Out of the mouths of babes

My darling daughter is 3 years old. She has picked up the concept of ‘big’ and ‘small’ in the past few weeks. She says she is ‘small’ and her mother and father are ‘big’.  As with other kids her age, she is naughty at times. Nothing interesting so far, right?

 What is interesting is that she has this idea that as she grows up and becomes taller, her parents will grow shorter and younger. She says that when she is ‘big’ she will drive a car and take us to school. Then, we should not cry for chocolate and she will get us the same only if we have our lunch properly. She carries on in this vein.

 We tried explaining to her that when grows up we will not grow in the reverse direction.

 Then I thought – she does have a point….

 When kids are young, they are dependent on their parents for food, transportation, shelter etc. As they grow up, their parents grow older and move into retirement. Then, it is the kids turn to provide food, transportation, shelter etc. 

 Life turns a full circle….

Valentine’s Day

Over the past few weeks, there has been a lot of talk in the media over the Mangalore pub incident, the approaching V day and what the self appointed guardians of Indian culture plan to do.

 First about the Mangalore incident: This is a democratic country where consumption of alcohol or dancing in appropriate places is not prohibited (for persons of both genders). As far as decent/indecent clothing goes, it is subjective. You also have to take into account the time and place. If the person(s) were consuming alcohol and dancing in revealing clothes in a public place (like a place of worship or in the city centre), yes, it is unlawful. Even in such instances, citizens should not take the law into their own hands but inform the law enforcement agencies.

 Secondly about V day and its impact on Indian culture and values. I personally am not a big fan of V day – when we were in school or college, we were not even aware about such a day. It is only in the past decade or so that there is a hype and hoopla around this Also, I do not need a specific day in the year to remind me of my loved ones and to prove my love for them.

 Having said that, what is wrong if people celebrate togetherness with flowers, chocolates or gifts? I mean it is not as if people are doing something illegal and infringing on others’ rights, is it?

 I said earlier that I am not a big fan of V day. However of late (especially if it falls on a holiday as it does this time around), my take on this is why not relax and have fun? Maybe go out for lunch / dinner for a change.

 What the so called moral policemen need to understand is this – different strokes for different people.  Chill out… man!

Drive to succeed

The journey of life is so interesting. You briefly meet some people in life who are so extraordinary that you can never forget them. You also meet some people who look so ordinary but never give up, keep trying to improve their skills and never waver in their quest to grow. Recently I happened to have a tele-talk with one such person from my past.

 This friend - let’s call him Kutty for the purpose of this story – is one from my Delhi days. He was from a middle class family and moved to Delhi in search of a job in the early eighties when he was around 18/19. He did not even have a degree and could not speak a word of English or Hindi.  He got a menial job in a small private company. Had he continued there and not tried to improve his skills, after all these years he might still be in Delhi struggling.

 However Kutty was made of sterner stuff. He worked his way through a degree and picked up reasonably good Hindi and English speaking and writing skills along the way. By the time I met him in the early nineties he was working as an administrative office in a Japanese firm. He had completed a diploma in management also by then.

 Kutty was a good friend during the three years I worked in Delhi and after that we hardly kept in touch. Last month he got my number from a common friend in Bangalore and called me up from – of all places – the US of A! His story in the last decade is even more amazing. It seems his wife, a nurse, got a job in the US, and he followed her. Instead of trying for a small job, he joined up for a nursing course himself and completed it. Right now he is pursuing a specialisation in a niche area.

 Remember Kutty must be around 46-47 years old now! When I asked him how he managed to cope with studies now, his humorous reply was – ‘I am the youngest in this class’!

 I am sure that 10 years from now he will be in an even higher orbit.

Cooking escapades

Cooking is one of my hobbies – it helps me relax. During the many years of bachelorhood, I have had the chance to try out many things in the kitchen. After marriage though the interest has not waned, I have less time and lesser compulsion to enter the kitchen.

