The story untold

Once upon a time there was an inquisitive girl who simply couldn’t mind her own business.  Her mother tried to send her on errands so that she could get her out of the way.  What luck that she had just the job for this little miss.  “Go and visit your sick grandmamma this afternoon.  She will be so happy to see you” said the mother.  So Red Riding Hood, for that was her name, wore her red cape and set out.  “Stay on the path” cautioned her mother.  Miss Red smiled condescendingly for mothers would be mothers. 

She took the prepared basket of fruits, cakes, currants and potted meat and quickly took the detour into the forest.  The woods were lovely, dark and deep and all that but what mattered most was that she saw a wolf, which looked like he could do with some feeding up.  The wolf was a gossipy soul and was thrilled to see this talkative Miss Red.  He had tried for some porky meal only last week but the three little pigs were too smart for him.  They did not let him in though he threatened them so.  But he was not so foolish to jump into some pot of boiling water as some were wont to believe.  Miss Red came up to him and said,” You could do with some fattening up.  Come with me to my grand mamma’s and share this basket of good food.  The wolf’s eyes glazed with the wonderful aroma and he rubbed his hands in glee.  “You go on ahead and I will join you” he said.  Miss Red went on and spent some time talking with Miss Muffet, her friend.  Why she sat on a tuffet was beyond comprehension and why she was content to eat just curds and whey, was mindboggling.  But the frightened Miss Muffet had since recovered from the spider episode and was happy that it was Miss Red who came along and not another spider.  Anyway, she did not want company and avoided Miss Nosy Parker.  Miss Red jumped this way and that until she reached her old relative’s haunt.  She thought better of knocking on the door and decided to surprise the old thing.  She took the back door which she knew had a loose catch and entered the house.  The wolf who had reached much earlier and had gulped grandma, was now rolling on the bed with a tummy ache.  “What are grandmas made up of anyway? “  he thought.  Miss Red looked at the wolf’s disguise all askew and did not have to wonder about the big eyes, big nose and big teeth.  “A cheap trick” was her opinion.  Grandma was knocking valiantly from inside and it was up to Miss Red to do the right thing and liberate her.  Skipping aside all the gory details, grandma came out looking as fresh as a daisy but said that the cramped quarters of the last half hour gave her an appetite.  The wolf thanked Miss Red of curing him of the stomach ache and sat quietly in the corner waiting for his turn.  The wood cutter, who had a crush on grandma, came by uninvited and they all had a happy meal.  The wolf slinked away to go beg Miss Muffet for some curds and whey.  He would become a vegetarian at this rate.  But this was his lucky day.  When he saw the bear family locking their cabin and going for a walk, he decided to wait until they turned round the corner.  But before he could move a muscle, another inquisitive brat jumped into the cabin through the window.  She had yellow golden hair.  If this was Goldilocks, he would jump into that pot of boiling water waiting for him.  He saw her go from room to room, trying out chairs and beds for size.  What is this, a furniture show room, he wondered.  Then she did the most shameless thing.  Even in this hungry state, he would not have done this.  He was brought up well.  The yellow hair girl tasted all the gooey porridge on the breakfast table and then sat down to eat it all up.  She went and bounced up and down after that.  When the bears came back from their walk, they saw her asleep on the baby cot.  The wolf called papa bear out and gave him the low down on Goldilocks.  Then mama bear took pity on the girl and shooed her away.  Goldilocks met Miss Red and then they decided to go find Miss Muffet.  The three gossipy friends had enough of stories to share.  The polite wolf got some titbits and had to wait for another day and another story.  Miss Red came back with an empty basket home and when her mother asked her how grandma was, Miss Red said that grandma was getting delusional in her old age and talked of wolfs at the doorstep.  But there would be a wedding to arrange soon as Peter the woodcutter had decided to do the decent thing and marry grandma.  “So we could all live happily ever after”, I suppose, said mother, shaking her head in despair.

One for the road

“I will have to check up whether footpaths are mandatory in the city of Mumbai” said Bombay Municipal Commissioner, Subodh Kumar.  I knew all along that this would come to pass.  Wondering if the city needs footpaths at all is just too much to digest.  As it is, people walk a tightrope between roads with a heavy onrush of vehicles and the basket of brinjals that the neighbourly vegetable seller has in front of him.  Sometimes it is the vehicles on one side and, what meets the eye on the other side, makes one think longingly of the brinjal basket. 

