O Méré San(g)am

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

(recently written as a personal message to my older sis)

 

I would like to apologize to you, Didi. Deeply. Humbly. 

Here is my unconditional and unequivocal apology for at least one of the many youthful transgressions and disappointments I caused as a kid... an apology that is more than five decades overdue. I guess better late than never?

These thoughts were triggered by a friend who forwarded a song clip that is probably instantly recognizable by someone of our generation... yeh mera prem patra padh kar and the thoughts swiftly went back to dig up a very vivid memory buried deep. It came back up clear and sharp as if it were yesterday and I was experiencing it fresh as a 5ish year old.

For some odd reasons, our dad (who usually had a very strongly held opinion that Hindi movies were a frivolous waste and a totally corrupting influence on the youth and hence a taboo in our family) had decided that Sangam was the movie that we would go to watch... just us three kids (the youngest was probably 3ish then!?) Perhaps because it was filmed in Switzerland and Paris, places he had visited during his prior overseas trips? Who knows! But that is the very first ever movie I watched in a theater in my living memory. Or tried to watch... Incidentally, the only other movie I remember watching with gang of cousins some years later, OK'd by our dad (and recommended by our uncle), was another Raj Kapoor absurdity called Around the World in Eight Dollars, filmed in many phoren lands as well. 

Ratan Talkies. Premium seats in the balcony. One of my dad's junior employees at work (don't recall the name, he was a short pudgy and balding guy who had paan stained teeth) had some connections at the movie theater and we seemed to have gotten pretty good seats. (He was the same guy who got us tickets to the Gemini Circus later when that came to town which was much more enjoyable.)

Anyways... the seats were dark maroon, velvety, cushy but I found them a bit sticky and stinky. It was a totally unfamiliar experience from anything encountered before in my young life. There was much commotion as other people found their seats and settled in before the movie started. There were tun tun bhaja hawkers ringing bells. It was loud. There was cigarette smoke... and sweaty odors. Younger sis seemed to be taking it in stride with wide-eyed wonder. Older sis was thoroughly enthralled, silently taking it all in. 

And then the whole thing took a turn for the worse (at least to my sheltered childhood self). Suddenly, unexpectedly, the theater plunged into darkness. I realized how unprepared we were for this sudden blackout in the theater unlike the evening power outages at home - no one had flashlights, candles or lanterns. Strangely, no one seemed to be minding this near-total darkness at all. There was no grumbling about those copper wire thieves, poor maintenance, the corrupt bijli board officials and the abject failure of the worthless sarkar unable to provide the very basics unlike in the vilayat. This blackout in the theater seemed to be unlike the ones I was used to. I hated darkness anyway because my hyperactive mind spun horrors in the dark prior to falling asleep and nightmares during the restless tossing and turning. But I gritted my teeth and kept mum. 

 

This was nearly four hours of relentless audiovisual assault on all senses with unnaturally enunciated dialogs and strange costumes. There were weird situations and a meandering story-line. I was not really impressed as I was not interested and couldn't follow the strange story. Every few minutes, just when one would start to relax, someone on-screen burst into a song and a hip-shaking dance number that was long, not at all well-synced with the lip movements. 

 

There was a break about half-way during the movie called the Interval. I could stop the potty dance and go relieve myself in a smelly restroom, which took a huge effort for a kid with a shy bladder. Then the torture began anew after the Interval. They were loud and obnoxious. There was someone playing bagpipes, a dance scene with large white feathers. One other odd item that I recall is someone lighting their pipe with strike-anywhere matches that fascinated me to no end. There were warplanes flying, dogfights and crashes. There was snow that looked like cotton and other unrealistic sets in unfamiliar phoren locations. It made me wonder about adults as it made no sense why they would behave so peculiarly! I had never actually seen or known anyone erupting into songs, dancing around trees, or even in a swimsuit in real life up to that point, so it felt quite strange. 

Most importantly, the latest Indrajal Comics had just arrived and it was waiting unread back home. I was deeply fretting about wasting my time through this movie ordeal instead of enjoying the latest adventures of Mr. Kit Walker, the Ghost Who Walks, who rode a magnificent thoroughbred named Hero and had a wolf named Devil for a pet.  His fascinating ancestral abode was the Skull Cave in Denkali forest. There was Guran his pygmy Bandar sidekick and the lovely girlfriend / fiancée Ms. Diana Palmer, the Olympian skater. I was missing out on the Phantom's fists flying through the air (betaal ka mukka hawaa me lehraaya), his ring leaving skull marks on the villainous jaws. Impatiently squirming in my seat, thinking that maybe this time could also have been so much better spent with the cricket kit that I had recently acquired, which had made me the natural leader for the neighborhood kids. But nooooo... here I was, stuck with this fillim nonsense, my resentment simmering like a pot of water on low heat, slowly building up. 

And then it all came to a head. Somehow, a pistol made an appearance in the movie. There was shouting, accusations, gut-wrenching dialog, copious tears, and other melodramatic things. People all around us were absorbed in the movie, soaking up the fascinating scenes unfolding on the screen in silence.

All, that is, except this one idiot kid who started sobbing loudly and uncontrollably and could not be consoled. It was almost the end of the movie and just before the finale with the song O Mere Sanam. But the unfortunate family walked out from the theater before the movie actually ended, much to the deep disappointment of the older sister. I remember that sad, haunting look on the sister's face vividly to this day. 

Do you remember this one, Didi? And do you forgive me?😁

 

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

 

The Pen Pal Club

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

(What I Did During My Summer Vacation, originally posted Jan 2022)

 

The recent discussions here about the benefit of certain UNESCO recognized “best, most historic personal letters” to certain cricketers and other Indophiles brought back some long-forgotten memories. Yes, dear readers, it does seem like much of my childhood trauma memories involve Sr. Carmella, she of the Jesuit order of Benevolent Ruthlessness… 😂

I don’t know if others had this experience in their childhood as well, but the joyful, seemingly endless summer vacation was preceded by “morning school” for a few weeks. “Morning school” was a curious mix of sullen, sleepy kids and cranky, sleepy teachers. And of course, Sr. Carmella, filled with angst and dreading the summer of kids filled with fun and frolic and… forgotten textbooks. My neighbor and partner in crime, Babul, and I would park our brains ignoring anything resembling “learning” during those two months. Although we went to different schools, we had the same common experience as probably many of our generation. At my school, Sr. Carmella often wagged her fingers in dismay, disappointment, and distaste upon the resumption of the “day school” after summer. She rightly feared a large majority would regress during the detested break. I think she detested the very thought of summer. No one, students, parents or other teachers had the guts to say otherwise since, after the summer vacay, the classroom resembled a wiggling can of mutinous worms during the first few days. We were more interested in sharing details of our exotic train journeys, boundless fun at grandparents’ homes, shared homemade goodies, carefully shielded from Sr. Carmella’s watchful gaze. One or two unlucky, foolish ones would get caught, alas, and their plight was enough to re-establish Sr. Carmella’s authority. We learnt quickly before any tiny or mass rebellion could ensue.

