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The S-Pad : Designing as if women mattered.....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Wed, 30 May 2012 06:36:00 +0000

No, it isn't the non-egotistical version of the I-pad. Far, far from it.

But something that predates it by decades and centuries. Something every woman has to live with, in what maybe, learningwise, her most productive years.

A year ago , i participated in a local Women's Day essay competition on womens' empowerment, and in the course of researching came up with some shocking information.

A study done by Ms Fernandes of WaterAid, in Chhattisgarh, documented the menstrualhygiene practices followed by rural women, and highlighted their impact on the availability of education for women.

Schools, typically, had inadequate toilet facilities for girls. Shame at being noticed by boys during “those days”, having to come to the one single tap to wash, and inability to change, were cited as reasons by many young girls for giving up school. In some societies in Madhya Pradesh, the girl who was menstruating was prohibited by her mother from using the one bathroom of the house, because she was “impure”. In Sheopur district , a woman mentioned that she had been using the same cloth for 4 years, sometimes, inadequately washed and dried, and was helpless. In some tribes, the menstruating women were confined to cowsheds and ended up using paper, straw, and cloth, including their clothes to contain the bleeding. Infections and diseases of the urinary and genital tracts were rampant, thanks to having to share premises with cows, dirt and dung, while their families, treated them exactly the same; like cows , dirt, and dung.

While discussion on these subjects were socially taboo, greatly influenced by ancient customs and fears, the end result, was that so many women were unable to go to school, get educated, and look for a better life for their families. .

Thousands of miles away in the South, Muruganantham, son of a weaver and a farm laborer, earned a meager sum as a helper in a machine workshop. He once observed his wife, who was a Plus 2 level educated woman, furtively pass by with something she wanted to throw, and chanced upon the dynamics of the women’s curse, as it was perceived. Sanitary napkins were known, but for a poor family, it was either that or the daily supply of food. To the intense displeasure and embarrassment of the women of the family (who thought he was out of his senses), Muruganatham embarked on basic R and D about what the fancy sanitary pads contained, and started his own experiments.

Suffice it to say, that he was able to devise a simple cotton pad with cellulose. He decided to design a low cost machine that would make these pads. He sought help and advice from medical colleges and some IIT’s, eventually came to the notice of MIT, who purchased his machine for use in Africa. Typically, once the West acknowledged, our IIM’s sprung into action, and invited him to lecture them on his entrepreneurship. Muruganatham decided, that he would sell these machines only to rural self help groups of women, train them, he would provide the raw material, and women in that area would benefit from better hygiene and better health, some income, and, , possibly better education.

Read all details about this here. The details are amazing .

Kudos are due to Muruganantham, for not selling out to one of our big industrial houses, and increasing the number of middlemen.

From Kashmir to the South, several women’s cooperatives and self help groups, today, locally provide these pads to women. Old taboos, propagated by the older women in villages are disappearing...

Today, these women’s groups are manufacturing sanitary pads, that cost as little as Rs 3; a huge difference from those, unaffordable, manufactured by MNC’s and advertised by page 3 types on television, wearing white capris and leaping over boulders and streams..

Muruganatham’s effort educated us about one aspect of empowering women in the realm of education and health..

Why am i recalling all this now ? Because I recently attended a womens' blogmeet where we heard how one of the biggest multinational pharma companies manufacturers of Stayfree , and Unicef, are now working on a special project in Bihar and Jharkhand , having to do with health, sanitation, hygiene, and education for women in rural areas.

We also saw a wonderful AV called "Mujhe pankh do" (Give me wings) , made as an anthem ( lyrics/music : Prasoon Joshi-Shubha Mudgal) to celebrate and encourage folks to participate in this project.

There are excellent schemes being announced where if you pay Rs 575 as a donation, the rural woman will be provided with sanitary pads, folic acid and calcium free, together will a medical consultation, over a period of several months.

But I wonder. Will this be like a handout ? And go the way of all handouts ? Will the problem again be in the implementation ?

Is Muruganatham's project still on ? Are the multinational folks and the Unicef people planning to collaborate with him ? In his scheme of things, the women are a part of the movement that works for their own betterment. By being part of a sanitary pads producing small scale set up, they learn so much more, earn an honorable livelihood, and contribute to increasing opportunities for their children in the future. This is so much more sensible than just being the recipient of a fancy package every month.

Is some agency planning to improve sanitation facilities for children and specifically girls in rural schools ?

These are times, unfortunately, when we seem to be obsessed with entrance exam pyrotechnics for admission to engineering and medical colleges, and we agonize over whether 3 is better than 2 and 2 is worse than 1 exam. Nothing is being said about primary education , facilities for teachers who are posted there, and special facilities for the girl child. Right to Education is not about acronyms, words in the Constitution; it is about creating an environment where girls will rush in because they want to study and learn, and be a useful part of society.

Empowering does not happen by decree. It does not happen by issuing edicts from a distance.

The empowerer, must have a vested interest in the “empoweree”, must share the joys , troubles and sorrows, and be directly involved in the empowering process.

Empowering also never happens automatically. Many have hampered their health, been deprived of education, and continue to lead substandard lives, because they didn’t meet someone like Muruganantham., when they needed to.

Today's Times of India (30th May 2012, page 16) has a feature on how the women in the a Dakshin Kannada district of Karnataka, have set up a small scale Muruganantham style sanitary pad unit and and with orders pouring in from school districts, and hospitals, banks have also shown great interest in helping them with their capital, so that more and more of these set ups can be created and maintained. empowering the women of the region.

The brand name is "Safety-Feel Free" . (It will then later be possible for the woman to StayFree..... ? )

But we have a long way to go.

Ajibai, the mother of my household help "S.", recently stayed over at "S"'s house for a fortnight . 1.5 rooms, choc-a-bloc with 3 sons, 1 daughter, 3 daughters-in-law, 4 grandkids, and S herself, because everyone wanted her to and she had not come to stay in a long time. Every morning, before day break, one of the ladies, (S , daughter, daughters-in-law) , would slowly walk the old lady of 80, down the road , some distance away, to the public toilet facility, to avoid the daytime rush of males.

This in Mumbai, hankering to become Shanghai, and having sister relations with all kinds of European towns, and now boasting the highest real estate prices , many more 5 star places, infinity swimming pools on the 15th floors, and folks buying fancy accessories stuff at prices, that would be enough to build three bathrooms for a rural school, , say 60 miles from Mumbai..

It isn't about investments per head, how many crores in the donation, who made the donation, inaugurating schemes, and doing publicity.

It is really about designing something , as if women mattered.......

"S" and her own Satyamevjayate.....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Sun, 20 May 2012 15:15:00 +0000

Sunday mornings at 11.

Satyamev Jayate happens . The daughter watches . I am busy with something in another room. My household help, "S", (who has appeared on this blog very often) is just back from a long break, and is getting things organized in the kitchen, from where she can see the TV, and she is making a much needed decent cup of ginger tea for the three of us. She isn't really watching TV, but glances that way intermittently.

Somewhere during a break, the daughter comes into the room where I am , aghast. Reading stuff in the papers is one thing. Seeing an actual person telling about it is something else.

The story (watch post minute 17.00) of Nishana. The lecturer from Madurai's American College, whose parents acceded to every demand of her in laws, during and after marriage. Money, gold, vehicles, and the oddest demand, cosmetic surgery on her nose. Then her verbal humiliation regarding her looks, from her husband rubbishing her looks in public phone messages. The slow sharp denting of a mind, and how a cheerful girl, whose parents gave her everything that was demanded pre and post marriage, finally killed herself.

"S" came in while I was listening to this shocking story.

"How can parents listen to such nonsense from in laws? " she asked.

And then she was telling me about her own daughter. (S has three sons and one daughter, all adults).

Married off with great celebration to someone who lived in the district next to Mumbai, on some relative's recommendation, it slowly became clear that there were a lot of lies and untruths dotting the landscape of the in-laws.

The boy was supposed to be working in a printing press. He wasn't. He didn't have any job.

The entire family depended on his income. There were days when there was no food for 3-4 days. A case of mixed up and messed up priorities, and parents with a vagabond undisciplined lazy son.

Strangely, there was a TV bought on installments, and the company was threatening to recover the TV if the payments were not made. And so , S's daughter started getting hints of how her folks should come up with ten thousand rupees. Not stopping at commanding the daughter, the family independently communicated this to S.

The brothers were prepared to mobilize things somehow, for their only sister. But the daughter called and conveyed her displeasure with all this and told them to bluntly refuse. S was worried. She herself had been rescued , 30 years ago, from a drunkard, violent, psychotic husband by her parents , and she worried for her daughter's future. S alone was now father and mother to her grownup kids.

The young girl was humiliated, beaten frequently by the husband in a drunken stupor. One day, he beat her, dragged her to the nearby suburban railway station, left her unconscious on the platform, and disappeared. I don't know why no one on the platform questioned him, since our platforms are perennially crowded regardless of time of day.

When she came to, some vegetable vendor ladies were sprinkling water on her face, and trying to revive her. They listened to her story, and one of the ladies took her to her own home to feed her. Accompanied her back to her mother's home, almost 2 hours away by train, late that rainy night, and told everyone what had happened.

A few days later the father-in-law came. With a helpless look and a semblance of an apology. S, who has had the worst kind of marriage and married life herself, thought it over, discussed it with her daughter, and the fellow was given one more chance. In her own case, 30 years ago, no one was apologetic, no one even saw her out when her parents came to take her back home , and there were whispers.

The daughter went back.

Two months later, the beatings and drinking had commenced, and slowly , so did new demands. The daughter sat the family down. In front of her father-in-law, she said she had tolerated a lot, even agreed to give the fellow a second chance, but this was it. She mentioned the name of the intermediary who had suggested this alliance. Telling him this story would expose her in laws. They were wary of that.

She demanded that she be taken back to her mother's place, and she would not be returning. She packed, and left with the father-in-law, came back home, and despite several entreaties, requests and pleadings, her mother and brothers not only refused to send her back, they even initiated divorce proceedings, that documented the fellow's behaviour etc, and saw it to completion.

She has her own name back.

S's daughter has trained in stitching clothes, as a beauticians assistant, and has a daily job in a ladies hostel as a cook now. She contributes to the family kitty, volunteers to look after the nephews/kids when she is free, and S, is currently tension free.

Though she will often discuss with me how she wants to see the daughter independently settled in her own lifetime...

The great thing is that she learned from her own experience and her daughter's. And took action. She has the confidence to face the chatterers and the gossipers.

With zero formal education, her own life has shaped her thoughts, and she doesn't worry if someone is shocked by her thinking.

She was shocked by the story of Nishana. More so by the capitulation by her parents to the in law's demands. Nishana , like her(S.), and S.'s daughter, should have been brought back by her parents to her own home, and should have been alive today.

In her own way, S. has her own SatyaMev Jayate......

Kyrabai of Kokan

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:45:00 +0000

She has mostly forgotten about being Elena.

She is Kyrabai now, ever since she married Suryakant , as he is called, in Velas, the village near Ratnagiri from where his family hails.

They change the bride's name after marriage , Aji, the old matriarch said. And so , she is now Kyra. Named after Kairi, the raw mango.

Aji often complains about the sun these days. It wasn't like this when she came to live in Velas , many years ago, as a new bride. She'd then be out on the beach, waving goodbye at the boats, as they bobbed on the waves, flags aflutter, or waiting for the boats , in the evening or late afternoon, sometimes helping with some general boat repair, and daily sorting of the catch. A decent rub of coconut milk and oil, and a scrub of turmeric and she would be fresh for another day. Life was all about making a life in Velas, under the guidance of the elders.

Then her eldest, Suryakant, left the village to earn some extra money at a job in the plains , against her wishes. Life changed. And he returned, with Kyra as his wife.

A very lively and active daughter-in-law, Kyra participated in everything, learnt the traditional cooking, and everyone was curious about her....

At first Aji would laugh at all the stuff that Kyra used to put on her face, when she went out in the sun. But then she learned something.

Like the institution of the family, the Sun too had changed. Authority was being challenged in subtle ways. A protective layer way up in the sky, above the clouds, that filtered out the dangerous variety of Sun's rays, had developed, holes, like the Mumbai roads, thanks to a sudden rush of various machines like refrigerators, that used and emitted some undesirable gases. And the Sun, like a fellow gone berserk in a BMW without a driver's licence, simply pushed on, down to us, with all the dangerous components in its rays.

And so Kantabai from two houses away had developed these spots from working in the fields last summer, and Bhaurao's folks complained of uncomfortable scratches and rough scaly skin after having to travel daily for hours on foot , to the Taluka place.

It all changed after Kyra arrived. She would have these bright yellow tubes in her bag. And particularly when she planned to be out for a longish time, and almost daily in the hot summer, she would apply stuff from the tubes, to all the exposed skin.

Sometime in March, when the Olive Ridley Turtles (for which Velas was justifiably famous ) hatched, there would be droves of people coming in from the cities, to participate in the Olive Ridley program, where the hatched turtles were escorted safely back into the sea. Kyra was a member of a local NGO, that did this work, with some others, with great dedication and care.

Of coure, Kyra and Suryakant made many friends with the regular visitors, and some of the girls had volunteered to get these yellow tubes for Kyra.

And so, Aji had some applied on to her arms ,face and legs, when she was to walk to the next village for a pre-marriage ceremony in the family. Suryakant's cousins who accompanied her, made use of it too. It is an Indian company called Lakme, and Aji is very proud that they make, what she calls, "all these fancy things, like in films".

She doesn't mean the Bollywood movies. Thanks to the cricket mania now prevalent through the length and breadth of the country, Aji saw all these grown up chaps slathered with off white stuff on their noses and cheeks , on the cricket pitch on TV. Her grandsons clarified that this was called "sunscreen ", like a "purdah" to shelter you from the bad effects of the sun.

The guys on the field looked a bit stupid, but Aji is just happy, that women like her, Kyra and the younger ones, who gallivanted in the mango orchards up the road,had something that you could properly rub in, was invisible, and much better. Some of it was even sweat proof, and didn't run .....

This summer is a bit special. Kyra and Suryakant are starting a seafood restaurant down the beach , some distance away. Some of Aji's great traditional recipe's will be made for guests. The cousins are polishing up their English. Some fancy glasses like in films have been purchased to serve Kokum juice and Soul Kadhi in a very posh way.

Aji is preparing some dry masalas for them on a grand scale. Some of the whole masalas were drying in the sun, outside the house, watched over by the younger kids.

Till Aji got there.

They waited. A day in the Sun, always meant Aji's tryst with the Lakme Sun Magic....

It wouldn't take long at all. Aji would be there in five minutes ! ......

(This is being submitted as an entry for the Indiblogger Lakme Diva Blogger Contest. )

Mothers and mothers

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Sat, 12 May 2012 17:22:00 +0000

As a child, there was a certain no-nonsense element to her growing-up years. In what was then called the outskirts of Pune City, in a very traditional , conservative locality....