 One of my favourite food stories is from my Bombay days. I was abroad for an assignment and a friend joined me. This chap was an expert database administrator but was a rookie as far as cooking was concerned. His roomie back in Bombay packed his bags with spices, dal and one packet of rice. A week or so later when he rang up his roomie, he was asked if he had started cooking. It was then that he realised that he had not properly unpacked and was not even aware of the existence of the food items in his luggage.

 Feeling sorry that his roomie had taken so much trouble and he had not even attempted to cook, that weekend he decided to try out cooking. He did not consult with me or the others staying in the same hotel (we were staying in studio rooms with a kitchenette).

 After 30 minutes or so, the smoke detector in his room started screaming. We all went down to his room, pacified the hotel chaps who had gathered there by then and settled down to listen to his adventure.

 It so happened that there was an electric rice cooker in his room and he decided to start with the basic task of cooking rice. He put the rice in the cooker and plugged it in. But no one told him that he also had to pour water!!! After sometime the rice in the cooker got burnt, he opened it and the smoke had triggered off the alarm. 

 That was the last time he tried anything. For the rest of the duration of his (and our) stay, he performed the role of helper and excelled in cutting vegetables, cleaning dishes etc.

 Guru

 My first guru in cooking was my Delhi roommate’s father. This gentleman had two sons in Delhi – one was married and the other a bachelor staying with us. He used to come to Delhi with a sack full of jackfruit, coconut, nadan kaya, jaggery, ground spices etc. For the first few weeks he stayed with his married son, and then he would stay with us for a few weeks. During his stay he would not use ready made masalas or other purchased ingredients. The stuff he brought from Kerala would be his source.  He taught us the basics - how to make good sambhar, thoran etc.

 The day his stock of ingredients and magic powders from Kerala got over, he would return from Delhi only to return the next year with a new sack.

 Hero

 My hero in cooking has been my mother. Now, it sounds like a cliché - everyone says their mother’s cooking is the best. Well true, but in my mother’s case, when she was in Madras she had attended a cookery course and became an expert in many different types of cuisines. Of course she cooked Kerala vegetarian food well. But she also started trying out Tamil and North Indian dishes and western bakery items as well.

 This training came to fruit many years later in Delhi in the late eighties and early nineties when she had time on her hands as well (myself in college). She and a friend bought two OTGs (Oven Toaster Griller) and started preparing snacks and food items for their friends circle. This relationship was symbiotic. Aunty had been in Delhi for many decades and had a large circle of influence. She was also very marketing savvy and pushy. Mother was the one with the golden touch. She would prepare the food and aunty would ‘sell’ them. In due course they even participated in food shows held on occasions and the proceeds contributed to charity.

Trains

Right from my childhood days, I have had a fascination for trains. Even today I love train journeys and prepare for them with gusto. My family sometimes finds my obsession annoying.

 This obsession started when I was a small child and my father was posted in Madras – we used to make overnight journeys to Kerala three or four times a year. The obsession was cemented when I was in college and my parents posted in Delhi. I used to travel at least four or five times a year. My friends used to tease me that I was doing a correspondence degree course from Calicut University!

 In those days (late eighties & early nineties) there used to be only one train to Delhi – the Kerala Mangala express. Two trains used to start from Trivandrum and Mangalore, merge in Palakkad and from there it was one long train with 22 bogies. We (me and my friends) used to know the time when the train would reach each station, what to buy from there (food / snacks / juice / gifts for friends / family).

 The most fascinating thing about these journeys was the interesting people we would get to meet, their stories and the bonding we would achieve in those 48 hours. Of course it is another matter that though we exchanged addresses (no emails back then) and promise to keep in touch, one rarely used to do so.

 I want to recount a few interesting incidents from those journeys that I can never forget:

 Smart alec paper boy at Nagpur

 Besides a handful of us students, most of the occupants of the reservation second class compartment used to be jawans returning to Kerala for their annual leave of two months or so. The scheduled arrival time at Nagpur was around 4 AM in the morning. One summer morning, at 4 AM, when the train was pulling into Nagpur, the usual shouts for ‘Chai’ were heard.

