Jaipur leg - 1

Saturday 28th July saw me going back to Delhi.

The flight that was scheduled to leave at 1:10 pm or so was delayed by an hour. Thats ok. In these days of air traffic congestion, this happens all the time. The flight from Chennai to Delhi was somewhat rough. The beginnings of monsoon in many parts of India was announcing itself in the skies, with thick cloud-scapes, and the play of fast winds. The plane bravely tossed its way through these sea-currents of the sky.

We were scheduled to touch down around 5 pm, and the descent was announced. Suddenly the air hostess came on-line in the aircraft PA system, and in a slight panic-voice announced, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, due to heavy rain in Delhi, we are diverting  the flight to Jaipur, Thank you!’.

The plane left the field of turbulence like a warrior getting some time off from battle.

Soon the green-rectangular-patches of agricultural land surrounding Delhi was left behind, as the plane turned towards Rajasthan.

The serious-up-until-now co-passengers, suddenly found tongue, smiles and camaraderie…Plane diverted! What fun! People started to chat with others in and around them, exchanging war stories. Some started forecasting the future.

Meanwhile, the air-hostess came on-line again and announced descent to Jaipur, spoke her standard “Thank you for flying with us. We hope you enjoyed your flight and look forward to flying you again” lines…It sounded as if the journey was over, and ’so please deplane and find your own way to Delhi!’…

Looking out, I could see hills, fortresses…I saw a lot of Minarets, little towers, set in the middle of circular patches…Wonder what they are…Brick kilns? Lots of them around Jaipur.

So, there we were, grounded in Jaipur. With no announcement from the crew as to what was to happen next. It was fairy tale time!

The seat next to me was vacant. An elderly man came and sat down there, and put his cell phone under my nose. During that high-pitch-camaraderie period in the air, I had perhaps looked around beaming, and we had smiled at each other. And so, now that we were friends, he wanted some help. His phone had a message - “Please insert SIM card”, or something to that effect. He told me, “The message is wrong! The phone has a SIM card…I used it in the morning…Don’t know why the phone is not working now…I was to attend a wedding in Delhi as soon as I landed…Now I don’t know how to tell them about this development…Can you do something about this SIM card?”

I brought to bear my several decades of experience in computer technology and asked him whether he had tried to reboot the phone (switching it off and restarting)…He was ready for that one. As if to say that he too had not been wasting his time on earth, he smiled and said he had already tried that. Lands end. I had to hand over my phone to him, so that he could call his near and dear in Delhi and explain why he was in Jaipur and not in Delhi.

When the elderly gentleman was through with his calls, I attempted to bring to bear, once more, my  several decades of experience in computer technology… I had spotted a ten year old kid standing, a few rows behind. I advised the elderly gentleman to check with the kid.

I told him that if anyone in the plane could fix his SIM card problem, this kid could. The man saw light, thanked me profusely and made his way to the kid…Soon the kid was dismantling the man’s phone…

And then there was this cine-actress in the plane….

                                                                        To be contd….

Capital times - 3

I attended a book release function on Monday, 23rd. It was a book on taxation, and was released by Sri P Chidambaram, Finance Minister of India. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Chidambaram tried to allay the apprehensions that people have about taxes. Quipping about the comparison that is made between death and taxes (the two inevitable things), he said that there is “life after taxes”. Putting taxation in perspective, he quoted the adage that taxes are the price that one pays for ‘a civilised society’. Amen for that.

The next day’s front page in most local newspapers carried reports of this gang of biker-thugs who ran amok in the heart of the capital. And this apparently is not uncommmon. Around 150 or 200 bike brigands struck terror at Connaught Place, late hours of Sunday night / early hours of Monday morning. They harassed common people, beat up a cameraman, refused to pay at an eatery, fought with the police…Some 45 of the brigands were arrested.

The same papers carried another article about the previous day in one of the state assemblies where the Chief Minister got into an argument with the leader of opposition.Things became very heated, and the CM went on to say that he would expose all the opposition leaders misdeeds and make him “repent having come out of his mother’s womb”..
 
One is not surprised anymore when one reads of scuffles in the legislature, mikes being thrown etc.

Well, I did go to dictionary dot com to figure out whether they had a new definition for the word ‘civilised’. Doesn’t look like it. Still talks of ‘a high state of culture and development’, and ‘marked by refinement in taste and manners; cultivated speech’…

So, if taxes are the price one pays for a civilised society, we have two choices. Increase the tax rate steeply, and hope that the price is adequate. Or change the definition of the word ‘civilised’.