At a time which really set the standards in what she hankered for, what she got and what she learned....

She remembers, in 4th grade, being totally impressed with buckram frocks (that kept things permanently flared), and what were called rock-and-roll shoes. While the former was acceded to by the elders in the form of a buckram slip you wore inside a skirt, there were fine skirmishes on the subject of the shoes. Naughty Boy black shoes in school, keds for games, sandals/chappals otherwise, and her lifestyle really didn't demand the rock-and-roll shoes, heels and stuff. She got them, when she was much older, in high school, but always looked on in awe seeing her 5th grade friends wearing them on school birthdays .

Pune Camp was a different place in those days, with a full Anglo-Indian/Parsi/military ethos, folks in suits and frocks, high heels clicking, air kissing and stuff, Jim Reeves singing in the background, and people talking of "jam sessions", and her biggest mortification was when she once ended up going there with her mother, wearing a pale green and black zari bordered parkar polka and ran into one of her classmates called Darius Cooper walking with his Mom. While she , dying of embarrassment, tried to hide and look elsewhere, Darius's mother simply loved the parkar polka, and had a discussion about it with her Mom. A small learning about how you may be simply making a noise about something unimportant to other folks, so chill!

For a while, she started behaving like the fashionable folks in her class. There were these strange things that were followed, like not fully eating or drinking whatever was on your plate/glass. And so we used to think we were being extra modern when we left a centimetre of colas and fruit juices to waste in the glass, and remnants of food on our plates, with a fork placed just so. Polishing up your plate was infra-dig and not done. You also didn't turn the glass upside down, swallow the drink till the last molecule, and then make air-swallowing noises.

This worked, till her mother noticed it one day, and declared in no uncertain terms, that nothing, but nothing on the plate was to be wasted, and same held for whatever you drank. At home, you dare not turn up noses at food, you ate whatever was served initially on your plate, and seconds were your choice. But the end result had to be a clean plate . (Sometimes , we even looked at our image reflected in it :-)....)

In her childhood, the recommended movies were either mythologicals, or something like "Tenzing Conquers Everest"; the Indian News Review before a movie was never to be missed in those non-TV days; you saw umpteen shots of Nehru cutting a ribbon to inaugurate something, shots of molten steel flowing in some factory, a bunch of worthies walking in a shop floor both hands clasped behind , as was the approved officially favored style, and for a long time she would think that big hockey games (that were shown there) were played with lilting fast background music.

In all this strict lifestyle, the parents however, encouraged hobbies in elocution, writing, music and the arts and sports. Sometimes in the face of disapproving smirks from folks .

By and by, she slogged a lot and she sometimes succeeded. But she learnt, as they say, to treat ecstatic wins and depressing losses with the same equanimity. She never went overboard, and hissing a loud "yes" and pumping of her hands did not happen. She simply got on with what she had to do. There was, really, no lottery mentality in her life.

She studied and worked as an adult and had the same philosophy. Sometimes she succeeded and sometimes she didn't, despite the slog. She also learned , that there were different rules for different people at work. But so firmly was the work ethos dinned into her head, that it was clear that she worked to her own ethical and work standards, within the rules.

Funny situations like someone who did not do any work, being favored, occurred. She explained it to herself, saying, she worked at stuff that was evaluated and subject to acceptance levels. Those who didn't do any work, had nothing to be evaluated, and hence by default, people simply overlooked that part of the evaluation form ! Whether it was work, sports, or even catching a bus , a decent dedicated slog was always her first difficult step, and she would then reach some place from where she could see the top in the distance.

And so, today, she is surprised , that in her old age, when there is nothing of work left to evaluate, and no new opinions to be formed, she is suddenly tasting , an enjoyable success of sorts. A childhood hobby of writing was brought out of storage and dusted clean. The technology is different, there is no one to draw a red line through words, and glare at her. She blogs and writes poems. Sometimes she also thinks she is an artist. And she doesn't care who laughs and /or passes snide comments. The younger working years and her childhood, have toughened her.

Strangely, there is now, what can be called, a lottery element in her life. Though nothing ever, like scratching cards in malls, all expenses paid holiday trips, winning 15 gms gold or maybe even a car......:-)

She tends to win prizes for what she writes. She blogs and she has many virtual friends.

It started with writing a tribute post on a retired cricketer and winning his coffee-table book as a prize.

Then a series of writing competitions based on specific subjects related to Mothers, Fathers, Friends , Country etc etc , where she won gift vouchers and painstakingly made, one at a time, a set of 6 personalized coffee mugs depicting a recent family trip.

Then there were some Facebook competitions where you captioned pictures and they had daily prizes in the form of hefty gift vouchers. She won one !

A travel portal had a Haiko tweeting competition, and her practice at writing instant poetry helped. She won three times.They sent her a camera bag, a 16GB SDS data card, and an electric kettle !

The same portal then had a poem constructing competition, where , given some previous line, you completed poem lines, one a day, and they selected daily winners. She won once and was the proud owner of a journal and a Schaeffers pen.

In between A Women's Web portal held a few competitions. She won twice, and was presented with gift vouchers of amazing amounts and mugs to commemorate that!

Recently, she was one of the 5 main winners of a sunglasses company blog post competition organised by the same folks who gave her her first win, the Cricket book. A pair of amazing Rayban Aviators came in the mail.

And very recently, she participated in a Family Memories Blog Competition, and was lucky again to be declared the winner, the prize being a Flipkart Voucher of , what she actually considers, an obscene amount.

It isn't a surprise that every time something has to be spent online to use an earned voucher, the daughter desperately needs something, and has been looking for it.

Naturally, the 16 GB SDS card doesn't work on her old ancient camera, but nicely works on her daughter's new DSLR. The camera bag holds the daughter's old camera, batteries, and stuff from her pre DSLR days. The daughter must use the Schaeffers pen for an official workshop she is attending as part of her job, and various kinds of Green tea have been imbibed in the assorted personalized mugs. Then, of course, her daughter's 346 friends on Facebook have recently found out that she always wanted to get Rayban Aviator sunglasses, and guess what, here they are !

Like she says, there now appears to be a lottery element in her life. And looks like, also, in her daughter's life.....

And so she looks back at her life, and her childhood with great nostalgia, and thinks about those gone before and now no more, who encouraged her in her hobbies in her younger days and also taught her to ensure that her feet were always touching the Terra Firma, particularly when the mind tended to soar.......

She also thinks they are watching, and what's more, they think that grandchildren can do wrong......

She looks up, and thanks them .

She should have actually done that long ago.

But Mothers Day is happening, and it seems to be a good idea to do that now !

Vegetarian Politics or Political Veggies ?

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Wed, 09 May 2012 03:59:00 +0000

The mango season is well upon us, amidst rumors of the Hapoos Alphonso mangoes being priced out of reach of the Hoi-polloi this year, and counterfeit carbide tainted "hapoos " from non-Kokan areas of the country rampant in the market.

Intrigued as I was , about the intrusion of a Portuguese name , I was aghast to find Wikipedia saying that some guy called Afonso de Albuquerque used to travel around Goa, and bring these mangoes with him. They also then say that this variety was then taken to the Kokan region , and other parts of India. It seems the locals couldn't pronounce Afonso, and started calling it Ahpoos. ( If Afonso was bringing these from , say Portugal, we should have heard praises of Portuguese mangoes, by now, which we don't.). To me, it is more believable, that the Portuguese who relentlessly forced their own culture on the original inhabitants of Goa, might have forced someone to name this great mango variety as a compulsory tribute of sorts to the Afonso....

Folks in Uttar Pradesh now will not have any such problems. They have recently decided to name a mango variety grown there , after their latest Chief Minister, and so we now have the ....(drum roll).....Akhilesh Mango. Turns out that the same folks have also introduced the world to the Sachin Tendulkar Mango and Aishwarya Rai mango, but such is the stature of the Devgad Hapoos Mangoes, that these celebrity mangoes kind of fade into oblivion.

The West has a tradition of naming prepared foods rather than grown produce , after folks . While I haven't heard anyone naming popular snacks after eminent folks in India, maybe the guy naming Mangoes in Uttar Pradesh will set a precedent.

The possibilities simply boggle the mind.

---Like the Bamata (Manerjee) Mirchi, short, quick to get angry, fiery, and something you cannot ignore, because it is so badly needed. In cooking and coalitions...

---Like the Mranabda Ukerji Onions , who, without fail, unravel, each year in February-March, layers and layers of new taxes, designed to bring a copious flow of tears for the common man...

--Like the Sapil Quibble cauliflower, declaring all broccolis the same as cauliflowers. So what if it costs more to get them . He will make it so that everyone can buy broccoli, and its OK if someone suffers.

-- -Like the Pawarful high-glycemic-index Sweet Corns, and other ex sweet corns, now introducing the Baby Corns , to walk in their footsteps, and like girls, these baby corns have flowing (golden) silky tressses

--- Like the Anna Karela, with poky tendencies, spilling the bitter truth to all and sundry....so bitter, it is actually better to fast....

---- Like the Swaraj Kakdi, with a big spot of red chilly powder, always fresh in the Delhi and legislative heat, full of argumentative juice....

---- Like the Multi-Karat Red Beetroots, angry at being ignored at the sabjiwallas....

-----Like the Lal-ooo(h)! tomatoes, and it's such a pity you cannot use them in Cabinet Samosa as stuffing.....

----Like, the NarunaKidhi variety of different types of related green beans, or is it "has beens" ? All slightly more mature now, folks uninterested in buying and using them, and yet they follow the dictum, "I'll break (veggie coalitions), but I simply wont bend" causing some problems in the main sabji organization.....

---Like, Waayamati Capsicums, sometimes a dangerous angry red, sometimes, flush with gold yellow, but mostly green, to counter all that concrete environment overflowing in the statue parks, and then even elephants prefer green woods...

----Like the High-a-lalita Hoopla, sorry Bhop-la, resplendent in yellow and upset in orange, vociferous and crackling about the government making a NCTC Raita out of it.

----Like the wayward legislative Methis and Kothmirs, green every five years, weeded out every now and then, but individually , the leaves light enough to flit all over the scam cooking chambers

It's not just the veggies. It's even sometimes the grass.

Back in the 1950's , the country imported wheat from the US under the PL 480 scheme. Along with the wheat, we also received a weed, impressively named Parthenium Hysterophorus. First noticed in Pune, it was ignored, till it spread rapidly in North Karnataka, and even as far as Jammu . A grass with an erect green shoot system, with a creamy white flower profusion at the top, this was promptly dubbed Congress Grass, since it emulated the very fast growing greedy political folks who sported white Gandhi caps.

In the last so many years, the white cap has become synonymous with politicians , per se, regardless of party. 350 lakh hectares of land in the country (or over 10% or our land area) including 20 lakh hectares of arable land has been infested with the actual weed. The cumulative loss on account of this weed till date with its impact on humans, animals as well as crops so far has been estimated at a whopping Rs 160,516 crores!

They say a Mexican Beetle , with another impressive name , Zygogramma bicolorata, has now been introduced as it simply eats up and destroys the Parthenium Hysterophorus .

Shades of 160,516 Crore Scams, investigations, and Lok Zygogramma Anna ....

This year , vegetable prices have soared beyond imagination. The analogy with politicians is complete.

In the meanwhile Hapoos mangoes continue being out of reach.

Some say, they are being exported now ever since the then-President George Bush had some in Delhi, and promptly allowed their import into the US, so he could enjoy them in Texas in retirement......

Another scam ? ....:-))

Life events that clicked.....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Thu, 03 May 2012 05:32:00 +0000

Pursuing a sport seriously , say in Mumbai, or for that matter , traveling out of town for it, is , to say the least, NOT an easy thing.

For her, daily training was the simpler part. A great pool with a great coach within 10 minutes jogging distance, a two wheeler mother who daily took her for her workouts of several kilometres in the water, a very very strict coach, great fellow swimmers, and they would rush back at 9 pm, dripping hair,windbreakers and huge bags held precariously on the two wheeler, revving up the incline.

Going for competitions was another thing. Traveling in the Mumbai suburban trains, and one always carried sufficient water, fluids, and assorted fresh cooked carb foods, boiled eggs, bananas, not to mention an old bedsheet to spread on the ground around the pool. Insisting on warmups, inside and outside the water, avoiding wilful hunger pangs, keeping one ear attuned to announcements of her events, while she met her long lost friends from other pools; mobilizing by the other end of the pool to cheer oneself hoarse beseeching the child to "Pull ! Pull !", and sometimes, both being delighted with the result. Travel in Mumbai was short but unpredictably crowded, not meant for lugging big kit bags and food along with two little wilful girls, and you had to ensure they exited the train with you through the crowds, and didn't leave anything behind.

Out of town trips for meets, were even more unpredictable.

Some were very much within the cities, but some were very much on some terrible undulating outskirts in the middle of nowhere, where you lugged a tired child and heavy wet bags for huge distances in the evening trafficless gloom , till you spied a ricksha and prayed that he agreed to take you back to civilization. If he did not, you simply pushed on, luggage and tired child in tow. There were usually, simply no arrangements by the organizers to drop competitors at the nearest bus or train station. Most arrangments for food and lodging pertained to the officials.

Some were very much in the hinterland of the state, and the official government arrangements assumed you would be travelling with bedding, clothes and buckets and tumblers. Overrun by hundreds of swimmers wandering around with cycling shorts and tees (amidst the wandering local pigs trying to figure out what all the excitement was), something unheard of in that town, the pool gallery would be hugely packed daily, with folks rushing in to enjoy sights of folks in speedos, racing each other. Staying in whatever available hotel, giving pieces of one's mind to staff who knocked at odd times, and occasionally simply changing hotels in anger. The electricity going off at the station crowded with 200 swimmers waiting for two trains , and having to approximately board the right train.

And then there were the 5 km Sea Races. In Mumbai.

Held in the dirtiest area of the Sea, at The Gateway of India. Usually packed with catamarans and boats, diesel smells, and oil splotches in the water. A small shamiana enclosure(without a roof) , ideal for 10-15 girls , but used by 7-8 times as many, meant for changing. And the mother carrying two 5 litre huge bottles of water from home, 40 kilometres away , since showers at the Gateway were nonexistent . The daughter emerging 3rd, coming out of the water, studded with dissolved fuel, dirt and assorted black junk stuff , and the mother emptying the two lugged water containers over her head. And then in a sudden discovery, some of the girls rushing to the posh loo of the Taj Mahal Hotel nearby in desperation, after the race.

There have been sulks, arguments, questions, whoops, cribs, guffaws, tears and stampings of feet, over the years, and the mother has had to maintain somewhat of a earth anchor through it all.

Today, for the mother, for many years, evenings have not meant the pool, her daughter's practice , or managing the transportation. The daughter is on her own there. In a kind of zone. She still does workouts, but competitions are passé and old hat. The new buzzword is coaching. Encouraging older women and young children to swim, under her own coach's watchful eye.

