Insights and Reflections

Aankh mein Namin si hai (with moist eyes)

2011-12-23T07:43:00.000-08:00

The news about Jagjit Singh’s brain haemorrhage had left me apprehensive but even so the inevitable announcement of his death came as a blow. The news on various web sites simply read ‘the ghazal king dies after a prolonged illness’. Just a few brusque words which can only hint at the sense of irreparable loss for ghazal lovers like me. Jagjit Singh had been my music icon for as long as I can remember. Jagjit Singh’s ‘pursoz’ ‘purnoor’ voice and his soulful rendition had been an inherent part of my growing up years. I was introduced to his music when I was just a little girl of 10. The Music lounge of the Army Mess had been spruced up for a visiting dignitary and some new LPs added. One of them happened to be ‘The Unforgettables’. I suddenly found that all officers were attempting to render ‘Baat niklegi to phir door talak gayegi’. The slightly off-key, drunken rendering did not impress me but made me curious enough to listen to the original and I was hooked for life. Jagjitji’s ghazal gayaki was undoubtedly different. It had none of the complex classical movement of Mehndi Hassan or Begum Akhtar and yet it had an unsurpassed simplicity and charm that made him an instant hit with all music lovers. My uncle who happened to have studied with Jagjitji at DAV college Jalandhar would feed me with little snippets which I lapped up eagerly. He told me how Jagjit Singh’s friends just called him ‘Jeet’ and how once in his early days, unfazed by a power cut he continued to sing on a battery operated mike and no one stirred from the spell-bound audience. Such was the power of his music. In the years that followed I bought everyone of his LPs and listened to them till they were worn out. Perhaps the most exciting moment of my life was when I managed to get passes for a live performance. And Jagjit Singh’s performance surpassed all my expectations. Even now I remember the audience crying copiously as they listened to his soulful Yeh daulat bhi le lo, yeh shohrat be le loBhale cheen lo mughse meri jawani,Magar mujh ko lauta do bachpan ka sawanWoh kagaz ki kashti woh barish ka pani. After that I made it a point never to miss any of his live performances in Chandigarh. In fact for me Jagjit Singh even immortalized Mirza Ghalib. His ‘dilkash’ voice and ‘Talafuz’ made Ghalib come alive for me. In rendering Ghalib, Jagjit echoes his own life and times‘hui muddat ke Ghalib mar gaya par yaad aata hai, who har ik baat par kehna ke yoon hota to kya hota’ Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2012

My childhood coterie

2011-11-10T07:49:00.001-08:00

I’m sure we all look back upon our childhood with pleasure and reminisce about the magical times. My childhood also had all the magic of an Alice in wonderland.My first memory as a child is of helping my father apply ointment to the broken wing of a dove and feed her medicine and rice. I can still feel the thrill of satisfaction when the dove soared into the sky with her mended wing. I can still remember the overwhelming joy when the dove kept coming back to our house every day as if to express her gratitude for our help. After this episode everyone in the vicinity, be it the milkman or the dhobi or the vegetable vendor, brought birds with broken legs or wings to our house for recovery. So at times we had a mélange of parrots, sparrows, blackbirds, doves in the house squawking, twittering or cooing for attention. As I grew up, depending upon the local animal populace, my motley crowd kept changing its profile. Sometimes it was made up of squirrels, kittens and guinea pigs whom I guarded fiercely against predators. At other times it constituted caterpillars that I would bring home just for the pleasure of seeing them miraculously transform into beautiful butterflies. Once I was lucky to have a tank full of turtles in the backyard. At another time a white rabbit strayed into our garden. It had been ravaged by a jackal and trembled with fear at the slightest noise. But slowly it recovered and we became inseparable like Mary and her little lamb. Perhaps the dearest member of my animal coterie was a Neelgai. There was a forest fire in the area we stayed in and the ‘jawans’ rescued a Neelgai calf from the fire. The poor grief-stricken motherless calf gave up eating and drinking. Upon me fell the onerous task of cajoling the calf to drink milk from a bottle. I would patiently pet the neelgai and feed it milk every day before going to school. A strong bond developed between us but there was grief ahead as the fully recovered calf had to be sent back to her own habitat. I missed her but my dad would drive me down the forested area once in a while and the fully grown neelgai would leave her herd and stand in the path of the jeep as if to greet us.These childhood friends were not like the spruced up pedigreed pets of today but they made my life magical with their raw spontaneity. My animal coterie is lost in the mists of time but even after several decades brings a happy smile to my face. Published in the Tribune dated 31st October 2011 Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2012

Is honesty the best policy?

