high pedigree

The other day I traveled by bus from Thrissur town to the medical college, a distance of 10 km. The bus was smaller than usual, and I noticed a curious thing: every seat on the left side of the bus was reserved for some category or the other. The seats right in the front were of course for "ladies"; the seats just by the front door were for “mothers with babes in arms” (a relatively new category); next were the seats for "senior citizens-women"; then a set of seats for "the blind" (this the first time I've seen this); then the seats for “senior citizens” (presumably only male ones); and last, just over the rear tires, the traditional seats for the “handicapped” (gender not specified). These seats, I have noticed, are invariably cramped for space, the thoughtful providers assuming, no doubt, that those handicapped by missing body parts would need that much less space. Of course, none of the seats were occupied by those they were reserved for; elderly men and women stood, while college boys lounged in the seats. Oh, I couldn't complain; a few months short of my 60th birthday and with no visible handicaps, I knew I had to make do as best I could. So I stood in the aisle, jostled by the bulging backpacks of school students as they excitedly compared their mobile phones. Next year, I consoled myself, I would be eligible for one of the senior citizen seats.
Just before the bus started off an elderly lady boarded it. Gray-haired and with ill-fitting dentures, she wore a starched cotton sari. Not a regular bus commuter, I decided. She had the look of a retired school teacher (principal of a government school perhaps) who was making her monthly visit to town to collect her pension. Anyway, she looked around, all the seats were taken. The seats for senior citizen (ladies) were occupied by two college students, both immersed in their books. Too short to reach the overhead bar, she stood clutching a seat. I could see the stringy sinews of her forearm tighten with each swing of the bus. None of the young women occupying the seats near her got up to offer a seat, and she was too proud to ask. But I was apparently not the only one to notice her. A forty-something man--a Tamil speaking man--sitting with a friend towards the rear of the bus got up, went forward and tapped her on the shoulder, and invited her to come and take his seat. She gratefully accepted the offer. The man, stood in the aisle, and continued his conversation with his friend.
I have been thinking of this on and off since then. Do we really need to label the seats in these town buses (or any bus, for that matter)? Do we really need to read the label to get up and offer a seat to a young mother carrying a baby? Or a blind man? Or an old lady struggling to stand in a moving bus? Even for these short journeys, where we are traveling for 30-40 minutes at the most, why are we so reluctant to extend these little courtesies? Oh, I'm not blaming anyone; I know I have done the same in my time. But the Tamil gentleman in the bus that day shamed me. He did not just get up to offer a seat to someone standing by his side, he took the trouble to get up and go halfway down the bus to invite the lady to come and occupy his seat. I know that I would not have done the same, had I had a seat in the bus. I wish I had this ability to perform such little--instinctive and unselfconscious--acts of kindness.
I was born in Thrissur, the cultural capital of Kerala, the state with the highest literacy level in India, the oldest civilization in the world.
More is expected of me!

dhabha diary

You are in Pondicherry. Turn north at Pattanikadai junction and you are on West Boulevard. Maybe 50 meters down the road, on the left side of the street, there used to be a movie theater called Navina (I think). Close to it was this little hotel. Don't remember the name. Small frontage, but deep. Remember the hotels of small town Tamil Nadu in the 70s and 80s? Green neon light at the entrance. Also, the large tava upon which the master (the cook) would make podi mash (scrambled eggs), expertly beating out a ringing tattoo with two metal spatulas.Like Pavlov's dog, your digestive juices should be flowing now.

This hotel made the best parotta/mutton kurma that I have tasted. The parottas were small, only a little bigger than iddlis. Soft and redolent with ghee, they would melt in the mouth. The kurma was thick and spicy, with perfectly cooked soft chunks mutton.

for heaven's sake

Some years back I had occasion to trek through Ponmudi as part of a team conducting a survey among tribals. The jeep left us at the edge of the forest, where the tarred road came to an end, and we set out in search of tribal hamlets. The ‘road’ narrowed progressively and then began to climb, and soon we were pushing our way, single file, through shoulder-high grass. After an hour or so of this, we stopped to rest. Everyone was too out of breath to speak and it was then that we became conscious of the stillness. So accustomed were we to the sounds of city life that it came almost as a shock to us – this absence of noise. And yet I recognized it; it reminded me of something, I’m not sure what. Of time spent in the womb, perhaps. Or my childhood days in small-town Oddissa; a time when cell phones had not yet been invented, when 24-hour music and news channels were just fanciful thoughts, when the few cars on the road did not make irritating PIP-PIP-PIP sounds in reverse gear, and when the neighbor’s teenage son did not have a 5000-Watt music system to fool around with on a hot Sunday afternoon.

