A 36 years long career comes to an end...

Today, 30th November 2017 is the last working day of Tukubhai. The last day of his career as a bureaucrat and the beginning of his new phase of life. It's a somber day and a day to rejoice too.

The memory of he marrying into our family in 1985 is still so fresh. So many years has just flashed by before we realized. Reminiscing our various trip to remote districts of Karnataka, the birth of Niki and Tiku, their growing up with us, we experiencing our semi-parenthood, our learning of the ways of the Government, bureaucracy, it's oddities and it's benevolence.....It is all flashing by now like a time-lapse video today. It all happened so fast. Niki and Tiku have grown up and are on their own, and Tuku Bhai's role as a bureaucrat is on its last day but Leena continues to grow more beautiful and refuses to age.

Somethings don't change and Tukubhai didn't change.

He didn't forget his humble and difficult growing up. Instead of he, forgetting it as a bad dream and as a past to be buried, he lived it. Never ever he detached his present from identifying with his past. His past was his very own and he lived with it with the full view of the world. A life of simplicity, natural detachment from power and from the struggle for material gains; he continues to be a benchmark and a moral beacon for all of us. He exemplified how one's present power and position need not affect one's core self and your own set of moral and ethical values.

Tukubhai and Leena, you have made Baba and Maa and everyone of us proud. Sending you Godspeed from all of us.

A letter from a dead father to his about to be married son

Dear Son,

I am writing to you from heaven as I am not there in person to speak to you. I know you are going to be married to the girl you have chosen for yourself in a few more days and you are here in town to make the arrangements for it. The tasks are daunting even if your friends and cousins are helping you with them.

I think now I must tell you certain truths involving marriage.

You are not the first one to get married in our family. Your father did and his father did it also. In fact, you are here because they did it.

Marriage is not what you think it’s now. It is not a series of travel to destinations and eating out in fine dining restaurants and taking selfies and posting them on Facebook. It’s a bouquet of hard work involving adjustments, tolerating, suffering, and finally accepting your situations privately. Some people fail to adjust and accept and then separate, causing pain to the families involved. Approach this phase of life with a lot of maturity and caution, not happiness. The journey is tough. You better manage it somehow or it can destroy you.

Marriage function as a social event is a way of declaring to society that two people have their families' consent to be husband and wife and can raise a family. We inform our relatives and families and invite them to come and witness the event. We, in turn, treat them with food and give them gifts for their appearance. All to ensure that they don’t turn back and say that it's illegitimate. In fact, the best way to go about it is a civil marriage which is more binding and legal. But it lacks the fun and gaiety of the brand of marriage which you are planning for yourself.

Coming to the event part, you and your about-to-be bride have meticulously planned the series of events and partly financed the arrangements. Her parents and your mother had to agree to your plans because on such matters parents don’t have much say these days.

I know it's wrong to disappoint you now, but it may be a major milestone in your life and you are wide-eyed about it in anticipation but the people around you have seen it all and don't care much. Don’t expect them to be overly happy when you show them your marriage album and videos. You might be feeling like a prince in that Manyavar Achkan, but they would be thinking you are in a fancy dress competition. Don’t think that all the people and cars behind your procession are a part of your Barat, many could be helplessly stuck in the jam and gnashing their teeth and cursing you. The strobe lights and the deafening noise from the boom boxes may be helping your drunk cousins and friends to get wilder and dance away but it’s causing pain to the people living on the side of the road when they are about to sleep.

Son, these few days will pass quickly and realities will bite you soon. Better get grounded from now and take it easy and not waste so much of money and effort on a thing that has been happening for generations.

Good luck and my blessings.

The Pauper at the Airport

[As we go cashless, our dependency on the smooth working of technologies that support such services becomes absolute. But in a country like ours, who can ensure they work when we need them the most? And what are its consequences on people’s lives, if not long-term but in the short-term. Are we prepared for such situations? An event from my yesterday’s experience….]

Mid-presentation, I caught my associate gesturing at his watch indicating that we were getting late; the fear in his eyes was unavoidable. By 3.15 PM the thought of missing my 6.40 flight had not crossed my mind even once. With 30 km to do in 2 hours wasn’t something I would have worried about normally, but then you are at Noida, Sector 15 and you have to go to Indira Gandhi International Airport in peak traffic. My associate explained that here distance is expressed just not in terms of time but by the time of the day.

With my personal record of only two missed flights in the last six days, I chose to let him have his way and we rushed. We abandoned our cab, bought tickets in the Metro Rail, and hopped onto the first one heading towards Rajiv Chowk and for the first time, the Metro seemed a tad slow. We changed to a cab to reach IGIA in time. 100 meters on the road you get a taste of the traffic and the possibility of me missing the plane was now getting more real with each passing moment. By 5.35 I took a call and cancelled my ticket. Luckily got a seat in the 10.20 flight. My heart racing less now, I tried to bring my thoughts together and realised that there were 4 hours to wait at the airport.