2011-10-09T09:31:00.001-07:00

AS children we were brought up on Aesop’s fables, Panchatantra tales and ‘sakhis’, all of which emphasised the ultimate triumph of honesty and truth. In school, moral science classes also taught values of honesty, humility and goodness. Not to be outdone, our parents inculcated in us the belief that ‘honesty is the best policy’. It was not surprising then that I carried all these idealistic values to my parenthood as well. I drilled these values into my children like an unsympathetic drill sergeant. The poor mites accepted it as gospel truth. But in my desire to paint honesty in rosy hues I forgot the Biblical Abraham and failed to warn them about the pitfalls of honest-to-god truth. What happened thereafter was inevitable. One day my son (then all of four years) came home from school in tears because the teacher had punished him for not completing his home work. I asked him what excuse he had given the teacher for not doing his work. He looked at me askance. ‘What excuse?’ he sobbed: ‘I told her the truth’, the truth being ‘I didn’t feel like doing my work’.My daughter’s brand of honesty was no different. Once I took her along to call on a senior colleague. As a courtesy I carried a box of pastries and flowers. After the usual small talk, I prepared to leave but my four-year-old daughter refused to budge despite my repeated glares and nudges. My amused boss asked her: ‘Beta kya baat hai?’ She responded with a mischievous ‘My return gift’. This earned her a smack from her embarrassed honesty-loving mother.But as the children grew their questions about honesty came thick and fast. Commenting on my penny-pinching ways they would often point to a colleague’s luxurious living and advise me: ‘Uncle earns a larger pay-packet. Why don’t you get the same post?’ How could I explain to them the nuances of the not-so-honest living that had taken root in our society? So I glossed over it. But as the years went by the young mites saw their beleaguered parents struggling to survive in a Janus-like society which preached honesty but provided incentives for dishonesty. When Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign made waves, my children were thrilled. With a naivety born out of idealism and inexperience they believed that like Gandhi, Anna would have his way and corruption would be rooted out. I did not have the heart to tell the ‘Harry Potter’- inspired generation that there was no ‘Elder wand’ to magically remove corruption. It was a long struggle and there was no guarantee that honesty would triumph over dishonesty. But I dread the day when they will turn to me accusingly and ask: ‘Is honesty the best policy? Published in the Tribune dated 7th October 2011 Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2012

Fast and furious

2011-08-08T01:59:00.000-07:00

Fast and Furious aptly describes the Indian psyche today. We are in a perpetual rush to reach our destinations be it the office, the gym or just the club. The ‘need for speed’ seems to be the mantra of this harried generation. So we have the young as well as the ‘not-so-young’ whizzing past on high-speed bikes or monster SUVs.

The denizens of Chandigarh have also joined the speed bandwagon with great aplomb. And like all converts the Chandigarhites have adopted the religion of speed with more energy and enthusiasm. In spite of the ubiquitous police presence whispers of ‘drag racing’ and night-time bike racing willy-nilly reach our ears. Newspapers carry stories of young lives snuffed out in search of a momentary adrenalin surge. At an intellectual level these stories made me concerned but never emotionally involved. But this was before I was witness to the tragic fallout of speed addiction.

I was returning from a satisfying game of golf on a leisurely Saturday afternoon. Waiting for the red light to turn green I lazily took in the sight of two labourers industriously painting the pillar of the traffic lights. They had parked the cart with their work implements near the divider to warn unwary drivers of their presence. Even while I soaked in their happy camaraderie at work, I saw a blur of movement. As I watched in shock a black SUV careened into the cart and hit the labourers with a force that threw them into the air like rag dolls.

The out-of-control SUV flew across the road and slammed into the traffic lights with a force that tilted the pillar to an ungainly angle. People gathered around the driver, a young man dressed in the latest fashion with hair in a pony-tail, who attempted desperately to explain the mishap. He had probably been trying to cross at breakneck speed before the lights turned red and somehow lost control of his vehicle. The result: precious lives maimed and lost and a chastened young man who will spend his entire life with a guilty and traumatized conscience as well as the legal fallout of his mad rush.