Any suggestions?

Capital times - 2

Sunday evening saw me settle for an Udupi restaurant, instead of Bengali market. Got ek-plate choley-batoorey packed. Nice restaurant in Munirka - one of the first of DDA (Delhi Development Authority) residential complexes. Used to be called Munirka-gaon (munirka village), before the city expanded and gobbled up the village. And in that place now stands this dense cluster of old flats. The planners of the place never did think that the residents would need real space to park all those cars twenty years later…Place has cars like a swamp has mosquitos. Just all over the place, and quite a nuisance. It is difficult to even walk, considering that there is only so much space left in the road, which, incidentally, is needed by cars as well, and with your average Bunty driving like a circus horse leaping through a ring of fire….well….

So it was, that I set off, plastic-packed choley-batoorey in one hand, and my laptop bag in the other. Did that laptop bag weigh a ton or what! Somehow, passed it from one shoulder to the other, and walked across to Jawaharlal Nehry University campus….Fondly known as JNU, it is a garden of Eden….a badly lit garden of eden….

It was dark, and the street halogen lamps beamed an excuse in terms of lumens…you could barely see the ground, but you couldn’t blame the authorities, for the lamps were functional, altho at very sub-optimal efficiency…Low voltage…Now, who owns that one?

Eyes slowly attuned to this twilight zone, I came across many groups of students…..near the shanty-eateries, chai shops, cigarette shops…on the rocks….

One group was just sitting in the darkness, with a fellow singing a song from hinterland India. A Bihari folk song…He was leading, and some of the more enthusiastic fellows were joining the chorus, and a few others were keeping time clapping….lovely…

As you walk along, you hear so many languages spoken…Assamese, Bengalee, Tamil…sounds from every part of India…. JNU is a real laboratory of cross-cultural India. A sort of compressed-Delhi. With students coming from all over India, it is a mini-cosmos of the wonder that is India.

A professor told me that the entrance test is pretty tough…Folks from all over India compete, and compete hard. Quite a few students hail from places where education systems have all but totally broken down…Many are from economically disadvantaged backgrounds….And so it is that you get this diverse lot of young Indians, different strokes, all talented, all hopeful, stepping into this garden of eden….

And they flower…the alumni of this place has sent ever so many prime-movers into the Indian economy…People who make a huge difference, most of them ever so quietly….social workers, leaders  of NGOs, teachers, diplomats, writers, bureaucrats…then, of course, the noisier ones - the politicians….

Someone told me that JNU is one of those few, select, universities of India, where the teachers havent yet given up…the system hasn’t killed their initiative….Must salute these teachers…After teaching twenty years, I doubt if they draw a salary that is more than what a rookie engineer draws, when he joins his first job. 

Eden may be poorly lit. But eden is eden.

Capital times - 1

As the plane descended towards Delhi aiport, I spotted Qutb Minar on the left. Looked so small from up there. Brought back memories of the sixties, when I had climbed upto the first  pavilion of the Qutb. What a view from up there.

Temparature was (announced to be) 37 degrees Celcius. Hot. But the guardian goddess of Delhi was kind in her welcome of this returning native, and clouds soon gathered, and one had a welcome relief of rain even as one was driving out of the airport. Windows down, I had the joy of breathing lung-full of moist Delhi air, and savor the smell of rain on earth.

Mind went to Choley-batoorey…somehow must get to Bengali market to eat genuine choley-baturey…and Tikki…

Delhi is a city of distances now. It is a spread of what is called NCR - or the ‘National Capital Region’ - with muliple metro-clusters, from UP to Haryana, all connected by pretty OK roads and not-so-pretty road-rage traffic. ‘Aggression’ is needed if you have to navigate this sphagetti. Decency doesnt pay. Every true-blue Dilliwaalaa is a human version of the blue-line bus. The blue-line is a fleet of privately owned buses, that has a reputation of bludgeoning its way through the teeming milieu, and claiming an unfair share of human victims in the process.

The average blue-line Dilliwaala doesnt seem to give distance a thought. Every Banwari and his uncle has a car. Quite a confusing choroeography of mass movement with vehicles sporting number plates from all parts of India. And more cars are landing on the road every day. Dont  be surprised if you see a twenty-two year old driving a big sporty Honda Civic car, or an even younger girl zooming past you in a Toyota Corolla. The former,probably, is working for a multinational company that has given him a big car loan at zero percent interest, and the latter is perhaps a college student taking her dad’s car for a spin and a scrape.