Things like work and Facebook appear to be more attractive. Lots of friends and photos.

The mother, in her own old fashioned way, is also on Facebook.

And she got a notification yesterday. Asking for a confirmation of something on her daughter's Timeline.

Typically she didn't understand what was happening, and how she came into the scheme of things.

The daughter leaned over from her laptop, clicked on some link in the notification, turned to her and said, " You were so much and always a part of all this. You need to confirm this , so it appears on my Timeline....."

The mother looked confusedly at the screen, absorbing the words "Life event" , went back so many years in her mind , and clicked.

The young girl had tagged her.

It was a photograph of a very young girl, with her very first medal haul in November 1996........

Mothers and daughters

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:23:00 +0000

(Reposted )

It must have been around 1968.

She was a junior at college and stayed in the women's hostel. Living there since she was almost 16, she was exposed to girls from different backgrounds. Her own, was that of a family that was conservative about monetary and educational matters, but a bit more open when it was a question of pursuing sports, music, and such. College was not about suddenly facing the free and wonderful big world where you did as you liked. True, there was no one checking up on her. But she had herself.

And so she would watch in amazement, as some girls suddenly picked up certain mannerisms overnight, altered their gait imperceptibly, suddenly started exchanging chemistry notes with guys in the class, who came to their hostel specially for the purpose, and wonder of wonders, actually started using the type of makeup folks used in movies.......

Where she came from, the height of fashion was making a fancy braid of your hair. Beauty routines consisted , of heating milk everyday, and applying the cream on your face, along with turmeric , which was a routine bath time thing. You never left your hair open unless you had just washed it, and it was always braided. Always. Regardless of your attire; which was severe skirts and blouses, unambiguously covering, from the neck, down below the knees, which later progressed to salwar suits and even sarees. In this environment, those of us who played badminton for the college, would arrive for practice wearing a skirt over another short culotte type sports skirt, which gave things, what you could call a "royal" flare. . You played in a short skirt, but when you stepped outside your skirt looked like a poor mans version of the queen's gown. That one cycled wearing that, was amazing in itself, but didn't help matters.

That was me, 40 years ago.So it kind of amazed me, when , on a trip to Mumbai(it was Bombay then), my mother took me to this place in Churchgate (downtown Bombay's "boulevard"), where a tiny old French lady ran a pastel green place called" Marise Marel". The place had the sort of stuff you saw in movies, ladies sitting with curlers under hairdryers, folks getting their nails done, and several staff that looked to me like they were straight out of Hollywood. Mme. Marel gave me a look over, and wonder of wonders, for the very first time, I got my eyebrows done. Threaded. As my mother looked on, silently hoping that i wouldn't make a scene about the initial pain.

For someone who studied at Columbia University, then returned back home before I was born, comfortable with her roots, and was a strict no-nonsense person , it now appeared that my mother was aware all along of what was happening in the world of young girls. Hitting 18 was a good time to introduce me to the idea, that originals could be marginally improved. She used to observe, read and communicate widely, and this was her way of changing in her own way, where her daughter was concerned.

Cut to 2009.

My daughter lives in jeans. Which must fit a certain way. And must have a certain color. Her table in her room has more lotions that books. And she and her friends pour over certain fashion magazines. While she knows how to cook a decent meal, and no one will go hungry in my absence, the kitchen is actually used to soak all kinds of lentils, and other stuff, that is later blended with cream or eggs or rosewater or what have you, and assorted eating items, only to be slathered on the face and dried. The days of washing your hair and then cycling around in the sun running errands for your folks as the hair dried , are over. You have driers, straighteners, curlers. I am just grateful they don't have twisters and cutters. (Maybe they do. Who knows.) Every time she leaves to go to college, she leaves behind a huge ,and I mean huge, whiff of some mild perfume, which even remains in the elevator after she goes.

I watch on. Wide eyed. Sometimes feeling stupid. Sometimes feeling grateful, that I grew up the time I did.
She recently heard of a new place that opened in the neighborhood. Its a sort of a brand name beauty place. Stark in decor, as is the current trend. With trained fellows who wash and cut your hair. Their training is through a very well know hairstylist, who frequents Bollywood stars, and gets written about for his styling. She's been wanting to try that.

It costs. Probably not more than a branded pair of jeans. Once is OK. But its not advisable to get habituated to such places, when the rest of your life is on a different plane.

She doesn't really adamantly demand, but chips away at it, little by little. Showing me ads. Telling me who else amongst her friends went there. She wants me to come with her. Naturally as the purse carrier. We call and land up one day. She is thrilled. The equipment is different. Techniques are slightly different. There is less of a crowd. I wait outside in the lounge as she gets transformed with great wash, a cut here and a flick there. She basically has great hair quality, thanks to her minute attention to things, in the face of my very casual approach.
To me, you are what you are. To her, you are what you try.

She wants me to try the cut there. I hesitate. Costs intimidate me. Its OK for her. Her time is now. I am happy with my God given features.I think back to the Marise Marel days. What it must have taken someone like my mother, to convince herself, that it was time to think of such things for her much more obedient, though stubborn daughter. My mother never changed her style of hair as far as I remember. It was always a bun. Even when age thinned the volume. But she indulged me later , every time I wanted to try a new cut, and was interested in things like facials. She hesitated to get one herself, but always encouraged me.My daughter emerged from the inner sanctum, looking different, but very pleased with herself. True. The cut did something for her. Maybe confidence. These times were different. Techniques had developed.Forty years later, I wondered what must have gone through my mothers mind as she saw an old petite French lady thread my eyebrows, and smile at her , waiting for her comment. To her what she did was nothing short of revolutionary. The difficult thing was to decide to go and get it done, as it wasn't a common thing in our type of society.

The folks at this place are very good at PR. My daughter is pleased about her hair. I wonder if I should give it a try. The idea takes seed. In my generation, doing these kind of things is probably old hat and routine. I am a late entrant.We book an appointment. My daughter is relieved that her mother is finally seeing light somewhere. We walk out, her hair flying in the breeze, my own, tied in a no nonsense rubber band.I wonder how my mother felt that day, 40 years ago, as we stepped out of Marise Marel. I think she approved of the transformation. She was positive she wouldn't be getting similar things done to herself. But she was full of admiration for the little old French lady, and it was interesting to see them communicate with no verbal stuff in common.It was my introduction , by my mother, to techniques for improving on the original.

How times have changed.

My daughter was now introducing me to the same . :-)

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

Growing Old

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:12:00 +0000

(Reposted)

She still likes to get up and eat ice cream in the night, sometimes. She loves exercise as much as Nutella, and handles both with equal aplomb. She enjoys fruit in multiples of 1 (no fractions), and doesn't think too highly of folks who share, say an apple, which she thinks should be eaten whole anyway.

She pours over fashion pages , chuckling at outlandish setups, remembering how she saw something similar in Bandra another day; audible oohs, aahs, and aais on seeing some real dressy stuff. She will occasionally pine for an oversize handbag and fill it up with stuff she doesn't need actually, because she thinks it looks good. This despite having a huge variety of bags at home. A mental pout against some one's pooh-poohing some unjustifiably and inordinately high priced stuff. A defiant turn of a magazine page in the face of all the ugly fair-and-lovely ads, with photo shopped overexposed faces.

She's never liked the typical "ladies" bikes , and she now rides what looks like a unisex bicycle to her part time work, at dawn. Fancy squarish handlebars and all, as she bends over, her backpack clutching some decently powerful clavicles and scapulae. Keeps to her side of the arterial road outside. She did that, till one early morning Honda type, swerved left enough to graze her bike, grinned and sped away, for fun, it seems. So now she walks that part of the road with her bike on the sidewalk, and makes up by riding fast later on the inside roads.

She has always been the permanent trier. Slog, jump, sweat, speed up, and you still remain that centimetre short. Of the final winning post. Be it in studies. Be it in doing up the hair. Be it in wishing the shade of lipstick was the other one. Be it her long distance glasses which she had hoped would be totally rimless, but aren't. Be it in sports.

And she has always been that child in kindergaarten, who stopped in a race , looked back, saw her friend stuck, and went back to help her, allowing both of them to trudge to the winning tape together, long after the competitive types, had bested it....

Sometimes, life gives variety. One year she participated in a twelve hour dusk to dawn, timed long distance swimming event . She had earlier been very good about practice and warm ups, and started with no thoughts other than to keep cutting through the water, arm over arm, minute after minute, hour after hour. She swam, as if in the zone, smoothly like in 5th gear on the highway, interspersed with sips of stuff given in the water by indulgent family and friends, not losing the opportunity to demand those pieces of melt-in-the-mouth chocolate, which she was convinced , powered her, to what eventually became a win.

Unusual for her.

But she came home after a thousand pats on her back, and skeptical looks from some , to a nice cup of cocoa and a decent Sunday nap. She wouldn't have to fight for the paper. She would get up when everyone had finished with it.

This year she did the event again. A year which has been known for a huge variety of pursuits for her. The practice suffered, but the urge to cut through the water remained strong. Several potential competitors chatted and asked if she was participating. Some joked and told her they would follow her closely, and pull at the last minute. It secretly tickled, that folks should be so concerned about her plans.

Somewhere after having done 9 kilometres in the water, she was the recipient of of an unintentional kick of a strong fellow swimming in her lane. She doesn't know who it is, doesn't want to know. These things happen. She looked up at those cheering her on, shook her head, and carried on.

This time, her preparation must have fallen short. Or her initial enthusiasm must have exceeded the advice that says, start slow and steady, warm up gradually. Her arm refused to come out of the water. She tried and tried. Changed the stroke. Rested the arm and just floated for a while. To no avail. They advised her not to overstress the arm, and the pain was growing by the minute.

Physical pain hardly makes her cry, but this was unbearable . She decided to abandon and come out.

This had never happened to her, ever. She was in great pain. Physical as well as mental.

The arm took no pressure. Changing into dry clothes was difficult but managed somehow. Came back to thank her friends, and wish her participating friends.

She opened her bag. She still had her chocolates inside. She gave them to the official in the next lane, so those swimming in that lane, her erstwhile closest competitors ,could enjoy the sweetness and energy.

She was walking back amidst the trees outside with her mother, who was carrying the huge amount of paraphernalia to be taken home in the car. They stopped where her bicycle was. Her mother suggested they load it in the trunk of the car and drive home. She refused. She would cycle home. If need be walk the cycle if the arm couldn't handle it on the slopes.

But as she turned to look for her cycle key, she took a deep ,disappointed but tired breath, shook her head, and looked up at her mother saying, "You know, maybe its my body telling me it is getting old ....!"

"OLD ? AT 25 ?"...............

(This was something new. Maybe she had been reading too many magazine articles. Maybe she's been seeing older folks in gyms, struggling with the weights and arms. Maybe she suddenly has, in a way grown up a bit more. After all, you never stop learning.)

Much after a warm bath, some ointment massage, some medication , icing, and a decent light meal, she was lying down , still in considerable pain , watching some program on TV, a pillow supporting the truant arm. After a while, she struggled to get up, and went into the kitchen. She took out two bowls, looked back, and waved them at her Mom, who was awake and reading something .

Nothing like a decent scoop of chocolate ice cream, after a traumatic tired day.....:-)

Don't know who is growing OLD..... things mostly appear unchanged, anyway !

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

The road much travelled .....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 05:08:00 +0000

(Reposted)

I've just been reading this post by GB. And recalling some things from approximately 30 years ago. Was going to comment there, but it actually bloomed into a post in the mind. And I realized that when she spoke about her childhood/babyhood, she was talking about the time when my kids were very small.

This was when my son was about 15-16 months old. We had our old faithful Fiat, with proper 1 piece seats in the front and back, that lent themselves to optimum use of space. Bucket seats were not in fashion. This facility was mostly abused by assorted people piling in, sitting on laps, squeezed into corners and so on. Seat belts and stuff had not appeared on the scene as yet. Airconditioning was what industrialists, ministers and film stars had, nothing could beat breezing along on the erstwhile highway with the windows down , messing up your hair, and the smells changed from rural to posh as you forged south.

And there was no concept of suddenly inflating airbags. When anyone mentioned airbags, I naturally thought of bags they provided in airplanes, in case you wanted to throw up; though I have yet to see anyone in a plane, domestic or international, throwing up like that. Never mind.

My son loved to travel in the car, and since he was so little, naturally, he had to stand on the front seat to be able to see out of the windscreen. His father was away on assignment, and consequent to me being the unavoidable driver of choice, I developed the habit of flinging out my left arm (we have right hand drive cars in India) in a Bharat Natyam style pose, whenever I braked, to stop my son from kind of toppling over in front of the seat, into the gap between the seat and glove compartment. At all other times, my son stood on the seat, both hands resting on the sides, on top of the seat, leaning back, and generally observing the world as it drove, cycled, walked, and screeched all around him, sometimes dodging cows, which he thought was wildly entertaining..

We once had to take some English friend of my husband into the city, as he had some work at a bank there as well as wished to shop for handicrafts and so on. From where we stay, on a good day (for driving, that is) this is a one hour drive. The friend, J, sat in the front, with me driving, and my son , in his usual position, but now with one hand on J's shoulder, and J sort of holding him,without making him feel so, and two local friends accompanied us.

Once we passed the causeway at Mahim , the highway driving , relatively fast and smooth, was over, and it was city driving all the way. Never, at the best of times, a science, Mumbai driving, is actually an art. You kind of surge ahead, overtake folks, then some guy gets offended, and itches to overtake you. Some taxi drivers, take random turns from random lanes, and you need to anticipate them. All drivers are guilty until proven innocent. Those cars with chauffeurs (with folks in the rear seat reading papers, and/or in chiffons), got extra special dirty looks.

Our friend J, grew noticeably quiet as he observed me overtaking, gesticulating and glaring at taxi drivers, overtaking buses (because I knew where they would stop for passengers), and honking (sometimes in anger, sometimes to tell someone their door was not properly closed). The quick darting around in lanes at signals, to be the first to take off when the lights changed; being helpful to folks who rolled down the glass to ask directions from another car on the road, and trying to avoid, pedestrians trying to cross the road on a priority basis; I don't think J heard any of the running commentary he was getting regarding the various landmarks we were passing. Two friends, sitting in the back seat, thought this was all terribly normal and boring.

Flora Fountain, in the heart of the downtown city was still a huge elliptic roundabout, in the centre of which was a great sculpture named as the Martyrs Memorial. Just saying.

We were in the thick on things, with taxis, double decker lumbering buses, vans and stuff, all impatiently trying to forge ahead around the circle, so they they could get on with life, when something in front of us, suddenly stopped. I braked hard. My son, fell on J's lap, knocking his specs out, which promptly fell out of the open window on to the oncoming traffic. Before anyone could react, a revving doubledecker bus, came charging up, and drove over it.

