A Valentine's Day (aka Aam Pappad day) tale

I wrote this about five or six years ago...Aam Pappad still works its charm with bharya priyaa...shall get her some today ...

On Sunday I was driving in the Niagara area where I saw all these billboards advertising fantastic getaway deals with one’s loved and beloved one, for Valentine’s Day, on Monday. They talked of jacuzzis, saunas, candlelight dinners and all that. Looking at those advertisements I remembered what a hotelier friend of mine told me once. He said, ‘What we do not advertise so blatantly are the afternoon lunches and afternoon getaways for those who cannot come out openly with their beloved and be seen eating out dinners or checking into hotel rooms…’ ‘Interesting,’ I told myself, ‘there is an underground market in everything…even love…’ Perhaps there is a fast check-in counter at these hotels where you do not have to wait in line and risk being seen checking in on Valentine’s Day afternoon after you have told your boss that you have a cold and do not want to pass the germs around, and, will be working from home.

 

I returned home and had just settled in my arm-chair to read a book, when my daughter walked in and said, ‘Dad. You should give Mum a Valentine’s day gift…’ ‘Uh…um’ I said continuing to read the book. ‘Dad, I said, you should be more romantic with Mum…give her a gift for Valentine’s Day’ this came through with the customary vehemence of a twenty something woman with ideas on life, and, had the necessary impact of making me put the book away.

 

Now, my only experience of being romantic and giving a gift to a woman I fancied had been in Grade 8, when I spent my entire week’s allowance on buying a bar of orange-coated candy (that was what I thought the then love of my life fancied). After keeping the candy for three days I had mustered up the courage to present my deep desire coated in orange flavour to the 12 year old woman of my dreams who was then in Grade 6.

 

I had imagined that she would have taken me in her arms like Jane taking Tarzan after he had coaxed a particularly ugly looking orang-utan away from her, and, smothered me with kisses and words like, ‘I Jane, you my man…’ et al in appreciation of my choice of a gift. That was not to be. My dreams were dashed to the earth when the said femme fatale informed me as she disdainfully crushed my orange-coated feelings that her boy friend from England had got her Smarties, and, that she loved Smarties. With this ‘Summer of ‘42’ trauma I had never again ventured into the field of romance and buying gifts for women. In fact, often times I would wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat imagining men coming off the plane from London Heathrow carrying boxes and boxes of Smarties to take away the women I fancied.

 

My daughter had just suggested something romantic. Notwithstanding my teenage trauma, I pursued the matter, totally strange to me, asking her, ‘What do you think is romantic ?’ ‘Let’s see what the younger generation has to suggest…’ I told myself in a moment of braggadacio, ‘maybe she will suggest some gold jewellery or a night at the revolving tower on top of the CN Tower…’

 

Little did I expect it when the daughter quietly, in a calm manner suggested, ‘Lingerie…’ as if it were the sort of thing that my life’s experiences had trained me to buy.

Ooh, did that send me reeling... Of course, right from the age of ten or so I had been a great connoiseur of magazines advertising women’s lingerie, and, I could have well written a thesis on the development of women’s lingerie over the last half century, based on my surreptitious examination of lingerie advertisements. But, catch me walking into a store and actually buying the contraband stuff.

‘Dad, that’s what everyone gets for their sweetheart…’ the daughter continued.

As I heard my child tell me this, my mind went back to the only occasion I had come close to lingerie shopping. On Toronto ’s Spadina Avenue there is a Chinatown where there are several bargain shops. One day my wife and I had gone shopping there and she had seen some stockings priced at a giveaway price. The shopowner, like all good commercially minded shopowners from Asia did not take, VISA or Mastercard, let alone AMEX. Such things result in your having to pay GST, PST (Canadian Sales taxes) and are to be avoided like the plague. And, on that day, we did not have enough cash on us to buy the stockings.

 

So, the next day I was given cash and asked to go and pick up the stockings. A distant cousin of the shopowner was in the shop when I went in, not the same person who had turned down with disdain, the VISA card we had offered. This man was of sterner upbringing, and, had been taught by his ancestors to beware of the different sexual proclivities of people in the sinful West. So, when I went in asked for the said stockings (flesh coloured) he looked me at if I were the very moral ogre his grandmother had warned him about as he boarded the boat that brought him to the West. To add to his fears, I asked him if they were free size. ‘Oh, my God, a cross dresser, here in my store…’ the distant cousin of the shopowner told himself and wanted to summon his ancestors to throw me out by moral force. However, his commercial sense had the better of him, and, refrained from that and accepted the cash, saying, ‘Yes, yes. They fit all size…’ He said a quiet prayer to his ancestors, particularly his grand-mother and her grand-mother for having taken me away from the store and protected his soul from eternal damnation.

