The mirror crack’d from side to side

Earthquake shook the capital, New Delhi, early hours of today.

Spoke to my brother who stays at JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru Univ) who told me that the quake was pretty severe. Their home really shook. This was sometime around 4:30 AM or so. His immediate thoughts were “OMG! This one is probably around 4 on richter scale if the centre is anywhere near Delhi, and I hope that is so. For if the epicentre is farther away, then the quake is far more severe, and that would have caused a catastrophy somewhere…”.

Turns out that the centre was near Delhi, in the Delhi-Haryana border (and it was some 4.3 or so on the Richter). So the damage was not much.

The other thing that he told me about was the peacocks. (JNU campus has a reasonable population of peacocks. You can always spot a few strolling around, and early morning throaty cries is the music-alarm that folks get up to.). He told me that, immediately after the quake, it sounded as if all the peacocks of the campus were crying together. A real long, repeated, chorus of a morning-alarm. Animal sense is something else. One recalls that during the Tsunami, when the sea receded at first, the animals could sense some doom, and ran away from the shore. Animals sure are far wiser to signs of nature than men.

I remember the last time an earthquake struck Chennai. I had just completed my puja and was bowing down in ‘namaskara’, my head touching the ground, when the earth shook! Were Gods angry? …For a sub-second I thought that I had been struck by some vertigo, dizziness. But then I realized that I was ok and that this has to be a quake. And Chennai is not even in the seismological-risk zones at all. There never had been a quake like that before. Sure was a surprise.

Nature has been sending some calling cards. The quakes, tsunamis, cyclones…And these are but the effects of the twitch of the eyebrows of mother earth. A cough of disapproval. Thats all. And even that is enough to cause enormous damage…What then if Mother Earth gave us a gentle slap?

The way we humans are going about plundering and polluting the earth, one of these days, she may do just that. And then, as the saying goes, there will be none.

Maybe the animals will survive. For the curse is not upon them.

School keys - 2

The kunji was slim, and so to hide it on one’s person and carry it to the examination hall was not a big challenge. But there were some intrepid fellows who took on mightier mountains. I remember a fellow who smuggled the state-prescribed physics book into the exam hall. And that was a real tome, some five hundred pages or so. If I remember right, it was authored by Harnam Singh, perhaps co-authored, for it was fondly referred to as ‘four authors’. Now, the invigilator  who happened to walk the aisle that day had the habit of bending his head suddenly, and our young intrepid student thought he had been caught and he blurted a sudden ’sorry!’. The invigilator woke up to the unsolicited confession, and dived to find out the sin. And there it was, in the drawer of the desk. The huge tome itself! Even he was shocked!

‘Copying’ was a fine art those days, a parallel education passed on by tribal elders. Bit papers with finely calligraphed subject matter were exam-keys for many a student. There was even a name for this ‘bit-paper-meant-for-copying’. It was called a ‘Furraa’, and I dont know if that word is found in the Hindi dictionary. Furraas were kept in geometry boxes, socks, shoes etc. There were some tribal elders who knew the art of attaching these to a rubber band tied to the shoulder, so that it could be released from the palm, and shot back into the sleeve, when danger was spotted. Oh the slings of David!

And it wasnt just the boys who used ‘furraas’. I remember this girl who was caught with a ‘furraa’. And she fainted when she was caught. ‘A’,  she was a girl, and ‘B’, she had fainted. And so she was let off on ‘compassionate’ grounds. Well that would have been fine, except that she brought in a furraa the next exam the following day, was caught again, and she fainted again!

Lets now come to the term ‘ee adichaan copy’.

I asked a few people about the etymology of this colorful phrase, and heres what I heard.

Exams were on. Student ‘A’ telescoped his vision to look at the answer sheet of student ‘B’ sitting in the seat ahead of him. Now, there was a house-fly sitting on the answer sheet of student ‘B’. Student ‘A’, who was very exact in his copying, thought that the fly was a part of the answer, and so caught a fly and pasted it in his answer sheet too. A fly is called ‘Eee’ in Tamil. And ‘Ee adichaan copy’ means, he copied the ‘fly’ as well!