Surprisingly the incident did not feature in any of the newspapers the next day. Perhaps such accidents have become so routine that they are not newsworthy enough and just become a part of the city statistics.

Writing the middle was cathartic for me but I wonder if the victims and their families had any such simple outlet for their grief. So I guess the only remedy seems to be a big thumbs down to speed. Car racing is best left to the Formula One experts like Schumacher and Karthikeyan.

Published in the Tribune dated 3 August 2011

Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2012

No change is the order of the day

2011-07-18T18:49:00.001-07:00

When I first heard of MNP, I promptly consigned the term to my Recycle Bin. But to my utter chagrin, the term came up frequently in conversations. Taking pity on my MNP illiteracy a friend deigned to enlighten me.

I was told, albeit patronizingly, that Mobile Number Portability would allow me to change my mobile service provider without changing my number. It meant that if I was miffed with the ubiquitous connection errors of my service provider I could ‘port’ out without the inconvenience of texting my new number to all.

Buoyed by the MNP implication, I started checking the portability protocol. All I needed to do was ‘sms’ a request to 1900. I did the needful, thinking with asperity that like most things, this ‘file’ would be processed in ‘due course’. But to my utter amazement my text message was acknowledged a few milliseconds after I disconnected. The sms courteously informed me that ‘my request had been processed’. Even as I struggled to come to terms with such un-nerving efficiency, I received another text message giving me a ‘unique porting code’. ‘Ye of little faith’ I thought as I berated myself roundly for my cynicism.

I decided in that moment of euphoric MNP enlightenment that I would be a staunch ‘desi’ loyalist. Expecting confirmation of my portability status the next day, I was taken aback but not unduly perturbed when my service provider informed me that I had earned free talk time of 10,000 seconds. Apologetically, I informed him that I was porting out. ‘We have a lot of freebies for you’ he trilled in his best salesman voice.

In the next few days I was offered free talk time, free internet facility, free ring tone downloads and what have you. I clung to my steadfast refusal with great difficulty. Then the tenor of my service provider changed. One day I received a brief text saying ‘your documents are not as per DOT directive. Please furnish immediately’. ‘Case of mistaken identity’, I thought. After all I had been with the same service provider for the last two years. I waited in vain for the standard ‘ignore the message’ sms. Then came a terse text: ‘Please submit necessary documents. Failure would lead to disconnection.’

Indignant at the treatment meted out to a respectable user, I spoke to the Manager. He apologized profusely and assured me that no disconnection would be made. The next day I received two messages. One said: ‘Your concern about disconnection has been resolved’. The other said: ‘In the absence of necessary documents your request for portability cannot be processed’. So here I am with my ‘port-ability’ dreams shattered. ‘Port-in-ability’ seems to be the order of the day.

Published in the Tribune dated 19 July 2011

Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2012

The Violin Teacher

2011-05-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

One fine day my teenage daughter announced that she wanted to learn the violin. Considering no one in our family had ever attempted such a feat I was naturally taken aback. All my attempts to disabuse her were firmly rebuffed.

So began my odyssey for a violin teacher. We found the first violin teacher with surprising ease but alas he turned out to be nothing but a covetous fraud who took advance fee and disappeared after two classes. Somewhat disgruntled, I started to look around for another teacher. I soon found one who seemed sincere and devoted but unfortunately his repertoire was limited to the basic notes on the violin.

I was disheartened and ready to give up the search but decided to make a last-ditch effort. A music lover recommended a teacher but warned that he was a ‘fakir’. My imagination conjured a man with tangled locks and a ‘choga’. The reality, however, was shockingly different. I found a frail, lonely, old man living in near penury in an attic on the third floor of an old house.

He had an old pedestal fan in one corner of a bare room which he turned on only to provide me some respite from the heat of a scorching May afternoon. I almost fled the place but the sight of a beautiful violin in one corner lovingly polished to a fine patina gave me pause. So began the saga of the violin teacher.

Come rain or shine he would arrive with a smile on his face and a new melody he would lovingly play on the violin. Any offer of tea or eatables would invariably be met with a dignified “Nothing for me”. My hesitant offers of financial or material help were met with a steady “I have enough”. Soliciting help in any form seemed anathema to him.

