hamper of some excellent traditional kerala chips, made from banana and arbi, and Luci knows but pretends she does not. Earlier she might have got agitated, impatient and sniffed around the bag , and now she simply knew what was inside without sniffing.

We had a cardboard cylinder packaging of some photoprints for Shail, and since Luci tries to give the royal ignore to the butterflies (whose prints they were) , she then indulged in the favourite pastime of chewing up the packaging. I am positive she reads the addresses before she decides where to chew.

Very clearly, an exponent of the second somersault stage. Not strong minded tantrums, no loud protest barking, and on her best behaviour in front of visiting folks. In her first somersault life stage, she chewed spectacles . I rest my case :-)

We all think she has a very royal demeanour. She has that royal look in her eyes.

But like all royals, she knows where she must conform to rules, and where she can let her shiny golden hair down. A pucca sign of being in the second somersault stage.

We drove back home to see the sunset from our balcony. There was a ping on the phone.

I checked.

A notification on facebook.

Our visit with Luci was documented. And posted .

And we clicked and smiled as someone poured a cup of tea.....

God's Own .......

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 06:55:00 +0000

The last time I visited here was in May-June 1977.

We had then driven , partially , down the west coast , via Kolhapur, Belgaum, Hubli, Dharwar, Mysore, Bandipur, Ooty, Coimbatore , Kochi, Trivandrum, KanyaKumari, and then back up the east via Pondicherry, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and back to Mumbai.

This time , it was a family social function being held at Kovalam Beach, and one acquired wings and flew.

There were family members who were accompanying, who were simply not born in 1977, and another trip to KanyaKumari was in order .

One of the things I remember from the previous trip , was how the entire trip from North Kerala to the Southern parts of Kerala, was down an endless highway , which was really a road passing through towns. You could never figure out where one town ended and another started. You watched shop names, schools and bank names, all from a moving vehicle and tried to figure out where you were. Just when you figured out how to pronounce the uniquely spelled names , with "z" sounding like a thick "L' , you would start seeing another city name.

This has remained unchanged over the last 38 years.

What has changed though, is the lovely traditional houses we had seen alongside the roads during our earlier visit. Lovely tiled house, with the typical red soil sit-outs in a kind of porch at the entrance, coconut trees and plantain patches thriving in a sometimes crowded garden .

Today, what you see 90% of the time is 2 storey bungalows , emulating Mumbai-Pune and similar styles. Zillions of shops, and minor malls. Yes, they still have gardens, and coconut trees and plantain patches, but it is not the same.

Closer to Kanyakumrai in the Nagercoil region, for some reason there was a profusion of huge hospitals. general hospitals, speciality hospitals, children's hospitals, orthopaedic specialty hospitals. It looked like land was available cheap, and people preferred to build their own hospitals. Kind of mind boggling for someone coming from a congested Mumbai, but it also said something about why so many hospitals had so much business to sustain themselves. This , in a land, where once upon a time, and possibly even now in certain parts, ayurveda was the system of choice. Which is not to say that ayurveda has disappeared. NO. It is very much there, but these allopathic hospitals seem to be proliferating , highlighting all kinds of diagnostic fancy checkups and stuff.

In 1977, the approach road to Kanya Kumari past Nagercoil was sparsely populated with buildings, but with many trees along the roads. Today you make your way southwards through a maze of residential , commercial, educational and other setups, with one ways and suddenly closed roads, hundreds of buses and two wheelers buzzing around, and the huge amount of eating places.

Kanya Kumari now clearly has a Skyline. Unfortunately.

I remember driving in our old Fiat, straight up to the Tamil Nadu Tourism Guest House almost right on the beach in Kanyakumari, and getting a place for an overnight stay. The room then was huge, AC's were not prevalent, and balconies looked out on to a clean beach. Today , the rooms have become smaller, you need AC to avoid mosquitoes, the beach has been fenced off , with random public structures erected on the beach , and there is now a very crowded promenade of sorts.

