A False Step

                        A false step

It was December, on what was probably the coldest day of the year. I had just appeared on NDTV and was in a somewhat euphoric state of mind. The escort girl whispered something about going by a shortcut to the parking area where their vehicle was parked.

We started to cross a hall in which carpenters had been at work during the day

“Mind your step, Sir”, the girl whispered, even as I put my foot forward on a loose piece of timber and twisted something near the knee. That was the false step.

That one step cost me dearly, both in pain and expense.

I started limping a little. When it persisted, Raj insisted that I   consult a specialist. We decided to go to an Ayurveda clinic, and after a bit of research discovered Santhigiri in Malaviya Nagar. They had various kinds of   oil massage, as practised in Kerala. The vaid  in charge sold us two courses on rejuvenation and revitalisation, which would incidentally also rid me of the pain near the knee.

Three weeks later, I had undergone vigorous Kerala massaging and was Rs. 25,000 lighter in the pocket. Towards the end of the period I said I was feeling better, for fear that he might make me undergo a few more rejuvenation programmes.

After a while, I started seeing Swami Ramdev’s lectures on Aastha channel at 4-30 a.m. His yogic exercises helped me enormously in other aspects of life like getting up early, practising five different forms of meditation and some excellent exercises to become slimmer and generally tone up the body and mind.

But alas! The pain in the knee still persisted.

After a while, Raj happened to talk to a neighbour’s daughter at a wedding. The girl inquired politely why uncle was limping. When Raj unburdened her soul, she promptly revealed that she was now running a physiotherapy clinic at N Block, GK I.

Very soon thereafter we were at Meera Kak’s Clinic and I was booked for a course , which after a suitable neighbourly rebate cost us Rs. 15000 per course.

I must say in retrospect that Meera’s formula for combating pain is a composite one. She uses all the known techniques, like exercises in the gym, yogic asanas, hot and cold compresses, special contortionist postures    by her dedicated and muscular team of female wrestlers

..They even went to the extent of teaching me how to walk.

The girl prompted: ” Keep your neck straight, inhale a chest size of 56, look at a point 200 yards ahead, order your legs to take a long step,  lift your right foot up and put it smartly forward and mentally sing the lines “Nanha munna rahi hoon, desh ka sipahi hoon…”

Two courses later, I had tired of the whole regimen and lapsed into sleeping at home and a course of benign neglect. One day, Papoo came to our house and saw me limping. He waxed eloquent on the merits of Anand Purohit, who had magic fingers and made your pain disappear instantly. He had cured his tennis elbow in no time.

I succumbed to Papoo’s propaganda.Anand manipulated the leg, the calf etc .and on my third visit asked me to ascend the stairs. I did it with ease.Anand flashed his famous smile and said, “it is as I thought. There is nothing wrong with the knee. You have only to order your leg to move.”

My wife , who has always suspected that I have no pain and  it is all a figment of my imagination concurred fully with him. After eight sittings each costing Rs. 800/- I gave up the treatment.

My latest experiment is with a young dedicated architect who practices Sujok,the Korean art of acupuncture. This is Parul Maheshwari who has converted his basement in Saket into a physiotherapy clinic. He claims that the Sujok is the most complete system of therapy invented by man. He takes a computer snapshot of the patient’s nervous system through an Accugraph and then measures the progress over a period of time.

My initial accugraph gave me a composite score of 65%. In the last two months, the score has come up to   92% Thus there is great improvement.

“sBut the pain in the knee still persists,” I whine, at which comment he flashes a smile. ”You will see the improvement. Let the nervous balance in the body be first restored.”

Parul does not charge a fee. So I still visit him religiously at 7 a.m. every morning.

What do I have to lose?

The choice of a profession

The choice of a profession

My grandson Shashank is in ClassXI ,going on  to Class XII. This is the critical time when children have to choose their profession. In our days the options were limited; One naturally drifted towards a profession, either following the family tradition or abiding by the wisdom of the elders. When it came to our children, the youngsters had already started asserting themselves. We wanted them to enter the civil service, but they were singularly unimpressed by their experience of my life style. My daughter became an engineer MBA and my son a cardiac surgeon.

Then came Bill Gates, Mark Zuckenburg and Steve Jabs and being a school or college dropout became fashionable throughout the world. In India, ‘Three Idiots’ represented the great divide. Parents became apprehensive about imposing their career choices on their children; there was always the implicit threat of suicide in the air.