 

Nevertheless, my sense of courage and adventure, made me accept this challenge the child had thrown. After a basic 101 course in cup size and other details, which I shall not repeat given the family readership of this tale, from my daughter, I donned my balaclava not to keep out the Toronto cold, but, to protect anyone from seeing me and identifying me. Looking like a terrorist who had just successfully stepped past the border post with criminal intent in my mind, I walked into the mall. Jacobs, La Senza all of them glittered and I made a preliminary round walking around, casing the joint. Surprisingly there were not many shoppers at that time, and, I thought I would be able to make a quick dash, choose the item and quickly dash out. I made two more rounds, mentally trying to pick the stuff, and, was just about to enter La Senza when I heard a voice, ‘Uncle…naughty man, walking into a lingerie store…are you buying something for aunty ?...can I help you ?’ it was my daughter’s friend, Neeta, playfully accosting me outside the shop. She worked there.

 

I quickly turned around and said, ‘Oh, I did not realize it was a lingerie store…’ and started slipping away. Neeta looked at my somewhat quizzically. ‘Strange, old man, dirty old man…’ she must have said. Visions of my name going down in the community, temples, and, being put back on the plane to India stormed my mind. At the Immigration hearing to deport me I had visions of the shopowner in Spadina coming and telling the judge how I had shopped for women’s stockings, on the sixth day of July, 1998, at about 3.40 pm…’Yes. This man is of criminal intent,’ I visualized the judge saying, ‘put him on the next plane to Guduvancheri…’ And as the plane landed at London Heathrow en route to Guduvancheri I saw all those men with boxes of smarties laughing, ‘So you wanted to buy lingerie, eh ? Here take these Smarties…’ they were saying.

I made a quick retreat from the mall. I had to save my reputation, my name, my everything. The only way I could do so would be if I could have a samosa, from Golden Grocers, the cleanest Indian store in town. So, I drove to Golden Grocers, and, entered the store. I saw the samosas and made a bee-line for them. As I did so, a bottle containing something wrapped in colours of the tricolour caught my eye. I went closer to the bottle, and, saw that they were Aam Pappads (dried mango strips sugared into small strips) candy. Little chunks of Aam Pappad wrapped in tricolour paper. I remembered soon after our marriage my wife telling me that her family retainer, the venerable Gaya Prasad Dubey would make Aam Pappad, and, how as a ten year old she absolutely adored them. I forgot the samosas, here was what would make the wife happy. I paid a dollar, picked up half a dozen candy, and, drove home ignoring the traffic, red lights, right of way and all that nonsense intended to stop a man in love. Imagine Romeo stopping to give way to a Capulet on his way to the balcony scene with Juliet, just because the said Capulet had right of way…naw ! the he-men don’t work that way.

 

‘Sweetie,’ I said, as I entered the home, ‘see what I have got you…a Valentine’s Day gift…’ She came down slowly, and, as I held out the candy, saying, ‘Aam Pappad…’ the wife’s expression changed. ‘My God, I haven’t had Aam Pappad for years…Where did you get it ? How lovely the Aam Pappad looks wrapped in the tricolour wrapper…’ The wife of thirty three years, popped an Aam Pappad candy, put her hand around my growing waist, ruffled the fast receding hairline, looked at me in the eye like the earlier mentioned Jane looking at Tarzan on the occasion of his having coaxed away the ugly looking orang-utan and said, ‘…Aam Pappad is exactly what I want for Valentine’s Day…’

 

From that day onwards I have never been scared of men coming off the London Heathrow flight with boxes of Smarties…

-----

 

 

Of Bharat and Ol' Blightey

I knew it was too good to last.  Two weeks in India and no cold and stomach upset despite all the running around in the smog filled air and eating at different eateries with varying levels of hygiene ... too good to be true.