That wasn't all. Traffic was a bit slow in the next lane after that impatient bus, and one of our friends from the back seat, quickly darted out, dashed to pick up the specs, and dashed back inside. This whole thing, that happened in a split second, was watched admiringly and avidly by various folks in buses that were stationary, and folks in other cars.

I expected the glasses to be crushed to smithereens. They were not. The bus tyres had not made contact with the glasses. The lenses showed a crack somewhere. You could still wear them in a useful manner, if you didn't mind looking through cracks.

J was still stunned. The whole thing was like a slapstick movie. The son simply thought it was one of those days, and struggled to stand up again, so he could see what all the fuss was about.

"Do you have a written copy of the prescription ?" I asked J.

" I do. In my wallet. But I also have a spare set of glasses in the suitcase back at the house. " J, still shaken up.

There is a famous optician right there in the circle at Flora Fountain. We parked. J got out of the car, in the manner of a seafarer trying to find his land legs. The son clambered out with him, as I got off from the other side. Our friends too joined us. J came around the car, stood in front of me, and shook my hand, for a decently prolonged time. (I've seen our PM and that of Pakistan do that for the benefit of the press, each one trying to extract his hand but not willing to be the first.)

J's gesture was more heartfelt and real. He was congratulating me for driving through all this and still appearing in one piece. We went over to the optician, who as a special request, agreed to do his lenses by the evening, so we could pick them up on the way home.

The trip home was rather uneventful, to say the least. Those were not days of traffic jams, where you could not manoeuvre the vehicle anyway, and unlike today four lanes were still four lanes, and didn't miraculously become seven.

We drove back , the son still in his usual pose, held on to by J. The son had become fond of J, and some time just before we reached home, kind of leaned across him and fell asleep in his lap.

Everyone was tired, with the days excitement and the traipsing around for the shopping. Just for variety, we took a longish diversion and drove J by the Juhu beach area, to show him a different Mumbai.

He saw, he enjoyed, and we all had some great chats; but with the window on his side firmly up.

Today, children have car seats, cars have AC, seat belts are mandatory, most cars have bucket seats, that discourage the sort of piling on into the car that we did in our younger days, and people sit sedately behind closed windows. I hear , in the US, the kids in car seats sit facing backwards.

The cars now have hazard lights (which , for some reason, people put on while going through tunnels).

I was just thinking, that if J had his way, he would have asked me to put the hazard lights on all the time while driving in Mumbai .....

P. S. Just to preempt mean commenters who might be itching to comment about lady drivers, I have been driving for the last 42 years, in places as diverse as Pune, Mumbai, Los Angeles, Wisconsin, SFO, and no cop has had any reason to seriously tangle with me. So.

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

Crunch Solution...

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 04:34:00 +0000

Fruits of life

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:29:00 +0000

(A repost)

I grew up in Pune, and have always considered myself a Puneite regardless of life stage and current domicile. My parental abode is in Pune, and I still go back there, a few times a year, sometimes for some family paperwork, sometimes for a social occasion and sometimes, because it draws me there, even though my parents are no more.

Right in the heart of the city, is what is called the Mandai, or the main organized vegetable market, a heritage structure, from the days of the British in India.

My earliest childhood memories are of accompanying my mother to this place , for the weekly shopping. Another of my childhood memories has to do with the very different take my mother had on food and diet, compared, to say, my friends' families. Thanks to an exposure and a degree (child development and nutrition) from Columbia University , back in the fifties, I was an avid guinea pig available to my mother, for trying out, what worked and what didn't.

Suryanamaskars on waking, skipping and then a glass of milk. Get organized for school. Bread, which was hitherto becoming popular then as a breakfast item, was tolerated occasionally only as a veggie sandwich, loaded with vegetables and chutneys. Sugary jams were frowned upon. Our breakfast was some fragrant and fresh moong dal khichdi with a spoon of homemade ghee, lemon pickle, with poha papad(made from pressed unpolished rice flakes).

Accompanied by freshly manually squeezed orange juice. ( Nobody had juicers and blenders then).

And it is for these oranges, that we made these trips with our mother to the Mandai or central market.

In those days, my parents had a Hillman car, of a colour you wouldn't be seen in today. What made the car more unusual is the fact that my mother drove it everywhere. Few folks had cars, ladies did not go around driving cars all over town, they were driven. The horn was freely used, sometimes for the people on the road, sometimes for moral support to yourself, sometimes just for comfort, but it was a working system. People used to look on in complete awe as my mother changed gears, went back and forth, parked the car, and emerged from it, adjusting a sari, along with us in tow.

There used to be people available , who you could hire , for carrying the stuff that you would buy, and in our house, we children would vie with each other to carry the stuff in the market. (Ever since then , I have an inexplicable aversion to situations where you walk ahead in the market, followed, a few respectable steps behind, by a helper lady, who carries your shopping load. This is a practice still followed by many, and is supposed to be sign of coming up in the world, prosperity, the rise in your status etc etc. Today, I insist on carrying all my stuff, even at the cost of becoming clavically disbaled, so to speak. Of course, the children help when they are around).

We used to go with our mother to the market to get oranges (actually big tangerines , which are called oranges here), from the wholesale market, and they came in a wooden crate, which is where the children came in.

Those were the days when the merchants were simple farmer folk, who knew you by name, recognized your children by sight, and talked with you about their children, your children, their joys and worries , as well as yours. A particular vendor , hailing from the outskirts of Pune , was a favourite orange supplier, and whenever we were present we always got an extra pomegranate or something, as a special thing from him. My mother was great friends with this person, and would always enquire after his children and wife, and fields. He in turn had this great admiration for the "gadiwali bai" (Lady with the car), and he often admired my mother's judgement and selection of fruit.

Years passed. During the eighties, my children often accompanied their grandmother, and by this time the old man knew our complete family history, of which child was where, doing what, how many children and so on and so forth. Both my mother and he were now old. His grandson was now managing the stall, and he would sit around for old times sake. Very particular about how you behaved with the customers, he trained his grandson very well, and was so proud of him, and would tell my mother about all the progress. My mother was , for a while, one of the trustees (the first woman trustee) of one of our famous ancient temples in Pune, , and this man was really proud of the fact that she was selected to help in what he called "God's work".

A couple of years ago, my mother was no more, my father was very sick, and I went with my daughter to the market to look for some good fruit for him, which could be juiced. I wandered in to the old familiar area, looking at the recent changes, and some new smart-alecky vendors on the scene. Memories flooded back, and I was looking around for a straw of memory to clutch, when I heard someone calling out my mother's name.

It was the old man. His vision was not what is was. But he saw a resemblance somewhere. He thought I was who he thought I was, but wanted to confirm, and so he asked his grandson to call out.

For a while , none of us could speak. My daughter wondered how her mother, to whom bargaining was second nature , was so quiet. He asked after my folks and when he heard why I was there, he took it upon himself to select the best fruit, often replacing stuff his grandson had casually selected. All the while talking about my mother, and asking about where the rest of the family was. He even knew that my siblings were in "Amerika", and recalled seeing their children with my mother, at the market, on one of their visits. When he heard that my son too was pursuing a doctorate , he thought it was in the fitness of things. He didn't really go to school himself, but had a great respect for learning and anyone who did serious studying. His grandson had finished school on his insistence, and only then come along to learn the business.

I was about to leave. I wished him well, did namaskar (an Indian way of greeting, with palms touching each other), when he stopped me.

"You know, your mother had a very good judgement of "excellence in fruit". She selected so well. It was something intrinsic to her. As a farmer and a fruit vendor it was a joy to do business with her. I think you have picked up some of it. Good to see that.....but you will get better with practice....." . Saying so, he handed a mango to my delighted daughter, and the the old , simple, formally uneducated man, closed his eyes, and proceeded to quote a verse from the compositions of one of Maharashtra(our state)'s most revered saints, Tukaram. It had something to do with the effort and ability to judge good fruit, and good fruit of good deeds, and with all the so called "education" that I have had, it wouldn't have occurred to me to associate all these things together....

I swallowed, totally humbled.

Nodded to him and left. My daughter and I came home with the fruit

My father enjoyed the juice .

I like to think, that besides, the taste, and the color and the pulp, there was a little something more in that fruit, that made my father happy that day.

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

Mango Icecream and Sabudana Khichadi in the time of Banking.

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 05:41:00 +0000

Back in the days when I was in middle school, the 1950's, life as we know it now, was much simpler and slower. The place we lived in was then considered the outskirts of Pune, and the major road passing by, Tilak Rd, was still developing. Various banks were opening branches there, with their own buildings, and even competing with each other in a very civilized way, to attract new account holders.

One such , was what I will call BOM, who succeeded in getting my mother to open an account. And she was then the proud owner of a 3 digit account number. Contrary to what one saw around or heard, my mother was very comfortable with banking procedures et al, having learned and done so from a young age for her father. Also , folks at the bank came to know her as the lady who came driving a sea green Hillman car herself, with much honking, something unusual in those days.....

Long queues and tokens were unheard of things, and service was so personalized, that I remember an occasion when she desperately needed to withdraw cash, but got held up somewhere in one of our schools. She made a phone call to the manager, who told her to come by when she was free, and sign, and collect her cash. I remember sitting in his office with her, and the manager smiling and asking her to sign here and there and handing over what she had wished to withdraw. He also smiled at us children , enquired after us , marvelled at our English. One would often run into the bank staff on occasional Parvati Hill temple climbs. This was a big thing for Puneites then, and many folks were regular climbers. Unlike today, there was a real belief that banks helped and were on your side.....

When something was credited to one's account , bank staff then wrote proper details as to from where the stuff came. Unlike today, where someone writes "By Tr" and you are grateful that something got credited at all.

And then there was the occasion when my mother decided to give a treat to the entire bank staff on a summer evening in April, once the March closing had taken place. Homemade mango ice cream, churned in a pot, by us children taking turns sitting on a stool , salt added to the ice etc, along with some wonderful Sabudana Khichadi sprinkled with coriander and coconut. And then some great traditional coffee redolent with elaichi et al.

The entire ice cream pot and a big dabba of Sabudana Khichadi was lugged to the bank after office hours, steel plates and ice cream cups were rented and we all helped serve this and had a good go at it ourselves.

Years passed. By an by, the gentleman who was then manager, graced the highest echelons of the bank, the particular bank relocated on the same road to another building, and the customer base grew by leaps and bounds. The aforementioned system of indicating credits as"By Tr" without details was initiated, and the bank got a earful from my mother on how it was not acceptable. For many years after, her passbook always had details mentioned. And the older employees of the bank, were secretly tickled when she tangled with the new style bank managers.

Cut to the beginning of this century. My mother was no more.

All the paperwork fell on me (and continues to still fall) being the only child in India. I was the second named on her account, and one went about doing formalities etc. Many of the newer staff did a double take when they saw the 3 digit account number and tried to relate it to me, and I had to tell them that it was from a time when banks begged you to open an account, cheque books were free, and people weren't comfortable talking blithely in crores, simply because most people never saw such amounts.

Times had changed. Banks were now doing a lot more than before, a lot more id's were being asked for, there were queues for everything, and the watchman glared at you instead of smiling. Computers had arrived, consequently there were more cubicles with partitions, making communication more difficult thanks to bad customer window design. Passbooks changed in shape, machines now printed the updates, and in the great leap forward some things (like coding rules for account nos) were missed out on.

Confronted with some unexpected and unexplained large sum credits and immediate debits(the next day) , all this , ongoing for 6 months, I investigated on one of my trips to Pune. Ended up visiting the head office computer rooms, assorted in-charges. Then went to my branch manager, who called in a bunch of staff. I wasn't worried about the credits, but the fact that someone other than the account holder could , without holder permission, perform a debit; by calling it a "reversing"....

It turned out that it was a clear case of bad standards followed in codification of accounts. The manager guy who okayed the codes didn't have a clue. I was then in IT , realized what had happened and asked if they had a users manual from whoever made software for them. Naturally things were getting uncomfortable for the manager. The problem was ultimately detected, righted and lessons in codificaton were hopefully learned. But the fact that animated detailed discussions were taking place for long periods of time in the managers glass walled first floor office with other staff and me, did not escape the staff outside.

I finally left the place, the matter resolved to my satisfaction.

As I stepped out on to the ground floor , a white haired gentleman from the staff, stepped forward. Smiled. Mentioned my mother's name and asked if I was her daughter. (I am told there is a resemblance) . When I nodded, he smiled, and looked back at some of his colleagues, sitting in "Fixed Deposits" , who also had smiles on their visages.

"You know what, you are just like your mother ! We knew her as a customer for so many decades . She never bothered about posh and fancy designations and decor, but never tolerated low standards of service, and never hesitated to straighten some folks out. We've been noticing over the last few days....!"

Maybe this was a person who was a young new employee back in the ice cream and sabudana khichadi days. Those were days when you stayed on and retired with one bank.

And so, despite my skirmishes, letters to head office, and several complaints, I stay on with the same bank, with a sense of belonging, like a parent, hoping that the errant child improves :-)).

It brings back old memories. Of my mother, the old smiling manager (now no more), today's older bank employees, and of course, tucking in Mango icecream and sabudana khichadi, in the bank, with everyone, after office hours, on a balmy summer evening in April, almost 53 years ago.....

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

Lost and Found

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:42:00 +0000

Twenty years ago , the family had an opportunity to visit Germany for a year, thanks to an academic visiting assignment at the University there. A memory from those days.

It is intriguing to note the correlation between education and stress. The parents and the son, then 12, were aware of the language problem, and although one attended German speaking classes in the heart of Mumbai for a while ( a bit difficult with kid's schools, and one's job simultaneously) , everyone except the youngest, the daughter ( 5 years of age) was a bit apprehensive about language.

Supremely unaware of countries, distances, languages, modes of transport, she had a healthy confidence about anything and everything. When someone teased her saying there was a problem with the aeroplane and how would she then go, she grandly announced that she would travel to Germany by rickshaw . On the day of the flight, she filled up a big bottle with juice, and packed a tiffin box, announcing that this was, in case the aeroplane got stuck while "driving" and we all got held up.

While the University had many English speaking folks,and the son went to a formal school and eventually learned excellent German, she started Kindergaarten, truly unaware of where she had come. She clearly liked what she saw. She blended in so well with the kids, and was soon speaking the local dialect , inflexions and all, with her friends, sometimes while playing, and sometimes ,where she even learned to fight in colloquial German with a hefty Yugoslavian little boy who hogged the slide and didn't allow the little girls any time there.

One weekend we were at the local equivalent of something like Big Bazaar (those were the pre-Mall days in India), but which was almost 20 times bigger , and sold everything from food, to socks to even vehicles. Endless rows and aisles, there was shopping and then there was a cafeteria where you could grab a bite.