Shashank at first plumped for commerce, then shifted gear to history, then to international affairs. The latest bombshell he lobbed at his parents was politics. When asked for a clarification he explained that he did not mean good old “political science”, he wanted to join active politics. My daughter almost fainted away.

Shashank was directed to discuss the matter with his nanu (i.e. poor me). I had no intention of confronting youth power head on. I only sought clarifications. When he said politics, what exactly did he mean? Would he enter the rough and tumble of electoral politics, first in the municipal ward, then graduating to higher positions of MLA, MP, Minister, Chief Minister etc?

He was exceedingly mature for his age. His model was Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of the Students] Union in Jawahar Lal Nehru   University.He had studied his career graph in depth. You had first to emerge as a student leader and then force the Govt. to arrest you for sedition. This route appeared to be easy and replicable.

Kanhaiya’s recent career showed how a nonentity could be catapulted overnight  to the status of a national celebrity, just because of a concentrated dose of attention from the electronic and print media.

I must say that the young man had learnt his lessons well .I wondered how he could be dissuaded from this calamitous course of action .I reminded him of the special skills and background that successful politicians had necessarily to boast of .      Kanhaiya Kumar hailed from a poor family of Bihar . Narinder Modi was a Chaiwala’s son. Both spoke Hindi with great fluency ,with Modi having picked his linguistic skills from his long stint as a R S S pracharak .

Did he not notice how Kanhaiya had been a fond bed-fellow of undesirable elements like Maoist extremists and Kashmiri separatists? Would Shashank fel comfortable with mouthing of anti-national slogans of  the kind shouted in the JNU campus on 9^th February?

Shashank would always be saddled by the overwhelming burden of the patrician credentials of his parents and having been student of a public school , his proficiency in the manipulation of the Hindi language was nothing to boast of .

On top of it he would have to locate his political career in the state of Karnataka of which he knew very little . He would have to be a master of  Kannad.

As our conversation proceeded, I could see that Shashank’s initial enthusiasm for politics as a career had waned considerably .Latest reports from Bengaluru indicate that Shashank might persuade himself to take up something more classy like international affairs or  inclusive politics as a subject of study .

 For the present, we are keeping our fingers crossed! 

THE STRATEGY OF SILENCE

                              The strategy of silence

In politics, the consummate players have to know when to speak and when to be silent. Manmohan Singh lost his gaddi because he maintained a studied silence at all times, hoping that the storms would spend their fury and vanish into the horizon of comparative calm. Since Rahul found his tongue after the extended sabbatical of introspection, he has decided to be loud, uproarious, brash and vulgar, hoping that the pitch and timber of his vocal fury would move some of his listeners to side with him.

Modi is a flawless player. He let the entire Lalit Modi affair fade away into the drainage system of the proverbially short memory of the public. He did not speak a word in defence. His loyal fans see a deeper strategy behind the master’s silence. The criticism reduced the carefully crafted image of those party men who could pose   a political challenge in the future, and he let the Opposition perform this odious task for him.

It is not equally evident why he lets the fringe of the Hindutva crowd get away with comments that diminish the stature of the NDA Government without even a mild admonition or rebuke.

There are several schools of thought to explain away this studied silence. The most popular belief is that he feels that such hegemonic slogans in defence of Hinduism tend to solidify the Hindu vote bank, which has traditionally been fractured into the secularists and the Hindutva lovers. To some extent, those Hindus who found it morally superior to flaunt a pro-Muslim stance on contentious issues and personalities of the past may have found it possible to saunter their way into the motley crowd of Muslim-baiters.

This kind of volte face might not apply to strong characters like Girish Karnad, who might even indulge in deliberately provocative stances in order to receive death threats a la Salman Rushdie. But such exceptions only tend to  prove the point.

The second school of thought avers that the views of the lunatic fringe are an extreme version of the basic belief held by Modi himself that Hinduism represents the highest form of civilized thinking over the millennia and across the continents. The way he has introduced Yoga into the international arena, persuaded the UN to celebrate the World Yoga Day on 21^st June, patronised the efforts  to train millions of people   in Yoga , introduced Yoga education in the schools and so on is one such initiative. 

 

At the philosophical level, he is an acolyte of Swami Vivekananda and is a great votary of Vedanta as being the acme of spirituality. He is a patron of the Vivekananda Foundation and has drafted some of his top advisers from that body.

The third theory contends that he was an RSS pracharak all his life and has been popularising the Sangh ideology by travelling from village to village. Although he was married, he has led a life of bachelorhood. He deeply believes in the theory of an Akhanda Bharat and would like India to emerge as a Hindu Rashtra.