The itch in the throat and burning sensation in the nose started a few minutes after I had checked in for the flight to London, at Mumbai's Chatrapati Shivaji airport.  The body had held out this long as I had fun, now it had to give in. Gosh, I should have asked my doctor cousin for a prescription and got some antibiotics before I left home.  Now, there wasn't even a chemist shop at the airport.  The next nine hours were going to be disastrous as I winged towards Ol' Blightey.  For about four hours after I got on board I sat Buddha-like in meditation observing the lumps that were forming in my throat and the irritations in my nasal passage.  As Goenkaji would have said, 'How often do you get to observe pain and discomfort ?' After four hours it was too much...Sorry, Goenkaji..

I buzzed for the cabin attendant and asked for medication.  The purser was a bit taken aback and wondering whether he had a medical emergency on hand, and, whether the flight would have to land somewhere in Asia Minor to offload an ill passenger.  However, I said a Tylenol or Crocin should work...he look relieved and got out a form which absolved the airline of all responsibility in dispensing that medication to me.  Once my signature was verified, I was given two of the precious tablets which I downed with a glass of water.  In about an hour the world started looking better...Anicca, illusion, Goenkaji would have reminded...sorry, Goenkaji I see your point, but, the flesh is weak.  In any case didn't the Buddha say in his first discourse that one should avoid torturing one's self and follow the Middle Path...well, the paracetamol was my Middle Path.  By the time I landed at Terminal 5, for the first time in my life, I was quite chirpy.  However, realizing the Anicca...passing nature of paracetamol...I fortified myself with some stronger medication which my (Indian) cab driver took me to on the way home...needless to add the pharmacist, the only one to be open at 7.30pm, on a Sunday night, was also Indian.  He seemed to have seen his share of customers with my complaint (may be the cab driver was referring folks to him as they came off the plane, like bus drivers take their buses to McDonalds in the US).  He filled a quick prescription and I was homebound.

I had made up my mind to spend the next twenty four-forty eight-seventy two hours; however long it took, resting, steam inhaling and watching the trains go past from the window in my daughter's bedroom...and yesterday the stomach gave in...this, I had planned for, and a took a quick dose of Number 8 homeopathic medicine given by my niece, a holistic healer, in prep for such situations.  A few more doses of the homeopathic medicine worked and by evening I was ready to head out to watch the New Year festivities.

As I was dressing up for the New Year action, my wife asked me the question she asks me every time I plan a trip to India. 'Why do you insist on going there when you always come back with a cold and/or a tummy upset ?'  How do I tell her that that's the stuff a love affair is made of.  There is no reason, nor linear programming model that explains it...it is just desire that wells up within you and you act from that push of irrational desire because you are in love.  To add to her irritation I hum a line from an old Mukesh song...
yeh mera deewanapan hai...this is my brand of madness.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AppcdtqKuxE

The wife shrugs her shoulder in desperation and walks away to get ready for the trip we have planned to see the New Year fireworks off the Waterloo bridge.

What I do realize that the body cannot move from a relatively sterile environment like North America and not be affected by the different levels of hygiene, particularly when the exposure takes place in such a short time frame. It needs to acclimatise itself. I remember a friend of mine going to India to study Sanskrit, and, landing up in the monsoons to do a three month course.  Needless to add most of the three months were spent in nursing colds and stomach upsets.

Took a scenic bus ride last night that took us through Oxford Street, Regent Street and all the commercial areas done up with lights...a bus ride that my mother would take me on, more than fifty years ago...with mum, the ride would end with a trip to Hamleys or Selfridges where I could buy a toy of up to ten shillings (translates to what, 25 quid of today?) as my Christmas present.

Getting off at Waterloo tube station we took one look at the crowd and realised that it was not the place for two soon to be senior citizens to be around.  While excellently policed and crowd controlled, there were too many folks with open bottles of alcohol for our comfort, should something go wrong.  We decided to beat a hasty retreat, got into an empty tube and reached home in time to watch the New Year breaking on TV...a much more comfortable of wishing in the New Year.

The New Year started off with an early morning brunch at a dear friend's place.  We have known these friends from the days we were in University in India, caught up recently on FB, and, found out that we are both transiting London at the same time on our way back from our holidays.  I notice that the holiday season is a time when a lot of Indian office goers in North America and Europe can take an extended stretch of two to three weeks that is required to visit India, attend concerts and catch up with children settled in different parts of the globe.

Stepping out at 8am on New Year's Day was I surprised that the only shop open was a Convenience Store run by an Indian ?   No, of course not ... he did not perhaps close down last year

And to complete the reverse colonisation of Ol' Blightey I was thrilled to see that not only is tandoori chicken the national food, but, that the London Underground carries advertisements for shaadi.com.