Which brings to mind the famous Hindi proverb - ‘Nakal mein bhee akal honee chahiye’ - “Even to copy, you need some intelligence’…

School keys - 1

School system for us Indians has often been a David vs Goliath kind of challenge, with the might of the entire Education Empire thrown against us poor little cornered kids. But we Davids had our slings and stones, and somehow or other we have all exorcised every school Goliath out of our lives.

My memory goes back to a few of the slings and stones of my school times.

One of them was called a ‘key’ book. These were books that were meant to ease the severe brain burden that an Indian school kid carries. A ‘Key-book’ would contain solutions to all questions listed in the ‘state prescribed’ text book. That the solution would be mediocre (or even wrong), and the book itself bulkier than the ‘prescribed’ book is another story. But its utility was beyond doubt. Imagine, for a moment, a grinning teacher throwing a curve ball at an unsuspecting student…a ball of solid iron, something like –

“Prove sin(a) + sin(b) + sin(c)
  = sin(a + b + c) + 4sin((b+c)/2) sin((c+a)/2) sin((a+b)/2”

Or Prove that sin(2 arctan(x)) = 2x/(1 + x2)…

Now tell me, how many students would look forward to face this ball? 39 out of 40 students in a class would rather not use their brain power to attack such problems. This was not in the list of our priorities for the day. But we were safe in the knowledge that when ‘push comes to shove’, there is always a ‘key-book’ that has the solution to these kind of paper problems. A book with a name like – ‘Trigonometry without tears’…

A ‘key book’! What a comfort!  Who indeed would want to wrestle with questions about asymptotes, axes and foci of a hyperbola without the aid of a book such as “Geometry without Fear” (by, say, Nipat Niranjan, Gold Medalist) ?

So that’s how we did it. Armed with question papers of ‘last five years exams’, and a key book – we successfully overcame many a Goliath.

But then there were some opponents who were far more fierce than the normal Goliath. Take Sanskrit, for example. This was a holy-terror for a large section of the student community. Most would rather worship the Sanskrit book, than open and read it. It was but faith in a benevolent higher power that enabled most kids to enter the battlefield of the examination hall and face an exam in Sanskrit. And for that battle, they had the most ingenious of slings – the Kunji.

The Kunji deserves a post in itself. But I will try and compress it. For that is in the spirit of a Kunji. A kunji was a razor thin book that held the key for the subject in question – shady answers to cosmic questions. The paper that a Kunji was printed in  was a precursor to the modern day toilet paper, a cheap paper of the kind a bus ticket of those days was usually made of. The print was so smudgy, you could probably rub it off with your fingers. Facing a Sanskrit exam, many a desperate  student would smuggle the kunji into the examination hall. And after that it was a ‘pattern recognition’ challenge. Look at the question. See if any question in the Kunji looks similar. Copy the answer, in ‘Ee adichaan copy’ manner. When in doubt put a ‘halant’ mark at the end of a word or two (‘Halant’ is a symbol that makes Sanskrit look Sanskrit). Draw neat lines after each answer. Write the same answer more than once (not in succession though) – and hope that either one or both may be right and that the teacher would be kind of enough to give you credit for at least one of the attempts, if not both. Done. That’s it. QED.

Oh, the kunji was a masterpiece! It was not a tome like other ‘key books’. It was a designer item, a use-once and dispose kind of thing, of great utility. If by chance you were caught by the ‘invigilators’ in the examination hall with a kunji in your hand, you could always swallow the whole thing. Three bites and gone. The material and size of the kunji was such that it would cause no serious digestion issue either. Eat the evidence!

Sirji! What an idea, Sirji!