I slowly learnt that he had been a music director in Bombay. He had directed music for several songs sung by Rafi but had left to create and play music on his own terms. In the pursuit of music he became a recluse and was able to earn only enough to keep body and soul together.

Today his vision is failing, his hearing is deteriorating, he has a cyst, the size of a cricket ball on his neck (malignant or not is anybody’s guess) and he is all alone in the autumn of his life. Yet, he soldiers on with a smile and the violin firmly tucked in the crook of his arm, an inspiration to the world. Such devotion to music is admirable and yet one sadly wonders at the exorbitant cost paid for such devotion.

Published in the Tribune dated 12 May 2011

P.S. The cyst turned out to be malignant,and the Violin Teacher is no longer amidst us.

Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2012

Worldly-wise

2011-04-15T03:30:00.000-07:00

MY son was a student in one of the well-known schools of the city. Things seemed to be going well when mid-session I received a note from the class teacher saying that he had received several ‘de-merits’ in the preceding fortnight.

The school had an in-house incentive-disincentive system whereby a child was awarded ‘merits’ for performing well and punished with a demerit for breaking rules. Greatly perturbed, I sought an appointment with the teacher and met her the very next day. The teacher admitted to being completely mystified by the sudden slew of de-merits. She shook her head sorrowfully and kept muttering: ‘He was such a good boy.’ With some trepidation I asked her what the problem was. She consulted some notes and whispered conspiratorially: ‘He was caught talking in class’. She squinted at the notes some more and like a baton master directing the build-up of a crescendo announced: ‘He was rude to the monitor’.

‘Monitor?’ I spluttered in shock. ‘Is he the deciding authority on handing out demerits,’ I asked in disbelief. The teacher nodded her head proudly. ‘Ours is a mini-democracy’, she intoned smugly. I left somewhat precipitately fearing I would vent out my frustration if I didn’t.

Back home, I cornered my son and sat him down for a heart-to-heart. I looked him in the eye and asked him what the problem was. He looked back calmly and with a wisdom far exceeding his 13 years asked me point blank if I was ready to listen to his truth. At my nod he announced: ‘The monitor is very fond of chips and kurkure’. I was completely befuddled. How were the monitor’s culinary likes linked to de-merits?

Patiently my son continued: ‘You’ve seen Bollywood films where ‘hafta’ is paid by the common man to the ‘powers that be’? I nodded, still puzzled by the strange simile but slowly enlightenment dawned. The monitor, apparently, demanded chips and kurkure from the students. He was no bully and the demand was made in a very amiable fashion. He used his own home-grown carrot-stick policy to implement his demand. Those who ‘paid up’ were awarded with a chance to represent the school in an inter-school activity. But woe betide those who did not pay up. They were punished with demerits.

Before I could think of taking up cudgels against such a blatant barter system, I was sworn to secrecy. I could do nothing but lament a psyche that had tainted even the very young. But perhaps we have cause to celebrate. After all, the youngsters are becoming ‘worldly-wise’.

Published in the Tribune dated 11 April 2011

Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2012

A Fly on the Wall

2010-11-20T00:15:00.000-08:00

WOULD you like to be a ‘fly in the ointment’? A ‘bee in the bonnet’? A ‘snake in the grass’? A ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’? I’m sure not. Neither have I ever desired to join the animal ilk.

But of late I am being driven by an unknown compulsion to be a fly on the wall. Let me assure you it has nothing to do with being an animal-o-phile in general or a fly-o-phile in particular. Nor does it have anything to do with a ‘karma’ dependent human-animal reincarnation. It also has nothing to do with any Freudian voyeuristic compulsions (thank God!).Why then was a happy human suddenly gripped by a desire to be a fly on the wall?

It all started some years back. I was given an assignment which involved representing cases in the tribunal. After the arguments in court in a couple of big cases, I was convinced that the cases would be adjudicated in my favour. But to my utter disbelief the decisions were contrary to my expectations. I gathered from informal sources that the ‘other party’ had taken some out-of-court pleas that had swung the cases in their favour. At such a time how I wished I was privy to the all-important pleas. How I wished I was a fly on the wall.