Earlier, you had small local stalls on the beach itself, selling cane stuff and shells, and shell products. Today the promenade has been taken over by folks selling Nepali Woollens, fashion street style teeshirts and dresses, and luggage . Way to one side of the promenade , is a profusion of shops selling snacks, or "Tiffins" as they are called, and evenings are all about walking in the midst of hot griddles sizzling with oil and water sprinkles, as dosas come off them one after another in various forms, watching buggies taking people across the already crowded promenade.

In all this what you remember is the folks.

Looking for a vehicle, to take us to visit a blogger friend , a native of Trivandrum, the hotel gave us a vehicle and a driver, who took us through a maze of roads, with a running commentary, and an indulgent stopping , for the daughter who , enamoured of red bananas, simply had to click entire hanging sets in front of small shops.

I didn't notice , but the daughter noticed; the car was an Audi.

( There is something that connects 5 star places and fancy cars , to me . Going for a blogger meet at the Leela in Mumbai , I took a ricksha and was stopped at the gate of the hotel. Rickshas were too low for the standards of the hotel. When I asked how one was supposed to traipse across a kilometre and why, they offered a ride in a BMW parked there inside, just for folks like me. It took some time for me to emerge at the hotel lobby from the chauffeur driven car with the sinking back seats. This time , the hotel was again the Leela , in Kerala, and the car was an Audi....

Aiyyo ! Sab "leela" hai..... ! )

When the Kerala tourism person was unable to tell us with clarity about road transport/cars one could hire for KanyaKumari, the hotel driver offered to help, and spoke to a bunch of accredited/approved drivers of cabs outside there, and fixed up with one gentleman who would take us to KanyaKumari and back. On the appointed day, he was there to ensure that the driver had come, and that we were on our way, and wished us well.

This gentleman, drove us to Kanyakumari, pointing out stuff on the way, then drove us in the afternoon to the entrance to the Vivekananda Rock memorial trip compound, and when we were hit by unusual rain , while disembarking , both at the memorial and later back on the mainland , he rushed in with a big umbrella, to the gates, knowing that cars were not allowed upto that point. And herded us back, as it were , to the car.

Next day, we were to go straight to the airport, after visiting the Suchindram Temple , and as is my wont, I always prefer to provide for sudden eventualities, and delays and reach early.

Suchindram temple , an amazing sight and we had an almost conducted tour of the internal temples, where we were urged to loosen the purse strings , all in the interests of ensuring favourable deity responses to all our troubles. The structures, and ancient sculptures were outstanding and the history very impressive , but we were a bit put off due to the blatant business like attitude of those purporting to communicate with the Gods. And then we emerged , after retreiving our cameras and phones, to see in front of us , a Narendra Modi Tea House, with folks having dosas and slurping sambaar .

We were only 2 hours away from the airport , when our driver urged us to do a short backwaters trip , in Poovar, the area we were driving through. Clearly a very persuasive person, and aware of us two ladies travelling by ourselves, he guided us to a good backwaters trip on offer, which was replete with mangroves, backwaters, birds, old structures, with personal ghats/steps leading to the river; a ride out into the open sea, to see the golden beach at the junction of the river and the Arabian Sea, and a quiet ride past the many resorts that now dot the Poovar area.

It was a special trip with only both of us in the boat, and a perceptive boatman, who noticed the cameras with the daughter, and would guide us to the various banks with the engine off, so it wouldn't disturb the birds the daughter wanted to click. We admired a lovely pink wild flower hanging from one of the branches , and he actually reversed the boat, and plucked it for us.

A great trip down the length , of maybe 40 % of Kerala.

Watching the numerous schools and colleges, proliferating across the state, and kids in their special Sunday traditional clothes returning home from Sunday morning church sermons, assorted weddings at temples and other special occasions.

Trying to read and pronounce long names with a preponderance of "l", "k" and a "zh which was really a heavy L" .