Modi’s opponents contend that his studied silence on crucial issues gives out the wrong impression that  the statements made by the Sangh functionaries have been averred in the public domain with blessings from the PM.

This may be far from the truth. Let us take the declaration about the need for a rethink on the entire policy of reservation  made by Mohan Bhagwat as an instance. At this point of time, when the waters have been muddied by statements and counter-statements galore, it is difficult to guess what Bhagwat meant in the first place and whether it was a casual remark  or the result of a carefully thought out strategy. Did he mean abolition of reservation of seats in educational institutions and  the earmarking of posts for recruitment to posts under the Government ? If so, it could at best be a slip of tongue for a seasoned politician like the Sarsanghachalak. And Modi is no greenhorn to have instigated it or even tolerated it, considering the potential damage this would cause in the Bihar elections.

If on the other hand, it was a deeply thought out strategy to fracture the reserved category vote into families receiving the benefit of reservation for the first time and those who had already benefitted from it, that would be a completely different  matter. But then Bhagwat should have made it clear in the very first place. The explanations offered by the spokespersons might have contained the damage somewhat, but it is undeniable that the declaration gratuitously allowed Lalu to reap an unforeseen political dividend .

There are other instances of Modi’s silence. Take the appointment of the Chairman FTTI Pune which has snowballed into a long drawn out controversy. It boggles the imagination as to why the appointment of a nobody like Gajendra Chauhan, who is neither a celebrated actor nor a notable BJP sympathiser should have been made a point of prestige by the I&B Ministry.

The explanation offered that even in the past persons who were close to the establishment were appointed to such posts ` is neither here nor there. No one holds the view that a first rate film actor like say Shatrughan Sinha or Hema Malini would have elicited the same kind of response. It is not clear why a call from the PMO did not nip the agitation in the bud.

There have been numerous aberrations perpetrated by the Shiv Sena, which is an uneasy partner of the BJP in Maharashtra. The Sena has opposed any sports or cultural contact with Pakistan. Even a discussion on a book did not materialise. Such antics on the part of the Sena may be acceptable, but not the inability of its BJP partner to distance itself from such extreme viewpoints and to ensure that the events took place with the active support of the Govt. and its law and order machinery.

That brings us to the murder of a literary figure in Karnataka and its fallout in the literary world. It may technically be true that the primary responsibility for maintaining the rule of law rests on the shoulders of the State Government . But this does not absolve the Centre from its share of responsibility.The murder of this literary giant sent ripples in the entire community of creative persons and when the Centre showed complete apathy led to the return of the Academy awards and other prizes and honours  received by writers, actors, scientists and so on.

The Centre’s defence of its inaction did not cut much ice. To paint the  response of the creative community as political and confined to the favourites of previous regimes rubbed salt in their wounds. It  was no use pointing out that the Akademies and other bodies could not be held responsible for the atmosphere of intolerance , if there was any. The episode could have been nipped in the bud by registering a CBI case to investigate the murder and giving an assurance from the highest level that such dastardly acts would not go unpunished.

That said, it has to be admitted that India is inherently tolerant  because that is the nature of Hindus.Hindus  are taught with mother’s milk that the whole world is one family and that non-violence is the highest rule of righteous conduct. Thus Hindus have traditionally suffered repression and tyranny at the hands of rulers, invaders and conquerors. Many would call this cowardice, not tolerance.

After independence too, the Hindus have followed a policy of treating the minorities with kid gloves. We adopted a version of secularism which favours the minorities. The received wisdom has been that if Hindus favour the minorities, they are secular, but if they favour Hindus they are communal. The result is that the civil code of Hindus has been amended to accord with the modern values of gender parity, monogamy etc. The civil code of the minorities has remained untouched. This has caused    a demographic imbalance that has pushed the percentage of Muslims to 19% of the total population.

Many observers feel that with the ascension of Modi to power, there has been a qualitative difference in the way these policies have been adumbrated in the past. The Hindu right has started asserting itself. For a long time Nathu Ram Godse was consigned to eternal damnation for having assassinated the Father of the Nation. Now the Godse apologists have emerged from the woodwork. The defence statement of Godse has been widely, openly and extensively circulated and there are several groups who feel no hesitation in criticising the Mahatma for his pro-British , pro-Muslim policies. They defend the murder on the ground that it was the only way the Hindu interest could have been subserved.

A strong lobby is emerging that there should be a quid pro quo in Indo-Pak relations. It does not see any point in India’s unilateral generosity in granting the most preferred nation treatment to Pakistan, when it is not willing to reciprocate.