Yes, Dilli does seem to be a huge centrifuge that is spinning its populace around in a closed sky of dust and more dust. But thats no problem, as everyone rolls up his windows and  switches on AC. Imports cool air and exports global warmth.

Meanwhile, they bid farewell today to a fair President - Dr Abdul Kalaam. A good man, that the nation would have liked to see continue. But the politicians wouldnt. Yeh Dilli hai…

Two geniuses and a song

A few days ago, I chanced to see an interview of the Queen of Songs, Lata Mangeshkar, on TV.  It was a great show, with the interviewer leading us through different generations of Hindi film music, each of which has seen Lata as the crest jewel in the crown of songs.

She talked of various music directors that she worked with, their specialities. She talked of Lakshmikant-Pyaarelal, the duo, who she referred to fondly as “children”, who had grown up in front of her, as part of her family….She talked of C Ramachandra and sang a para of the song “Ai mere watan ke logon” - a song that is said to have brought tears to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehrus’ eyes….

And talking about the all-time-great music director RD Burman, she related a touching incident.

This was about a song that RD wanted her to sing. What a duo, RD and Lata! She agreed to do it, but had to go off to USA for some tour. No sooner she was back, RD called her and reminded her about the song. But then she had to go to Delhi for some other work…

And RD passed away before she could record that song. 

But he had already set the music, and so Lata did the song later.  She related how difficult it was for her to sing that song, especially becoz the words were so poignant…

It was the song “Kuch na kaho” - from the movie “!942 - A love story”… 

That song has been humming itself in the background of my mind, since the time I saw that interview…Here’s a para of that song, and a free translation that I have attempted…It is not a literal translation…Just something that I felt…an approximation…a reason to rhyme….

Kuch na kaho, kuch bhi na kaho - 2
Kya kehna hai, kya sunna hai
Mujhko pata hai, tumko pata hai
Samay ka yeh pal tham sa gaya hai
Aur is pal mein koi nahin hai
Bas ek main hoon, bas ek tum ho
Kuch na kaho, kuch bhi na kaho

Free Translation:

Don’t say a thing, don’t even sigh!
What’s there to listen, what’s there to cry!
You know it as it is, and so do I!

The commerce of time
Has taken a pause;
Except for a lone coin
Our world is empty, a loss;
‘Heads’ you, ‘Tails’ I,
What gain in toss?

Don’t say a thing, say nothing at all!

Times of Change - 2

Remember that coin in Sholay?

The one that Jai (Amitabh) tosses, and calls right….The coin that Veeru (Garam Dharam) discovers to be a fake, with ‘Heads’ on both sides?

(Fake coins, known in colloquial as “khota sikka” were a world of their own. Received wisdom had it that you recognize one by rubbing the rim on your palm and if it leaves a black mark, it is Khota!).

Coming back to the toss…

Coins are meant for tossing. I shudder to think of a world where plastic and e-money replace real metal money. Can you imagine a world where the question “Heads or Tails?”, that fine interplay of fate and free will, is not asked? The great game of Cricket is great becoz it starts with the toss of a coin.

Tossing reminds me of the twenty five paise coin. This coin was called ‘chavanni’, in fondness (Nicknamized form of Chaar Aanaa - four annas)…There were some coins one was fond of. Chavanni was one of them. And so was Attanni (Eight Anna coin). These coins were the common man’s daily instruments of life, and one and all were quite fond of them. They were family.

For some reason, the probability of a Chavanni falling ‘Heads’ up when tossed was more than falling ‘Tails’. This was an extremely valuable insight, and a matter of life and death those days, when after returning from school, we had an hour and a half of sunlight during which a whole game of cricket had to be played. If you called right, you bat first.

To my mind, the Litmus test for a coin is whether or not it feels good to toss. The low denomination aluminium coins that came in the sixties, I feel, failed this test.

Take the hexagonal three paise coin, shown here…or the twenty paise one…

Both had a flat tin-coated-wood sort of feel. Looked as if you could bend the coin by pressing hard. Tinsel stuff.