One year is particularly etched in my memory. I suspect that the evil plans were hatched with the involvement of some of the parents including mine. One fine “morning school” class close to the start of the Summer vacation, Sr. Carmella announced… the “Pen Pal Club”. During the regular year, we had learned the structure of writing formal letters to local dignitary, a skill that she thought would prepare us to become proper gentlemen and ladies later in life. If you all went through similar torture, you would recall that the letter was supposed to start with Honorable Sir or Madam So’n’so and end with Respectfully, Humbly, I Remain, Yours Truly. In between The Beginning and The End was the bulk of the word sandwich. It was supposed to be at least one full page, complete sentences, in cursive handwriting, single spaced, above the line except for certain lower-case letters, no repetition of words, I mean, no repetition of phrases, no repetition, none, period). No run-on sentences. It would start with Very Proper and Polite Introduction, Meaty (or Veggie?) Middle Fluff and Dutifully, Humbly, etc. ending phrases. 

 

No horrible word-stretching with ‘-ish’ suffix, no late-ish evenings, no cool-ish night. Sr. Carmella was quite horrified when I challenged this fool-ish ban by submitting my homework as “Engl” paper. That earned me a note to my parents and a quiet chuckle from my father, so I think I was OK with that tiny rebellion.

For the Pen Pal Club - we were to compose a few proper missives using good style, choose effective words and elegant prose – a minimum of five letters with varied Middle Fluff, about our school, our lives, etc. We were to bring it to school after the summer. Once approved by Sr. Carmella, the school would help us find one or more pen-pals in distant lands, and our parents were to help foot the bill for airmail stamps and encourage a continuing and brilliant dialog with the resulting learning of other cultures, lifestyles, language, art, society, history, geography, and suchlike things.

 

Babul went to a different school as I mentioned before and should have escaped my summer ordeal except that mashi ma, his mom, found out about my enforced summer learning adventure from my mom. He was pretty much sentenced to do the same as well under my mom’s watchful eye alongside me. I, a budding philatelist, was crazy about the thought of receiving phoren stamps from the pen pals. I embraced the idea with gusto and probably composed 10 or so letters over the summer. Not only the content was superb (about my school, about my puppy, about mango orchard at my grandparents’, about my expertise at carrom and marbles and about hot weather, all the things that someone in distant land might find fascinating). I think my penmanship was excellent – not like a “spider dipped in the inkwell, crawling on paper”, as Sr. Carmella had often described. Those were the days of quill pens; no fountain pens were allowed at our age. Ball-point pens were considered the devil’s instrument designed to make your fingers crooked and your handwriting illegible for life. Sr. Carmella had confiscated several such rude, crude and socially unacceptable writing instruments. And my letters were (mostly) free of smudges from the ink-well for the quill-pen.

 

Babul, of course, was a ton smarter than me and managed to produce the minimum required five such “pen pal” letters quickly by copying several of mine. As far as I know, once completed, his were never read by anyone at all and he resumed his usual summer fun of no-brains-required activities. mashi ma deposited his pen pal letters carefully with the old newspapers pile at his place, to be sold to the raddiwala during his next visit.

 

Mine were reviewed by Sr. Carmella at the end of that summer who surprisingly found several quite acceptable. My classmates, however, detested me and my prolific pile of letters. I had to share some extra goodies to win back some friends. I proudly took the approved one’s home with addresses to some pen pals in distant lands that Sr. Carmella had procured from somewhere. My parents, when they found several such letters to be air-mailed to phoren lands, immediately figured out the total cost of such mailing over the course of the future interactions and asked tactfully to choose only one. the very best one of them. That letter was mailed duly at a cost of some unheard of rupees in an airmail envelope carefully sealed with extra glue. The rest of the missives, after a respectable period of restful preservation on my mom’s pile of correspondence, were consigned to the raddiwala heap at my home for his next visit. Incidentally, I never did get a reply from a Master D Markham, Someplace, UK. So, Mr. Dennis M, Someplace, UK (in the late 1960s) – you owe me a response, my pen-pal, for this letter about my remarkable string of Carrom-board victories over my friend and archenemy, Babul. I remain, Yours Truly in anticipation. BTW, in his pen-pal letters, Babul was the victor, and I was the loser during that summer tournament of Carrom champions.

So here we are… does anyone know how many pen-pal letters were sent leading up to the 75th Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsava – no issues with cost of airmail stamps here, I assume. From media reports, some of pen-pals have started responding, unlike my sad experience. The benefit, you ask? Maybe this was a winter-break exercise set by Sr. Carmella and the über-achiever responded by maybe sending out 75 such letters. And… all of us are now mystified, distracted, not asking… as the song goes “What have you done for me lately, ooh, ooh, ooh, yeah?” And repeat after me, Swiftly, “Haters are gonna hate, hate, hate”.

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

YoYoGa

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

(What I Did During My Summer Vacation, originally posted June 2023)

It's been an interesting week between the sinking feeling about OceanGate and a Wagnerian opera unfolding in Mother Russia. In between, there was some investigating of investing in a girl child and installation of political optical fiber that has made WhatCrapp U so successful. There was Mary Millben's rendition of jana gana mana with at least one claim of her possible Gujarati origin Meri milli ben, her touching feet, etc. We all felt so giddy. So proud. Perhaps her roots and Oklahoma! the musical is based on The Gujarat Story. 

 

Ignoring the noises in the unsocial media, I was trying to enjoy a peaceful summer evening here, deep in a book. Listening to Yo Yo Ma while sipping some potent potable. But all things blissful in life are fleeting, my den was rudely invaded. The evening moment of Zen was interrupted by Mrs YT, who asked what I had planned regarding the report from my recent physical checkup. 

I had completely forgotten about the errant charts that the miserable medical bloke had handed over to me accompanied with disapproving "tut tut's", looking over his half-moon glasses, suggesting quite a few drastic changes to my lifestyle. I think it is only a matter of semantics - but he called it sedentary! I am told it was not a compliment. And I squarely blame it on Mrs YT and her culinary skills, my occupation as a corporate mouse driver, the weather, the unsocial media, etc. The list of villains responsible for my dad bod father figure is long indeed.  

I had to hold back from reminding this shaman that just because he had some fancy, yellowing vellums from über-hyped med schools, printed in gothic fonts and framed in ornate walnut hanging in his office, his med school did not teach him "bedside manners" which could use major improvements! He should show some respect since his country club dues were being paid by the exorbitant fees he was charging me. But I desisted from casting aspersions on his education, experience, or humanity.

Anyway, Mrs YT had not come into the den with just another random disruption as usual. She had a very well-conceived plan. A definite course of action. She had signed me up for Yoga classes at the local community center. Bought me a nice-looking outfit, which included a comfortable t-shirt and shorts. A neon-green glow-in-the-dark headband. And a Yoga mat. Matching water bottle. I felt like a preschooler about to march into a new classroom at the beginning of the academic year. I was handed the schedule, fresh off the printer. It was also entered into the family Google calendar, making sure to avoid any conflicts. With several reminders set up. A Google Maps driving instructions link. A smallish class size, not a crowd, she said. The ruthless efficiency of the airtight set-up left me sputtering. She had blocked every exit hole. No wiggle room. Left absolutely no backdoors for the cornered rabbit's escape. 

I choked back a (Boutros Boutros) Ghali or two and nodded feebly. She marched out of the den triumphantly, and I lost whatever zest in life I had been experiencing that evening, musing bitterly over the future darkness. 

For the first session, I arrived at the appropriate location and appropriate time (no, it wasn't at the UNGA HQ and, no, not on the International Yoga Day) to be greeted by a young lady named Danae who introduced herself as the instructor. She had all the fake humility of a TV guru (although not vishwa-class), lulling, soothing voice, and a conman level calm demeanor I had seen those in my early childhood from several experienced elementary school teachers who maintained the delicate balance between keeping the toddlers from bursting into tears while guarding against any possibility of a jailbreak. She positioned herself between me and the exit while keeping up the banter. "You can call me Dani." 