Wondering at finding a huge Audi showroom suddenly in the middle of nowhere outside Nagercoil.

Enjoying , what we thought were potato chips and banana chips presented by our blogger friend, and enjoying them even more after finding out that they were arbi/colocassia-root chips.

Wondering, why South Indian filter kapi was not available in the TTDC hotel, and whether we should tweet to Puratchi Thalaivi Jayalalitha about it.

And yes, the red bananas. hanging in clusters , on what are called banana plant "hands" .

We might have lugged an entire cluster home to Mumbai. But checking them on a flight and flinging them on conveyor belts is disrespectful, and the weight of the clusters may simply exceed the permitted 7 kg for cabin baggage.

But , on second thoughts , it might just be more fun, to visit Gods Own Country again .....

An Unsuitable Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 11:18:00 +0000

One of the good things about having your short story rejected , is that you can promptly put it on your blog instead of having it disappear in the caverns of TOI , only to appear on , say, page 157 of an anthology, months later.

Yes, I participated in the Times of India #WriteIndia Campaign, where well known authors give a passage and you weave a short story around it, using it anywhere in your story. This time the author was Ashwin Sanghi and the passage he gave was :

"I observed him carefully as he walked to the door. I knew that time was running out but suppressed the urge to check my watch. I took a deep breath and started counting in reverse under my breath. "Ten, nine, eight, seven..."

My story , completing a hat-trick of rejects , below.

An Unsuitable Heart

I am 85. I was never like this. Weak, dependent, bedridden and full of doubt. Scenes from the past often stream across the mind’s eye, and sometimes I can’t believe myself, and what I have been through. And yes, more so, what I have put others through.

A great liberal arts education, in the heart of what was, and still is, the cultural capital of the state; college and the associated popularity, followed by a few acclaimed publications of stories in well known magazines, and I was set. But my parents had other ideas, and I was slowly and inextricably drawn into a world where pucca futures were important than dreamy presents, and what followed, was a resigned agreement and capitulation to a parental wish, and marriage.

She was everything a person would have wanted. Smart, friendly, loyal, respectful of elders, responsible, dedicated, and I enjoyed attending with her, various functions to which we were invited, and lapped up the attention. Well educated , in a sort of single-minded way, she capably handled a high school teacher’s career with her house role , and before long I had two sons, whose childhood remains etched in my memory. I did well in my literary pursuits, got invited to seminars and presided over discussions, and was honored by an adjunct professorship at the University in another city, Mumbai.

It is not easy uprooting everyone’s careers and education, and it was decided that I would live in Mumbai, while my wife and kids continued, well set in Pune. Our respective parents were by then old, and it would be nice for them to have one of us there.

Mobility is not easy in this country, and those were old conservative days.

Mumbai. Or Bombay, as it was called then. They call it the city of dreams, but sometimes dreams become your life, and sometimes, you start believing in what you wrote, as fiction.

That’s where , and when, I met V.

Attractive, very articulate, well read, stimulating, free-wheeling, with an amazing breadth of mind, we were like soul mates; we spent so much time together, uncaring of what the world thought.

What’s more, I soon learned to throw caution to the winds.

Some folks thought I was also throwing my shame to the winds, but those were still days of worrying about “What will they say” , in the life of a woman in smaller towns, and my wife of so many years, stoically continued her career , and life, bringing up our sons single handedly, as she continued to hear about my various escapades , and deny them to those close to her , who hinted at stuff.

I married again. Divorce was then really and only in the law books. No one actually went to court on it.

V and I were the toast of the literary world, and we travelled the world. I thought I had done my first wife a big favor by transferring my old house in her name and making a onetime provision for the sons, and I continued flying high as I published one best seller after another.

Yes, there were rumblings, anonymous letters, occasional lawyer missives, but people stopped at mentioning polygamy, and everyone let the status quo be. V and I had one son and one daughter, who went to the best schools and colleges in Mumbai. For the second time, I enjoyed the childhood of my newer kids well into my fifties and sixties; till destiny thought it should intervene.