History seems to have come full circle...

Jai Bharat, Jai Ol'Blightey

Christmas at Mahim Church

In the days I lived and worked in Mumbai, I would pass the St Michael's Church (Mahim Church) at the end of the Mahim causeway everyday.  On Wednesdays, I would be particularly irked about the church because the thousands of devotees who came there would snarl up the traffic. 

St. Michael's Church, Mahim.  The church was built first time around in the 1530s.  The present building was constructed in 1973.

A few years ago, in her constant but somewhat unsuccessful attempts to introduce some best practices in the house, bharya priyaa, aka wife, decided that every Wednesday we (all four family members, self, children and herself who came under suzerainity) would all do the Novena prayers offered at the Mahim church.  We, as a family, have been doing this, and, have done the Novena at unlikely locations like Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's.  When we get together as a family and visit a church, we say the Novena.  I suspect we would do so if we were all to visit the Guruvayoor temple together.  I guess Sri Krishna would be OK with that for didn't he say somewhere that whatever was offered in prayer was acceptable, a leaf, water or good intentions.

For some time now I have been including friends and relatives of ours who have serious illnesses in the prayer. I am not looking for a result.  Have just been thinking of them as we do the Novena on Wednesdays. 

I have been wanting to visit the Mahim church for several years now.  However, on previous visits to Bombay in the last few years, something or the other has come up.  This time I realised I was going to be in Bombay on a Wednesday, the day on which devotees throng the church, and, I was a bit hesitant about making it through those crowds.  Add to it the fact that today is Christmas.

I checked the website (thank God for the internet) and found that the first service is at 6.00am...now, I get up with the milk train and 6am is well into mid day for me.  Add to it that many of the  faith would have been celebrating the new King's arrival well into the night yesterday, and, may not be in a condition to drag themselves to the Church at 6am, however much their mothers may want them to do so.  So, I got into a taxi at 5am and headed off to the Mahim church.  There are new roads around Mahim creek that are somewhat scary at that time of the day, and, I did say an additional prayer to Our Lady as my taxi took me that way.

 

Entrance to Mahim Church at 5.15 am on Christmas Day

I was not wrong.  The entrance was wide open, no queue and I just walked in.  Took my time visiting the altar, put some money in the offerings box and sat down.  The service was not to start till 6am and I start meditating, Vipassana style...

St Michael's Church, Mahim, is an interesting church.  Built in about 1530, the Church came into prominence in the 1950s.  From then on, it has served as a sort of Tirupati (if I can be permitted the comparison) where you ask for what you are looking for, and, if you are sincere in your prayers, you get it.  There are stories about miracles...you can read them on the internet. You will see devotess crawling on their knees from the entrance to the altar, a distance of about five hundred feet with floral garlands in their hands.  Interestingly, floral garlands are offered by devotees, a la Hindu temples.  Also, there is an interesting practice of offering wax images of what you desire. (In Tirupati some devotees offer silver figurines...if you have a problem with your foot, you offer a silver figurine of a foot)

 Wax images for being offered at the Mahim Church. 

 

As I took a picture of the stall where wax images were being offered I saw several images of little children.  Presumably they were offered by couples praying for children ... needless to add there were more male baby figurines than female ones, in keeping with local culture.  And interestingly, there was a small wax figurine of a building marked Office...my curiosity was piqued and I asked the stall keeper what that was for...'somebody looking for job, sir...' he replied.  If you look closely at the picture above you will see the Office figurine at left hand top,

 

The service started on the dot at 6am...very un Indian, must be some leftover colonial influence.  From the moment the choir started singing Joy to the World, it was a spiritual treat.  The priest (I suspect his name was Father Simon) was middle aged and led the Mass with tremendous dignity.  Every hymn chosen was exquisitely rendered and the service ended with '...a babe is born in Bethlehem..'  As I came out, tears were streaming down my eyes at the intensity of the experience. 

You cannot order these experiences, they just come to you...

 



 

Early morning service at Mahim Church, Christmas Day 2013

 

As I hailed a taxi to go home the priest's very brief homily kept ringing in my ears, '...the birthday of Christ is a day, the birth of Christ is what happens in your heart...'




Kultur Day in Chennai

Today was what I call Kultur Day…listened to some fabulous presentations about the history and theory of art.