Then, the rest of the cohort arrived together. To my surprise, it was a group of youngish ladies, perhaps in their 30s at most. All had their hair up in buns or in bouncy pony tails. Comfortable croptops over their shapewear. Yoga pants. Dressed for Yoga success. With a jaunty air. Confident. Chatty. Bright-eyed. Determined. Cheerful. Smiling. Friendly. I said, "What luck!" to myself and cranked up my charm like an aging AC unit on full blast on a hot summer day.  

Soon, their croptops came off (I kept my t-shirt on). Colorful Yoga mats were unrolled on the floor. Pretty water bottles were placed next to them. New-age music from modern and ancient instruments started to flow. We all sashayed through a long series of namaste's. Bowed to the instructor. To each other. To the universe. To the four primary directions. To the earth and the sky. To many celestial objects. Commenced various breathing exercises, starting with pranayama. I was surprised at all the variations. Vaguely did an inventory of my life skills and found myself sorely lacking - I wasn't even aware that they ever existed during my humdrum existence to-date. With that much oxygen flowing into my brain, I was feeling a bit woozy by now. 

Dani kept us moving through the various contortions and positions. I tried to keep up with class - with plenty of encouragement from my cohort of young ladies. Never was heard a discouraging word. Whatever Yoga position could not be followed by moi in flesh, the spirit indeed was willing. I couldn't, I wouldn't let my cohort down. 

Soon, mercifully, we were winding down. I plopped down on the mat to explore my within, to get in touch with with my inner self. I was exhausted, breathless, nauseous by then, unsure which end was up.

Dani asked us to go in deep into our minds. To go to our mental happy place. To realign our physical postures gradually to a more peaceful position. Half-asleep, I shifted my neck and positioned my head to the right. Next, she asked us to imagine serene, natural settings. Hills, dales, waterfalls, rain-forests. And to my utter surprise, I did see a couple of gentle hillocks and soft valleys curving ever so gracefully within my field of vision. Elated at having achieved this level of bliss and oneness with nature during my very first session, I was about to pat myself on the back when I noticed not just one but many such formations. A series of such undulating hills and shimmying valleys. Rising and falling rhythmically. All around me. Only then I realized with a start that these hills and valleys were Ms Annie, Nickie, Maia, Sonia and Tracie, aka the cohort. Hmmm.

Afterwards, Mrs YT asked me about the class, and I said nonchalantly,"Oh, nothing special. Just Yoga, you know." Later, I overheard her talking to some friend on the phone, "I knew it would be good for him to be in that group of young women." The heck? She knew! 

I had a good mind to quit on the spot for this treachery! But then I reflected further. After all, doesn't Yoga teach us forgiveness and acceptance? With that enlightenment, I guess my lessons will continue. 

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

Trains, Trainings & Transgressions

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

One doesn’t know how good one's memory is until one tries to forget something, as the saying goes. 

Ah, summer of 1977... end of the dreaded freshman year. YES!!! I was among the survivors. We were standing tall there. Feeling proud, dizzy, perhaps with the heady mixture of fumes on the crowded platform at Kharagpur junction, shoving our suitcases through the windows of three-tier coaches, on the trains bound for a multitude of destinations. 

I have not taken a train journey in India in nearly three decades but my brain is still trying to decipher the actual proportions of regular dirt, coal dust, belching smoke, diesel fumes, chemical cleaners, body sweat, human and canine waste and other unknown ingredients - that very special odor of humanity intertwined with the massive machinery of transportation unique to Indian Railways, not found elsewhere. Oh, the clothes in those suitcases absorbed that special travel aroma. It hung around for days after the journey, no matter how tightly those boxes had been sealed shut. Any ChemE's ever figure out the permeability of that miasma and process of osmosis behind this yet?

My main choice those days was the Howrah-Ranchi-Hatia Express. The "Express," I believe, was merely a PR hype for a train that took nearly 8 hours to navigate a 300km route. It stopped at nearly every station along the way with bone-rattling jerks. It started with a wheeze and a mighty puff at every stop, moving along at its leisurely pace when it actually locomoted between the scheduled halts and the unscheduled ones that we called ruktā pur. When the train ran on time, it reached my hometown in the morning around 6 am, not too early, not too late.

On that morning, it actually arrived at a perfect time so there wasn't much demand for the services of a few sleepy, surly taxiwāllās lurking around near the station smoking bidi's near their ancient boxy Ambassadors. I don’t recall if the three-wheeler rattletraps were as ubiquitous in those days as they are today, but distinctly remember those four-wheeler deathtraps. A convenient conveyance was contracted by a few of us strangers who formed an instant bond after we discovered we were all headed to the yyy mohallā's, xxx nagar's & zzz puri's not too far from each other. After a brief, friendly but tense verbal duel with the grumbling cabbie, several of us piled in, ignoring any concept of personal space. Many of our boxes and bags were stuffed in the dicky with a broken lock that didn't quite close properly. A number of suitcases were also piled on the top, strapped down with sturdy ropes snaking in and out of the windows. 

The concept of automobile air-conditioning in those days was essentially either all windows fully up or fully down using a hand crank. There was only one hand crank available for all four windows in this jalopy, which the cabbie offered to us, but it was never needed. When fully up, the merest touch of the crank on the remnants of the crank mechanism protruding by the side brought the windows down fully at an impressive and terrifying speed. We just left the windows alone while getting getting reacquainted with the place, fresh māti ki mahak blending with the unburnt petrol fumes from the exhaust of our cab and others on the road, all of them desperately in need of regular maintenance.

I was looking forward to the summer, returning to my hometown. With an IIT brand and a swagger to assert my rightful place with the prestige I was due - among my homies and assorted other neighborhood Sharmaji's betas & betis who were engaged in their educational pursuits at other lesser portals of learning, not Dedicated To The Service of The Nation. 

Unfortunately, something called summer PT (Practical Training) interfered heavily with my dreams of social dominance. I had to spend the next eight weeks at a place called the Heavy Engg. Corp. While IIT was already operating on a five-day week, dang HEC place was a six day operation. I am not sure what your summer PT experiences were, but mine are below. 

This PSU entity was originally set up with Russian and Czech collaboration to design and manufacture, in theory, all the required heavy-duty pieces and parts for humongous steel mills and other such very large industrial installations. Its three divisions were focused on Foundry & Forge, Machine Building & Machine Tools of gigantic size parts and equipment. If you feel you don’t know what that means, fret not. In spite of spending two summers there, most of the learning of any manufacturing basics evaporated quickly, thank heavens. 😁

What do I remember from those sixteen weeks? 

First, getting to the plant required me to leave home fairly early. I had to either walk or take a rickshaw to mid-town, then take a bus for the hour-long ride (seemed longer) that dropped me off about half km from the main gate of the plant. The first day, I had to walk through a gauntlet of striking workers, shouting many impressive slogans like nahi chalegi nahi chalegi, inqilab zindabad, and other choice words aimed at the management. I still don’t know who "Mr Rao" was but apparently he was a deeply despised and thoroughly corrupt individual, according to these strikers and he was being requested in no uncertain terms to cease his dhokāghari & bhrastachār, etc. Immediately. This gauntlet repeated nearly every day with a different cast of characters as I found out there were 23 unions representing the workforce, and on any given day, one or more was on strike. The trek back home every day was also the same multi-modal journey. This routine taking most of the waking moments six days a week ruined most of my social plans over those two summers. 