V was diagnosed with cancer.

I did not know what hit me. My kids grew up overnight, and it was years and years of hospitals, chemotherapy, sunken faces, shrunken bodies, wild agony, pain, and depression. It was also a time of immense expenditure, and my daughter took up an assignment abroad, so she could contribute her mite. My son soon followed, and then it was just the two of us.

We had slowed down, V due to the big C digging viciously, into her innards, and me , simply due to a heart, abused , physically and mentally, over decades.

One windy rainy day, I got up at dawn to close the window that seemed to allow raindrops in, and returned to find that V was lying a bit strangely, and was not responding to anything.

Somewhere at night, she had left us all.

I don’t remember much of what followed. My kids came for a few days, stayed and left, promising to come again soon. My friends rallied around, there were write-ups in the paper, and slowly, one got back to life.

I was completely, for the first time in my life, completely and desperately, alone.

Life was set into a routine of walks, doctor visits, writing, and the meals always came from an arrangement from a nearby lady who provided dabbas. Neighbors dropped in occasionally, being nice to an old man, who clearly had no one, that they could see. V had been friends with the ladies of the neighborhood, and they thought they owed it to her memory. I sometimes forgot things like keys, and always kept a spare set with them.

This is how they found me one evening, when they noticed a dabba, unopened, left outside the door since the morning. I was barely breathing, slightly bluish, could not stand on my own, and they rushed me to the hospital. The children were informed. My daughter couldn’t come, but immediately sent funds so as to get the best treatment. My son would follow and be there in a few days.

I was in Intensive care for a while, then out in the wards for a while, and then again in Intensive care, as the doctors debated the course of treatment. Second and third opinions were taken, and they said a transplant was the only treatment of choice. I guess when you have so many mental blocks in your heart, and you ignore them, as they play havoc with stages of your life, angioplasties don’t help; you simply need a complete replacement, a makeover.

I soon got used to the ICU. There would be all these ticking metres, numbers changing on displays, nurses suddenly rushing to a cubicle, as someone heaved and breathed their last. At first it bothered me, but I got used to it.

We were on a list, for a transplant organ, and the doctors were alert. When a possibility arose, there was a flurry of activity. We were told a heart would be available from Pune, and once we knew the schedule, I would be prepped for the transplant.

The special day dawned; my daughter had arrived, and we were told there would be a green road channel monitored by the police to ensure that the harvested heart from the Pune donor reached in the quickest time, in the finest condition.

I was lying in the OT, being prepped, and heard the cardiac nurses talk. The doctors were scrubbing, machines were being checked, instruments counted, people were constantly on the phone, and I was told who the donor was.

It was someone in his late fifties, or possibly early sixties, who was injured in a bike accident, and never recovered consciousness. His family had graciously allowed the use of any organs that could save lives.

The chief cardiac operation theatre nurse mentioned the name of the patient.

If my heart had been beating on its own, I would have missed a beat. Perhaps stopped. I caught my breath.

In my sorry condition, I could only stare and curse destiny.

I recognized the name. It bore the same last name as me. And the middle name was mine. That is how we name our children in Maharashtra.

This son never had a choice while he lived, and now, the choice was made for him , after he died.

A jangling phone alerted the nurse and she rushed off to answer. There was some problem with the vehicle bringing the stuff, there would be a delay, but they were to remain ready to receive the heart at any time.

I was agitated beyond anything. They thought it was the thought of the delayed transplant. They could not have been more wrong.

They didn’t know that it was the last thing on my mind. My entire life, spent in a wild, willful way, unconcerned with feelings of some, who bore my name and resemblance.

And at the end of it all, a donor heart coming from him, who must have clearly thought all these years, that I was a heartless sod.

Yes, very clearly, and unequivocally, I was. A sod, with a heart, teetering on its last legs.