It was around lunchtime, when it suddenly became clear that the daughter was missing. You normally saw her looking at the books and toys, or she tagged along with one of us, but she just wasn't seen. Her rich ebony/wheatish , glowing complexion, and her beaming smile, and willingness to talk fearlessly to anyone in effortless German (which only her brother understood :-)...) meant she stood out. And this was getting worrisome.

The three of us, searched for her in all the places we could think of, including near the doughnuts (the counter was taller than her), but no. All kinds of thoughts went through the mind. We then went to the store announcer to report that she was lost . We even told the announcer lady to call out and speak in German to her so she would understand that we were looking for her. Between the desperate looks on our faces, creative gestures from me (with my bad German) and the son trying to explain to the lady , a bunch of announcements were made. No result .

Finally, the three of us fanned out, one to the front entrance , one to the back, and I decided to go aisle by aisle to search for her. The usual aisles were checked, and I would now check out even the impossible ones like machine tools, and gardening implements, and what not. There was also a possibility that she would be simultaneously wandering and possibly just missing me somewhere. Those were not the days of cell phones, and even if I found her , it would take a minute to run to where the rest of the family was looking for her.

Like we have a saying in our language, all our mouths had run dry.

Almost 5 minutes later, I found her . She was in the aisle that had all the fancy kiddie bicycles. She was sitting on one with training wheels and fancy attachments, and trying to execute a u turn in the aisle : her way of test driving it. The row was not meant for doing U-turns on bikes, and she was much involved in performing the minute backward and forward peddling to make the thing turn. Impervious to the panic she had caused.

Much against her wish, I asked her to follow me to the desk. She refused to get off and rode the bike to the customer help desk. Some lady there said something sweetly in German and lo behold, she got down from the bike. By now the word had got around, many folks were looking for her, and the family came rushing in from searching elsewhere.

While she and her brother kind of took it in their stride, and she in particular thought unnecessary noise was being made over , what for her, had been an excellent morning , this entire growing of tension, uncomfortable thoughts in the mind, and then this sudden massive release of tension, resulted in a somewhat hypoglycemic state for the grown ups.

We herded the family together, and proceeded to the bakery section, where everyone had some excellent apfel strudel , juice and the grownups gulped some coffee. Rested a bit, thanked the lady in customer service, then collected our purchases and left for home.

On all subsequent visits, the staff recognized her, and there was much smiling and ruffling of hair.

That was the last time something like this happened. Someone mentioned to us that when you go in crowded places with small kids, it is a good idea to use a kid's leash and attach it to their waist. You hold the other end.

I absolutely refused. German efficiency be damned.

Holding hands with her and going to sections favored by her , was a better way of doing things.....

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

Whose Culture is it, anyway ? Yours, Mine or Ours ?

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:11:00 +0000

(A repost)

As long as I remember, there has been a February 14th. (Someone in the family has a birthday on the 13th)...

But its only in the last 20 years or so, that I hear it being celebrated here, as Valentines Day. And its only the last 10 years or so that certain pockets of society, and politicians have been objecting to its celebration, with a lot of violence, destruction of shops selling valentines stuff, and shouting from the rooftops. This year has seen the Ram Sene getting into the act in a Mangalore pub, beating up boys and girls, who were supposed to be drinking etc, in direct contravention, of what this Ram Sene says is "Indian culture" .....

When I was a child, explicit socializing between boys and girls was non existent. Yes, we were aware that in certain more emancipated sections of society such as Christians, the armed forces, and a few Parsees, a western lifestyle that was followed, allowed the practice of such socializing. And while my parents were extremely broad minded about us mixing with boys as a part of your school,college, sports etc, it was understood, that any extra attention from anyone, secretive meetings, fibbing to parents etc was simply not on. And we never suffered from the Friday night syndrome.

Staying away at college, traveling abroad for grad school, etc gave us a very balanced view about the whole thing, which was generally suited to the way the world and India were developing at that time as a society. But I had friends who were not allowed to talk to boys, period. I once played mixed doubles in badminton with a fellow in college tournaments, and my mother heard about it, ( with special meaningful emphasis on the fellow) from someone else's mother, both of them 150 miles away ! It is another thing that everyone who told my mother about this got a large piece of her very angry mind , as she was already following my progress through my letters, and very pleased about my participation, mixed or not..

Indian culture is a strange thing. The country is so rich in it. But that isn't the culture these so called "custodians of culture" have understood. They deal with a different culture.

It is OK, if you cavort around trees in pouring rain , in transparent sarees, in fashions that are based on fabric-famine, and throw yourself at the hero, in a Hindi or even Southern movie. It is even more OK, if you perform the sort of body movements in movies, that would make Britney Spears a nobody. You buy a ticket, go see the movie. listen to the catcalls and whistles. But if you and your friend appear to be walking together a bit too often, the "custodians of Indian culture" attack.
I honestly wish they had met my grandmother.

Born at the dawn of the 20th centrury, she was married at 13, to my grandfather, much older than her, and a widower. She was one of 9 sisters, and 1 brother, and the sisters learned the basic three R's at home, while the son went on to be an engineer. She lived at a time, when, if you had to pass through a room in the house where your husband or father-in-law was sitting, you dared not look up, you covered your head, and talking to your own husband in front of even family was a complete no-no. You ate after the menfolk did. You didn't sit somewhere with your feet up munching peanuts in your free time. . And mothers-in-law usually lived up to their standard image of being tough. And , by tradition, daughter-in-laws were troubled by mother-in-laws.....

So, not surprisingly, women of her time dedicated themselves to a lot of religious observances, which was a great education as well as a nice way of spending what little free time you had. One of the things she followed, involved wearing of special "holy, anointed, pure, just-washed etc" sarees while worshipping and performing religious rituals. My grandmother stayed downstairs, and we had a free run of the whole place as children. Whenever my grandmother was wearing one of these special sarees, you couldn't touch her. Even if that saree was hanging somewhere to dry, you couldn't touch it. (In my language, Marathi, it was called "sowla" सोवळं ).

My cousins and I , always "accidentally" managed to touch her, more so , after we found out that the antidote was for her to have another bath. Things hanging to dry at a height, suddenly found us playing games, like jumping from a bed etc near it. When things became unbearable, my grandmother would complain bitterly to our mother, and we'd miss our nightly stories from her that day. By and by we grew up into womanhood, and I remember my mother telling us how lucky we were, not to have to follow certain customs during menstruating days. In her time, EVERYONE is the family knew , because you were made to sit isolated somewhere in the house, you ate by yourself, had baths elsewhere, you didn't wander anywhere near the gods or the kitchen (in fact sometimes you cooked your own food ), and you made sure you never touched grandma.
This was called "sitting out". (Used to make me laugh when I used to read in the papers in the US about "coming out "parties"..)My grandmother, uneducated as she was, and very firm in her religious and social beliefs, knew how to move with the times. It did not require a special effort. Just good observation. She never made me "sit out". She never made snide comments to my mother about me cycling at all hours to go for badminton practice, where , of course, you played in shorts, but wore a long skirt over it when you cycled. She enjoyed my frilled sleeveless frocks as much as my parkar-polkas (pictured on left), and she would tell her sisters with a great amount of smugness about how well we were doing at school, and speaking in English etc etc.

When I graduated and decided to go to the US for grad school, folks got into action, filling her ears, with, amazing pieces of knowledge, like, what a folly it was to send a girl of marriageable age to the US like this. Never once did she talk to my parents about this, though she knew enough to tell her sisters etc that I had been granted an assistantship, which was great and that it was an honor to go and study like this. She was fairly old then, mostly house bound, but was part of a huge busload of folks that came to see me off when i left. Maybe some thought they would not see me again.Maybe they secretly felt I would return wearing a frock, and with blonde hair or something. I am sure there was all kinds of alarming talk in the bus on the way back, spoken loud enough for my grandmother to hear....

That I returned basically unchanged (except for shorter hair), is another matter, but that was the time, my elder brother , who was working in the US, was considered a "catch", and we would get a lot or proposals from the various girls' parents. Due to some visa restrictions, an earlier 6 week trip of my brother's had to be postponed, and this got a whole bunch of relatives and interested folks chattering.They would come to her and tell her, "what if he married a "gori" (white woman) ? Maybe he had someone in mind and that's why he was postponing . What if she is not a Hindu ? What if he secretly married her and simply landed up ? "...... The possibilities were endless, once you decided he could do lots of undesirable things.

She was then staying with us in Mumbai and her sister came to visit. Much whispering and sudden silences when we were around. Then her sister thought she could have some fun. She loudly asked what my grandmother would do, if the next day, her grandson appeared at the door with a "gori" wife ?

This was getting interesting. My grandma gave her sister a pitying look. Blew her nose. Shook her head to the side in a sort of defiant, determined way."Look" , she said, " You know, I know my grandson, and the values that his parents have given him. Should he come with a "gori" , I know she will have all the qualities that we look for in the eldest and first granddaughter-in-law of the family. She will have her religion , just like ours. But if my grandson has chosen her,she must be wonderful, I will welcome her with an "arti" , anoint her forehead with a red dot and grains of rice, and have her perform the house entering ritual (see above), at the door, that any new bride will perform ! She will be my first grand-daughter-in-law , I will present her with wedding silk sarees, and I will tell the world about it ! So. !

(We don't remember her sister's reaction).

It so happened that my brother came later on, and married a wonderful girl, from India, in India, and I could almost see my grandmother preening in the wedding whenever her sisters were around. She lived to see two of her grandchildren get married, but did not live long enough to see the great grandchildren.

She outlived her husband almost by 30 years. Saw a lot of changes in social attitudes, clothes, emancipation of women issues. She lived her own life exactly the way she wanted. But was very happy to be part of a society that was , maybe, following rules, that were a bit different.

30 years later today, I see the benefit of her attitudes , her courage, and her observations about how we need to change with society, tempered by the values that have come down to us.

I wonder what her take on Valentines day would have been.

And I honestly wish the "custodians of India's culture" could see her and talk to her about it.

Maybe there is something to be learnt....

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

Smart Solutions from the heart ....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:53:00 +0000

At 75, she looked back at her life with a lot of satisfaction. At a time when norms of behaviour for a new bride in her in-law's house were fairly conservative, she was lucky to travel and set up house with her husband who worked in another town, away from home. Living with people from all over the country who came to work there, this was her introduction to the customs from different communities, that make up he mosaic that is India. Nucleisation of family life sometimes brings a different kind of freedom to a family. There is less minding of overbearing P's and Q's, and more open thinking. But she always remembered her family back home, and ensured that the children spent some fun times at their grandparents' home during the summer holidays.

Today was her little grandson's birthday. The first one after she lost her husband, ten months ago. The little boy's maternal grandparents had traveled over for the event, from out of town, and the house was all hustle and bustle with the boy's mother organizing the eats and games for the evening. The cake was home made , iced according the wishes of the little boy.

She remembered the last birthday, when her husband had distributed the prizes to all the little ones who won in the games, with the birthday boy holding his hand, jumping in excitement as his friends rushed up to get their prize. Late that night, after everyone had left, the little boy had sat with his grandfather, and opened all his fancy presents, both of them admiring the stuff, as the ladies were organizing the left over food and the mess in the living room, that remains after some boisterous 7 years olds have finished with it.

Traditionally , every birthday, an aarti was done for the little boy. He sat on a "paat" , east-west facing always; and every year, the two grandmothers, his mother, any aunts who happened to be there, as well as the household help lady who was like a family member did the aarti. His face would gleam in the light of the oil lamp, as he beamed at the ladies, and they would apply some vermilion and turmeric and rice grains on his forehead.

She sat to the side today, and watched the hustle and bustle of the preparations. She never ever sat idle and her hands were always busy with something like shelling the cardamom, or peeling cucumbers or boiled potatoes , or whatever was the requirement of that time.

The boys mother did the aarti. Then his maternal grandmother , who was nearby , did her turn, and she looked around for the other grandma. She was watching them all, an indulgent look on her face, some old memories bringing an occasional old thought into her eyes, and she smiled at the little boy.

"Aji, come, its your turn !" and he looked expectantly at her.

"I need to just get done with this for your mother", she said, " You all carry on "....

The boy's other younger grandmother understood, but didn't agree with what was happening.

Widowhood was a new factor now, and at 75 years of age, all the old customs came back to the elder grandma.She wouldn't do aarti for the little boy. It wasn't auspicious. Her heart didn't agree at all. But her head was in the grips of age old tradition.

"Tai, come , its your turn now. Its OK, we will do the cardamoms later. " the younger grandma said, trying to act casual. The little boy was not to know why his older grandma was hesitating.

She went to the older lady and spent some moments cajoling her into doing the aarti.

"No, No. Its OK. You carry on. My mind is not in it." she said. The older lady , acutely aware of her widowhood, was trying to exclude herself, thinking her participation would be unlucky.

Her daughter-in-law went over. She and her mother insisted that the older grandma participate.

"You know, Aji has to do aarti for her grandson. Its your blessing, and see, he is waiting. How can the birthday be properly celebrated otherwise ?" . And saying so, the younger grandma held the hand of the elder one, and escorted her to where the little boy sat.

Aji looked very gratefully at the ladies, her face a fleeting mixture of sorrow and joy, and slowly took charge of the aarti plate , and shielded the lamp with one hand. She bent down to apply vermilion and turmeric and rice to the little boy, and did the aarti.

The little fellow had a smile on his face, eyes twinkling, and he seemed to be holding something half hidden in the folds of his shirt, which was not tucked in yet. Sometime during the time that the ladies were busy convincing the elder grandma, that no taboo or tradition, irrespective of marital status, could stop a grandma from doing aarti to her grandson, he had quietly got up, grabbed his grandpa's photo from the side table, and was clutching it tight in his hands. The family was complete ......

She straightened up from the aarti, passed the paraphernalia to her daughter-in-law, so the lamp could be kept in front of the Gods, and looked at the younger grandma who was standing beside her. They both had tears flooding their eyes. They had no words, and none were needed. They suddenly decided there was some stuff that needed their attention in the kitchen /balcony etc and slowly made their way there.

For the little boy, something had changed. He was a big boy now. He knew that God had taken away his grandpa almost a year ago. He suspected that his grandma was missing him on this day. So he did the obvious. Grandpa watched , as grandma did the aarti, and the little boy was pleased.

His grandpa would be watching the entire birthday, from the frame on the side table .

The little boy's mother thought she noticed an extra smile playing on face in the photograph.

The two grandmas were at peace in their minds.

They couldnt get over the amazing solution offered by their little grandson. ....

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

Beautifully Happy ? or Happily Beautiful ?

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:44:00 +0000

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I know.

If only the left brain stayed out of the beholding.

And one man's beauty may be another man's irritation.

Or so it seems.....

She comes home all excited.

They are now doing some full fledged projects at her animation school. Each one has to select a category, and has to, according to some prespecified size norms, create things like posters, hoardings, visiting cards, letterheads, banners, PR gift items etc...after choosing a subject.