But then there was this other twenty paise coin. Not aluminum stuff. It was a round coin. Bronze. They were of two types. There was the regular one with just a lotus, and there was one with the lotus and the Sun.  Here is a picture, of the one with the Sun…

The magic word whispered about was that the one with Sun had Gold in it! We used to focus x-ray gaze at it when it came to hand..Felt like we were holding the coin equivalent of Alladins lamp! 

Money, money, money
Always Sunny
In the rich man’s world!
Aha-ahaa
All the things I could do
If I had a little money
Its a rich man’s world!

Centre court in Chennai

Nothing different about today evening as I set out for my walk. Sky was clear barring a few white clouds. But there was a lil nip in the air.
 
In twenty five minutes the skyscape had changed. Like a movement of Kaurava army, black clouds, silently, suddenly, swiftly moved into every open position, surrounding all of the land. But they held their fire.
 
Yes, there were the sporadic shots, as lightning cracked the horizon, now here, now there…but no real thunder to “hear” about…One did spot an occasional aircraft, and wondered….And then like a prelim attack, a slow but steady volley of rain made its way to land…Nothing to worry…Got a bit wet….But yes, it was like a slow canter of a few thousand horses, across a hundred acre tract of land…
 
And then, after 8 pm - when night had set in well and true - they started the real assault. Lightnings tearing up the sky, and thunders resounding for long many seconds….The air assault has begun.
 
We are thankfully in our bunkers, and somehow they havent got the power and communications systems yet - and so am able to send this mail, even as the shots are getting louder, nearer…more insistant, impatient….
 
There is a low long grumble, as unseen canons rip the sky from end to end.
 
Indra and Varuna are warming up to play.
 
Love all…

Times of Change - 1

Last time I was in the airport bookshop, I bought a ‘management’ book of name “When my priest’s prostitute met a pickle seller, And I learned how to sell and succeed like love”, by Sanjeev Jha, a Fulbright scholar, Economics Phd, and a (rather unusual) Corporate Sultan. Lovely book. And considering that books normally cost an arm and a leg nowadays, I would say that this book is worth more than its weight in books. Much more. Its a steal. Buy it. That book is like a breezy Ranjitsighji century. Class.

I had to wait a bit for my turn at the payment counter in the bookshop, as the young lady ahead of me had bought four or five glossy magazines (The Cosmopolitan type), all of which were still inside their plastic packing - and the shopkeeper had a job to do to unwrap, pack, bill, as she waved a couple of five hundred rupee notes.She was pretty, and the money was good - and so the shopkeeper was well within his rights to make a fuddy-duddy customer holding a slim management book wait for his turn till Kingdom come.

And when I finally got my turn, I pulled out a well worn 100 rupee note. The book cost 99/- and so I got a one-rupee coin back, as change.

The rupee set me wondering. About the time when a rupee was larger in size than what it is now. Both literally and in terms of purchasing power.

There was a time when there was such a thing as a one paisa coin (one hundredth of a rupee). It was a round bronze coin. Lovely little coin. Here’s a picture.

 

I have seen a more ancient version which had a hole in it.

There was a two paise coin (notice the plural - ‘paise’), and five paise and ten paise coins. Bet that most kids nowadays havent seen these. Here they are

     

The coinage was called NP or Naye Paise, or New Paise. This was because rupee was decimalized, and the times “they were a changin’ “ from four-anna, eight-anna days….

This was around the times when primary school text books with names like “Our Model Arithmetic”, was being replaced with books like “New Maths for Class 3,4 and 5″…I remember my primary school teacher, Sri Ramamurthy, asking me, ’what was new in New Math’…All this “New Math” had come as a bolt from the blue to him,  and he fairly spluttered and choked every time he spoke of it…(But this post is about the rupee, and its parts, and so, we’ll shelve New Math for another post….)

………..To be contd….

 

Songs of silence

Theirs is a different clock,
Whose morning alarm
Rings late afternoon
or later still.

Awake, alert,
When much of the world sleeps.
They retire,
When the first birds rise and sing.

They switch off the rising Sun
Before the attack of dawn,
And pulling off a patch of nightsky,
They wrap it around as a nightgown
And curl into the folds of the land of nod.

It is not that they hate the day,
(thats a different topic, any way)
It is just
That they love the night.

It is in night’s mirror
That they see themselves best.

It is the night air
That they like to breathe
Like to touch.

It is the night’s stillness
That  comes to them
As Cinderella’s shoes.

And yes…

It is in the aloneness of the night
In the hush of their hearts
They hear their lover’s call…