Once past the gate, I reported to the Training Office. There were these two stalwarts in the main office that eyed me up and down, causing me to check if my fly was unbuttoned. They oversaw the engineering summer interns as well as their own apprentice trainees. After waiting for about an hour, I was summoned into the inner, dark, cool office of the elderly boss that I nicknamed Sleepy. Sleepy usually snoozed most of the day in his air-conditioned chamber. Rumor was that there were very few offices equipped with A/C units, none other in the entire place for someone at his rank. Sleepy apparently knew some dirt about some higher-ups and had finagled enough funds from the training budget to furnish his office properly for the blazing summer while everyone else roasted. 

Sleepy cut me down to size and put me in my place efficiently and ruthlessly by asking just a couple of sharp and specific questions about casting and machining; I didn’t learn any of this actually until the third / fourth year at Kgp. My freshman year workshop experience from Kgp was clearly worthless. Sleepy tut-tutted his annoyance loudly, bemoaning the future of the country and general lack of technical talent, aptitude, capacity, or desire to learn the right skills among the youth. His two minions, both ex-machinists who had had some unfortunate industrial accidents earlier in their careers and had found desk jobs in the Training Office, snickered loudly and sniffed disdainfully at appropriate points during Sleepy's inspired speech. Or, I suspect, a speech he had honed and delivered multiple times to hapless trainees to establish his reign of terror early. 

I was the only person from IIT there. My cohort included a pair of Saxena's who were cousins, both attending BIT Mesra. There were some others from nearby RITs. I had a heck of time explaining the difference between IIT and ITI to Sleepy and his two henchmen who asked me what "trade" I was pursuing. By now I was quite afraid to toot my own horn about eventually becoming a MechE in the face of my already evident abysmal knowledge and colossal ignorance. I clearly was found lacking with no redeemable qualities and was scared to drag KGP's reputation further in the mud. I still get flashbacks of that ragging-level first-day chat.

We dubbed the other two Sleazy and Wheezy. Sleazy had a scar on his pock-marked face that helped form a permanent sneer when talking. Wheezy was clearly asthmatic and took a variety of pills and potions from his desk drawer throughout the day. 

I later found out that the dad of one of the Saxena cousins was a senior level executive at HEC. Apparently, that had then led to a similar "cut 'em down to their size" interview on their first day. The cousins and I became friends quickly with a common set of enemies in the HEC Training Office. We developed deep and mutual distrust and loathing of the training department personnel, and I think they reciprocated the same way. 

The Training Office was near the main entrance to the plant. We had to sign in, in-person in an attendance register in front of either Sleazy or Wheezy. And the same while leaving at the end of the day. We quickly learned to stay away from that office during the rest of the day by finding many hiding spots. We learned the daily routes and timings of the two junior training managers who walked around making sure the trainees were actually on the plant floor. We did learn a lot about goofing off without getting in trouble. Not much about engineering. I recall the three of us sneaking out to get back to town to watch the shenanigans of a husband with a roving eye played by Sanjeev Kumar with a beautiful wife played by Vidya Sinha in the then recently released Pati, Patni & Woh. I had such a crush on Ms Sinha then. 

Our escapades were clearly not as amusing to the others in our cohort as they were to us three. The $hit really hit the fan about a week before the summer training was over when one of the cousins sneaked off during the day to take care of some package delivery for his girlfriend, a certain lovely Ms Sengupta who was summering in Singapore. I willingly participated in the plan to cover for Cuz 1 with the clarity and logic of our teenage brains. Cuz 1 could not return to sign out in person that particular but Cuz 2 had practiced enough to forge his signature perfectly while I distracted Sleazy with a prolonged discussion about some questions about the casting defects found on the "cup and cone" for the blast furnace that had ruined some project manager's career that day. We walked out that evening jauntily, elated at having pulled it off successfully. However, maybe it was Sleazy's deep distrust of us, or maybe his suspicions were aroused due to my displayed level of interest in the topic discussed. Most likely, one of the other trainees in our cohort ratted us out for whatever reason. The trio was summoned the next morning to Sleepy's inner chambers with Sleazy and Wheezy present, and the attendance register was brandished as evidence of our heinous perfidy. Cuz 1 was summarily expelled from the Training Program while we got a prolonged tongue-lashing. We protested the best we could about the lack of evidence or any corroborating witnesses to come forward in public, etc. but it didn't sway Sleepy. Eventually, Cuz 2's dad came into the picture and spent some of his political capital soothing an aggrieved Sleepy. I don’t quite know whether he used any or all of his arsenal of sām, dām, dand or bhed to get Sleepy to reinstate Cuz 1 for that last week. He told us in private to, and I quote, "Cut the $hit out, guys." but with a twinkle in his eye as he left quickly to go back to his executive offices. I later found out he was an ex-Kgpite from many many moons ago. Whew!

I did create two impressive and thick PT Reports, one at the end of each summer. These files with full of details about the industrial facility, their machine tools, the processes, etc. etc. which I submitted to the MechE dept. And promptly erased those lost summers from my memories. Or so I thought. What I omitted from the reports was a deep personal resolve - to never ever get into the manufacturing operations again in my life. I deeply respect and most humbly salute those colleagues around the globe who did and who do.

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆 

PS: The timeline may be off a bit, but the names and incidents are absolutely real. The Saxena cousins exist and so does Ms Sengupta. Sleepy, Sleazy and Wheezy are probably employed in the netherworld by now, running El Diablo's training office.

Shop Therapy

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

(originally posted Diwali 2021, following a WhatsCrapp forward advising people to shop for Diwali at the right places, you know, whose owners worship the right deities)

Dang! No wonder my childhood Diwali memories are more traumatic than dramatic, we only partly followed such... bigoted sage advice from WhatsCrapp U.

Let's see... my leaky mind isn't the best recalling the details but, at the risk of friends trolling me about Sr Carmella like memories, here goes...

Besides the idols of Ganesh & Lakshmi, and some puja samagri items, which were not high on my Diwali shopping list... this is what I recall.

Our new clothes stitched were at a tailor shop we called Khan darjee dukan. The main Khan bro had his glasses hanging from from a string around his neck, a measuring tape snaking around various parts of my body, chalk smeared fingers flying all over, gesturing furiously, talking to my parents. He never actually put his glasses on so am not sure of accuracy of the measurements. He shouted vague numbers to a sullen apprentice who muttered his responses and scribbled something down in a tattered potha. The clothes we got were tailor made for sure, but never stylish and didn't fit well. Parents firmly believed in getting larger sizes because... he will grow into it, of course. All the grief because, now I know, inappropriate Diwali shopping preferences.

The patakha's, tumris, phuljhari, rockets, azgars, etc. the high priority items on my list were procured from this thin, bearded Usman kaka who appreciated Lakshmi but did not worship... we agonized for hours at his stall, trying to get the most from the few rupees (not even double digits). No wonder half his stuff fizzled, not sizzled... sputtered rather than soared. No bang for the buck there. That heathen, non-Diwali worshipper clearly swindled us. 