She has some in mind, and she rushes home from a very early morning class. She needs to discuss this with someone at home. Toss ideas around. A few lobs and drops and maybe one or more smashing ideas will make it across to those waiting to see.

"Social" or "socially relevant" is a nice broad category. And she wants to make a project to promote adoption , as a social cause. That will be her term project.

She isn't one of those perennially social aware , theoretically highly enabled, verbalizing types. But she herself is adopted, and has seen life on both sides . The early life, which she hardly remembers. And her life within a family where she is always a star. She knows she is adopted, has been aware of it since the "traumatic teens", except her trauma was more to do with weight issues. Today, she is at peace with herself, thrilled with her weight loss, and tickled with compliments on her choice of clothes :-)

Every festival season, she, along with her family, makes a visit to an orphanage where they distribute sweets, gifts, and play with the children. At the end of the visit, she reluctantly says goodbye to the children. She enjoys organizing games for them, talking to them, indulging them, and playing with them a bit, too. And the little ones there, from a crawling baby to a young 3 year old pretending to play cricket using a broken doll as a ball, then get back to their life, as she returns to hers.

She has come up with a wonderful poster with faces of little children all over in the background, some male-female signage hazily drifting there, and amidst various information on institutions handling adoption, a wonderful well known poem , that places the child , not in a womb, but just above, in the heart/below it.

A child, not "expected", but "selected".

Her family watches. Amazed. She suddenly gets a new idea. Google to the rescue. A drag here. A Click there. A critical look. A hint of a smile.

Late into the night, she is done.

She rushes in to class the next morning. The teacher needs to see what she has come up with . The various items may be required to be redesigned. He will comment and suggest. She is supposed to implement.

They say some colors are to be avoided , depending on the subject. Red is considered a "danger" color. You never have that in a place where you convey something childlike and peaceful. Blues, Greens, pale yellows, some pink. So she has heard.......

Her instructor looks at the prepared stuff. Shakes his head. Looks at her, then back at the monitor again. She needs to listen carefully. He will be the one grading her. And he acts tough with those that don't follow .

"The children in your poster, look too happy. It can't be. They almost look beautiful. Change that. You know street children ? Well, that's how the children should look. They are in an orphanage , remember ? How on earth can they be and look so happy and smart ?"

He looks up, and adjusts his tie. Shakes his head. Looks at her to ask if she has understood. He is already late, and must check out 3 more students.

She quietly looks down. Closes her file, Extracts her CD. Packs up her paraphernalia. Wordlessly nods, with apparent respect, something she has learned in the existing schooling system.

All the way home in the bus, she keeps wondering, her thoughts careening through highs and lows, in sync with the potholes on the road.

Was something wrong with her vision ? Was she missing something ? And why was her instructor putting street children in an unhappy slot ?

Street children had parents. Parents who were worried , but helpless; and so the children grew up before their time. Became street smart. She has seen street children in trains. They were tough, but full of empathy for those in a similar boat.

The children at the orphanage where she visited, were simple children who enjoyed the security of a wonderful roof and a feeling of innocent friendship with those around them. They enjoyed decent clothes, meals, careful attention , festival sweets and learned to listen to those older to them.

And they were happy. She should know....

And so she is on the horns of a dilemma.

Should she sit and explain to the instructor, that what he was suggesting was simply not true? She had her unique experience. She had been there, done that. Happy children on the poster would draw potential adoptive parents to the place. What he was suggesting, besides not being true, would keep people away......

He was the sole instructor responsible for the grade, and thence the certificate. Was her ability to clarify and explain things going to be useful ? To a person, who, in an effort to hide his ignorance about the topic, was blithely giving , authoritatively, just plain wrong advice ? Would he be honest enough to credit her with using her actual experience, even though it was completely opposite of what he was advising ?

So she came home that day. Quietly searched again. Dragged, clicked, moved, and placed things. Automatically. She had other subjects to study. She'd submit the project like he wanted, take his grades, and finish, and get her certificate. And she would be alert and careful, if she ended up having to take another software topic with the same instructor later.

She'd finish off her assignments, submit and get her grades. She'd acquire her qualification, and leave.

One thing to learn was the software. The other thing you learned was how much importance to attribute to what someone said, whether it was right, and how much time to spend in rebuttal, particularly in a closed system.

She kept the old poster.

Made another one. The sad variety.

Then very quietly, she deleted her name which she had signed at the bottom right corner.

He might think this poster was beautiful. He beheld. It was his eyes.

She did not. She kept the old poster with her, with the happy children, and her signature at the bottom.

She thought that was wonderful. She too beheld. With her own eyes. And would continue to do so.

They say beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Sometimes, though, one wonders if the eyes are open.............

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

Dark and Lovely....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:37:00 +0000

If you play the word association game with the words "dark and lovely", specifically amongst folks from India (possibly my age, though I am unsure about the newer IT generation), I am willing to wager anything, that nine out of ten folks will quote the poem by Robert Frost, that every Indian knows was the late PM Jawaharlal Nehru's favourite :

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
and miles to go before I sleep,
and miles to go before I sleep.

If the game participants were to be international, the associations would be drastically different. Besides the woods, there are lots of other things that are dark and lovely. People. Women. Etc.

But for some companies , the phrase is almost persona non grata.

"Fair and lovely" is a complexion cream marketed by Unilever in the Indian market. The ads show various girls turning lighter, around several shades in , say 7 days, and going on to become air hostesses, actresses and so on, teaching a lesson to folks who initially rejected them.

Another facial bleach cream shows a darkish lady sitting in economy class in a plane , whereupon, the oxygen mask falls only in front of her. (her face is dark, the bleach has oxygen and she turns fair on applying the bleach. Voila ! No oxygen mask, and her neighbor smiles at her........)

Notwithstanding the crass stupidity in these ads, it is very clear, that the majority of the Indians have an obsession with fairness. As in complexion. (And we wont say anything about matrimonial ads. Everyone looks for "fair and homely".... as if "dark and homely" are mutually exclusive)

This then, doesn't remain "fair" at all , to those, who are, are melanin empowered, so to speak.

And so we come to the story of a girl, who was destined to be part of a family, where her only sibling was very fair. (Actually, fair here is being used as an attitudinal description; it is beside the point that he was also very fair complexioned; that most of India would see it as a "white", is a given).

When she was little, she oozed confidence. Least bothered with eye-crossed visitors who tried to figure out the complexion difference in siblings, she simply thrived and enjoyed being at home, playing, school,friends, grandparents, eating, teasing, being teased, fighting..exploring.... everything.

School was a bit different. For one thing her brother went there. She was an adopted child, and some of the teachers, to the consternation of her folks, actually came up them, in a pssst kind of way, to complain about something , and ended up saying, "after all, her culture is different from her brother's....! Some worldly smart(!) types even asked her parents why they didnt "get" a fairer child !
In this narrow and unenlightened environment it wasn't long before nosey classmates and other girls queried her about her inborn inability to match her brother in complexion, no doubt after hearing some elders talk.

Her melanin empowered skin was building up resistance power in more ways than one. Tormentors were labelled yellow and green by a little girl who refused to give up. She swam a lot. And suffered the least trauma , amidst a bevy of girls, who went into a depression over a 10% change ,in their complexion,for the darker, over the summer in the pool.

Teenage happened. Days of doubts. Obsessions with various types of organic facials made from fruits and grains. Awareness of pseudo utopian images in leading Indian women's magazines , that existed only for advertisers. By and by , all that swimming, good diet and those homemade natural cleansing agents, started showing results.

She didn't become "fair" in the Indian sense, but her skin and hair had a great glow, and she became a confident young woman, comfortable in her own skin.

Such is the obsession with fairness in India, that her parents were cautioned, by highly educated (!) neighbors, about sending her for swimming "lest she turned "black""......and television now had a daily serial where a bunch of sisters, one very fair and one dark, went through life, the fair one sailing through everything and the dark one having to fight....

Family and well meaning folks had been telling her, since she was a child, that darkness was a state of mind, not a complexion. There were plenty of "fair" folks with very dark minds. And vice versa. And as she grew up, she started believing that.

And so she doesn't really worry about her color any more.

She has grown up, in more ways, besides calendar years....

She is learning graphic design and animation now as she completes her college graduation on the side. They are learning some Adobe Software and she often has assignments.

Yesterday I saw her fooling around with Photoshop, and I heard her chortling away.

I went to investigate.

"You know, you can change people's complexion in Photoshop".

"Watch."

And she did some choosing of tools from a menu, and swishing around of the mouse, as her own childhood photo got modified into a "fair version". Everytime she created, a still fairer version, she would crack up, into peals of laughter....

The whole thing was so entertaining to her. She changed complexions till she would have probably given a Punjabi Kudi or Marilyn Monroe a complex.

Then she changed things back.

Looked up at me. Wrinkled her nose.

Nodded approvingly, and said " I think I like it as is , the original is the best....... don't you think so ?"
That's what called, Being Digitally Dark and Lovely.

Being strong and mature enough, to keep yourself digitally unchanged.

I bet Adobe chaps never thought of this psychological use of Photoshop. Maturing by Photoshop.

And Dark and Lovely isn't about Robert Frost, and folks trudging through woods , counting their miles before they sleep.

Its about this Dark and Lovely girl, going from strength to strength....

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;lt&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

Calling 1-800-GRANDMAS

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 04:27:00 +0000

It is possibly a truth universally acknowledged, that the offspring of a youngest child on one side, and middle child (only child resident in India) on the other, would be subject to greatly indulgent and torrential doses of grand parental attention.

A grandchild in the family after a long break, and he could do no wrong.

Birthdays were celebrated with great planning, kindergaarten annual days were attended by grandparents travelling in from other cities, and there came a time when he graduated from tricycles to bicycles. Living as I do, in something that resembles a park, he soon learnt to ride the bicycle thanks to either parent desperately running behind him, and other folks on the road making way for him, seeing the expressions on his parent's faces.

His maternal grandma, the younger of his two grandmas, lived in Pune, climbed the Parvati Hill temple everyday, and took him with her when he visited. She played badminton with him on her terrace. He treated her like an equal; or maybe she did. I dont know.

When she visited him in Mumbai, he often visited the Devi Temple on campus , with her, and he wanted to ride his bicycle there now. He discovered that grandma had ridden a bike when she was younger, and so he convinced her to ride his mother's bike, and they both went off. At high noon.

On the way back, he had a brilliant idea. Of exchanging the bikes. The only thing was his bike was an Easy Rider style fancy thing with high handles.

But grandma agreed. :-)

And so they rode, amidst the trees, and amidst stunned folks who saw a little chap riding ahead , on a bike where his feet didn't reach the pedals, turning back, calling out to someone, and an old lady in a saree , with great effort, riding a terribly hip bicycle (totally flummoxed with the odd design) and pushing on nonetheless.

Till her chappal broke.

They stopped. Things were examined. The road was too hot, and her feet would get burned. So he removed his shoes, took out his socks, and right there on the road, made his grandma wear them. The shoes would be a bit small, but socks were manageable. So he wore the shoes, she wore his socks with the one working chappal.

A whole bunch of people known to his parents were witness to all this drama, and by and by, they returned, he, a few paces ahead, pedalling , seat less, on his mother's old style bike with a high level seat, and his grandma, wearing his socks, chappals in the basket, desperately trying to manage the low-seat Easy Rider style bike. Both returned, red in the sun, and his grandma a bit breathless, because she wasn't used to such fancy bikes.

He didn't think anything unusual was happening. That's how grandmothers were. And she probably agreed.

Several years later , his other older grandma who was staying with them after he lost his grandpa, had an amazing experience tangling with third standard history.

His parents both worked, and came home for lunch. School got over at 1:30 pm , and his mother would check the day's lessons, give him some quizzes for the afternoon, and then leave.

After some rest, and chitchat, he would attend to homework/quizzes et al, with his grandma's help , and one day, he was a bit preoccupied. The fellow was doing some "filling in the blanks", and he suddenly looked up , caught her arm and said ,"Aji, you are lucky, it is now, and not Raja Ram Mohun Roy's time. ".

She was a bit bewildered. Yes, they were learning about the pre independence days, but why Raja Ram Mohun Roy suddenly ?

"Aji, if you had lived around then, they would have made you do "sati" when Aba passed away !" . He looked at her, with large eyes, bewildered at the prospect. His textbook had drastic pictures. I mean dinosaurs, phantom, superman, batman etc were manageable, but this stuff about making people sit on funeral pyres, on the death of a husband, was just too serious.

She was stunned. Went off to the kitchen, saying it was time to have his cocoa, and she would heat the milk, but really because she didn't want him to see her tears. Came back and explained to him how these were different times, things had changed, and there were laws. And such things didn't happen any more.

Little minds worked in complicated ways, and sometimes, imagination was frightening.

She recounted this story to us when we came home in the evening.

We all possibly studied the same history. But didn't live it. He learned to apply it to his environment and came to conclusions.

Like he did , when Ramayana was a hit on Sunday morning Doordarshan television, the only choice we had then. Hanuman was a huge favourite because he flew around with entire mountains when he couldn't find a required medicinal tree . His Pune grandpa had a birthday coming up, and he designed a card with Hanuman in full flow, flying through the clouds, holding aloft a chocolate cake (with lit candles) with grandpa's name on it. It was framed and stood proudly in their living room, for almost 25 years.

Albert Einstein , who talked about many things besides science, supposedly said, "You do not really understand something until you can explain it to your grandmother."

Notice, how grandmothers always understand. Notice how fathers and mothers kind of fade away into the wings, and are nowhere in the picture.

Today, the grandparents are no more, the little boy is not little any more, but he observes, he learns, he studies, analyzes. and when he needs to communicate and seriously explain things, he does something else.

He blogs. Here. :-)

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

'Fair' is just a four lettered word.....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 18:10:00 +0000

They say , time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations.

And it has occurred to me after half a century of observing the alterations, that we as insensitive, undisciplined people, force these alterations, much against the suggestions of the dressmaker.

All people are different. In origin, language, physical, mental, and genetic traits.

All people are curious , and question things. But the answers differ.

There was something in life 40-50 years ago, when as a child, one understood why someone could have a dark complexion, but didn't have a public discourse on it. There were things you paid great attention to at certain ages, and you didn't get obsessed with skin color as a child. Of course as you grew up you noticed tendencies in society, but you were taught never to comment on physical characteristics of people.

Today, we are so blatant about this concept of "fairness" , that it gives "being fair" to someone a bad name, thanks to the unfortunate nomenclature.

The concept of fairness. Nothing to do with bending backwards to be fair to someone. But the unending struggle to appear "fair" to the world. In complexion, and not in spirit.

-And so what do you say to a young girl, swimming her heart off, in a day long swimmathon, among the top so-many, emerging to change clothes in the evening, and encountering mothers of other swimmers, who audibly and to-her-face remark on how "black" she has become, and hurry to rub their kids down with some expensive soap, destroying her joy at having done well....