 

Along with the din the chai wallah was making, a paper wallah was hollering: ‘Taja khabhar - Kerala Mukya Mantri Karunakaran ki Dehant’ – translated – ‘Hot News – Kerala Chief Minister Karunakaran is no more’. Now Karunakaran was the CM at the time. By now half awake and in shock, many of the occupants rubbed their eyes, took out a rupee and purchased the ‘Hitvada’ paper. The smart chap sold around 20-25 newspapers in five minutes and made off in a jiffy. The Hitvada is a local newspaper from Nagpur. As expected there was not a single news item about Kerala – let alone Karunakaran.

 18 years later, the patriarch Karunakaran is still alive and well!!

 Basket of Oranges

 Nagpur is known for its oranges, in peak season, vendors used to sell oranges in baskets. A basket of oranges (around 15-20 in number) used to cost around Rs. 10/-. Again we used to get ripped off. Most of the baskets used to have 3-4 plump sweet oranges at the top and the rest used to be squashed decaying ones!

 Specialities

 If Nagpur is known for oranges, Agra was synonymous with Agra pedahs. Agra pedahs are essentially a variety of cucumbers (‘velarikya’) dipped in sugar solution. They were mouth watering and we used to gorge on packets after packets of pedahs during our train journeys.

 The first time I set foot in Jhansi en-route to Delhi at around 8 AM in the morning, I had a taste of the tea served in matkas and small puris with aloo curry – I don’t know why – it tasted heavenly. Maybe it was a relief from the drab train food. This became a habit and without fail, during every train journey, we used to alight at Jhansi and have this cheap but tasty combo.

 Good Samaritan (well … sometimes yes!)

 Reading above, you might mistakenly think the journeys were all about food and nothing else. Well, we also did our bit at helping others in need. One hot summer, I boarded from Trivandrum. When the train reached Chengannur, a lady with a one year old son boarded. The kid was unwell and was crying continuously. She informed me that her son had indigestion and probably had tummy ache as a result. I approached the TT and asked if there was a doctor in his list of passengers. There was one passenger but he was travelling in the AC compartment 10-11 bogies away. I accompanied the lady to the AC compartment. The ‘doctor’ was a house surgeon barely a year or two elder to us kids. He quickly prescribed some medicines. The next big halt with a medical shop was Ernakulam Junction and I got her the medicines at Ernakulam.

 The mother-son duo was to alight at Bhopal. Throughout the rest of the journey the child gave everyone around a continuous display of his lung power. As a teenager, I did not know how to pacify him; however an army uncle took charge and thankfully took him to the door whenever he bawled.

 Bina and Babina

 Let me make up a story about trains now J

 As newly weds, when I first bored my wife with stories of these journeys, she was miffed to hear about Bina and Babina. She thought that these were the names of my girl friends! I informed her that these were 2 stations in the middle of nowhere where only army personnel alighted / boarded.

  The above story about my spouse is a half truth – however the bit about boring her with these tales is absolutely true. The first few months she was enthralled to hear these stories (or so I think !), the second year she suffered in silence…since then she rolls her eyes in disgust and walks away when I mention the word train!

Go Kiss the World

Have you read the book by Subroto Bagchi – Go Kiss the World? It is a fabulous book – a good story (auto biography really), touching, yet at the same time he also provides some very good management lessons learnt from the story of life. 

Writing

My wife told me the other day that I should have been a doctor. I was surprised – I did not know that she thought so highly of my potential.  Then she clarified that my handwriting was my qualification for this honour.

 True – I have a very bad handwriting – made worse by years of not needing to write anything more than my name in a form (come to think of it even that job is done by the better half). Computers have spoilt us.

Reading

Some one once said – “A man who can read a book but does not is worse than an illiterate man” – well not exactly the same words, but you get the gist, don’t you? Books have always been a weakness for me.