I didn’t want to taint his heart. I simply did not have the right.

There was a bell, and a beep, and the assisting doctor rushed to the door. Presumably to supervise the arrival. Things had to happen in quick time, in proper steps, as planned, and this was the beginning.

For me, this was a final humiliation. I prayed for a delay. I did not want a transplant. The doctor turned to walk outside the OT.

I observed him carefully as he walked to the door. I knew that time was running out but suppressed the urge to check my watch. I took a deep breath and started counting in reverse under my breath. "Ten, nine, eight, seven..."

They say I was slurring zero, when they rushed in……

At the Cutting Edge......

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Fri, 16 Oct 2015 04:56:00 +0000

The Times of India initiated a Write India Campaign a few months ago. Eleven popular authors would participate. Each month, a given author would indicate a certain passage, and the idea was those interested in participating would include this passage and develop a short story and submit it. There would be 10 stories highlighted each month, and one winner declared, who would win a Kindle.

Looking at prompts and building stories around them is something that takes me back to school days, when you were given a subject and had to write essays. Except , then, your teacher had something to say about it.

In keeping with the spirit of going digital, you can now be a 0 or a 1. And there are no feedback comments.

The second month results are out, and while it is very clear that one is NOT amongst the talented top 10, it has been a fun thing to participate in.

The same spirit of going digital now allows me a fun opportunity of putting my zero category entry on the blog.

Chetan Bhagat was the second author. The passage he specified was :

She sat in the Starbucks cafe, sipping her coffee and staring out of the window. The blood stained knife lay next to her handbag, covered with her “blue silk scarf”. .. (you could use the passage anywhere within the story)

--------------------------------------------My entry ----------------------------------------------

At the Cutting Edge.

Esha, was startled out of her reverie by the sudden braking of the CST local. As usual, the train came to a stop just outside the main station, and waited, in anticipation, of a free platform, where she could disgorge her innards, full of active, hardworking, cheek to jowl standing folks, mobilizing to rush to work, hurrying across the grand interiors of the station.

Collecting her purse and a small handbag, she moved towards the door. The train would start with a knowing jerk, and slowly glide into CST.

Like a child homing to its mother.

No. She didn’t want to think about it like that. It hurt.

There was a time when she found something hurtful, and quickly shoved it away from her mind, trying to convince herself that her mind was at fault. But when something happened again and again, she wondered.

The last few years had gone by in a blur.

Esha Prabhu had become Esha Gupta, with great celebrations and declarations. She had met Harish at an Equal Streets event, where they were conducting a drawing competition for kids on the wondrously empty Sunday streets. Many months of cutting chais, train rides, chats and chaats, whatsapp, FB and hanging around with each other’s friends, they decided to take a step ahead.

Families met. Appraised each other. Smiled. Approved. And Esha-Harish were now hyphenated.

Six months later, amidst all the mandatory pomp, ceremony, and social posturing, they were married. The family owned factories and stuff, and the women did not need to work, although socially active at all times.

Esha, who had completed her Masters in Social Work, wanted to work. And that’s when she started sensing the speed breakers. Or maybe she should have called them potholes?

She would apply to some place, get a call, and just when she got ready to go, something would change, and the interview would get called off. Sometimes she thought it was some disorganized HR of the company, sometimes she thought it was just her luck.

Harish would be busy with his managerial responsibilities in his family enterprises, and when he was home, never really had an ear for such cribs. On the rare occasions that he heard her out, he would suggest patience, respect for his folks, family traditions etc etc. And she would force herself to keep quiet, wondering what happened to the old Harish of Equal Streets.

Then, one day, something changed. Within her, that is.

At first she couldn’t figure it out, and then she realized, she had missed her period.