-And what do you say about a huge group at a picnic, a couple has joined in with their newly adopted slightly wheatish complexioned daughter, and an acquaintance, boasting of amazing education levels in the family, looks at the child, then at the parents, smirks, and asks, "I didn't know you liked the color black !" (The parent is known to have stared at he little girl, looked up, smiled , and said, "Black ? What black?"...)

-And what do you say of some "well meaning" neighbors, who advise someone NOT to send the daughter for water sports, because she will turn dark; this despite they having a non-sporting but extremely intelligent , "fair"ly wheatish daughter....

-and what do you say to prospective nosy ladies who blatantly discuss and describe a girl of marriageable age 'as a wonderful person "except", that she is a bit on the wheatish side....'

Something has to change. It is time.

For a start, ban all fairness advertisements on television. For a television system that turns a blind eye to liquor ads moonlighting as sodas, cds and casettes , and winking about it, you need to be tough.

Go to court against the multinationals . Bring in scientists to define what decides a person's skin color, melanin levels , what is changeable , what is not , etc.

Despite having a ministry to deal with and control this, we do not seem to have a "truth in advertising" clause anywhere.

And so watch and learn, that you can get jobs after 7 days of slathering some cream, twice daily, and forget all the examinations you slogged over and practicals you did in college, and placement interviews you did.

And you also watch as someone endlessly dabs on some cream, and suddenly becomes a heroine instead of an "extra"....

And you watch in even more amazement , as a fellow , earlier snubbed by the village belles, polishes his face with some fairness cream, and gets mobbed on the stairs, exiting his house. Whatever happened, to slogging chaps working in fields, riding tractors, lifting loads and the like ?

Anybody can tell that resultant fair faces on TV are more a product of camera overexposure. This may actually be, for want of a better word, another scam.

Ban these ads. Penalize them for misleading. Investigate the ingredients, and confirm that banned items are not being used.

Realize, that we as a people, were doing perfectly fine beauty wise, even before all the multinationals came in to the country , bringing in makeup items with atrocious costs, and ran ads to make you feel insecure about your looks, filling the coffers of women's magazines with their ads.

Realize , that we as a people , didn't hanker after designer body parts earlier and didn't do too badly with what we had. We were comfortable , more so in mind, and did not go through all the mental trauma, young folks obsessed with looks go through today.

Teach your children, to enjoy a clean face and skin, whether dark or fair. Encourage the use of authentically herbal age old mixtures, that function as antiseptics as well as cleansing agents.

Teach your child, never to make fun of some one's physical characteristics, whether it is shape,size, or color.

Teach your child, that there could be dark minds in fair faces, and fair minds in dark faces, and the latter was to be infinitely preferred. We don't talk about the remaining two options, dark minds in dark faces and fair minds in fair faces, simply because this kind of thinking is the problem we face today.

I've seen brilliant smiles on dark faces, heartfelt laughs on fair faces, and I have seen both intermingling happily. Dark and Light are what we live with day in and day out. Each has its own equal beauty.

And so if you ask me, I think it is really time to change the meaning of "Fair"......

Like I said earlier , time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations.

Maybe, we can , for once , ignore all those catalogues with folks in poses and clotheshorses in action, and listen to what the dressmaker, with its life long experience, has to say......

This goes as an entry to http://facebook.com/sftimetochange (time to change)....

Simple recipe, complicated taste.....:-)

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:51:00 +0000

I've often felt that a lot of stuff like flax seeds , which are recommended in the diet, by modern nutritionists because of their amazing quantities of the good Omega-3 fats, were actually part of our diets , say 50 years ago. I distinctly remember, in my childhood, seasonal variations in dry chutneys, vegetables, methods of preparation and so on. Unlike today, when everything is available all the time , on a shelf, in a shop which sells 200 other varieties.

My household help "S" (hitherto blogged and filmed about) introduced me to a perfect flax seed chutney, amazing in its simplicity. It was something that was part of her traditional diet when she lived and tilled fields, and they occasionally made it even now. Most chutneys go overboard on coconut and sesame seeds, two things with their own fat content, different from the beneficial omega-3 fats. This was a simple combination of roasted flax seeds ground together with dried roasted kadhipatta leaves, garlic and red chillies. Salt added as per taste. Folks went crazy over it, adding it to things like toast, curd-rice, salads , and some even used it to bring taste to vegetables they abhorred, like doodhi, by sprinkling it there in copious quantities.

I knew these seeds contained oil and wondered if one could use it in baking. And I decided to use the delicious flax seed dry chutney which I had in large quantity.

Many years ago, baking was all about sweet stuff , birthday cakes and home made pizzas, while you pretended to ignore the amount of ghee in nankhatais. With the icing-licking members now much older and into more exciting pursuits and sports, one has been trying some tried and tested recipes from friends in the blogging world and Facebook, like Monika Manchanda and Sangeeta Khanna, with amazing results.

And I was looking for something which would have very little added fat, minimal or no sugar, and something savoury, utilising some of the less experienced tastes (As opposed to the sweet). Another motivation was that people were continuously looking for something to snack and nibble on. And there needed to be a brake on bad fats and sugar.....

Using a whole wheat cookie recipe, from Monika, and Sangeeta's experience with flax seeds in baking, I experimented with a recipe using whole wheat, oats, flax seed chutney (I have tons of it), various dry fruits/nuts, and spices. And I came up with these crunchy, savoury, cookies with a sudden sweet raisin sensation as you chewed. Folks dipped them in tea, coffee, yogurt, and some are planning to try it with chutney, sauce and even mustard. I thought next time I would add methi leaves.

(Disclaimer : I am the type who measures with handfuls, fistfuls, dollops and so on. Every time I make stuff , we enjoy different tastes, based on what I added more. More of an eater than a cooking person, I just do things with a different perspective. )

Here is how it happened.

The blue bowl holds 250cc of water. One such bowlful of whole wheat atta.

Same amount of flax seed chutney to be added.

Two fistfuls of ajwain (carom) seeds. Also called Trachyspermum ammi. Not that you need to know, but I thought the name was amusing. (You could try using saunf, shahajeera, jeera etc instead. )

Half the blue bowl full, oats

Handfuls of whatever dry fruits and nuts you have.Coarsely crushed. I used, raisins, walnuts,almonds, apricots, and the last of the manookas.

Add 4 teaspoons of oil, and use milk to make a semi stiff dough, the kind you can make balls out of and press easily into flat rounds. (I didn't want to add the oil, but that was the old conservative me taking over; and 4 teaspoons would mean very little in each cookie. ( made 35 cookies). Ah well !

Arrange in a non stick pan . Bake in a preheated oven (OTG) at roughly 180 degrees. About 15-20 minutes. Till nicely browned, looking dryish, and test with a knife to see if cooked in the centre of the cookie.

Remove from oven, let cool . These are not chewy, but quite dry. Get nice and crunchy as they cool. Taste a bit like bajra puris. Great with chilly pickle, or burnt fresh green chillies, coarsely crushed and mixed with dahi....:-)

Immediately store when cool, in an airtight bottle/container.

Eat.

One Day in the Examination Centre....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 02:55:00 +0000

It's not a good time to be a Mumbai Varsity student today.

In fact it's been some time, since the situation has become undesirable. Examination woes, leaking papers, students being distributed papers of a totally unexpected subject, instead of the planned one, careless crashing of servers that handle examination entry paraphernalia like hall-tickets, last minute exam venue changes disregarding geographical truths, and I keep praising the Lord for being a student when I was and escaping from all this chaos.

While I myself never had occasion to be certified by the University of Mumbai, my experiences with it may be a lesson of some kind.

For a person, professionally qualified through a Mumbai University affiliated college, working and subsequently doing a postgrad in the US, the university there insisted that the real degree certificate be submitted before one could register for the second semester, and the provisional certificate , an insignificant looking paper wouldn't do. An SOS came to me in Mumbai. The application for receiving the degree certificate by post was more than six months old, nothing had moved, and one needed to go shake things up.

The first day I went to the examination section at the University, I went through a bunch of metal mazes outside, to face a window, where a voice told me that I had come on the wrong day. Different days for even and odd numbered graduation years. I returned home in a blowing monsoon to return on another day.

This time, there was no one at the window, and I waited. Finally, was given a scrap of paper with a name on it. And asked to show it to the guard at the elevated platform where the main entrance was. Predictably , the guard said that people were still trickling in to work, and I needed to wait. For some reason he was unwilling to let me in.

Just when I was about to crib in a raised voice (it often works) , a gent pointed to an officer type coming out of the main door, and told me to ask him, as he was the head of the entire examination set up. Naturally I went up, identified myself as a member of another (highly regarded) educational institution and narrated my woes, and told him that some one's entire educational expenses in the US would be wasted unless I got hold of the degree certificate, which should have actually come ages ago. The gentleman asked me to walk right in and see a Mr A, in some section.

I spent the next hour chasing Mr A, as he flitted from section to section, missing me by seconds. I also realised that the offices were constructed around a central panel used for storage of paper records, and that I was literally and figuratively going round in circles. It so happened that Mr A finally took notice, spoke to me, took hold of the reference paper (with application details) I was carrying, and disappeared after requesting me to sit in an office , where folks were still walking in to work, cribbing about train delays, rain et al. No one seemed to be any hurry to start work.

I was getting worried about losing my precious reference sheet detailing the earlier application for the degree certificate. Someone suggested, that I go and come back. Maybe have a nice tea. I sunk further in my folding metal chair . In the meanwhile, a fellow with some flower garlands and a lit lamp came by, left some wrapped stuff at the desk, distributed some tiny bits of coconut as prasad, and disappeared into the next office.

I was finally seeing some action. Somewhere. A young man pulled up a chair, removed his footwear, and climbed on to the chair , just so he could reach out to some photos of Gods high up on one side of the office. He lit some incense sticks, garlanded the gods, moved the incense in circles in front , rotated around himself once on the chair, did namaskaar, and got down.

An hour later, Mr A returned, and told me that he had managed to retrieve the details of my reference and yes, such an application for the degree certificate had been received, and nothing had been done. Would I like to go and return in a couple of hours, and collect it ?

I envisioned another tangle with the security at the gate, conversations with unseen voices at windows, and sunk further into the chair telling them that I was sitting right there till I saw the degree certificate. For two hours I saw folks opening thick registers, getting signatures, passing it to some desk , having someone carry it somewhere.

Suddenly a person came in with glasses of tea. There was a combined tea break. I was offered tea, which was gracefully refused. There was a lot of extraneous conversation happening. I joined in, playing my role as a minimally educated lady, overcome by the university portals, yet fighting for some one's degree certificate, and pretended to be unaware but unduly impressed by office procedures and pleased by the dedication to the divine in the room. (All this in the approved "old lady" manner)

Asked them if they celebrated the annual Ganpati festival for their section there; upon which , a superintendent type smiled and gave me an indulgent look similar to that given by a posh Mumbaikar, to a hilly billy provincial , say, from Kokan. No, they didn't celebrate Ganpati in that section. Then I made some calls, telling folks where I was, and my tentative arrival time at my next stop. Someone would suddenly come by and ask about the year of graduation, and the name , and I would repeat it again. I thought someone was doing calligraphy somewhere on some preprinted degree certificate template.

After a while, to my immense amazement, Mr A suddenly landed up, had me sign in some register, and showed me where the degree certificate was emerging slowly on a deskjet printer. I was stumped. If the data was online, what stopped them from printing the certificate at some window right in the beginning, once they had the reference key ? They could charge a fee, and do this in real time whenever anyone asked. But no. The data was not online. If it was, they were not aware of it or linked to it. They just had a simple degree certificate printing program, where you inputted the candidate details prior to the printing.

I had come in at 10 am. It was now 3 pm, and I victoriously came out of the main entrance, clutching the aforesaid degree certificate, to enjoy my first intake of fresh monsoon air, after a tension filled 5 hours.

Suffice to say that this was my first, last, and final interaction with the University of Mumbai-examination section.

But there is something that really has no explanation.

In my late in-law's house there are assorted sepia photos on the wall , of serious looking gents in robes,collars and graduation headgear, holding a scroll of their degree certificate, looking in a dignified manner at the camera, and posing next to a small table with a flower pot and curly legs. This, in an age, with minimum mechanization, and big box cameras.But an age , where the University took pride in giving the degrees and certificates on time.

With there being such big gaps in applying for and acquiring the said degree certificate now, there are no such photos in my house, of anyone celebrating their first life degree.

Another child attended another university in Mumbai, with a much similar experience; that is another story.

But we just do one University at a time on this blog..... :-)

Oh My God !

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 04:07:00 +0000

Highlighted and translated by

One of Mumbai's temples, from the early part of the 19th century, in fact , consecrated in 1801. Constructed by a contractor called Mr Patil, and financed completely by a rich Agri lady called Deobai. Such was the munificence of mind then that , although she herself, was, and remained childless, she built this temple, because she was convinced that many other women would be granted their wish by the Lord resident inside.

A November night in 1975. It was then, from the outside, a very ordinary , managlore-tile-roofed single storey set-up, situated in the heart, of what was then , solid middle-class-Mumbai, on the main western thoroughfare of Mumbai that went from south to north. Traffic was then a delight , and it was still possible to make impromptu decisions to stop the car, park the car without tow-truck-trauma, and go visit the place .

There was one entrance, unguarded, but with a gate of sorts. You could walk right into the sanctum sanctorum, pray, acquire prasad , and leave leisurely after enjoying the ambiance. Newly weds came there to pray, sometimes straight from a wedding reception, when the bride travelled to her new home with her newly acquired family. Folks came there with their newborn kids, to lay them at the feet of the deity, and the Lord always showered his blessings. Then there were the regulars, who came daily, some who came and recited stuff to one side, and some, who came to redeem a promise made to the lord.

Times have changed. For that matter, everything has changed.

The place is now a multistoreyed place, with offices et al, and priests travel up and down in elevators to perform their assigned worship duties vis-a-vis the public.
There is a dome above all the floors, gold coated, that glistens far and wide on a sunny day. The old entrance is now an exit. And in an adjoining road, named after one of India's greatest economists, is a huge line of shops selling all kinds of things like flowers, sweets, souvenirs, pooja items, and some spurious services.

When we visited on a Saturday noon, we had to park at least 5 blocks away, and then walk through a road with police roadblocks,beeping doorways, folks in uniform peering into an xray machine, as your purses and bags tumbled by them on a conveyor belt, like at airports. There were also some folks frisking visitors with some kind of probe.

There must have been at least 1000 visitors ahead of us as we continue walk towards what we thought was the end of the line. All the while, there were touts outside the shops, offering to store and look after your footwear, advising you on specials deals by them which would allow you to skip the huge line, and or jump it. "VIP Darshan" as they called it was repeatedly on offer. Then one enterprising guy took a look at the silver wisps of hair   predominant on our crowns, and told us there was a special Senior Citizen's gate through which we could get in. Even accompanied by a junior citizen daughter. (I later looked for such a gate , but could not find it.) All this while, our queue kept snaking ahead in the shape of a U, before we entered into what was a barricaded area, where you went up and down through a maze. At one end , we saw a gate festooned with official signs that announced priority entry for folks buying a 50Rs ticket, as well as thrilling entry facilities for folks choosing to buy a gold, or silver pass, like a season ticket.