Crossing roads always makes me wish that I lived on the other side.  I’ve stood for long minutes on one side only to suddenly find that rickshaws and other two wheelers have started going from behind me. “You have already crossed the road”, my sister used to tell me.  My paranoia for these moving death traps has only increased with age.  The man behind the wheels cannot empathise with my trying to get somewhere.  How can I expect it when he does not accommodate even a sick and dying man in an ambulance? He does not heed the siren which is an appeal to let it pass unhindered.  The other vehicle has more urgent pressing matters on hand.  People can take their time to die.  It shows sheer lack of sense to want to be rushed in an ambulance during peak hours.  Even if the ambulance has managed to get ahead, the other vehicles will stick close to it and take advantage of its presence. So who are we on foot to demand for footpaths?    No Mr. Commissioner, it is not a walkover for us who try to vend our way each day in a rush of fumes and foul smells.  The sky walks overhead are also not the answer for the feeble of heart.  Each step up the stairs takes the old and weary pedestrian closer to the skies.

The two wheeler which streaks across the road is built for totally decimating the wannabe road crosser.  The rider is also conveniently masked in his helmet so that any nascent desire to get to the other side before his machine is quelled in the bosom of the pedestrian.  How can I, with no wheels demand right of road when the masked man on wheels zigzags his murderous way?  No Mr Commissioner, why do we need to walk on roads? You expect us to only go in circles in a narrow path in a park.  No oncoming traffic to worry about.  But do we have to contend ourselves with only smelling the roses? Go and see how a man in Paris can read a book as he walks to the nearby Métro station.  He does not have to be on high alert all the time. And you say that you have to check up if we really need footpaths.  You would do better to stop the brinjal seller from encroaching on what is rightfully mine. 

I often see an old man who lifts his walking stick menacingly and keeps his arms outstretched when he wants to cross the road as a trapeze artiste or a tightrope walker would do.  When I want to go out on some errand, my eyes search for this old man. My fate is linked inextricably to that of this old man as I match my step to his and cross the road with him.  The day he dies, I die too.  You Mr Commissioner, can, in the meantime, go measuring the width of roads and proving to us how we must all walk single file, much like pirates walking the plank.  I will go and measure for my coffin.

If life is virtually a game, don't play it

If life is a game, play it, said the wise man of a bygone era.  He did not count for the game moving from one level to another.  Nor did he think that technology would play such havoc in our lives.  I wanted to be with it, so to speak and in my new bid of conquering or at least trying to understand complicated techniques, decided to first try and read the mode d’emploi .  I am being a sport, I say to myself as I reach the first level of the game.  All the rays were blinding at first and then complicated words were thrown at me, mocking my competence as a language teacher.  I pinched myself not to check if I was dreaming but to just keep me awake.  Let the game begin, I urged myself to read further.  I had not reached first base, when, as if to mock me, a south Indian insinuated himself into all the technical mumbo-jumbo.  The rays continued to blind me.  He said to me, `If I can be a Tamilian and a techno freak and move from to level to level and be the bad man and win the game in the end, why do you want to be this goody-goody avatar of the 60s?’  `Have a heart’ I implore. Amidst all the rays of light, thunder and lightning, I hear the voice over` Hearts are double-edged weapons.  They can give you power but they can also kill’. To be an emotional fool is bad enough, but to be a robotic fool wearing shiny silver armour can rust your intellect and reasoning ability beyond your imagination.  You will live from level to level, lose the game and lose your heart.  Your head, you have already lost when you first began to play.  The knights in their shining armour of modern times did not wait for opportunities to rescue damsels in distress.  They sat in front of screens, moving and jerking their hands about, living in a land between dream and reality, waiting to be rescued themselves.  I was probably in Level 2 or level 3 by now, of my level of confusion and boredom. Amidst all the confusion, I realise how smart we south Indians are.  We rope in the Chinese and make them sit wearing shiny armours in front of a screen so that they do not use their time doing any productive inventive remix. `Made in China’ can take a recreational pause and die in the effort.   When I reach level 3, I do not want to die like a common hero.  I would not be bored to tears either.  I will take the form of this reformed Chinese, who has come out of his stupor and go in search of the creator of this mess.  I will not have to go in search of new swear words as they will be readily available in another manual probably put together by a retired language teacher.  And when I find him, I will teach him about being a proper Tamilian.  Just having a kudumi is not enough. 

The Electrician Complex

Have you ever had all the gadgets around you break down one after another?  It happens to me and often.  I seem to have that effect on all things electronic & electric.  The fragility of life is best depicted in the light bulbs, the washing machines, the jet sprays and the digi comp.  I still have to figure out what the latter exactly is, but signals fail to reach my digi comp with the first onset of monsoons and then with every heavy shower, with unfailing regularity.