For many, airports are just one of the many processes one has to undergo to reach one's destination. You only look around the airport if you get laid over or are waiting for your next connecting international flight. We have somehow become passive to the people and the things around us. But this time with 4 hours to spend, soaking in the hyperactivities of the airport was the only available timepass (sic).

Like most of their brethren outside the air-conditioned atmosphere of the airport the difficulties faced by the passengers were similar. Two SBI ATMs had not less than 50 people each; all trying to withdraw cash. I failed to understand two things – one, while standing in a queue why can’t people stand a little farther from each other and two, why does a person travelling by air need cash and agree to stand in a long queue. Dismissing both things as a very Indian reaction to any scarcity situation I strolled towards the food court to grab some evening snacks.

Selected a Subway counter for a plate of salad. Watching others making food decisions can be quite interesting - some are so sure and some so vacillating with their choices. The counterhand patiently handles each one of them with a mix of sincerity and nonchalance. Just when my order was getting done, an animated discussion just ahead in the queue caught my attention. The young man just ahead of me in the queue had paid through his card and while he has already got a debt notification from his bank the POS device of the merchant still shows that the transaction couldn’t be effected. Both were trying to convince the other by showing the notifications on their respective screens. The experience of the man at the counter in handling such situations prevailed when he declared that from now onwards no card payment is possible as the servers have jammed up. The young man by now angry and hungry backed off.

Looking at the condition of both the parties and the logjam they had created for themselves, I volunteered to pay for his sandwich. Surprised and embarrassed by my offer to buy food the young man was left speechless for a while and the counter hand on being ordered by me to do so proceeded with billing for both orders together. I paid in cash took delivery of both food portions and handed over the sandwich to the young man.

The man surprised by this gesture of mine tried to utter a few sentences which had no definite purpose or logic. He himself was quite jumbled up with the sudden turn of events. He was apologetic for receiving free food from an unknown man and at the same time, he was hungry enough to refuse the only chance of his getting some food. He explained, how he has money in his account but is forced into this situation just because the card doesn’t work. I cut him short by telling him that it was a small gesture of help and didn’t merit so much of an explanation and went for the nearest vacant seat leaving the young man in multiple emotions.

While I chewed onto the colourful fresh vegetables on my plate I tried to describe the situation of this young man. The Pauper at the Airport? The Man who could fly but not buy his food? The possibility of having such momentary paupers not just at the airport but anywhere and everywhere when the country goes cashless looks dreadfully real.

Our Own Confession Box

Time spent at a traditional barber shop can be a vicarious experience of so many hues. It literally gives you an insight into the life of so many people on a platter. Like it or not, you are destined for this experience if you have hair on your head or otherwise.

Let’s not make the mistake of confusing the barber shop I am talking about with that of a modern-day salon. The one I am talking about is known more as a social institution than for the basic grooming service it offers. Two rows of seats, a wall-to-wall mirror with pictures of calendar gods and goddesses providing oversight to your grooming process, and a TV or a cheap sound system blaring out local hits characterizes them. An hour of grooming including half an hour of waiting time can set you back maximum by a hundred rupees even now. 

Many those days shaved once in three days and had a haircut once a month. Being recognized and acknowledged by the barber was treated as the first certificate of an adolescent into his manhood. He would be considered a man and a man enough if he in the later years gets the offer of a waiting seat and is given a pan or included in the rounds of tea order unasked. That is one of the methods by which a man in our societies left his urine marks on his territories as being someone important. Those days the service comprised of recognition, acknowledgment, respect, elaborate talk on various issues both local, national, and personal then a haircut or an odd body hair shave and a spine-chilling message to end the session. The quality of haircuts at those times was given the least priority and people were supremely confident of their appearance in spite of their oddities.

Traditionally, barbers, as a clan were the ones who could carry any potentially lethal weapon nearest to the jugular of the most powerful person in that area, and his massage skills, gave him the access to the most sensitive spot that every man tries to protect after perhaps his eyes. Scores of stories and hearsays had the shrewd barber as the manipulative character at its center. His closeness to the kings and such power centers made them develop their art of glib talk to keep the powerful engaged while being groomed. It gave them the enviable access to the powerful ears too. To plant a suspicion for mischief or gains or to extract a personal favor. The trait had become genetic and would have continued had the disruptive culture of new age salons not come up.