At another time, I was working ‘busy as a bee’ in my workplace, in the happy expectation of being granted a coveted field assignment. But one fine day as I entered my office ‘bright-eyed and bushy-tailed’, I was told that a junior colleague had been given the assignment in my stead. How had this unhappy state of affairs come about? Was it my work? Or was it some extraneous consideration? How could I find out? Simple. By being a fly on the wall.

With the passage of time the compulsion slowly faded but only to raise its insistent head at important times in my life. When my beloved jade figurine went missing. When my interview for a coveted assignment was being rated. When a cyst was being examined for malignancy. Oh how I wished at times like these that I was a fly on the wall and witness to all that was happening behind closed doors.

Many of my friends disagree and righteously point out that being privy to existential or other secrets would take the zing out of life. That it is the inaccessibility of the shadowy depths of the world that add excitement and interest to life. And to be a fly on the wall would take away that extra ‘zing’. Maybe they are right. Maybe they are not.

Published in the Tribune on 20th November 2010
Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2012

Evolution of the Ballon

2010-10-04T19:33:00.000-07:00

Charles Darwin would assuredly look down his scientific nose at this title and ponderously remark ‘Hazam nahin hua’. But Mr Darwin with due regard I wish to differ. Tracing the lineage of a balloon may spring from pedestrian academic leanings but it becomes imperative after the unveiling of our very own ‘Kalmadi CWG balloon’ miracle. Yes Sir, I am talking about the 40 crore ‘Aerostat’ that has been feted as a marvel of modern technology and shall hover over our capital like the ubiquitous storm clouds of the seemingly never-ending monsoon season. So inspired by the ‘evolved’ balloon, I set about tracking the growth of this hitherto insignificant air-bag. The balloon was invented by a Portugese priest and cost nothing more than a few escudos. But thereafter it unashamedly shed its spiritual flavor to walk the path of celebration and revelry. It evolved from being a simple birthday party appendage to its metalicized version that adds zing to anniversaries and parties. But try as I might, I see no genetic resemblance between the ancestral balloons of yore and the present day techno-savvy monster balloon. Perhaps the huge size of the balloon is attributable to a cosmetic botox ‘job’. Perhaps it is just a genetically engineered Bt Brinjal all in white. Perhaps a ‘foreign hand’ has skewed the DNA of the balloon. After all it was created outside India and even the ‘gas’ has been imported from Russia. Why not simply forgo the evolution-speculation and have a heart- to- heart ‘genesis of the balloon’ talk with Kalmadi himself. We must also extend our gratitude to ‘Kreator-Kalmadi’ for transforming a humble air bag to its present day evolved avtar. So what if the cost is astronomical? After all, the ‘Indian rupee’ has only been sacrificed at the altar of modern science. Let us look at the ‘evolved’ features of this wondrous marvel. It has a lamp attached to its underside that will light up an inundated capital littered with ‘malba’ and the remains of the special CWG 70 crore bridge. It has innumerable cameras fixed on all sides that will capture the image of the impoverished Indian and of course the filthy toilets of the CWG village. And one must not forget the graphics of the Queen’s Baton Relay (with its attendant corruption charges) that will be projected on its white shining surface. The picture of our very own sports waterloo would be emblazoned for everyone to see. So this eminently forgettable ‘evolved’ miracle may turn out to be as lacklustre as Rahman’s expensive chant of ‘India bula liya’. ‘India Bhula liya’ or ‘India Phula liya’ seems more appropriate.

P.S. I stand corrected Mr Darwin.

Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2012

Lessons in protocol

2010-09-13T10:27:00.000-07:00

PROTOCOL was just another word in the dictionary for me. But that was before I joined the civil services. My first encounter with protocol happened the day I landed at the National Police Academy, Hyderabad, for my foundation course. Feeling listless and ravenous after a long journey I trudged into the dining hall in my track suit thinking I would grab some dinner and then ‘hit the sack’.

But as soon as I entered the dining hall I was met with a sea of disapproving eyes belonging to ‘probationers’ formally dressed in ‘bandh gala’ and starched cotton saris. It seems I had violated a strict dress code by entering the hallowed precincts of the dining hall in ‘casuals’. I beat a hasty retreat and decided to forgo the dinner despite the loud demands of my stomach.