It was a matter of time and soon the women folk were buzzing with the news. Her parents were delighted, and so were the in-laws. Many customary celebrations were done. No one really said anything about her going to work. And so she decided to enjoy this new phase in her life and think about work later. Acutely aware of the changes, the shapes, the sense of movements within her, she faithfully went for checkups with her ma-in-law.

Till she was advised a sonography.

There was all that water she had to drink before the procedure, and then the actual sonography, and the rushing to the bathroom desperately afterwards, with her ma-in-law solicitously hovering. Then the waiting for the report.

Not that she understood the technical jargon, but she heard someone say it was a baby girl. And she smiled as she went to bed that night. Clearly, law prevented mentioning this in the report. But some whispers happen despite the law. Which may have long arms, but sometimes has ears too, that actually shut?

She can’t tell the exact moment things changed, but before she knew what was happening, she was told there was something wrong with the fetus; it was not destined to go to full term. She was admitted to the hospital, and she emerged, with a uterus, completely bereft and a mind, completely blank.

Everyone made the solicitous noises, hovered around, and spoke of how young she was, and how there would be another time, and so on. Harish was affected, and it was assumed, that his silence bespoke support to her.

Life got back on to the previous well trodden track once again. Like they say, time heals. And time did its stuff.

A year later, she went through the exact same stuff. Conception, celebration, checkups, and an urgent D and C. This time she stayed a bit longer in hospital, and confirmed what she had always suspected since a year.

Daughters were not wanted in the family. And she was just a machine that kept getting rebooted time and again.

Maybe it was time to move to a place of her own with Harish. Maybe her unborn children would have a better future then. She discussed this with him, and was not terribly surprised to see, that he did not want to do that. He was in his comfort zone, and who cared about whether she was?

She went home to her folks for a few days, and thought things out. She decided to leave her marital home. She couldn’t spend a lifetime fitting into a constantly changing random jigsaw puzzle. Her parents were aghast. Nice girls from good families didn’t do this.

And so she shifted out. Both, from her in-laws, as well as her parents.

The in-laws could figure out what to tell nosy folks, and her parents wouldn’t have to explain to folks who came with proposals for her younger sisters.

She was qualified, and found a job with an NGO, and a small shared room in a women’s hostel, with leaky rooms, insufficient bathrooms, and terrible food. There were health problems, gynaec ones, there were repercussions of the earlier surgical interventions, but she was beyond worry. She would cross bridges when she reached them.

She was happy, as she traveled daily by Mumbai’s iconic but geriatric suburban railways, ensconced in the warmth of the fellowship of diverse women.

She loved her work, her colleagues from different backgrounds, the ethos, and her natural abilities ensured that she was appointed to a supervisor level person. Years passed. She kept in touch with her old friends, but life had changed. She now enjoyed visiting schools and colleges to speak about the Social Work Discipline now available for undergraduates, and was much appreciated as a speaker.

Another day. Another train ride.

She got in, or rather, got pushed in to the compartment that morning, and was pleased to see her usual companions of the trip. Sometimes, they saved a seat for her, and sometimes, they shared their seat, offering to stand half the way, so she could sit. They were single women, mothers of small kids, older women braving the tough crowds, and even school girls, travelling to schools. There were also the fisherwomen. Nothing daunted them, as they clambered into the compartment, big baskets on their heads, tilted a bit sideways to avoid tangling with the middle pole at the entrance. And then there were the hawkers.

They often knew the regular commuters. You could get anything in the train, from clothes, to trinkets, to bed sheets, to kurta pieces. Vegetable portions and food too. Entrepreneurship at its best, because they knew the women going home would save time dealing with the veggies in their long one hour commute north. Esha often admired those who actually chopped and/or peeled stuff in the train, making good use of the time.

The train glided into a junction en route, and a wave of humanity slid out, followed by another one getting in, stumbling to find a sitting place. Something made her look. It was a woman, possibly full term pregnant, and what looked like her mother or mother-in-law, chaperoning her. The sisterhood conspired to create a seat for her, and the train departed, lulling everyone into its comfortable rhythm.