Started off with a great breakfast at the TAG centre … good food is essential to proper enjoyment of kultur … hence the canteens in all Sabhas.  It was great to be standing in the same line for breakfast as the likes of Sanjay Subramanyam.  Introduced myself to him, took a picture and told him that he has a huge fan following, both in my family and Canada, in general. Unfortunately the pic I took with him has not come out OK.

Breakfast was followed by a choir of students from a Mylapore Corporation School singing a couple of songs, including two composed by Subramania Bharati. 

 

Then a fantastic talk by Sriram Venkatakrishnan on Gopalakrishna Bharati, to a standing room only audience.  Sriram’s research is painstaking and he brings tremendous social consciousness to his presentations, which is what I love about him.  Plus the touch of humour that he brings make the experience really enjoyable.

The story begins with Gopalakrishna Bharati starting off his music education with Hindustani music, not Carnatic music, as we would commonly suppose.  And then, as we all know, his most well known piece was Nandanar Charitram. 

Gopalakrishna Bharati had an impish sense of humour and when his sponsor suggested that he write on some mystic, Gopalakrishna Bharati, suggested that he write about one of the Alwars, knowing fully well that his sponsor was a Shiva bhakta.  Once he had got over the joke, Gopalakrishna Bharati decided to write about Nandan, a Nayanmar, about whom a brief mention had been made in the Periyapuranam.

 

Sriram talking about Gopalakrishna Bharati. On the screen is a picture of the site where the house he (Gopalakrishna Bharati) lived in Anandatandavapuram near Mayiladuthurai, stood.

Gopalakrishna Bharati took a few poetic liberties with the story of Nandan (Sriram made the point that Nandan became Nandanar only after Nandanar Charitram had become famous.  Till then, Nandanar was plain and simple Nandan).  The most important liberty was the creation of the Brahmin landlord who prevented Nandanar from going to the temple before all the crop had been planted and harvested. 

In a frank appraisal of the story, Sriram referred to the common view of Dalit groups that the story of Nandanar attaining the so called 'oneness with God' state after the 'agni pariksha' was perhaps more gruesome than mystic. 

Sriram ended his presentation with clips from the controversial Kindanar Charitram, performed by NS Krishnan.  It was a parody of Nandanar Charitram. (If I am not wrong, the sequence appeared in Nallathambi, which I think was the first film scripted by CN Annadurai...I could be wrong). One must admire Sriram’s willingness to talk about issues that are not normally raised in elitist audiences. He ended by saying that Nandanar was a story about human struggle against oppression, and, even if the details of the struggle change, it will remain an inspiration as long as there is cause for such struggle.  Sriram, you rock !!!

From Sriram’s scintillating talk, I moved to Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan where Anita Ratnam was staging Purush, an exploration of the male dancer’s identity.  A brilliant panel discussion by four celebrity male dancers including Canada’s own Hari Krishnan.



Dr Rustom Bharucha, drama and culture critic summed up the discussions and made one telling point which remained with me. 

Yes, there are issues of gender and sexuality that male dancers deal with which cannot be wished away.  Nevertheless, when Kelu-Babu (Kelucharan Mohapatra, the Odissi Guru) played Radha, one never saw anything other than a female Radha who was in love with Krishna.  See this clip of Guru Kelucharan performing

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCMJnsFPaQI

 

 Tonight they are honouring Birju Maharaj, another versatile dancer who dance goes beyond gender.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnJLBs7Zo7c



The Madras season is acquiring a new hue other than just kutcheris… Perhaps this banner for Rasi silks captures it in a way nothing else does

 



 

Sahib,Sindh,Sultan and the city of boiled beans

Growing up in the Madras of the 60s where Prohibition was fairly strictly enforced, Bangalore and Pondicherry were the nearby wet havens.  Though I never got to drink alcohol till I was eighteen or so, Bangalore held out the fantasy of licentiousness that was fascinating to the teenager.  We would hear stories of grown ups doing weekend trips to Bangalore and indulging in things supposedly wicked.  In those days it was a wannabe city.

I first got to visit Bangalore in 1962, chaperoned by my sister-in-law.  That first visit was fairly non consequential.  Bangalore did strike me a somewhat sleepy city, where even the milkman came around 10am. 