I don’t however have the slightest sympathy for these as I see a conspiracy behind it.  They catch me when I least expect it and go on the blink. I can picture the light bulb winking at the fan, saying ,”Well, watch me conk off,” and the fan rotating his blades menacingly saying “Wasn’t it your turn last week? When will I stop to watch the cobwebs flutter by on the ceiling? I never get any rest.” The light bulb won the day and the electrician was called .Like families have `family doctors’ I have a family electrician and a family plumber.  All their numbers are on speed dial because every break down is an emergency and always happens at the most inopportune time.  The electrician came by and after he took one look said,” Choke badalna padega’.  I pretended to comprehend.  He did what he had to and the light bulb came protesting back to work.   

I have the deepest respect for these men who wield the tools of their trade with such dexterity.   The washing machine then decided to turn all my black clothes into white in a particularly racist move.  All the black come up with splatters of white powder on them.  The washing machine was playing up.  The service facility was promptly brought in.  After filling the tub of the machine and emptying it and twiddling some wires, he decided to question the culprit.  After some incisive probing, he learnt that I was putting the washing powder in a completely different aperture   than the prescribed one.  He lectured me as he began emptying the tub for the last time and I began emptying my purse.  I hung my head in mortification as I hung the now pristine black. 

Confession  time.  I still have to change a bulb or a battery on my own.  Time and tide await no man, you have heard people say.  But time waits for me rubbing its hands in glee.  The second hand and the minute hand, that is.  When I come home, it is two o clock.  Surely not, I say to myself, thanking my mobile for behaving itself and confirming that it was actually six.  I stared hard at the face of the clock, but he was not letting up.  People don’t do house visits to repair clocks, I know.  So I bring it down and carry it to the shop.  Only the battery has to be changed.  Only?  What did he mean, only?  I took the clock again to another shop, purchased the batteries and then revealed the clock from the bag.  `Only’ the battery had to be changed, he `only’ had to put it in for me.   I looked around the shop nonchalantly not giving away that I had no clue about the clock ‘s insides.

The mobile was being chided by everyone else around him  to  behave and stop working for once.  He did it in the stealth of the night, coward that he was.  It was in the most insidious manner too.  I could not hear what people said to me on the mobile phone but they could hear me. I found myself talking in the air and telling people that I couldn’t hear them but asking them to listen to me anyway.  Half of them suspected me of having turned deaf overnight and the other half probably said things to me that they have always wanted to say. One day, in frustration, I spanked the mobile hard and I could immediately hear again.  From then on, in public, I surreptitiously turned the phone and delivered a few well aimed slaps, smiling innocuously all the time.  The mobile would not take this lying down, a typical product of the modern times. So it was now the mobile’s turn to be taken to the specialist.  The mobile was even more devious than the rest of them.  He worked perfectly fine in front of his master.  The man behind the counter smiled in an avuncular manner. A mere chit of a boy he was,  but he was the elder here.  Whoever said that the child is the father of the man, must have had this very situation in mind.  Never mind  what Wordsworth meant.  He saw rainbows and all I had was this pompous jackass in front of me.  He told me cryptically that only if the patient is sick, can the doctor give him any medicine.  He made me feel like a hypochondriac, in this case, the hypochondriac’s owner.  My phone continues to cause trouble sometimes.

Confession time again.  I have changed tactics. I have started giving stern talks to all things with wires coming out of them.  In my confusion, I sometimes include teens with wires coming out their ears too.    Gadgets continue to breakdown when they want to and teens break into smiles.

Home truths that French grammar brings you

1. You don't have to be regular all the time. It is okay to be irregular, because the verb `to be’ is always such.   

You don’t have to be that perfect person all the time, because you can’t be. Just as the imperfect tense of any verb is quite regular ,from working to playing, to dancing to loving,  you can be imperfect and yet people will try and understand you.  They may not always be right but the one thing they will have in common with you is their regular imperfectness.
  

2. You need the help of others to make your wish come true, if you want to be able to do something or even if you must do it.  But the future is yours alone as was your imperfect past.  If it was perfect, you had help.

Just like the verbs `to wish’(vouloir), `to be able to do(pouvoir)’ and `must do(devoir)’ can never be on their own, you need the help and support of others so often in life.  There is always someone above you or around you to help you  achieve and accomplish.  But just as all verbs in the future and in the imperfect tense stand alone, so do you reap the fruits of your action in the future by yourself and any imperfection in your past is also your own undoing.  You have no one else to blame.  Au contraire, just as all verbs in the past perfect take the help of auxillary verbs, you owe all the perfection in your perfect past to someone.