The next day I was hauled up for my breach of protocol and made to run an extra mile as a ‘warning’. Before I could recover from this disaster I made another faux pas. We were lined up for introductions before the course director. I introduced myself with as much dignity as I could muster considering my recent ignominy and put my hand out for a professional shake. The course director eyed my hand in disgust and folded his hands in a ‘namaste’ that would put any coy soap opera character to shame. Lesson learnt: lady officers do not shake hands.

A few days later I reluctantly reported for riding classes. The riding session began with a lecture, God help me, on the protocol involved in mounting a horse. We stood to attention on the left side of our assigned horses as in a stentorian voice the ‘Ustadji’ took us through our paces.

At the count of ‘One’ we were to put our left leg into the stirrup. At the count of ‘Two’ we were to heave ourselves up and lift our right leg over the backside of the mount. At the count of ‘three’ we were to seat ourselves in the saddle, slip our right leg into the stirrup and gently pick up the reins for the ritual trot around the paddock.

But woe betide the rider who violated this regimented protocol as I did. At the count of ‘Two’ I tried scaling the horse instead of elegantly mounting it.

At Ustadji’s loud reprimand I yanked at the reins in desperation and ‘Sundari’ (my horse) reading it as a command took off at great speed. By the time the horse stopped I had sent up my last prayers to the Almighty. It finally registered — ‘protocol’ was a matter of life and death. From that day I took to protocol like the proverbial duck to water.

Published in the The Tribune, 10th Sept 2010
Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2012

Of snakes and tresses

2010-09-05T02:25:00.000-07:00

Three of the most impressionable years of my childhood were spent in Jabalpur. But it was not the streets of the city of Jabalpur but a distant hillock called ‘Sita Pahari’ that holds the imprint of my childhood.

We lived in a sprawling British Colonial army house surrounded on all sides by thick vegetation. So it was natural to bump into the wild life of the area be it of the four-legged variety or the crawling variety. We were warned about the hyenas and jackals but we were told that the snakes in the neighborhood were completely harmless. That didn’t exactly reassure us but then we hardly had a choice.

My first encounter with a snake-denizen of ‘Sita Pahari’ was nothing short of strange. One day as I came home from school, I saw a thin and lean looking snake draped elegantly over the bars of the outer gate. Not quite trained in the art of snake-handling, I clapped my hands and shook the gate a little to dislodge the snake but it refused to budge from its warm perch.

Seeing my dilemma a ‘jawan’ stopped by and to my surprise he simply went up to the snake folded his hands and mumbled a few words as though in prayer. And voila! The snake exited.

The second encounter was quite scary. My father was in the lawn supervising planting of saplings. He wore moccasins and had propped his foot over the bricks lining the flower bed. Going out to hand him a cup of tea, I glanced down and to my horror saw a snake lounging on his moccasins.

Speechless with horror I backed away. Dad spotted the snake and immediately gestured to the ‘mali’ to hand him a stick. Dad bent down and gingerly picked the snake with the stick but at the mali and sevadar’s exhortation simply threw it into the under-bush instead of killing it.

We soon realised that harming a snake was taboo here. Intrigued, I asked around and finally was able to piece together the strange ‘Sita Pahari’ myth. The belief was that Sita after her abduction was kept on this hillock by Ravana (hence the name Sita Pahari). Sita in her anguish at being separated from Rama pulled out her tresses which turned into snakes. As the snake inhabitants of ‘Sita Pahari’ were descendants of Sita’s snake tresses, they were revered.

Obviously, no historian would accept this far-fetched explanation but it was enough for the inhabitants of ‘Sita Pahari’ to desist from harming these creepy crawlies. And I guess they reciprocated the goodwill for in the three years of my stay I never heard of a case of snake-bite. Beats fiction anytime.

Middle published in The Tribune 11th August 2010

Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2012

Salaam Salim

2010-06-30T22:57:00.000-07:00

Recently I read an article about the water woes of the famous Keoladeo National Park at Bharatpur. Apparently, UNESCO was planning to revoke its World Heritage status and it was all because of some petty wrangle over the waters of the Gambhir river.