 I picked up the habit when I was very young. Maybe as a single child, books were a solace. Thankfully I had access to books wherever I went. At Trivandrum, we used to stay in a flat. I was lucky to have the company of a friend who was a member of the Eloor lending library. We used to pool money and share books. There was also one family (actually relatives of mine) in the same building who had a library of their own.

 During summer, Onam and Christmas holidays, at my grandfather’s place, I was lucky to have access to a huge collection. One of my cousins of the same age was also afflicted with the reading bug.

 Reading habits and likes change with time and may a time indicate the stage in your life / priorities of the moment. As infants, we started off with coloring /  story books and then graduated to Tinkle / Chandamama, on to the adventures and youthful exploits of the Hardy Boys and the Famous Five, moved on to the humor of TinTin and Asterix, on to novels of the more serious variety.

 Then for a time the flavor was religion - the ISKCON books gifted by a Bombay aunt were the cause for this. Then for a while I moved on to junk novels –I should actually have been reading my text books then. After a brief period of exposure to the corporate world and return to college for post graduation, it was metaphysics – of all things!! A failed romance was probably the driving force!  

 A second entry to the professional world and it was time to read nothing but IT books – skills up gradation is a must in IT and one had to learn to cope with and pick up the flavour of the season.  After you spend a bit of time punching at key boards and looking generally busy and important, senior management deems you to be a ‘project manager’, after that the reading habits change to books / material on risk, estimation, people management etc. Once you get a hang of all that (once you get a hang of the jargon), the quality bug hits you. Read all you want but a few tips on impressing people -

 Good -> Talk about Just in time, Total Quality Management, Quality Management systems etc

Better -> Use the acronyms – JIT, TQM, QMS, ISO etc. -> remember to use acronyms with 3 alphabets and don’t bother to explain.

Best -> Use Japanese or Japanese sounding names – Kan Ban, Poka Yoke -> make it sound as funny as possible – the funnier the pronunciation, the more knowledgeable you will sound 

Remember I said that reading habits and likes change with time, well add to that one more point - they come a full circle at some point. I am back to reading coloring / story books with my daughter now. I am sure that Tinkle or its 21st century equivalent is not too far off :)

Test transmissions by Keltron

Sunday afternoon, after a heavy lunch, wife and kid are having a siesta. That gave me the time to go online and make the earlier entry. 

I had completed the entry earlier today, was sitting back and my thoughts drifted to  my childhood days in Trivandrum. Something crossed my mind and I just had to jot it down right away and share with you now.

 Back in the early eighties when we in Kerala did not have television, Keltron made some test transmissions as a forerunner to the set up of DD in Kerala. I do not remember exactly how long the tests ran, but I do remember that the standard format of the tests were – 30 mins of cartoons for kids followed by a movie. The timings were from five in the evening. Very convenient for us kids. Most of the movies were classics and we had lots of fun. We used to stay in a flat near Statue and there was one television in the building (the television belonged to a Keltron employee), evenings were fun with us kids (and sometimes mothers as well) gathering in their drawing room to watch the daily dose of TV.

 A few months later the authorities deemed the tests successful, Keltron stopped the transmissions and DD was set up in Trivandrum

Television / Movie Characters from the past

Today, we cannot imagine a life without television. We watch a lot of it day in and day out. How many of the thousands of characters we meet on TV do we remember? There are some characters we come across who stay with us for life. From my teenage years I can remember ‘Swami’ of Malgudi days and ‘Karamchand’ to name two. When I come across re-runs of some of the programs today, I fail to see what attracted me to them in the first place! If you take Swami, reading the book by R K Narayan is a much richer experience. However back then it was a great influence.

 The same goes for movies too - I remember the hype ‘Shahenshah – an Amitabh movie – created. I had seen the movie then; and my memory of it has been that it was a great movie. I got a chance to see it on one of the telly channels a couple of years back – I wondered what was it about the movie that had me spell bound 20 years back!

 Today my daughter loves ‘Kimbadan Mama’ of Krishnan fame. Another generation, another set of characters ...