3.  Look at the object you describe and change your adjectives accordingly.  Please the object and agree with it

You adjust to people around you and even agree with them most times, to function smoothly.  That is a bitter home truth but one of the signs of maturity is,  when you stop asking questions and simply move along with the crowd.  You flatter because the object, by its very nature, demands it. 

 4. Do not agree with what the British say

There is only one exception to home truth at number three. That is, say and do the exact opposite of what the Brit says and does.  The French burst( éclater)into laughter and dissolve(dissoudre) into tears, while the British burst into tears and dissolve into fits of giggles.  The French do not pronounce many letters that the British do but definitely pronounce the `l' in calm and the `p' in psychology. If the British take french leave, the French `filer comme un anglais'. 

But both claim to be the thesis and neither wants to be the antithesis.  They agree on that one point.

How the remote got its name

First there were lights and fans and swtiches to operate them.  Then came the television into our lives and still, there were switches.  Rooms were small enough for us to simply stretch and switch the blessed thing off when Aamchi mati, aamchi mansa came on after Chhaya Geet and switch it on again when Aapan yanha pahilat ka came on, since patti had a vicarious pleasure in matching the old man and the old woman, both of whom had been  missing for a week now.  She always suspected that they had run away together and she voiced her opinion in no uncertain terms addressing the old man directly, telling him that his `thiruttu muzhi’ gave him away.  But that is another post.

  Then daddy came with a contraption that had to be used to switch the television on or off.  By the time someone groped for the remote (for it was termed such), another stretched and did what had to be done.  Why we groped for it, you may ask.   Television was always viewed with the lights switched off.  All the naysayers said that the rays would affect the eyes and so it must be watched only in a darkened room, surrounded by neighbours of course.  So, if one had to get up to answer nature’s call or another needy neighbour’s call, he had to stumble over knobbly knees and hold their heads for support to reach the other side.  Then someone said that only one dim light could be switched on but it had to directly in the path of the rays emitting from the television.  Then yet another one saw the light and made everyone see it too. How?  By switching it on, that’s how, of course.

The remote was placed within reach on the centre table and now with the lights to guide us, the start stop button could be accessed.  The young ones were not allowed to handle it in any case.  The elder ones held it gingerly and respectfully and used it only judiciously, for they were told that using it often would affect the picture tube.  There was only one screen that was supposed to show images in black and white but usually it diffused a grainy grey that made the stern looking newsreader with her bun look like she had a bad case of dermatitis compounded with a twitching of the optic nerve, for, there was always a slight tic in that vicinity on the screen.  So apart from eye lids twitching, stationary objects would wobble and straighten up again and crisscross lines would appear often like some unseen hand was scribbling unchecked on the sands of grey in front of the disappointed crowd.  By the time it got set right, there would be births and deaths that would have transpired and been missed and these events would be correctly guessed and   announced by the lone movie goer in the crowd with such accuracy as to put the BMC to shame.  The technician would be called in for a check-up only in the most severe cases or if a knock in some strategic spot did not work.  Usually, he simply switched it off and then, on again, with deft flicks of the remote which won everyone’s undying gratitude.  `Thank God, we can see at least the Sunday movie properly’ was the general consensus.  Those people passed away but the remote lived on to tell the tale.  It was taken such good care of, you see.

Now, it was used to change channels.  People surfed only when the waves of technology came up to such a level that they had to ride it and still maintain their balance.  The jaunty surfers did not look askance or worry about births and deaths that they might have missed while surfing.  The movie goer did not prompt anyone.  No one cared enough to ask him either.   The surfer was happy enough to travel through cricket pitches, halls where quiz shows were conducted and blundered his way through people’s bed rooms, flicking his wrists and fingers with abandon,   as if playing on some instrument.   Many, however,   fell by the way side.  Still many used pink slips to jot down the various numbers that they had to use for different channels.  And   some even painstakingly drew diagrams of the remotes themselves to refer to as and when they needed them.  Remotes became longer and the buttons on them increased in number.  They had to be differentiated by colours and guides were needed to use them.  Those who wielded them mastered their use and always kept them by their side to use them with untiring frequency.  No closure or endings of anything for them, thank you.