My first ‘real visit’ to the city of boiled beans (an apocryphal, though popular, anecdote recounts that the 12th century Hoysala king Veera Ballala II, while on a hunting expedition, lost his way in the forest. Tired and hungry, he came across a poor old woman who served him boiled beans. The grateful king named the place "benda-kaal-uru" ,literally, "town of boiled beans", which eventually evolved into "Bengalūru")  was in 1971 after I started working.  I was deputed on an assignment for two weeks and spent every evening in one of three bars, Napolis, Three Aces and another one whose name I forget.  I watched Gwendolina dance the dance of the seven veils seven out of the fifteen nights and on the other nights some similar acitivity.  That visit enabled me to experience the fantasy I had been brought up with as a school boy…

Subsequent to that visit I have visited Bengaluru many times.  At one stage I even planned to live in that city if I were to return to India, and, bought an apartment.  So, when friends who now live there invited me to come over, I jumped at the opportunity and booked my tickets on the Shatabdi express which does the journey from Chennai in five hours.  I am told that given the traffic, the distance from the new airport, and check in times, the air journey of roughly 300 kilometres from Chennai to Bengaluru takes, in all, the same time, at several multiples of the train fare.

I was quite excited taking the Shatabdi (‘Shatabdi’ means centenary) super fast express train.  These trains, running relatively short distances between Indian cities, were started in 1988 to commemorate the birth centenary of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.  Given the challenges running of a railway network in a country like India, I would not compare them to other super fast trains, like, for example, French TGV.  The Shatabdi is comfortable and clean by standards of a railway system that struggles with waste disposal.  They serve tasty food, which, I guess sits more comfortable in the low immunity gastric systems of those who have lived outside of India for many years. 

 

India’s railway stations are historical monuments in their own right.  Chennai Central which was built in 1873 hasn’t changed much since I last travelled from there, some thirty years ago. 

It has become much, much more crowded.  The other thing that struck me was the relatively less number of porters in their hall mark red livery.  And one look around, I realized why.  Most travelers these days bring roll on luggage…they do not need someone to carry it in to the train and off the train. 

In days gone by, porters also performed another important role…finding you a seat if you had made your travel plans very close to the date of departure and could not get a reserved seat or berth.  You would come a little early to the station, find a porter who would then jump into the rake as it rolled into the platform and put a towel on an unoccupied seat as a mark of its being taken.  The increase in the number of trains and the fantastically efficient on line booking site of the Indian Railways has obviated this need.  So, to cut a long story short, very few porters at the railway station.

The other thing that struck me as I went into Chennai station was the comfort with which Hindi is spoken in the city. In the '60s you could start a riot speaking the language. Today I find auto rickshaw drivers comfortably bargaining in Hindi...a tribute to the changing composition of the city's workforce.

Pulling into Bangalore city station around 11am in the morning, I got the distinct feeling that the milkman still comes around 10am.  There is a laid back nature to the city that belies its role as the Silicon Valley of India’s IT industry.
The two days that I spent in Bangalore were fantastic … meeting with friends and relatives who showered me with their love and affection. 

I got to experience the famous traffic snarls that Bangalore is now famous for, and one incident stands out in my mind.  Driving in the ten lanes of traffic on a road built for three lanes, the car I was travelling in was brushed by a car trying to overtake it from the wrong side.  The traffic cop standing close by, did not want to hold up the traffic and just waved our driver to move on.  However, the woman who was driving the other car which had tried to overtake us on the wrong side and had also got damaged brushing our car, was not going to give up.  For the next twenty minutes I watched her follow our car, constantly honking her horn and showering the vilest abuse on our driver, who maintained his calm, just politely pointing out that she was the party at fault.  At one stage she hollered that she was a lawyer and knew exactly who was at fault…followed by choice abuse describing various aspects of male and female genitalia.  Accustomed as I am, over the last thirty years to such disputes being settled more politely by exchange of insurance information, it took me some getting used to.  More importantly, it convinced me that if proof were ever needed, that this was the message not to take to the wheel myself, in India. 

The other experience that stands out in my mind, for totally different reasons, was lunch at Sahib, Sindh, Sultan, one of Bangalore trendy restaurants at the new Forum Mall in Koramangala.  The name takes its inspiration from the names of the steam engines that pulled the rake of the first train that ran from Bombay to Thane in 1853.  The restaurant is stylishly furnished on the lines of a railway carriage and the food is excellent and interestingly named.  Thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

 

I had a little time to spare when I landed up for my lunch appointment and did a bit of mall crawling.  Very much like a North American mall.  However, there is a wider choice of food varieties.  In addition to North American staples like Subway you also have Indian food choices which makes it more interesting...