She could see the pregnant woman wince, and move and adjust herself, and the elder lady comfort her. Her neighbors smiled at her. They had been through it all. As always happens, there was chitchat. They were on their way to one of Mumbai’s municipal hospitals. The pregnant woman’s husband was in the general compartment. And would join them at the terminus.

Suddenly, the woman moved, and tried to stand. There was a buzz around her as a pool of liquid spread on the compartment floor. Her neighbors got up, realizing what had happened, and shouted out for help. Were there any nurses or paramedics travelling? Possibly medical students?

As it always happens, first there was a rush to see what had happened. And then better sense prevailed. Yes, there was a trainee nurse travelling. She dashed forward. Asked the women to create a protective enclosure. Several dupattas came off and were opened and tied here and there, or even held by folks to allow the woman some privacy of sorts. A few women including Esha dashed forth to help, and follow the trainee nurse’s instructions. Women carrying newspapers and tissues, offered their supply. Those who carried napkins and towels offered everything they had.

An amazing coming together, of women, for women. Some attended to the impending birth, some supported her physically as she pushed, some continued to say words of comfort, patting her and pushing back her hair from her face.

The adjoining gent’s compartment could be seen through a grill in the compartment wall, and some of the ladies sent word , after ascertaining the husband’s name; his wife was in labour, was being attended , and they would keep him informed. They then covered the grilled window.

The Maximum city, sometimes performs to more than maximum.

Guided by the nurse, the woman delivered , and word was passed around that they needed something to cut the umbilical cord. The baby lay on the woman’s abdomen, amidst what could have been called a mess, but was actually an amazing victory for the child. Esha suddenly remembered her friend who cut veggies every evening , and shouted out to her.

Somewhere from the back , a knife was passed around and Esha took charge and gave it to the nurse. A fresh unopened razor blade would have been better, but then a woman’s life is more about knives and less about blades.

For an instant, she waited, and then the child was free. A new entrant into the world, learning even before birth, what lay in store. It was a girl, and the compartment rejoiced.

In the meanwhile, the people in the adjoining gent’s compartment had informed the railway police, who informed the motorman . Somewhere before reaching the CST terminus, the new mother, the new grandmother, the new father , and the nurse, got off and were rushed to the nearest hospital .

The compartment got slowly back to normal, wreathed in a euphoric high, as the ladies made their way, some to disembark, some to tentatively sit till CST, and some just to enjoy the breeze in the doorway. There was adrenaline in the air, and a sense of power and achievement.

Esha glanced around, and saw folks move away from the delivery scene. A jumble of dupattas, towels, newspapers, and fluid.

And somewhere amidst it all, was the knife. Like her, bloodied, a bit from the skirmish, but more from the environment. She spied a part of a blue dupatta that was still untouched by the stuff, tore off a large piece, and wrapped it around the bloody knife. Quietly she held it in her arms as she anchored her purse on her shoulder and gravitated to the door.

She would soon be at CST and would need to disembark.

She walked , as if in a dream, to the doors of the station, and felt a sudden loss of energy. It was a coming down to normal, from the extended high in the compartment, and she stopped in her path.

She needed to have a coffee. And get her thoughts together.

A Starbucks beckoned. She normally never went there due to what she thought were outrageous prices. But she needed to sit, amidst some solitude and quiet. She needed some time alone .

She felt strangely happy , and rich. She had helped bring a little girl into this world. Against huge odds. There were no spic and span wards, no shiny instruments, no surreptitious, narrow minded , cheating family types, but a huge set of ordinary folks willing the little girl to make it to this world. All the dupattas were like silk , as if softly mobilizing to swaddle the child.

She smiled and felt a sense of closure. Knives could kill, but then, some knives were life givers.

She sat in the Starbucks cafe, sipping her coffee and staring out of the window. The blood stained knife lay next to her handbag, covered with her “blue silk scarf”. ..

She was home.