The article took me down memory lane to the year 1979 when as an impressionable child I happened to meet Salim Ali, the great ornithologist, in this very national park. In those days my father was posted at Bharatpur and we had hordes of relatives and friends descending on us in the winters, ostensibly to renew old bonds but with the not-so-hidden agenda of a visit to the Ghana Bird Sanctuary (as it was then called). So we dutifully took the relatives for the mandatory boat-ride and introduced them to the sanctuary’s avian residents.

On one such sojourn, aboard a boat aptly named ‘Painted Stork’, I spotted a stationary boat with a camera on a tripod and also what looked like a telescope. An old, bearded, bespectacled man with a peaked cap sat patiently watching the antics of what I later learnt were Siberian cranes.

Intrigued, I turned to the boatman seeking to know the identity of the old gentleman. With a how-can-you-not-know-him look the boatman told me it was ‘Salim Sahib’ himself. Apparently the ‘Birdman’, as he was affectionately called, came to Bharatpur every winter and spent hours observing birds in their natural habitat.

Soon after our boat ride, we saw Salim Ali’s boat gliding in to the landing area. As soon as he alighted, we rushed towards him excitedly and clamoured for his autograph which he gave with an indulgent smile. With innocent arrogance we asked him why he visited the bird sanctuary to which he simply and sincerely replied: “I am working on long-term conservation measures for the bird sanctuary.”

He was more than eighty and yet there was a determined glint in his eye and a suppressed passion in his bearing. He had the quick gait of a man in a hurry to reach his goal. Later I learnt that Salim Ali’s efforts were largely instrumental in getting the sanctuary its deemed national park status.

This chance meeting with the ‘Birdman’ was the start of my life-long passion for birds. Salim Ali’s books adorn my bookshelf and I never get tired of narrating the episode of my chance meeting with Salim Ali to anyone who cares to listen. But it saddens me to think that a petty water dispute will forever destroy the monumental conservation efforts of this grand old man. I guess conservation of avian habitats is not a priority in a country with a huge homeless human population

Middle published in The Tribune 1st July 2010

Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2012

The Rum Guzzlers

2010-02-11T02:12:00.000-08:00

As an Army child I was quite accustomed to staying in never-heard-of places. One such place was Bengdubi in West Bengal. When my father was posted to Bengdubi it did not even have its own train station. We had to alight at Jalpaiguri and then make our way by road to Bengdubi. We first arrived in Jalpaiguri one cold December morning and were ritually picked up at the station by a captain and ushered into the ubiquitous one-tonne (a small army truck) for our journey to Bengdubi. Soon, we had left the small town of Jalpaiguri behind and were moving through a thickly forested area. As we moved through the forest, I thought I spied a huge grey hump behind a distant clump of bamboo trees.

Seeing my interest, the captain accompanying us informed me that it was nothing but a ‘Rum-guzzler’. Seeing my total incomprehension he twinkled “This is what we call elephants here as they have a great fondness for rum and can smell it from miles away”. My skeptical look elicited a complacent “you will see” from the captain. In the bustle of shifting to a new place I soon forgot this conversation.

Then arrived the day when my father was to be formally ‘dined-in’ at the Officers Mess. We were ushered to the dimly lit lawns as soon as we arrived. The bar was set out at the far end of the lawn. Suddenly, in the middle of the party bonhomie, I heard a shout “rum-guzzlers agaye”. Before I could spy the gatecrashers, the entire entrouge, with practiced agility retreated to the Mess Lounge and positioned themselves before the bay windows. Intrigued, I squeezed myself into a crevice near one of the windows and peered outside. Nothing. And then I saw them as they materialized out of the dark.

‘Them’ being two mammoth elephants walking through the gates of the officers Mess with a stately sway. As I watched spell-bound the duo stopped, lifted their trunks and delicately sniffed the air. They moved their heads as if in confirmation and purposefully headed towards the bar. Then with an enviable delicacy they curled their trunks around the bottles of rum on the bar counter and tapped them on the ground till the bottle broke and made a ‘rum-puddle.’ Using their trunks they guzzled down the liquor and continued till the bar counter was empty of all bottles. Then they beat an unsteady retreat and disappeared into the darkness. The spectacle was something out of a Ripley’s ‘Believe it or not’.

The image of the rum-guzzlers has stayed with me and even after three decades brings a reminiscent smile to my lips.