And here is the Golden Arches menu

 

 

Driving around in Bangalore, I saw this advertisement on the back of an autorickshaw

 

 

Looks like Canada is still a popular destination for immigration, notwithstanding the best efforts of successive Canadian governments.

 

Getting an autorickshaw to take you home after a train journey has been a problem ever since I first started travelling, more than forty years ago.  The pre paid auto rickshaw stand at Central station has made that much easier and now one gets a pre determined fare

 

 

And when I got off the auto, I gave the auto rickshaw driver the specified fare with an added tip.  He refused to take the money from my hands.  I thought he was telling me that the tip wasn't enough.  After a few seconds, he touched my left hand in which I was holding the money and said, 'Give with right hand, not left...'  (the left hand is used only for 'dirty' things and it is considered inauspicious to do anything with your left hand, particularly money matters) If I gave the impression earlier that things have changed, let me say, some things never change.



 

 

Musical Mylapore...day one in Singara Chennai

Talking to my wife and son, soon after landing in Chennai yesterday, I realised that I had missed what looks like the first major snowstorm of this winter, for the Toronto area...not that I am complaining about having missed it...just that the first big snowstorm in Toronto, is like Bombay's first big monsoon downpour that happens every year in the first week of July...the city stops for a moment, heaves a collective shrug of the shoulder and moves on for the rest of the winter/monsoon.

While I am all praise for German efficiency, I must say that the in-flight entertainment for coach class in Lufthansa sucks big time.  The only movie of some standard I could watch was Despicable Me (2) and I must thank my niece Vasanthi for having recently introduced me to the Minions through her FB posts.  Vasanthi, sorry to say that Subraminion, who is your current profile pic, did not appear in the movie.


Anyway, the upside to the sub standard in-flight system was that I ended up meditating for about twelve of the sixteen hours on board, and, feeling as fresh as a daisy (or whatever one feels fresh as in Chennai) when I stepped off the plane in Chennai.

Taking off from Toronto Pearson and flying east, an hour or so after take off the in flight map starts showing up cities in Europe and as you continue travelling the names London, Berlin, Paris and so on start appearing on the map and in a somewhat panoramic way the history of these places flashes past the mind.  And then, on the Frankfurt-Chennai sector, Turkmenistan, Azarbaijan, recent additions to our family network with Sid's wife tracing her roots to those parts; then, mighty Persia; followed by the gateway to Asia, Afghanistan and then what was till 1947, a part of British India, Pakistan.  Such history...and as I saw the name Kandahar come up on the map, I remembered Tagore's Qabuliwallah and the dream that was Afghanistan in the days I was growing up...Here is a particularly wistful clip from that movie...ai mere pyare watan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAdeqOrfzPA

Coming in to land in Chennai or Mumbai I always crane my neck to catch the lights of the city.  Generally the plane takes a short turn around the Bay of Bengal and then comes in to land from the east.  Growing up in the Theosophical Society, when Air India introduced its first flights to Australia, we would often stand in our courtyard and see the underbelly of the aircraft as it came in to land late night.  We could often make out the markings as we watched. 

Yesterday the plane came in to land from the Pallavaram (land) side and I couldn't see much except that progressively the city lights are growing in number and density.  I couldn't get a glimpse of St Thomas Mount (which does not, of course, come in the flight path if the aircraft comes in from the Pallavaram side). St Thomas Mount is my signal, when coming in by air, that we are in Singara Chennai.  The towers of Basin Bridge perform that role when I come in by train.

Customs and Immigration these days are not the unending wait that they were when I first started travelling overseas.  I remember Lakshmi and the children once waiting about four hours for me to clear customs, and, that too green channel, sometime in the 80s.  These days it is a breeze and within twenty minutes of landing I was out, getting into my niece's car, heading to Besant Nagar.

December is a pleasent month to land in Chennai and the weather is a pleasent nineteen Celsius with a calm sea breeze...so, you will realize why I am not upset at having missed the first snowstorm of the
season in Toronto.

The highlight of the first day was the Musical Mylapore walking tour conducted by Sriram Venkatakrishnan, the young (relative to moi) and well known history chronicler of Madras aka Chennai.  The tour started at 6am outside Saravana Bhavan, and, waiting for the tour to start I was watching women cleaning the entrance to their houses and hand stencilling the decorative kolam motif  with rice flour that adorns the entrance to the house...here is a simple but elegant motif

If I were to describe Sriram's Musical Mylapore walk in one word ... fabulous, and, since one word does not do justice, I shall add fantastic.