The queue soon snaked around close to the road entrance from which folks were emerging after being frisked. Some folks develop selective vision at such points. They could not see the queue, and pretended to seamlessly merge with the queue, at a point, where at least 500 people were still in line. The selective vision meant their feet moved surreptitiously while they looked at the temple in a dedicated manner. Fortunately, and much to their chagrin, some folks took the trouble of pointing out to them the end of the queue, and they went off trying to suppress a huff. Inching ahead, and we were soon inside, with the sanctum in sight, brilliantly lit up, profused with puja flowers and worship items.

Mumbai roads habituate us to adjusting suddenly from 6 lanes to 2, and something similar happened when it was suddenly a single line to the Lord. True to reputation, folks simply pushed and changed lanes. I wondered what the Lord must have felt, day after day, month after month, year after year, this surge of humanity flowing in front. Several temple volunteers and folks in uniform, pleading with folks to keep moving, hold their children together, and after a quick darshan , we were out. Collected our prasad at the exit gate, amidst assorted pushy folks, and proceeded on the final trudge home.

This particular deity, is known to grant wishes. Its devotees are many, from all the religions.There are many stories on how people walk barefoot all night from far off places to visit this deity, and ask for favours and blessings. I've even heard of someone who walked backward from a far flung suburb of Mumbai. Many prominent folks from the film fraternity, do this walk, followed by their security guards and assorted cars driving there to take them back . And millions of ordinary folks crowd there to see them. You see countless young folks in line, with families , friends, and many who make it a regular thing as soon as examination time approaches.

I grew up in another town , where too, there are several extremely well known temples, as old as this temple, and even dedicated to the same deity, and unique in the style and rarity of form of the deity.

As a child , I lived on the road leading to one such temple, and was witness to several old devotees , who had their own methods of paying obeisance to the lord. And old gentleman, would , without fail, go by at 5:30 am every single morning, doing suryanamaskars instead of walking all the way, reciting the concerned prayers. Regardless of season and weather. And unaccompanied by caretakers. On reaching, he would sit inobtrusively, recoup his energy for a bit, recite his prayers, prostrate himself before the deity (even from a distance) , collect the prasaad, and then leave, like any other devotee, walking.

This deity also had its share of folks who got desperate as exams approached. Close to the date of the board exams, you could see young fellows doing 108 rounds around the inner sanctum, muttering their prayers earnestly.

Somewhere in the late 80's , my mother was amongst and a member of the board trustees appointed by the government for temples such as this one and some others , like the Parvati Hill temple, associated with this one. Then (and till to-date), the only woman amidst the board of trustees, she had been a daily visitor to these temples for several decades and was known to many. A very god fearing, knowledgeable, fearless, and terribly down-to-earth person, she once stopped one of these students to ask about them spending hours doing these 108 rounds. Turns out that they were totally depending on this deity to see them through an exam when they had not bothered to study for it.

For someone who thought studies and sports were to be pursued with equal dedication by students, and prayers and worship was part of a daily short routine
she thought, this business of throwing the onus of passing exams on the Lord was like cheating the lord.

She took them aside, and urged them to actually go back and concentrate on their studying. Advised them that the Lord would help anyone who made an honest effort at the exams,after putting in preparatory efforts at the highest level, and that just doing 108 rounds of the inner sanctum without studying was not going to work. Of course, some listened, some did not. But she tried. I like to think some lives changed in the way they thought about things.

I don't know if she would have succeeded today. Everyone wants quick answers and solutions. Some folks also think that money can be earned by dubious means, and then you can redeem yourself by worshipping the lord with some huge gift and a special family puja session with all the trimmings. Elections fought with unaccounted money power, and wins celebrated by documenting your very public gifts to some temple.   What those at the top do, the folks at subordinate levels, emulate. Gold passes, silver passes, special entries to visit the lord, and shower him with gifts. I doubt if any crooks ever come there to apologize for their crooked sins.

Somewhere in all these folks, are the old faithful. Who have immense faith, but whose resources are not so full. Those who worry about savings being depleted, and how they are going to manage someone's school fees. Visiting temples , for them, is like having food, a simple meal. A daily affair.

But it gets more and more difficult. Some feel I shouldn't even be complaining.

A news item in today's Times of india, refers to the fact that the waiting time to see the idol at the famous Hill Temple at Tirupati, is 21 hours. With close to 65,000 pilgrims on weekdays, a view of the deity for 0.80 to 1.5 seconds amidst a lot of shoving and pushing by temple guards and Srivari volunteers is defined as adequate.

    A time-motion study found that 2,000-2,200 pilgrims are able to ‘finish’ the darshan of the Moola Virat (main deity) in one hour when they are pushed around. If temple volunteers exercise restraint, the numbers come down to 1,400-1,600 and further down to 1,000-1,200 if they only say ‘move move’ inside the garbha griha.

With Arjitha sevas and other rituals taking up 8 hours and VIP pilgrims allowed darshan for 3-4 hours, common pilgrims are left with only 10-12 hours.

In the Maha Laghu darshan (100 feet away from the Lord), the line moves at lightning pace as some 5,000-6,000 pilgrims are accommodated in 60 minutes. “Even a glimpse of the Lord is difficult as pilgrims are dragged away like players in a kabaddi match,” a temple insider said. .....

Just wondering. Why things have reached such a stage ? Should money be the deciding factor in defining classes of worship ? Is this like bringing in "reservations" ?

Are we as a people sinning more ? Has it reached such proportions that a disgusted God is feared and placated with limitless resources ? Does anyone think an entity like a God can be bought, like some folks in the corridors of power ?

What happened to thinking of God as a kind of benevolent monitor in our daily life, where we put in a lot of thought before responding to some underhand, illegal or plain cheating stuff ?

Is God now an industry ?

Cerebrating Myself.....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 05:54:00 +0000

(Winner of the "Celebrating Myself" competition, by Women's Web; 22-3-12)

There is all kinds of brain research happening at cutting edge levels these days.

Folks do all kinds of experiments to figure out why we have left brains and right brains, and what each side is supposed to specialize in. All these calculating, analytical scientists, immersed and shining, in a left brain neuronic ocean , glinting in the cerebral sun. And then there are the dreamers, the visionaries , artists and poets and ordinary intuitive folks, who are convinced they are doing everything "right", and beaming about it.

I have a hypothesis which is a function of time.

As a child, in the 50's and early 60's, resplendent in the middle class, one lived by rules, in all aspects of life. Slogging ensured a degree of success. Things you celebrated about were universal. Success at school, sports, an honor in the society in which we lived. Standard festival celebrations. And so I celebrated along with the proud parents. Birthdays were not "planned", but they happened, and were celebrated, without being unduly ecstatic about the fact that time never stopped, and you got a year older. Terribly left brained, if you ask me.

College and University, was a time to celebrate a coming of age, a companionship with friends, occasional academic successes and the celebrations started to get a tinge of right brain madness. Reverses and disagreements in life were managed leaning on right brained folks, while maintaining a left brained sense of "feet on the ground". Celebrations were about uninhibited laughs, enjoying with friends, whispers ,gossip, treks and trips, while the left brain kept nudging about examinations, curfews, time and other then unpleasant concepts.

Like a car taking the on-ramp to the expressway, life accelerated, and stayed on course for many years, through work, marriage, children, extended family, and assorted events lighting up along the path. My celebrations were all about a child's birth, the first words, the first step, the joy on the face of a grandparent of four score years, going for a walk with a 4 year old grandson, fun events and howlers at school by the children. Celebrations were the order of the day the princess arrived, born of the heart and not of the womb, and slowly proceeded to nullify the borders between the two organs, in a flood of amazing life experiences.

Life has been a celebration of small steps by small folks, then big steps by small folks, and occasionally , me hitting myself on the head in a right brained way, when I realized that successes to be celebrated in life were never all academic, but of myriads of types. Celebrating has been about facing difficulties in some one's education and overcoming them day by day, it was about realizing that every human being has a different development plan, and the difference was to be celebrated.

Another kind of celebration was about being there for so many when they looked for a shoulder and a mind and a ear to lean on, in the evening of their life. A celebration of the honor, of being in the right place at the right time , for them as well as for yourself. Celebrations, slowly ceased to be about acquiring things, like objects of leisure and the good life, and became more about giving and participating and not worrying about who thought or said what of you.

Slowly over the years, the "l" in my celebrations, has tended to become an "r" . From "celebrating" my life, it has slowly become a fun exercise in "cerebrating " it. Thoughtfully, intuitively, and sometimes, even going against, what might have been considered, by someone, somewhere, the grain.

And so I "cerebrate" today, giving my mind free reign, enjoying forays into the world of words and art, unconcerned about accepted norms. Cerebrating has been all about joining in some one's fun on discovering an aptitude, possibly at an unexpected juncture; it has been a sense of peace and having tried, when doing something that went against a left brained norm; and it has been a realization, that the more you give , the more you can both cerebrate and celebrate.

At the end of the day, its really about "l" and "r" ; and how you move from one to the other , in time.

Clearly, as you might have noticed, my path baking research on how a left brained celebrating kid turns out into a right brained cerebrating geriatric soul, and can laugh about it....

Submitted for the "Celebrating Myself" contest at Women's Web.

Phillumwalli in Bloggywood

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 03:18:00 +0000

For someone who is not really a film buff, can emerge from a theatre, with feet nicely in touch with the terra firma, but feels a great sense of wonder about the different technologies that allow us to be creative today, I should have anticipated this.

From writing prose and poetry as a child, playing the sitar, fabric painting, paper towel flowers, decorating daughter's tees (when she was 11) with warli figures and nimbupani poetry, salvaging a long gone dining table plywood top by covering it with a fabric and doing a huge warli on it after hanging that up (the table got a new proper top), gifting folks with personalised warli art, to blogging in prose and verse , and foisting comments in verse on unsuspecting individuals, the ease with which new media is available to anyone today, has meant that one tries one's hand at so many more things.

Folks carry cameras today like we carried cloth bags in our childhood, to go to the corner market running errands for our parents. In fact today, people forget to carry bags , but never forget their phones and cameras. Softwares have made it possible to sit in one place, with a nice cup of tea, and make films.

I tried my hand at one recently. And the subject was my household help, "S" who I have blogged about frequently on this blog. That one had a daughter, who fiddled with cameras helped. "S" even wore headphones and recorded her story.

I tried putting it all together, and a film happened (if you can call it one).

I am in awe of the fact that we live at a time when someone like me, can one fine day, sit down and make something like this.

I know it needs a lot more polish and slickness. But like the repairs of the Mumbai roads, it will happen in due time.

(Ye gads. I just realized, that like the Mumbai roads, folks can now point to potholes in the film . ....:-(....)

Never mind.

The trouble is, "S" speaks in Marathi in the film. Hopefully some folks will understand . I haven't figured out how to do subtitles. Maybe you can't do that here. Who knows.

But have a look. At my new blog . "Phillumwalli".

The Suitable Observers....

noreply@blogger.com (Ugich Konitari) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:22:00 +0000

Sometimes you simply and inexplicably remember stuff from from your student days 43 years ago.

One such, was Schroedingers' Cat. Erwin Schroedinger won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933, for his formulation of Wave Equation in quantum mechanics. Unlike classical mechanics which swears by Newton's equations, and comes up with specific definitive answers about position and speed/velocity, in wave mechanics you deal in probabilities of an event, and the possibilities of varying perceptions of the event , depending on the observer of the event.

In 1935, Schroedinger explained this by a "virtual" Cat experiment.

A living cat is placed into a steel chamber, near a device containing a vial of hydrocyanic acid. Also, in the chamber, is a very small amount of hydrocyanic acid, a radioactive substance. If even a single atom of the substance decays during the test period, a relay mechanism will trip a hammer, which will, in turn, break the vial and kill the cat. The observer outside, cannot know whether or not an atom of the substance has decayed, and consequently, cannot know whether the vial has been broken, the hydrocyanic acid released, and the cat killed. Since we cannot know, according to quantum law, the cat is both dead and alive, in what is called a superposition of states. Only when we break open the box and learn the condition of the cat we realize that the superposition is lost, and the cat becomes one or the other (dead or alive). This situation is sometimes called quantum indeterminacy or the observer's paradox: the observation or measurement itself affects an outcome, so that the outcome as such does not exist unless the measurement is made. (That is, there is no single outcome unless it is observed.)

Sometimes I think this is the age of quantum-mechanization of our country. There were, earlier, classical constitutional rules and interpretations by which things happened. Then we got on to the wave aspect of things and things became fuzzy.

So many suspect cats sitting in so many suspect chambers. So many courts waiting to hit the hammer, once the law-active particle is released. The cat here is never annihilated , but sits in splendorous anticipation in jails or house-arrests etc.

But, at the end of the day, it simply depends on the perception of the "observer" and defining this observer is what we are so excellent at. We also set up vague committees of observers who are supposed to investigate things. These "observers" are multi talented and innovative and they can do several things like :

Co-opt a stronger "powerfully connected" observer
Recommend changing the hammer after suspecting it.
Appoint a committee to study the cat.
Have the government labs check out the chemical in the vial, and find out if the vial was tampered with.
Organize study tours (with MP's likely to oppose you in Parliament) to other western countries to see how other cultures analyse cats hit by hammers in important areas.
Find out why the CCTV in the chamber was not working although it was installed 4 years ago.
Have someone produce tapes of someone else telling someone else to mess with the hammer attachment.
Appoint another subcommittee to ascertain if there were other hidden cats also inside.
Declare the the report will go to a standing committee, composed of fellows standing outside the chambers set up by you.
Appoint a sub-committee to find out if the vials, if faulty, were manufactured in a facility owned by a relative of the cat, unless of course, it was owned by the cat himself in benami manner.
Subsequent to getting an anonymous letter suggesting that the cat must have weakened the chamber wall, by vigorously scratching it with its claws, the committee can suggest that stuff happening inside was known to some specific observers standing outside with ears to the wall. .

The whole fuzzy action plan is designed to ensure, that the chamber, the court-hammer, the law-active substance stands discredited.

Actually, according to Schroedinger, the superposition of states (the ability of the cat to be in any of the two states, and the effects of the interference of the observer), put a big question mark on what we are calling reality . Sometimes of cats, and in quantum mechanics , of electrons.

Rumor has it, that with the variety of solutions and arguments that came up after he suggested this so called thought experiment, Schroedinger actually mentioned that he wished he had never met the cat.

What he forgot was what we already know.

Our cats have 9 lives.

In the steel chambers or out of it. Grinning, Cheshire style .

And observers be damned.