There must be only a few havens like Ponmudi left in this jangling world. That is why I was so pained to see G. Madhavan Nair insist upon—and get—Ponmudi as the site for the prestigious IIST. Another bit of paradise gone! Imagine if, instead, he had asked the government to give him the worst, most useless, piece of land in Kerala and if he had then proceeded to use all the cutting-edge technology at his command to convert the wasteland into something that would rival Ponmudi. That would have been an achievement to be proud of. Much better than sending a rocket to the moon half a century after the Russians and Americans had done so.

voices in the wind

Summer is drawing to a close. There is a slow breeze blowing in from the west. This is the breeze that will soon bring the monsoon to Kerala. This must be the breeze that billowed the sails of Vasco da Gama's ships as he sailed into Kappad on May 27,1498.

On this hot afternoon, I sit in the shade of the mango tree and feel the light breeze on my back. If I listen carefully I can hear the excited calls of the Portuguese sailors as they approach land after almost a month on the sweltering seas.

Did they walk through the streets, gaping at the bare-breasted Malabarese women carrying baskets full of mambazham to the weekly market? One of the sailors must have picked up a yellow fruit from a bamboo basket and bitten into it and felt the warm juice soak into his scurvious gums. 



              According to Merriam-Websters dictionary the origin of the word mango:

              Portuguese manga, probably from Malayalam māṅṅa

              First Known Use: 1582

Sachin Tendulkar: 99 is enough

Why is everyone so afraid to say that Sachin Tendulkar must go? I have just been watching a Karan Thapar interview of Bishen Singh Bedi. Even the otherwise outspoken Bedi just wouldn't come out and say it. Instead, he says: Sachin must be allowed to decide. If he does not make the decision, the Board must decide (to drop him?). When cornered by Karan, Bedi takes recourse to statements like "we are just pygmies compared to Sachin" or "imagine what he has done for the country."

Exactly what has he done for the country? Did he make some great sacrifice? Did he risk life and limb in the service of the country? Did he sincerely grind away at some boring government job so that he could take home a few thousand rupees?

All he did was to continue doing what he enjoyed most--playing cricket. And, what is more, he got paid for it. He earned not a government employee's salary but unmentionable sums.

Ask not what he has done for his country, but what his country has done for him. May be it's time for him to retire and coach youngsters. To give something back to the country that gave him everything.

I am not Anna

I have a representative in parliament – a less than perfect person perhaps, but I chose him, and only he will speak for me. If he does not speak up for me, at least I can remove him from office 5 years from now. But I will not be ruled by street-corner protesters.

If the elected government (with the mandate of a disillusioned people) is trying to ram their version of the Lokpal Bill down my throat, Team Anna (with the mandate of a few thousand holiday picnickers) is trying to do the same with their version. Where is the difference in attitude? Is it true that we slowly come to adopt the traits of the person/thing we hate.

" I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical." -- Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke was wrong. He was not a Sagittarius; born on 16 December, he was actually an Ophiuchus, the newly revealed thirteenth sign of the Zodiac. Among the characteristics of Ophiuchus are mentioned "interpreter of dreams" and "one who reaches for the stars;" apt for Arthur C Clarke, wouldn't you say?

Someone (a French philosopher/scientist, I think) once said something along the lines of: "tell me the position of every atom in the universe and I can predict exactly what is going to happen in the future"? This was when the laws of classical physics - and forces such as electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong and weak nuclear forces - were beginning to be understood. Scientists of the day must have really felt that they were close to "understanding the mind of God."

If we believe that the entire universe is made up of particles that are all subject to the forces of nature then we have to accept that at any instant these particles can move in only one particular way. Which means that the arrangement of the particles on any date can be predicted, provided we have the information and the computing power. Isn't this what astrology, somewhat ambitiously, attempts to do?

You are a mass of matter being subjected to the pulls and pushes of every other bit of matter in the universe. It would be possible to accurately predict your course through space and time if it were possible to know the position of every atom in the universe at the moment of your birth. This of course is not possible. So astrologists make a crude (very crude) compromise. They ignore the influence of distant galaxies. These influences, in any case, come evenly from all around us and conceivably cancel one another out. The bodies in our solar system, on the other hand, are close by and their push and pull cannot be ignored. This can be roughly computed. The method of course cannot be accurate, but it has the potential to indicate a general trend.

An astrologer once told me that only about 60% of what he predicted would be correct. "60%" is no doubt an optimistic estimate but can you doubt that the sun and the moon, Saturn and Jupiter, and Venus and Mars hold you in their invisible arms and lead you through this cosmic dance.