  Patti now knew why that thing was called a remote.  It seemed so unreachable and far away now with all its complications.  Televisions themselves became smaller and then soon became bigger and bigger as if no one could quite make up their mind as to what the exact size should be.  She chuckled happily though.  It suited her cataract filled eyes fine.  People in them looked happier too and not so grey.  They wore gaudily coloured clothes as if to make up for all the time they had lost wearing black and white and grey.   But no one was fully content, it seems.  Her great grandson crawled up to the television and touched its screen and waited with anticipation and howled when nothing happened.  His father and her son had a small screened flat thing on his lap and touched it often to change something.  When did the remote fall from its throne? Oh yes, she noticed everything but commented little these days.  She envied the old man and old woman who had eloped so many summers ago.

The mean-eyed mean

A tam-brahm’s fishy experience can best be summed up as an oxymoron. But this is not the best nor is it a summing up.  Instead, it is a rant and rave of a tam-brahm,  moron enough to go on a class trip which has its main theme as`Fish’, at least as far as she is concerned.  The others might title the theme as `sustainability of marine life’ or whatever.  In circles knowing Tamil or Malayalam, it can also be called a `mean’ingful tryst.  Full of meaning, if you know what I mean.

The day began innocuously enough.  The students, teachers and the writer of this piece got on to two buses.  The students and the other teachers were all of a scientific bent of mind and they set out to perform experiments on the island of Madh.  The writer tagged along as a camera woman and a keeper of records.  The Group 4 project was well under way by 9 am and the group split up into Physics, Chemistry and Biology and the teachers logically followed their calling.  The Physics teacher went with his brood of physicists, armed with vernier callipers, long scales, mirrors and a piece of thermacol for some strange reason.   Or at least this uninitiated writer could not make much of it.  The chemists go with bottles and walk with determined strides towards the beach to collect samples of what looked like water.  But water is a universal solvent and yet pieces of stuff of origins unknown were floating on the surface.  A closer look would have surely told her the origins, but she didn’t want to know.  Or she would have wondered if the experiments had to be conducted at a pathology lab.  The biologists went armed with questionnaires to interview the fisher folk on their consumption habits.  But one look around and a simple breathing exercise would have told anyone that.  Not that this writer was doing any of that.  She looked ahead blindly towards the horizon and acquired a concentrated look, with the effort of trying to not look around and to hold her breath at the same time.  The result was not complimentary to her looks, but she continued on her solitary walk.  The sun beat mercilessly on her shoulders already burdened with a back pack.  In her hands was her camera to collect evidence of the sample collection, the surveyors in action and the physicist doing what not. 

What followed was the result of all the blind looking at the horizon.  One foot forward and the next one…something crunched beneath her oft worn Reeboks. Her eyes were brought down to earth literally and she along with it.  The bulging eye, staring unseeingly at her open mouthed, as if the creature was surprised to be cracked thus, even in its dead state.  It is a fish, a dead one,her own eyes registered and her shoes had just cracked it like some dead branch.  From the comatose state, her eyes looked around finally downwards.  She was standing on a bed of dead fish and trapped well and proper.  Why, there were masses and masses of them, strewn about her, and each of them looking at her all bulgy eyed and reproachfully.  She died just a little, then and there.  Her brahminic state of mind and body coalesced and she asked forgiveness for adding injury upon the fish’s already de`mean’ed status.  The fisher women were coming with more of their catch to spread them on the muddy ground. The place resembled a battle field and she walked gingerly away in the general direction of some steps.  Even seated there, she felt threatened and rightly so, as soon, a bird from its lofty perch on a tree above her, decided to choose her hand, not in marriage but in another less social and more fundamental bodily function.  It was her sustainability she worried about now.

She walked away in another direction and climbed a few steps to reach a higher plane, of thought and being.  She stared myopically at all the small figures of reds, blacks and blues, trying to identify the physicists, the chemists and the biologists, all in various postures of scientific enquiry.  All that was scientific in her life began with burning small pieces of paper under the scorching Vadiveeshwaram sun’s  rays through magnifying glasses and ended with running around with packets of salt in Mumbai’s monsoons, chasing earth worms and putting judicious pinches of salt on them to see them shrivel and die.  She did not enquire much scientifically into that degenerative tendency.  Students these days had to do so much more than she ever did.  That’s what comes out of asking why and why not all the time.  You get scientific, that’s what. 

She decided to let her mind wander as taking shallow breaths was becoming easier with time.  She thought of Walt Whitman’s lines `the smell of the sea is like victuals to me’ & `the life of a sailor, ahoy, ahoy.’  Not for this writer though.  She had other fish to fry.