My worst memory is saving few paisa's at a time till I had enough money to buy the little metallic black shooter from the stall right outside Durga Bari, you know what I am talking about, the one with revolving red charkhi with those little black dots that one put inside the shooter. It went BANG each time one pulled the trigger and the next black dot was ready to go, propped up by a spring-loaded mechanism. There were three sizes of the shooter, the smallest is what I could afford with my savings. The larger ones went for like Rs 2.50 and 4:00 and were out of reach. Disapproval but not denial by parents and I was the happy owner of one shiny such contraption. Added a couple of reels of the red black dotted charkhi ammunition to my arsenal. The next day, while brandishing the shooter triumphantly in front of my group of friends, I dropped it on a hard concrete floor. After a couple of bounces it disgorged its innards. A specific pin and spring mechanism saw the sunshine that it wasn't supposed to see. I could never make that shooter functional again. Pretty sure now that the vendor was a non-worshipper. 

It also set me forward on the path to hell... that of becoming a techie.

All because I did not shop at the proper outlets at Diwali.

 

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

A Humble Bow on Teacher's Day

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

 

(originally posted Sep 2022)

 

Ah, Teacher's Day. Brings back so many memories. Many teachers have influenced and shaped this lump of mis-shapen clay over the years - some in ways that they never intended. But none rise to the level of, you guessed it, Sr Carmella, the Ruler with the mighty ruler, the red-ink Redeemer, the Molder of hearts and minds, the one that put a curse in my cursive handwriting. 

One particular year stands out the most. I forget exactly what grade it was but it was after kindergarten (with the fond memories of dueling with new koh-i-noor pencils and the coveted, scented, green-white erasers) and before the high school days (which was the last time we... knew it all).

The students, pushed, poked and prodded guided by a few disinterested teachers reluctantly put on an annual after-school Teacher's Day event inviting the parents to recognize the teachers, showcase the budding talent and, I suspect, push fundraising. Almost every Sharma jee and their respective Auntie jee attended. Or so it seemed. It gave them a chance to catch-up with other Sharma jee / Auntie jee's and brag about the accomplishments of own brats brood. The aftereffects were felt for weeks by us because many of us were admonished at home in the following days about that fabled, despised überachiever Sharmajee ka beta and our own wasted youth (I suspect we all have taken turns in that role for our fellow classmates in their own respective homes at some point).

The talent portion of this extravaganza consisted of classical songs (no Bollywood, thank you!), skits, and recitals of Hindi and English poems selected by Sr Carmella. There was various levels of enthusiasm for participation amongst the students. Many of the individuals picked for the various routines volunteered were voluntold and had no choice but to perform. The most unfortunate of the kids were assigned female roles in the skits (it was an all-boys school). Such hapless kids were teased mercilessly by the rest of the barbarian horde who did not seem to have any appreciation for arts or culture and clearly were raised by wolves with no civilizing influence in their lives outside school. I confess I may have participated in this hazing shamelessly at some point... under peer pressure, of course (that is my excuse and I am sticking to it). I humbly apologize for all such youthful indiscretions to my then classmates.

As for auditions, they went (as planned) - not well as I had no desire to participate. I recited a couple of English classical poems dutifully but with insipid disinterest. Mr CC (Cyril Cecil) Richards was the English teacher with a dedicated manner and a desiccated heart to go with it. He mercifully picked others over me and expressed his disappointment in no uncertain terms about my lackluster performance. He had such hopes. 

The Hindi teacher, Sri Hareram Pandit (uncharitably called haraam pandit by many, since he assigned lots of homework and was always repeating aaram haraam hai), well, I was already on his $hit list since the beginning of the year. I may have mentioned this disapproval in an earlier post about my Hindi homework, about not rising to my potential, and he took no time to rule me out of the lineup without the mercy-killing resorted to by Mr Richards. 

My off key singing and fidgeting knocked me out of the chorus lines of the rendition of a composition extolling the gurus over the ages. That song was specifically composed for that occasion by Kavi BKP (baanke piya) Akela who was a constant presence in most local kavya sammelan's and insisted we call him kavi raj. He accompanied that song with a mean harmonium that still sends chills down my spine. That number, thankfully, had not been heard of before or... since that evening. 

Having successfully navigated the auditions minefield, I was happily reading a mind-expanding Enid Blyton's Adventure book during classs while other unfortunate classmates had been pulled into many rehearsals going on around the school. Then my plans went awry. I suspect one of the teachers (or my best classmates) ratted me out and I sensed doom with a capital D. Sr Carmella arrived in the classroom and informed the class (and me) that they needed an EmCee for the event and I was it. The rest of the class cheered this announcement with an equal mixture of relief, glee, envy, jeers and other assorted feelings. My perusal of that Adventure series book was rudely and crudely interrupted. 

I spent that entire week in close proximity of Sr Carmella. I wrote and rewrote short intros to the various items. Endless reviews. Repeated revisions. All I recall was there was an impressively large number of performances (each grade, if not each section had at least two), and the number of short intros was equally large. With a great deal of patience, she made suggestions about powerful word choices, proper grammar, accepted composition, the pitch, the delivery, the poise, etc. etc. She was relentless. She was cajoling. She was encouraging. She was firm. Once we (she, mostly 😂) agreed on a final version, she had me memorize each item and rehearse the delivery endlessly in front of her. As a final word of advice, she told me to ad lib if my mind went blank. 

The dreaded evening arrived. I don't actually recall moving from behind the curtains but I must have, in a total state of funk, been gently pushed out in front of the audience by Sr Carmella. I saw in front of me a crowd of impatient parents and restless fellow students. With wobbly knees I folded my shaky hands. Somehow I found my voice and greeted the crowd about the fun filled evening to come. And we were off with humko man ki shakti de na enthusiastically belted out behind me, by a troupe of individuals hidden in the anonymity of the group. (The only Bollywood number that evening) Once the jitters wore off, about halfway through the evening, any botched delivery, flubbed lines and prepared scripts went out of the window. My induction into the Art of 3Bs (blah blah blah) can be traced back to that evening. Some classmates came back in the following days and called me an attention hog. But my 15 minutes of fame was quickly forgotten, when durga puja break arrived.

Thank you, Sr Carmella, for getting me ready for life - I still use her advice and the Art of 3Bs for many of corporate and customer presentations. 

To everyone - hope you all had your lives enriched by a least one Sr Carmella.

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

Curdistan - the Happiest Place in Universe

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

 

(in light of the World Happiness Index and the unsocial media outrage over what to call certain milk products, first posted March 2023)

 

Jai Ho! Honorable MEA has already opined,

Foolish rankings occupy feeble phoren minds.

Lactose-intolerant, feeling low, quite butthurt.

With matters that matter... this slimy yoghurt.

The entire notion is patently absurd,

Taking perfectly good milk, turn it into curd.

No, just NO! It's thayir. Quit stalling.

No dahi! Hands off, STOP! Says MJ Stalin.

It's thayer, naysayer, you stupid hindiwalla!

We don't want dahi. Never! In Kerala.

Kadu! Kadu! perugu, perugu, perugu, 

A thousand times! My brother, in Telugu. 

In Carnatic music, we sing of mosaru

All together now! ellaru ellaru!!

Add doi to papod & mishti with meals.

In Kolkata, for parfect kalcharal feels.

Iogurte, Joghurt, jogurtti and yaourt,

тараг, said Genghis, sitting in his yurt.

γιαούρτι to Zorba, and to the rest of barbaricus,

It's just plain Lactobacillus bulgaricus.

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

 If You're Grumpy and You Know It

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

(with outrage expressed all over unsocial media over World Happiness Ranking, originally posted March 2023)

"This ranking is rank!" cried Gloomy Gus,

"We are HAPPY! G*DAMMIT! What is this fuss?

They do this on purpose! To light up the stage!