Middle published in The Tribune 11th Feb 2010

Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2010

Hands on Training

2010-02-05T02:18:00.000-08:00

As officers on the job, we were trained in the art of search and seizure (raid in common parlance).During mock drills conducted at the parent academy we were taught not only the intricacies of law but also management of the assessee (tax-payer) and tax-evader.
So armed with freshly garnered knowledge and skills I confidently went for my first search operation. Our team entered a residential premises and began a physical search as per our brief. I was asked by the members of the household if they could send their five year old daughter to school. Keeping in mind the spiel on ‘rights of assessee’ during our training, I assented to their demand. As a matter of abundant precaution, however, we checked the child’s bag which contained a few books, a tiffin and a water bottle.
Alerted by the surreptitious looks passing between members of the household, an alert and enterprising Inspector in my team, emptied out the tiffin and water-bottle. And guess what? The water bottle spewed out water along with bank locker keys. This was my first encounter with an assesse blatantly evading the law. But there were more such encounters in the offing.

My next search was even more dramatic. Every time we attempted to search the main bedroom of the residence, the owner convincingly clutched at his heart and complained of shooting pain. Not wanting to take a chance, we requested a cardiac specialist to examine the ‘assessee’. After the physical examination, a discomfited doctor came to me and timorously handed a bunch of bank locker keys. Apparently, the heart-clutching was simply a ruse to remove locker keys from the bedroom before the search party found them.

On another search, the lady of the house put a spanner in the works by alleging that the policewoman with the search party had ‘picked’ up her solitaires. It turned out that the lady herself had hidden the solitaires in the pocket of her dressing gown. In another such search, the ‘assessee’ kept up a running commentary about how during the last search he had locked the search party in the outhouse and had his henchmen beat the daylights out of them.

We somehow managed to ignore the vitriolic commentary and continued with the search. Thankfully the commentary did not translate into a re-run of the previous search. One desperate assessee even let loose canine power to deter the search party. Before we could use a sedating dart, the bloodhound had taken a bite out of an Inspector. So the assessees quickly and surely taught us what our mentors at the academy could not. This ‘on-job’ training honed our assessee-management skills in ways that no mock-drills could.

Middle published in The Tribune 31st March 2010

Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2012

My Life is Average

2010-02-02T02:57:00.000-08:00

I am not much of a Net browser. Even the possibility of chancing upon old friends on the Net does not enthuse me. Books have always been my weakness but if you ask me to try reading an e-book on the Net, my first response would be a brusque ‘No thanks’. I absolutely ignore any invitations on the facebook or twitter and access to my mail box is limited to a quick monthly check. My son and daughter, both net savvy, try often to entice me into net browsing by pointing out the latest music releases, knowing fully that I have a passion for music. But much to their disappointment, I’d rather go to the ‘Music World’. So what I am basically saying is that I am….was caught in a time warp in the pre-electronic era. That was before ‘My Life is Average’ happened. One day with nothing better to do, like a good parent, I desultorily started to check out the history of my son’s laptop. Looking through the sites visited by my son, I realized that the site most frequented by him was ‘My Life is Average’. Now I was truly intrigued….And worried. Why was my son visiting a site that apparently talked about averages in a world where ‘excelling’ was all important. With trepidation I opened the site wondering what shocks were in store for me. The site was surprisingly nondescript. It was done in white and grey. Comments of various net surfers were chronologically listed in an ordinary font. And then I started reading it. The first comment simply read “I’m awesome” and pointed to a link that I eagerly clicked only to read a pithy “Its true!!!”. After the initial shock, I felt the beginnings of a big smile. The smile grew bigger as I surfed some more. One of the gems of wisdom read “To err is human. To forgive for no good reason is plain stupid.” Another quirky one read “Do you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There is a support group for that. It is called EVERYBODY and it meets at the bar.” Another gem of canine humour that I chanced upon said “I was trying to train my dog to jump through the hoop. I threw a treat through the hoop and watched. My dog walked around the hoop and ate the treat”. Such humorous truisms marked the beginning of my laughter-filled interludes on the Net. Today I am an unshakeable devotee of the Net. But please do not confuse me with a marketing ‘guy’ selling a web-site. I am simply an ‘average’ person out to have some ‘average’ fun.

Part of the Dream Weave Walk 1999-2010