(Wondering what is ‘ee adichaan copy’? Hold on for the next post)…

The boy who came in from the cold…

Suresh is a general odd-job man. He runs a video business. He also runs a food business. And more.

Sometime around 8 pm tonight, Suresh walked in to my home, bringing this young mentally challenged boy. Looked to be around 10 or 12 years of age. This boy was apparently roaming around, lost, near a photo shop. Suresh has had some experience filming children in special schools, and so could empathize. He tried speaking to the boy, but couldn’t get a proper response. He waited for an hour on the road, but no one came looking for the boy. Then he brought the boy to my home, for my better half runs a special school, and may be able to help. He dropped the boy here and went away.

Now, this boy could speak only four words - Amma, Appa, Anna, Aaya. Nothing else. He was at peace. He didn’t seem perturbed at all. Any question put to him brought only one or more of these four words in response.

I spoke to him in Tamil, asking his name. Suddenly he said something that sounded like Asmir. I asked him “Asmir?”…He said “Anna”…It went on like this, and I thought he said “Asif”…I asked “Asif?”…He said “Amma”….

“Which school?” Ambika asked. She named one special school after another, all to no avail. “Amma, Anna, Appa, Aaya” was all he said. He did respond to one school name. But soon ignored it.

This being Deepavali eve, we had some sweets at home. We gave his some Adirasam. He just ate it up in no time. I asked him if he wanted more. He nodded. And had more.

Now, this boy had no identification. All he had was two labels from a dress-brand, and a bunch of bit-papers (say 40, 50 of them), all with “Sri Rama Jayam” written in Tamizh. That’s all he had.

The boy sat in front of me. Silence. Above, in the wall behind him, was a picture of Ramana Maharshi. I looked at Him. He smiled from the picture.

Meanwhile, Ambika, my better half, was busy. She called Rekha, who runs another special school, Matru Mandir, to figure out if she might be able to help identify this child. Rekha is a real metal person, and she soon sent her driver and her nephew. Idea was to photograph the boy, and then have it given to TV Channels, and to register the details with the local police.

Some arrangement was also being made for housing the boy for the night in a special home.

Just as we were about to leave, Suresh landed up again, bringing a man and another boy. They were family! They were absolutely overjoyed to see the boy! Suresh had gone and waited at the local cop station, and sure enough these folks had landed up there, all in a huff. And he brought them here.

It was sheer drama. They were all emotion. They fell at Suresh’s feet. He jumped.

I asked them the boy’s name. They said “Ramesh!”…Nothing that I thought of!

“Which school does he go to?” asked Ambika.

Turned out that they weren’t sending him to any school. The person who came was Ramesh’s fathers elder brother, Shankar. And the youngster was Ramesh’s elder brother, Ganesh. Ramesh’s father it seems is a painter. Well, we gave them details of Rasa, the special school run by Ambika, quite near Ramesh’s home. Shankar was overjoyed. I noted down their details…

What an evening…

All wasn’t so well that ended so well!

Happy Deepavali! 

Jest in the subcontinent…

Each day the TV brings a new news high.

Day before, it was about the ‘emergency’ in Pakistan.

Channels in India were full of it, channels in Pakistan were going off the air, CNN and other western channels didnt make much of it. (Often, I wonder if all Americans wake up every day worrying about what happened today in Tel Aviv or Gaza strip…The TV coverage seem to indicate that…).

But back to Pakistan.

I was trying to explain to my daughter what ‘Emergency’ was. I told her about revocation of fundamental rights, the constitution being suspended, Supreme Court judges being dismissed, politicians being arrested…None of this made her feel that anything was amiss…

Then I told her that all TV Channels are off, internet was down, cell phones cut off, and no sms…That got her…She was really shocked….No cell phone? No sms? What kind of government would do that? How utterly cruel!

As she rushed to her orkutting, I surfed newschannels.