Got popcorn and drink, watching WhatsCrapp outrage!"

Gus walks around huffing, in high dudgeon,

I assure you, friend, he is no curmudgeon. 

May be cranky or crabby, my dear chappie,

Just a normal desi. Yes. We're perfectly happy. 

It's high time, he grumbles, these phoren media blokes, 

Learned all of us, even Gus, are bhadraloks!

Never cross, contrary, or needing corrected. 

Forwarding. Gleeful. Cool, calm, and collected. 

We're happier than happy, no time to kvetch. 

Ranking us low? You stupid, miserable wretch!

Begone! Be banished! Driven out of the city. 

You! The nattering nabobs of negativity!

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

Dim Memories

(with the price of tomatoes, onions, eggs, etc. getting much attention again... first posted Feb 2023)

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

 

Man, so much seems to have changed from my younger day when our eggs were from our local desi chicken - not affected by the malicious clucking of envious westerners and their chicken$hit biased media coverage. Just natural. Cage-free, stress-free, and forever free. Ms. Henny Penny and her ilk had no issues with the pecking order and carrying on with the loudest Bollywood numbers of the day blaring from local loudspeakers. Newspaper was just raddiwala material, used to line the coops. They managed just fine , thank you. Except for one dubiously attributed story, I do not recall any pouletsurprise winner articles about any chicanery other than the Sky Is Falling about a certain Mr C Little. No Hendenburg Research. No Andani. 

The neighborly street canines patrolled near the chicken coop of our local vendor, and they kept a close eye on the errant f cluckers. These self-appointed street patrol units barked regularly between 2am - 4am in unison, egged on by other distant units only they could hear, singing the song of their kind for the benefit of us hoi polloi and for the occasional ruminating bovines on the streets. There was peace and harmony in the world otherwise, and evil warmongers stayed in the shadows with only occasional hatching of evil plans like Breggsit. 

I vividly recall Dabdaba Khan bhai, or the Andawalla, as he was known to us. He always claimed he had the freshest eggs from the healthiest desi murgi's. None of the pharum raised monstrosity for his favorite customers like my mom, Babul's mom, mashi ma, and others on our lane. All the Auntie ji's on the lane gathered at one spot for the grand bargaining games during his weekly visits. 

The haggling over the price per dozen remains a textbook example of business negotiations, barely covered in MBA programs. It was not unlike the nuclear disarmament talks. There was the opening bid. The low-ball counter offer from some lead Auntie ji on behalf of the Auntie ji gang. Then came the sales pitch about the largest, brownest, cleanest, best, freshest, most nutritious, UNESCO cultural heritage site produced eggs in the universe. The cajoling for lower prices for his most loyal patrons. The reminders about the bargaining power of all the neighborhood Auntie jis together. The threat of never ever conducting any more business with him. Much hand-wringing. Talks about finding egg substitutes and vague hints of going bhej-eatarian. The grumbling that he was losing his shirt at these prices and that his family would go hungry, his kids would be thrown out of school for not paying their fees, etc. 

In the end, there was the grudging nod of agreement. The exchange of eggs vs. crumpled currency held in anxious hands was a fascinating weekly ritual to us kids. Smiles were exchanged. The Auntie ji's departed to their respective kitchens clutching their baskets, triumphantly basking in happy thoughts over having bested Mr Andawalla yet another week. And Mr Andawalla moved to the next the neighborhood on his converted bicycle laden with eggs hanging on either side, with a big smile having wrestled with the most fearsome bargaining gang yet having extracted more coins for his eggs than he had feared.

There is only one other item to add here... the one and only time I was entrusted with the task of carrying the eggs to our kitchen. Babul was not given any such responsibility by mashi ma. I wasted no time in proclaiming my superiority and jauntily marched the few feet towards my house, only to be tripped by an unusual geological formation that sprang up under my feet unexpectedly. The basket flew out of my grasp. About half a dozen of the slippery little ovoids cracked open in the dirt, inviting the doggie scavengers for instant clean-up. They were always hovering around waiting to prove their usefulness for just such an event. My mom wasted no time in declaring my clumsiness and irresponsibility as world-class. Babul wasted no time in cackling at my misfortune and mortification. My only defender was mashi ma who reminded my best buddy (and my mom) about all the unintended world-class disasters that he had participated in. Both moms came to the swift conclusion that these boys were destined for less than great futures unless they really really shaped up. We were sent away with wiggling fingers to study and make something of ourselves. To this day, I look at the carton of eggs (and even eggplants) with awe and horror. And there is no truth in the rumors that I walk around on eggshells in the presence of mi sposa. 

Anyway, such are my scrambled thoughts on this topic. Enjoy your cage rage outrage-free weekend!

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

 Inkredible! Sacré (Royal) Bleu!

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

 

A recent forward about my namesake and a pioneer of Sulekha siyahi, Mr Satish Chandra Dasgupta, takes me back so many years...

Not unlike many others, my own initiation on the "unhappily ever after" educational journey started around the age of two. While I don't actually recall this, family lore and oral history suggests that I had shown extraordinary interest in the educational endeavors of my older sister. She was already making amazing doodles on a slate with chalk. Some of the doodles even resembled letters and digits. The visiting uncles, aunties, grandparents, neighbors, the sabji wala and other assorted vendors, etc. were all doing oooh's and aaah's, which was music to my parents' ears and affirmation of their parental prowess. Tiger moms & dads, like most of us were blessed with, we just didn’t know it.

However, I am told that in my case, my real motivation was the irresistible aroma of chalk as a dietary supplement. My sister had quickly learned to keep her colorful little tin chalk-box on a high shelf, and it was no longer accessible for a quick bite between meals. 

Parents clearly did not believe in my "ignorance is bliss" adage. They were worried like many of their generation about the future of my toddler self in the increasingly uncertain world. If I didn't get started early, I had no chance of "making something" of myself. A distant cousin was already besmirching the family name by doing something scandalous that was only uttered in hushed tones. Later, I found out that he had gotten a tattoo. And moved away from his parent's house... in the same town. Horrors!

My vidyarambha sanskar was held on a certain Vasant Panchami day, I am told. What l do recall is that even after this ceremony, unsupervised access to my own set of chalk was still restricted... until I got past my preference for chalk as edibles.  

My next door buddy Babul had the misfortune of having mashi ma, his mom become aware of my initiation into the vidya journey. She got him initiated with his hatha kori at the same time. I don't believe he forgave me for this monumental and everlasting disruption to his carefree existence for a long time even though I had no control over it. 

Some time later, we both graduated from coughing through chalk-dust clouds that both of us set upon each other after wiping our slates dry and shaking the cleaning rag; moving on to the quill pen. Babul and I wasted no time wielding them as a jousting weapons guarding our ancient looking ink-wells. Somewhere in the mix were pencils and erasers - mostly cheap pencils with a prized Koh-i-noor or two. Some of the erasers that didn't just erase mistakes - they left horrible scars and obliterated the paper. Other erasers looked pretty and had nice aroma; we could only see them in other classmate's clutches. With unconcealed envy.  

This ink phase didn't go over too well for either myself or Babul. Even with extraordinary care, most of the ink seemed to take a undesirable meandering path towards everywhere else but on the paper in the notebook (#4 "copy", if you recall - the hindi copy with single spaced ruling and the angrezi copy with those 4 lines for uppercase/lowercase)... The Sulekha siyahi stained the lips, our fingers, the floor, the desk, the book, my clothes, the chair, the curtains and doors and windows. There was the "blotting paper" for the unintended smudges in the notebook, but it would quickly give up ghost after soaking ink past its saturation limits. Sulekha siyahi conquered all.  