People would stroll in with scant disregard for the person on the seat. Pick up a comb or a pair of scissors from the tray on the ledge in the front and start to give themselves a groom while picking up a small or a serious chat. The one silently sitting in the waiting chair for the last half an hour would randomly choose his unsuspecting audience and target his opinion on some issue that he discovered in the newspaper, without bothering to check if the issues interested his audience or not. Doesn’t matter if it didn’t interest him, as there will be someone else who would catch that thread and the discussion will continue ad nauseam. One was free to join and exit the discussion anytime as the barber as the moderator would keep the discussion stoked with his wisdom and quips long enough. Regulars chose their timings. Mornings are the usual rush time. Sunday was the lean day and Mondays and Thursdays were the leanest. For many, the trip was more social than anything else. They chose the crowded timing few who were not very socially adept would choose the lean times.

Don't know why barber shops are kind of confession boxes for many. A bar with a good bartender served the same purpose in the West perhaps. Today, I was privy to simmering tension between a man and his wife. The man talking to his wife over his cell phone chose to get up immediately without getting a haircut to mete out instant justice. By this time he was out of the doors, he already had made his intentions and plans public. After being exposed to the cold, dust, and fog in the morning yesterday, a land agent was lamenting how he is down with a bout of cold and chest congestion. His misery seems to be never-ending as he was just recovering from a surgery he had to endure to rupture an abscess on his Hydrocele (sic).

This place of social interaction headed by the lead barber himself was no less than a social institution itself. Our cities till some time back were dotted with such shops. They were known by the names of the barber, not by the shops’ names. And fortunately, some still exist as the shadow of their former glorious bests. Our preference for conspicuous consumption in the name of hygiene, style, and comfort is depriving us of experiencing what is called glib talk. I won’t say much about the voyeuristic pleasure we derived from peeping into others’ lives as collateral.

*

Death

The wailing coming from the other end of the veranda was piercing.

Nothing unusual for the keeper at the mortuary. The silence in this abandoned part of the hospital usually gets broken with these familiar noises.

“The post mortem can only be done tomorrow morning” he nonchalantly threw his words at the small crowd outside the room without looking at anyone in particular before bolting the door shut.

He just had received the second body of the day. Someone who had died in an accident early this morning while returning from a marriage. Not that these information matter to him, but he just had overheard from the discussions of the people accompanying the body.

“Do we have to stay here all night?” Someone asked him. Some were dreading the prospect of staking out. Too much for them after what they have been going through since they heard the news. Managing the victim, the bereaved family and the legal procedures involved in such incidents.

“How can I say? Do whatever you wish to.” heaving himself up the raised platform and fishing out his half used bidi from his shirt pocket while replying. He chooses to stretch himself for a while.

Slowly the crowd thins out and silence sets in. Night descends on that part of the campus and the glowing streetlight reminds the keeper to switch on the lone incandescent bulb on the veranda.

“WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE? Didn’t I tell you to come tomorrow”, he shouts admonishingly at the pile of cloth from under which a pair of startled eyes of a frail young woman who looked much older to her age stared with blank expressions. Neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

Disgusted he heads for his outhouse at the back of the mortuary to cook something for the night. The sobbing coming from the veranda was getting audible. Irritated that the woman still hasn’t left, he gets up to confront the woman.

“What will happen to me, now that he died? Who will take care of me and my six months old daughter? She tries to build up a wail but her tired throat failed to match. “This rascal never learnt, he got crushed under a truck while returning drunk! Now what will happen to me?” She was cursing her dead husband and speaking to herself in a tired and broken voice.

“Why do you worry? You are young, someone will surely agree to keep you.” The keeper chooses to give his two pence. “But who will accept me with my child?” the woman speaks unconvinced.

“Check, what you can do with her, someone might want to take her or else …..” he turns back and starts heading towards his unfinished chore.

The woman raised her head from between her knees and looked at the far end of the campus; not askance anymore. 

A minute of life

Few year length of unspoken words,

A mountain of emotions to be shared.

A chasm of angst to be bridged,

But only a minute in hand.

Let's get Photographed

A Couple of days back while clearing my drawers of old and unwanted papers, I came across an old Driving License issued to me in the year 89. Safe in a transparent polyethene jacket frayed at the edges, its pages had yellowed and had turned brittle; long forgotten with the introduction of smart card ids. On turning the first page I discovered the old black and white photograph of mine smiling at me, almost telling me – Hi buddy, long time! You have grown old. Nostalgic, I chose to make it my DP in my Whatsapp account.  That picture took me down memory lane reminding me of many incidents relating to a major event known as ‘Getting Photographed’.  And I am sure each of you must have had such experiences also.

Till the advent of the digital camera and the ubiquitous phone camera, photography was essentially a rich man’s hobby. Very few had cameras or had relatives who had them. Few could afford to indulge themselves with the pride of dangling a hard leather cased boxy device around their neck during outdoor activities. Let’s not discuss that now. The other type of experience which almost each and every one of us must have had was getting photographed at ‘Studios’.