Pakistani journalists, lawyers, political activists and others were speaking quite freely to interviewers from Indian TV. They said exactly what they thought of the man of the moment, the President-General Musharraf Saab. Lawyers were organizing vocal protests. Looking at all this one wondered about what kind of emergency this was. Surely, when India was under emergency (only once, and thank God for that), one didnt see any such bluster amongst the dissidents. Quite a difference. The Pak drama looked more like “ ’Off with her head’ said the Queen” kind of Alice in wonderland…I wondered…

And then I saw Shekar Gupta in a TV interview, I think it was NDTV. In this  interview, he made an interesting comment. He said that ‘India is a democracy, but there isnt that much freedom of expression…whereas Pakistan is not a democracy, but people pretty much speak their mind…’, or words to that effect.

Savor this.

A news item says that Indian ministers were officially told to keep off from a function in Delhi where Dalai Lama was falicitated. No emergency here. But I believe that obedience was total. (see http://in.news.yahoo.com/071103/20/6msk5.html )

Meanwhile, the Pak cricket team on tour to India just goes ahead with the matches - ‘business as usual’…Although, I guess that the matches wont be shown on Pak TVs (for TVs are off the air)…

Welcome to the subcontinent. Smile please! 

Delhi diary (Sep 2007) - 9

To round off this series on Delhi, I come back to the beginning, and to my friend Roy, who works in the Delhi University. He has a real sweet tooth, and of late he seems to have given a go to the severe regime of physical exercise that he normally subjected himself to, with the result that his  corporeal opulence suddenly started showing. In conversation about these and such, he spoke of his colleague, Shalini, a Jain girl, who was keeping upavaas (fasting), and managed to go whole days together, eating practically nothing. Speaking of her, he then went on to tell me some peculiar tales that she had shared with him, about her home in Old Delhi, and then seeing my interest, he got her to speak to me on the phone. Here’s what she said.

She said that her family has been in Old Delhi for at least the last five generations. And since 1901 they were living in this haveli just off Chandni Chowk. And in that haveli, in one of the rooms, there was a small shrine of sorts, without any specific markings, that was considered a shrine associated with a Pir, a Sufi saint. Well they paid no special attention to this shrine, and sold that part of the  house to a printing press. Soon after that, things started going wrong with her father, and he was into one problem or the other. And then one day he  had a dream. He dreamt that the Pir told him that he was not happy that the shrine had been disturbed, and that, in fact, worship should be offered here. Taking this to be divine direction, he decided to make amends, and went and prayed at that little shrine. From that day onwards he got relief from the problems that plagued him. Some fifteen years ago he sold the rest of the haveli, but he still goes there every Thursday to offer worship.

I asked her, how is it that the current owners allowed him to still use that place for this purpose. She replied - “Allow? Allow kaise naheen karenge? How will they not allow? Earlier they did object, but then they started having so many problems, which were solved only when they allowed worship to recommence. Every Thursday, they give the key of that place to my father.”

I asked her, “well your family had lived there for such a long time. Did you not know this house had had some special association with some saint?”

She said that they didn’t know anything specific.  But there was one other mysterious thing though. There was this basement room that was always kept locked. No one dared open it. On my asking why, she said that the word was that anyone going in would do so at the risk of one’s life. She said that it was believed that there was something special in there, but that special thing was guarded by a snake. ‘A snake?’ I asked. “Yes, snake. Big snake. We can hear it.”, she said. “Have you seen it?” I asked. “Yes, once, when I was young. It was so big. I ran away in sheer fright. That snake comes out very rarely. We offer worship there on Naga Pancami day, and it comes out then.”.

A Jain, a Sufi saint, Naga Pancami - Oh, this moonlight magic of Chandni Chowk!

So went this story that she shared, conjuring this fascinating insight into Delhi, the city of djinns.

Signing off on this note, I leave you with a picture that a kind reader of this blog sent, on reading this series. This is the Rajpath - the road that leads to Rashtrapati Bhavan (President’s palace), the Parliament and other blocks of “G” power.

Enjoy.