My maternal grandfather had gifted me his old inkwell and quill pen with a great ceremony. We were only empowered with one color ink - the Sulekha Royal Blue. I recall in my father's study that there were two other colors - a red and a black inkwell as well. However, following a disastrous session sometime back, my father's study and especially his desk, the inks and his Parker pens were strictly off-limits with threats promises of bodily harm. You see, there was an unexplainable explosion of inks on some important papers, and the nibs on a couple of his precious pens resembled crossed fingers emojis 🤞... but neither Babul nor I know anything about it, mother promise, god promise, etc. Red ink was a no-no, used only to record business losses, which was not good. Black ink was, well, equally ashubha (inauspicious) and not to be used for educational purposes... like anything black. 

My parents decided quickly that getting me a fountain pen was a lot less expensive than the baths needed after these study sessions. The grumbling from household help about increased loads of laundry and repeated cleaning of floors and whitewashing of the walls of the study might have been a factor as well. 

At school, Sr Carmella was waiting in the wings. She immediately pronounced that my handwriting resembled, as she charitably described, done by a spider (or was it an ant) dipped in inkwell let loose on paper. She must have seen some potential in me as she patiently helped me correct my grip ("lightly like a paintbrush, not a dagger"), my wrist movements, ("wield like a feather, not a fist"), positioning of paper ("slightly angled, gentle touch not like a bricklayer"), etc. Sulekha Royal Blue forever!

Mr Dasgupta - from one Satish Chandra to another, I don't have enough ink to express myself. Deep and humble bows. 

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

Var De, Veena Vadini, Var De 

(first posted Feb 2022) 

 © 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

Ah, Vasant Panchami and Sorosotee Pujo

The arrival of  Vasant Panchami was awaited eagerly during my younger days. Since I went to a Jesuit school, I wouldn't get the day off normally, alas. My next door frenemy Babul had the day off at his school.

However, Sr Carmella understood the significance of the celebration and surmised that many would take the day off anyway. And that most of us could use all the divine help we could get. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if she secretly considered herself to be a fellow field-worker to the deity of Wisdom and Knowledge and Music and Arts... a "sister" from another mother, hands-on, molding the misshapen clay into proper future ladies and gentlemen of the republic. 

Sr Carmella wasn't entirely opposed to the idea of granting a special day off if we brought in an application composed following proper rubric - her rubric. Parental intervention in this regard wasn't helpful, Sr Carmella made it clear. The application had to be composed by us. So parental help was neither sought nor given. My parents, like many of their generation, were firmly of the opinion that in-school attendance should be on a 24-7 schedule, punctuated only by the tiffin break, and something called PT during the day. As I recall, PT consisted of running around aimlessly chasing a poorly inflated soccer ball on blazing hot days around noontime. On rainy days, we were brought inside to a smelly, dark, windowless cavern - a large empty hall that doubled as gym space or for school assembly. We did endless marches and formation drills on such days, learned to salute the tiranga jhanda, off key singing saare jahan se achchha "properly, properly... with pride, NOT like lifeless dummies", etc. I swear that the prevalent thinking of the parents and educators was that if 24-7 schedule wasn't possible, the rest of the day / night should be spent doing homework, and, maybe, sleep. No wonder our generation grew up so depraved deprived!

However, in spite of all that, I managed to get one particular Saraswati puja day off from school, officially granted by Sr Carmella. I produced the approved letter with a flourish, properly signed by the only higher authority recognized by my parents when they questioned why I was not getting ready for school. There was such anticipation... so much to look forward to that day. 

Babul had realized he needed much divine intervention that year if he wanted to move on to the next grade, specifically with Math and Hindi. While the Math situation was just plain hopeless, Hindi was terrifying to his very core. Growing up in his Bengali-speaking household and only interacting with Hindi speakers like me and others occasionally at school, textbook Hindi was an unfathomable dark hole. And since most of our conversations never involved formal grammar or composition, it would not have helped anyway. Babul could never understand the logic behind the gender construct in Hindi, that of streeling or pulling assigned to inanimate objects. I confess even to this day I don't understand why baarish is feminine while paani is masculine. Forget any ubhayling or napunsakling (common and neuter gender).

After much pondering, he devised a plan that he was actually going to organize a special, private Saraswati puja on his own front porch where he could get the focused, undivided attention of the Veena Vadini for his particular situation. Seek the needed blessings without the devi getting distracted by others demanding her attention for their own selfish needs and frivolous boons. He also told me that he would allow me to participate. I never suspected that there may have been some hidden agenda on his part around funds, getting chanda to procure a small statue, flowers, puja samagree, prasad, etc. Doing so all by himself was a bit of a tall order and he needed help. So our unwritten friendship clause was invoked and I got drafted. To this day, I remain a bit conflicted on this - whether to feel privileged for the inclusion or feel used for having to do fundraising.  

His grandfather, Babul called him dadu , I knew him as dada, was a retired barrister but had studied Sanskrit during his youth. We assumed he was familiar with appropriate rituals, he gamefully guided us on the basics, making it up along the way as we went on, I suspect. 

A very tiny statue was procured with the meager funds collected after pestering many people in our locality over several days. Sacrifices were made - of our regular playtime... and some piggy banks were raided.

Ganga jal was used to purify one corner of his porch, and the statue was placed on large plantain leaf. Then came an impressive pile of textbooks, notebooks, quill pen, ink well, pencils, anything and everything remotely related to Babul's educational endeavors. The pile was several times the size of the little statue and took all the available space. Then his little sister brought her slate and container of chalks and I only brought my Hindi composition notebook. 

This resulted in a rather delicate situation - there was no room left to place anyone else's stuff near the devi besides Babul's own stuff by the the time we arrived on the scene. Those sacred school books could never be placed on bare floor not purified with Ganga jal! We would lose all our learning!! I only now realize that using Schlichting's Boundary Layer Theory book as the fourth leg of my hand-me-down, twenty year old three legged sofa in my very first apartment following grad school could have been ... a sacrilege. I seek forgiveness from the divine lady for this transgression. 

Babul's dada helped defuse the situation quickly before a full scale war could break out between him and his sister. She strangely took my side that day, perhaps a bit bothered by all the attention her brother was getting in their household due to his newfound religiosity and the puja initiative. Her piggybank may have been robbed as well adding to her overall attitude that morning. Babul had to remove most of his stuff to a nearby chair. All items except his Math and Hindi stuff, which were non-negotiable. 

The puja was performed rather muted, we chanted some mantras and shlokas, bowed our heads and took the prasad home. Later we assembled to a lively game of tennis ball cricket. I eventually collected my Hindi composition book a couple of days later, letting it absorb as much of the blessings it could in the meantime. 

Only now I understand that Soros has nothing to do with the Sorosotee er... Saraswati, and his ilk is worshipping Lakshmi or Lakmé instead... but this puja did not help me at all. While my Hindi was flawless in terms of spelling and grammar, I continued to disappoint my Hindi language teachers with unimpressive word choices and uninspired phrases. They had such hopes for me, coming from a family background well-known for being a patron of Hindi literature. They let me know their displeasure in person. Repeatedly. Babul, as well, was not granted the blessings he sought and came perilously close to flunking Hindi in the mid-year exam, having scored an impressive goose egg on the "Identify Gender by Constructing Sentences Using These Words" question worth 20 points. 