‘Studios’ were one of the standard fixtures of any urban habitation. Each bore similar look differentiated only by the type of photographs they displayed at their entrance. The older the Studio was, older were the photographs. The more pedigreed and accomplished the cameraman, more famous personalities adorned his walls. They were his diplomas on display. Studios like ‘Das & Das’ and Naidu’s in Cuttack were owners of such halls of fame. Their owners were well-known persons respected in the community because of their access to their skills and technology, few could understand. And maybe for their ability to freeze a moment for the posterity.

The studio photographs of that time were of certain fixed format depending on the person, time or event. If it’s a family photo, then you would find the wife sitting on a stool with one child on her lap and another by her side and her stunned husband standing behind both. If it’s the photo of your grandparents, then the husband would sit on an ornate chair with his wife behind him – shiny shoes and walking stick in place. If its friends, then both had to sit close by with the taller one putting his hand over the others shoulder. The most common of them was where the wife or husband would be made to sit together little staggered and look to the left or right looking at a far distant point in the horizon – as if looking at the sunset. More romantic couples could dare to take a photograph with the husband putting his hand on his wife’s shoulder.

The photographer had his standard syntax with regard to the position each hand has to take, the tilt of one’s head, the point to which the eyes have to be fixated, this not only instructed by the photographer but was sternly ensured. That perhaps says why there were very few photos where the objects smiled. Only in group photos of girls, where they were made to sit in formations you saw few smiling faces. Each studio had their standard background and props. “Ready One Two and” POP! The surrounding flashbulbs used to go off blinding the objects for few seconds and freezing the moment for posterity.  

Such photography was necessitated by life events. Older parents were taken to be photographed well before one of them kicked the bucket. Married couples took their photos almost after a month of their marriage when the new bride would be allowed to set her feet out of her home. She then would send a copy to her parents to let them know that everything is well. Family photos were taken after their offspring reached a certain age. In between, friends used to have their photo jaunts either on festivals or when they wore new clothes. The two most popular days on which girls made a beeline to the studios were Raja or Kumar Purnima. It was not unusual to see all friends wearing similar dresses, made out of one bale of cloth. Such display of friendship or solidarity would evoke mirth and ridicule among the present generation. But then those were the days of group fun and simplicity. Closeness with a friend was displayed by holding each other’s hand while walking.

Those days as soon as one passed his school finals, he was expected to take out his passport-sized photo and get wads of it attested by a gazetted officers. Achievements like winning a trophy were diligently saved for posterity by being photographed with the trophy put on the prop by one's side. The importance of studio used to became more when the daughter reached the marriageable age, she would get dressed in a saree and a hill (to compensate her lack of height) and get chaperoned into a studio for what is now called Matrimonial Photo. Many marriages couldn’t materialise because of the photographer’s lack of skill and many grooms silently cursed the photographer for misleading them into agreeing for a face to face interview.

The narrative on studio photography will not be complete without mentioning the role of the touch-up artist whose job was to cover the flaws of the photography or the person. His job was to redraw the eyebrows and moustache to perfection and replant the missed Bindi and effect such many changes. His act can be best termed as the present day photo-shopping. Repeating the same act overall the number of prints ordered required enormous talent and patience. He also was the cause of many hilarious experiences. One of my friend who had a patchy pair of moustache was taken aback on discovering his well-grown pair in a matter of days since he got photographed. His adolescent profile couldn’t carry the weight of his military whiskers. Another who had a sty in his left eyes had to have another implanted on his right for symmetry. And a very modern short haired 'midi' wearing friend of mine was startled on seeing a Bindi wearing-avatar of her own self, shattering her own self-perception. But such was the magnitude of investment of effort behind each such photo event, that none had the courage to return back the photographs citing dissatisfaction.

The present day generation can’t fathom the effort and time which went into executing such event. Starting from turning out in your best clothes to matching it on the right event used get meticulously planned. A trip to the studio was coordinated and cost shared. The meticulous cost sharing on the basis of - equally dividing the cost of the shoot and individually paying on the basis of the number of copies ordered, would put the present day accountant to shame.

The selfie shooting youngsters don’t remember how many photos get shot and how many gets deleted, wilfully or accidently. The life of each digital snap ends when people stops ‘Liking’ it on their fb wall but these black and white photographs still adorn our walls and albums and continue to live on. Maybe the artistry of the photographer has succeeded in capturing that experience so well that it has turned that moment into a ‘Milestone’ in our lives. 

It saddens me when I realised that we are never going to hear one wide-eyed and excited girl suggesting to her group “This Raja, all of us, let’s get photographed”.