Wave your flag

The football fever seems to have got to practically everyone. I had jokingly mentioned to my daughter about the time (1986) when my cousins and I were so football crazy that we even started making flags in anticipation of some of the games (see my blog entry on June 11, 2010 titled “Gooooooaaaal !!’ for details)

My daughter wanted to know the whole story and then wanted to make flags for this world cup. This weekend we proceeded to do exactly that. Truth be told even I was excited to participate in this activity.

Wifey cut down some branches from the ‘Muringa’ tree . The stouter twigs among them were our flag poles. She also covered the chosen twigs with cello-tape. The leaves of course were not wasted as they were cooked for our dinner curry on Saturday night.. I drew the outlines of the flags on A4 size paper. Nandu and her acha-chan (grand father) did the honours of painting (colouring) the flags.

The whole thing got Nandu excited. I am hoping that I can use these tactics to get her interested in other sports as well so that she will watch with me (or at least let me watch in peace)!

Wonder if I can do something similar for F1?!!? Maybe next weekend’s project could be painting the Red Bulls and Mclarens ?

Barber Nazi !

One of my favourite sitcoms in the nineties was Seinfeld. The setting for the sitcom was simple. But what made it fabulous were the simplicity of the plots, the definitions of the characters and most of all the script. The script writers would take mundane ordinary things and create an extraordinary plot with sharp punch line. The characters would deliver the lines almost perfectly.

One of the things that stood out in the show were the usage of catch phrases that themselves had a cult following. In fact Jerry Seinfeld later wrote a best selling book called 'Seinlanguage' that included all the catch phrases.

A few memorable examples -

're-gifter' - a person who receives as a gift, has no use for it and gifts the item to someone else

'close talker' - someone who stands embarrassingly close to you during a conversation

'soup Nazi' - this was the nickname of one character who ran a soup shop. The soup was very tasty but the owner was a very strict and mean person. If he did not like the way the patron behaved, he would shout 'no soup for you'. This last statement became a buzz word in itself.

Why I am writing all this here and why now? Well, earlier this week I got a haircut at my regular place and the barber's demeanour and behaviour reminded me of the 'soup Nazi' and of Seinfeld.

I have been frequenting this barber shop for nearly 25 years now. In the past whenever I have been in Trivandrum, I have gone to his place for a haircut. For the past four years that I have stayed here, I have not gone anywhere else in Trivandrum (for a haircut that is !).

While he always goes about his work diligently and sincerely, he is very much against change. Also, he is a very strict person and extremely sensitive to comments - especially on the subject of cutting hair!

The shop is located strategically at a major intersection. The mushrooming of apartments in the area and upward mobility of his potential clientele might have prodded a slightly more proactive person to modernise his saloon, spruce up the place, hire staff to expand operations and start charging a premium. Not so our hero. He is still the same old person working in the same old fashion. The only time change impacted him was when the authorities had to demolish his shop to make way for road widening. He moved to a better and bigger place next door and proceeded to quickly make it look as messy as his old shop!

Why do his clients patronise him? Simple - he does an excellent job of what he does: that is cut hair!

Now back to the soup Nazi business, I was waiting in line and thinking about the fact that I ought to tell the barber this time to crop more hair in the area above the right part of the forehead. Otherwise in a month's time it could get messy. Just as I was thinking about this, the customer whom he was attending to asked him to do that very thing! 'Cheta, can you please cut here' he said indicating the area above the right forehead.

Our friend stopped the clip-clipping of the scissors, took a step back and let loose on the customer - 'Are you the barber or am I?. I will cut hair as I please. If I listen to you now, you will come back later saying it looks bad' he was getting more animated with each statement he made. ' If you cannot be silent when I am cutting hair, you can go someplace else'

Needless to say, when my turn came, I hopped on to the chair and did not utter a single word till he finished, then I quietly paid up and left!

Next time I need a haircut, I am sure I will go back to same old saloon. Some habits die hard - even if the barber is a 'soup Nazi'!

A short story

Note - First a disclaimer! Readers please bear with me. This is my first attempt at writing a story -thankfully a very small one you might say! The idea for the story line came to me when I was driving back home from office one night. I bounced the idea off my wife and she suggested some additions as well. Well, if you don't like my story, now you know whom to blame :-). Back to the story then –

Kannan's story

Hello! I have been told that when meeting someone for the first time, the polite thing to do is to introduce oneself first. So here goes - My name is Kannan and I used to spend most of my time at the Sri Ganesh restaurant adjacent to the Pazhavangadi Ganapati temple in Trivandrum. My major work was to clean up after patrons who ate at the restaurant.