Sriram packs into the two hours of the walk knowledge of history and society along with a great sense of humour.  During the two hours that he took us around the the four temple streets of the Mylapore Kapali temple he told of us the intricate relationship that existed between the legal luminaries who lived in the area and their sponsoring of music.  There were also very interesting flashes of the society of those days ... the nagaswarm players had to stand outside the hall, bare chested and play the instrument ... their being bare chested was reflective of their relatively lower caste status in those days ... till the great Rajaratnam Pillai came along said the equivalent of 'screw you' and once even wore a three piece suit when he played the instrument

Sriram also gave some very interesting anecdotes of the personal lives of several musicians.  One very famous musician of those days was well known for not paying his rent. Another would receive payment for his concerts in two envelopes, one of which went to his wife and the other to his mistress.  No names mentioned ...  The same celebrity would always insist that his concert be preceded by a short piece that the audience would have to endure, sung by his mistress ...  That might give a hint as to who that celebrity was.

So many rich and colourful stories that helped us construct a beautiful tapestry of the four temple streets that were Mylapore in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Papanasam Sivan was one of the best known names of his days. In 1921 or so he started the margazhi bhajans when he and his troupe would go around the temple streets singing (bhajans) hymns.  The picture below shows Sriram standing at the place where the bhajan singing would start and telling us the story of Papanasam Sivan

And the bhajans would always end with the troupe facing the Kapali temple,

and singing Gopalakrishna Bharati's kaana vendamo ... here is the version of that song sung by Dandapani Desikar in Nandanaar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GXOf_8oWnE

The walking tour ends with a hearty breakfast at Saravana Bhavan,  Jet lag was beginning to catch up and more than that the words of my Weightwatchers 'teacher', '...don't come back with pounds that you will have to work off...' made me say 'No' to the invitation for breakfast.  Thanked Sriram for the fascinating start to the holiday and headed home to catch up on some long overdue sleep.


 

Ready to roll

So last night I packed my bags for the upcoming trip.  And while I was at it, I also packed the dear wife's bags too.  She leaves a few days after me to spend girl time with the daughter before I join them for New Year...

Chatting with a few friends at a holiday season party last weekend, the wife and I mentioned that we were on separate holidays for the next few weeks.  The lady we were chatting with looked at her partner and said, 'They are on separate holidays...maybe we should try that...'  Which then brought to my mind the concept of Optimum Spousal Exposure (OPS), an algorithm developed by a smart MBA friend of mine, a product of the Leading Institute of Management in Western India.  Several factors go into constructing this algorithm, one of the most important being the number of years a couple have been together.   The longer the couple have been together, OPS will be lower.  Exceptions may exist to this algorithm, however, extensive research has shown that proper application of the OPS factor has resulted in longer marriages.

So, in a few hours time I shall be taking off for Frankfurt.  Having been employed by German firms for a combined period exceeding fifteen years now,   Frankfurt has been my transit destination of choice, and, Lufthansa has the status of a national airline.  Flughafen Frankfurt is one of those perfectly functional places, the classic Teutonic no nonsense efficiency coming through every pore...  Once I did land up there on a day when there was a strike on.  Even the strike was conducted with remarkable efficiency.  Picket lines marching with clockwork precision and no unnecessary emotion and shouting as we would see in other parts of the world.

From Frankfurt another nine hours to Singara Chennai...

First order of business after joining the Musical Mylapore walk on Sunday morning is to have a haircut with a good scalp massage thrown in.  The scalp massage that comes gratis as part of a haircut in India.

Chennai is in the middle of the annual music season and I saw two days ago that it was Subramania Bharati's 131st birth anniversary.  Here is one of Bharatiyar's best love poems sung by the great GNB

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQKbjRwF8jM

Got to finish a few things at work, then strap on the electronic leash before heading out.  Sometimes wonder whether it is a leash or a security blanket.  Many moons ago, before electronic leashes came into existence, a boss of ours told us in grand style before heading out for a holiday, '...I will be on the beach for the next week...take your own decisions...don't phone...'  Well, we just did that.  When he came back he said, '...Why did nobody call to update me on what was happening ?'  Well. we just did what he asked us to do ... which is why I wonder whether the Blackberry (or the Android which is gaining in popularity in corporate circles) is a leash or a security blanket.