We put our heads together afterwards and went through several days of gender identification exercises (only four in those days!) that he declared absolutely futile in the end. So we devised a workaround where instead of guessing the gender of each word separately, he would pick one ling like masculine for all words, the entire word-list. Wonder of wonders, 14 of the 20 words were masculine on the final exam and his guesses of "masculine" for every word got him the 14 points he needed to pass.

Happy Vasant Panchami !

 

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

 

The Moon's a Balloon

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

The most recent successful departure towards the closest celestial body from our own third rock from the sun was from SDSC, a site named after my namesake. 

After a few strong mugs of steaming coffee, some of the cobwebs cleared in my mental junkyard this morning. A little chat with Pichai Moshai tells me that this name has fallen out of favor over the years. For a while, though, it seemed that every other male child was being named after The Destroyer of the Holy Trinity. Some, with extra h haitch or two, some with 'double e' instead of 'i'... (Sathish, Shatish, Sateesh, Shatheesh). To all the parents of these fortunate folks and the folks saddled with such monikers, salut!

Many breathless news reports, hyperventilating WhatsCrapp forwards and saber-rattling clips including one from Ms Doom reminding desis of the past disses, slights and insults from biased western lamestream media have criss-crossed my unsocial media feed in recent days. One patriotic buddy keeps sending me a 2014 cartoon from NYcrimes and it's 2017 TOI rejoinder, reminding me with the Americanism "you ain't seen nuthin' yet", to which I can only reply with my rusty matribhasha - aagé aagé dekhiyé, hotaa hai kyaa. Kudos to all involved and credit where credit is due. 

It appears that some folks are still unable to find enough Burnol in their local pharmacy about what followed the last launch attempt and the ensuing trolling in unsocial media. To the trolls, let us quote the tagline seen at the rear of many a truck, which is etched in my childhood memories - buri nazar waalé, teraa muh kaala (those with an evil eye, may your faces be black). I am sure it's familiar to many in this crowd.

It is not just an empty curse. During those days the blackened face could actually happen for anyone following closely - the ominous dark exhaust belched from the tailpipe of those trucks roaring down the street, laden two feet over the top, bulging on the sides, rattling and shaking, horns a-blaring. 

The operators of all such lorries, for some reason, were called sardarji whether they were of Sikh faith or not. The one best known to us delivered cooking coal to a koilaa taal near us and was a burly individual known as Dabang Singh to me and my friend Babul. Dabang Singh would never need a disguise. His crinkling eyes and bulbuous nose were the only facial features one could see. The rest was covered by thick facial hair and a turban. He had a very large frame and an equally impressive (outstanding?) gut. We often wondered how he squeezed himself in his little cab. He had a soft voice and was always kind in his gestures towards us kids, something incongruous to his menacing physical presence.

This was many moons before cooking gas became ubiquitous in the middle class desi cucina. Getting the main clay chulha (stove) started was an early morning ritual accomplished by the household help, with much black smoke until the fuel glowed smokeless to the bright orange redness. All the neighborhood woke to and started their day inhaling various degrees of secondhand smoke from anthracite. Sometimes a secondary smaller chulha was started as well to cook non-veg items since my grandma was a pure vegetarian, adding on for the extra smokey morning ambience. I do understand now why the kitchen in those homes were a constructed a bit away from the rest of the house, next to an open backyard space. 

The koilaa taal was owned by the youngest of Babul's uncles. We never knew his real name except but he was Toofaan kaku to Babul and to me. He had not managed to get past high school board exam and gave up after several attempts. But had an infectious enthusiasm about many things in common with us kids - like fireworks. We all got along well. He and Dabang Singh shared a bidi or two, half-heartedly telling us to stay out of the way when the huge chunks of anthracite straight from the coal fields were being unloaded. Both those guys were always caked with layer of coal dust. 

Which brings me to July 1969. We were all vaguely aware of space race, not at the top of our priority. Summer vacations were over. Sr. Carmella kept us sufficiently busy and mostly out of trouble. But the adults were all abuzz with the discussions of Sputniks, Soyuz, Mercury, Gemini, Apollos, etc. There were colorful pictures in many glossy magazines with many words. Newspapers were still black and white - both their reporting and their ink. The pupstronaut Laika was famous and achieved a higher degree of admiration from our crowd than Comradess Tereshkova or Comrade Gagarin. Soviet influence on available information was indeed far and wide in India. Americans may have just been getting into that game. 

Babul and I had looked at the big Saturn V pictures and tried to imagine the actual size compared to the "rockets" from our Diwali fireworks. The orbits were weird elliptical circles and path to be followed by the spacecraft was unfathomable. One could see the moon in the night sky clearly on most nights, without any obstructions between that orb and ours. Why not go directly rather than waste time circling earth and moon? What lunacy was that? Except during those lunar eclipses which Toofan tried to explain with the involvement of rahu & ketu which made about as much sense as any of his other explanations. Sometimes these adults didn't seem too bright to us.

We wondered how big the fireworks masala would have to be able to go to the moon. Toofaan must have read at least some part of the newspaper articles. He proclaimed with the voice of authority, telling us that it would have to be bigger than all the pile in his koilaa taal. And that it would make a loud bang much much louder than the loudest fireworks he had obtained the previous Diwali called the atom bom, reminding us that our ignorance was a direct result of adult intervention from the previous Diwali. We had gotten to witness the might of the atom bom procured by him, a once in a lifetime event. It was swiftly banned forever by the adults in the neighborhood after the first and only performance. Babul's dadu and my dad had a stern talk with Toofaan. He sulked around for days afterwards telling us darkly about how unfair the world was. 

As to why one would want to ever want to go to moon - none of us were quite sure. Leaving hometown for summer vacations, going to grandparents' house in a nearby town? That activity was understood and experienced by all of us and was fun. Going to moon where no grandparents were around? No pitch for tennis ball cricket? The place looked grim, dark, foreboding, desolate and dusty in pictures. It wasn't the pretty chanda mama of folk tales. It didn't appear to be made of cheese. No waterfalls or other natural beauty spots for picnics. No temples. No local delicacies that were specially prepared or procured during our summertime journeys. What did the astronauts get to eat? Did they take enough puris with dry aalu sabji, pickles, etc. during their journey, topped off with lassi? Why did they wear strange, mummy-like costumes covering head to toe to go there? No air? No, thanks! They had to skip and bounce around rather than walk on the surface... maybe that could be fun... but we truly wondered if these astronauts/cosmonauts were being sent to the distant, überstrict military boarding schools that us unruly kids were always being threatened with - places that would "straighten 'em out." Babul also started a suggested list of his mortal enemies future astronauts to send to the moon. The Hindi teacher was on top of his list. 

On the morning of July 20th, the 8am news on All India Radio included an audio clip with all the hiss, crackling and static, that the moonwalk was just accomplished moments ago. At that moment in time, the first brave human on moon's surface took a small step for a human as well as a giant leap for mankind.

Life continued afterwards for us without much change. There was more excitement in later years when a traveling exhibit about NASA's lunar mission came to our school. The displays included a tiny moon rock which was quite underwhelming and lots of other shown'n'tell posters and artifacts. It was organized by the US Consulate and accompanied an impressive half-hour documentary of the space program. I was hooked and have followed the various space explorations around the globe since then. 

But I still do wonder about some of our original questions. And as to where Babul's Hindi teacher and others on his list ended up eventually.

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆 

*thanks to David Niven for the title above