I am usually very serious about my work. And that's why I was in the good books of the supervisor Murugan - or so I thought.

Murugan-annan is normally a nice guy when the proprietor is not around. At the fag end of the night near closing time, he used to let me have whatever food I wanted though others were normally entitled to only idlis. It is not that he did not know - many a time he had seen me having my share of puris, chappati and dosa - but then he usually flashed an understanding fatherly smile. Once when I was having a dosa, he even came over to where I was and served me chutney ! I was thrilled.

But Murugan-annan was a different person when the proprietor Mr Appaswamy was around. Or for that matter even when others were nearby. At such times, he used to speak to me in very harsh language and I felt I was unwanted there. Anyway I took it in my stride and carried on the next day as though nothing happened. The job was good, the food free and the best part was that I had free accommodation (at night I slept in the restaurant) as well. You could say that I performed the role of security as well.

Though I hardly ever used to go out and had seen very little of the world, the world used to come to in the form of the people who come to eat at Sri Ganesh.

And yes, the regular patrons, there were many of them. There was the elderly retired gentleman who visited the temple at 7 AM sharp. At 8 AM would be at his usual seat on the corner table having coffee (without sugar), 2 Idlis and a Vada. He was also there in the evening at 7:30 PM (post another temple visit) and would have 2 chappatis and kurma for dinner. I have often wondered about why he ate breakfast and dinner there. Did he not have a family? If he did not, what about lunch? Did he go elsewhere? If he did have a family, did his kids thrown him out in his old age? What about his wife?

Another set of regulars were three spoilt kids from the neighbourhood. They must have been about the same age as me. They visited during the evenings after school. They used to order snacks and ice cream. These kids never treated me well. I tried to avoid them but if they chanced on me they never failed to prod and tease me. When they were around I used to make myself useful in the kitchen and returned to the dining area only after I was sure that they had left.

Then there was the fat priest of the Ganapathy temple - another person who was not consistent in his behaviour. Whenever I used to get spare time, I used to rush across to the temple to pay my respects to the Lord. Many a time, when the priest saw me there, he recognised me and handed out the prasadam of the day be it modakkam or appam. Truth be told, the prasadam drew me to the temple again and again.

The priest was a regular patron of the restaurant as well. He normally used to come after the ucha (afternoon) puja. He regular order was for unlimited thali meals (the right choice for he used to eat quite a lot !) and he used spill rice and curry all around the plate. It was a nightmare to clean up after him!

The first time I saw the priest at the restaurant, I was extremely pleased and went up to him and smiled. In return I got a glare and a mouthful of swear words. All I could do was to make a retreat and suffer in silence.

Of course like I said earlier, Murugan-annan was the only one who looked out for me. Even the other chappies who worked there ill treated me when Murugan-annan was not looking. It was not physical abuse (because I was usually too fast for them) but verbal abuse.

One night however, something happened that turned my life upside down. Late at night, I was in a corner peacefully having some food. Murugan-annan and Mr Appaswamy were closing the account books for the day.

Suddenly Mr Appaswamy glanced up and saw me. He turned to Murugan-annan and said sternly - "How many times have I told you to buy a mouse trap? Well, if you won't, I will. Tomorrow I am going to get one myself, catch that pesky mouse and drown it".

That night I fled from Sri Ganesh restaurant and have never been back.

Speeding

May be due to the increase in road accidents in Trivandrum district, the traffic and highway police appear to have increased the deployment of radar guns to monitor and ticket erring vehicles. The fines for speeding are quite steep (Rs. 300 for four wheelers and Rs. 500 for two wheelers) and should be good enough to deter budding racers from stepping on the gas.

However earlier this week I noticed something which may indicate that the rules are not the same for all. This incident occurred on the Trivandrum by-pass just after the toll. The vehicle with the radar gun was strategically parked 1 KM north of the MGM school. Apparently they had already caught many offenders. Thankfully I was cruising well within the speed limit when I crossed the area. However as I was driving downhill an 'official' vehicle sped past me at a speed which was definitely exceeding the limit. Of course the vehicle was not stopped and within seconds it had disappeared into the distance.

Different strokes for different folks, maybe?!?

Gooooooaaaal !!

This month in Trivandrum we will have an epidemic of not just the plain vanilla viral fever. Trivandrum, Kerala and indeed most of the world will be in the grip of football fever in the weeks ahead. Expect to see many sleep depraved, red eyed souls in office during the next few weeks.

This year the pundits’ favourite seems to be Spain. Of course the usual biggies like Brazil, Argentina, France, Germany and England are expected to do well. But with massive attrition in the form of injuries, expect to see many exciting upsets.

The world cup that I remember most fondly is the 1986 edition. One of the greatest players ever, Diego Maradona was at his peak and 1986 was the year and the world cup the stage for his crowning glory. To add to the mix, we were sports crazy teenagers then and the event happened during the summer vacation

Anyone who watched the Argentina vs England quarterfinal match can never forget his display. We saw the best and the worst of the great man in that match. If we had the famous ‘Hand of God’ in that match, we also saw the ‘Goal of the century’ in which he dribbled past the entire English defence (6 players including the goal keeper) and scored!

I can never forget that summer – we (2 of my cousins and myself) followed the matches on Doordarshan, staying awake till late night / waking up in the early hours. We were so crazy that we used to make small flags of our favourite countries using paper, colours and ‘eerkilla’ (stalk of the coconut tree leaf).

And yes, we used to raid our grandmother’s store room for goodies to keep us awake and energised through the night! One night we went one step too far. Grandma had prepared quite a few extra kozhukkatas at night – the idea being that it would suffice to feed the entire family for breakfast the following morning. She had also probably noticed the reduction in her stock of goodies which she used to ration during tea time. During half time, when we conducted the usual raid, we found the store room locked :( . We searched the kitchen and found the kozhukkatas. By the time the second half started, all that was left of it was just one kozhukkata. The next morning there was hell to pay. Of course grandparents being grandparents, we were let off the hook with just a scolding and the night raids continued till the world cup final!

UK elections

Over the past month, we had the odd coverage of the fractured verdict after the UK elections on the Indian news channels.

Of course the main focus of the major channels had been on the 'tamasha of the day' which varied from the serious topic (occasionally) to the trivial (almost daily).

One evening (a couple of weeks back) I was up late watching first Barkha Dutt's talk show at 10 PM followed by the coverage on the BBC on the goings on in West Minister.

On Barkha's program, the two main topics were Jairam Ramesh's open criticism of the home minister on foreign soil and Navin Jindal's letter of support to the Khap Panchayats. In both the discussions the participants which included politicians as well as activists, the panellists were seen (or rather heard) trying to shout each other out.

There was a flash on the NDTV channel that said that Gordon Brown had decided to step down. So I switched over to the BBC. The reporting on the 'beeb' was similar to India (on a breaking news topic) in the respect that there was a central anchor, reporters at the main venues and a set of panellists to discuss and analyse the developments for us then and there.

The similarities however ended there. The reports from the field were crisp and to the point. The panellists were from the three different parties and each one respected the others' airtime. No one interrupted the other or spoke out of turn. Though the topic was of peripheral interest for an Indian like myself, the discussion/analysis was easy to follow.

I was amused because the situation in the UK is something they are facing for the first time but something that we have seen multiple times. For those that are not aware, the election results resulted in a hung parliament.

The Conservatives won the maximum number of seats followed by Labour. The Liberal Democrats came in a distant third but they had enough numbers to support either the Conservatives or Labour. In effect the liberals played the kingmaker role. The problem they faced was to reconcile the differences in positions with regard to policies and issues. They were in discussions with both sides to see if the differences could be resolved. Finally they decided to go with the conservatives.

In the Indian scenario, this is not an issue as most post poll discussions are usually not on reconciling policy differences but furthering personal agendas!

Maybe Nick Clegg, the liberal democrat leader could have benefited from a crash course on post poll dealings from the Mulayams or Mayavathis of the world!

Kerala Congress

News from Kerala over the past two days has been dominated by the happenings in the various factions and sub factions of the Kerala Congress. All this has been triggered by the move of the Joseph faction to merge with the Mani group.

One popular news paper today published the history of the happenings in Kerala Congress since it was formed as a break away group of the Indian National Congress way back in the sixties.

From the published table, it looked like the main actors were merging and unmerging the different factions every two years. Reading it I got more confused than before. I guess the latest news is just yet another episode in the long running soap opera!