On the issue of terrorism, this hawkish lobby asserts that we should not allow Pakistan have the best of both the worlds at our cost. They are sympathetic to the Shiv Sena ideology. They would not permit cricket matches to be played, Pakistani singers to visit India on long, lucrative tours, Pakistani actors to play in Indian plays, serials and films, Pakistani books to be discussed and sold in India and so on until Pakistan shuts up its terrorists within its own boundaries.

On the issue of beef, this lobby wants that States which have not yet passed legislation that prohibits the slaughter of cows should do so at the earliest. Those which have banned only cow slaughter should extend the ban to bulls, heifers etc. Muslims should not be allowed to slaughter , keep and even privately eat the prohibited species.

The Census figures of 2011 which show a marked jump in the proportion of Muslims have triggered a debate on the need to change the law relating to marriages. They should not be permitted to have more than one wife. A special family planning drive should be launched to limit their growing numbers. There should be a strict vigil on the borders with Bangladesh to prevent the entry of illegal immigrants into this country.

Some over enthusiastic lobbyists have called on the Hindus to boycott the films having Muslim heroes. Baba Ramdev has gone to the extent of suggesting that Shahrukh Khan should prepare an estimate of his increased earnings consequent upon the conferment of awards on him and transfer the hundreds of crores to the PM/s Fund, instead of merely returning a piece of paper to the Government..

During the Bihar elections some of these tendencies came to the fore. It was suggested that if BJP won the elections in Bihar, sweets would be distributed in Pakistan. It is not uncommon for people pleading the cause of Muslims to be advised to   migrate to Pakistan and let the Hindus live in peace in India.  Some secularists have had their faces blackened with ink or coal tar.

A few years back, Francoise Gautier and Konrad Elst had bemoaned the fate of long-suffering Hindus and put forward the bizarre theory that the Hindus collectively suffered from a “death wish”. The time had come when Hindus should transform themselves into  a more assertive community and learn to be aggressive or at least militantly defensive.

Although Modi is generally silent on all these contentious issues, there are some who feel that his very presence at the helm of affairs is a tremendous boost to the Hindu morale. Some of the overt gestures he has made to Hinduism are the promotion of Yoga and Sanskrit , his adulatory references to Hindu heroes  and philosophers, his presentation of Bhagwad Gita to world leaders, his open acceptance of Swami Vivekananda as his spiritual mentor, his appointment of persons known to be close to the rightist ideology etc.He has not broken the arrangement with the Shiv Sena . He has adopted a somewhat tough posture towards Pakistan.

In conclusion, one could say that Modi has used the strategy of silence very effectively. He is not always silent, unlike his immediate predecessor. In fact, on most issues he is voluble, loud and repetitive. But on contentious matters, he often descends into a silence that seems uncharacteristic of him and allows his silence to be variously interpreted both by his admirers and detractors. Therein resides his consummate skill in communication.

2091 words

                           

S

LEAVE IT TO PAPOO

Kawcaw

                                       Leave it to Papoo

Ever since my son pushed off to America, there is a gaping hole in our support system. My computer and mobile are the two epicentres of the technological illiteracy that I suffer from. When Anurag was here, he made it a point to come in the morning to partake of the amrit dispensed by my mother. He would also drop in on his way back from the office. I would invariably have some problem or the other lined up for him.

I also had the able guidance of elder grandson Achintya, who absorbed all his encyclopaedic knowledge by playing with the system. Incidentally, he also contributed to the overcrowding of the desktop by leaving helter skelter his homework, mostly copied from Google. My younger grandson Amrit did not solve any problems; he merely added to my suffering by downloading games and cluttered my desktop with the debris of games he had won or lost.

You could say that I had a permanent establishment of one and a half problem- solvers and one and a half problem-creators. So my bullock cart lurched on but it did lurch. With the exit of the brigade, I was left helpless, buffeted by the storms and hurricanes of the turbulent digital ocean.

Initially I took recourse to the expertise of the younger set whenever and wherever I could catch them: my brother-in-law Ravinder Raina: his son Manik, my other brother-in-law’s son Vinny and a host of assorted nephews, nieces and grandchildren and visitors and acquaintances. These days I admit I have become somewhat of a pest to the younger generation.

I am sure that many people of my age are faced by this sort of situation. To take an example of the kind of stuff that stymies me, my printer started showing signs of ill health some three months ago. It wailed ever and anon, “The ink is running low.” But when I brought it to the notice of my son, he blithely dismissed it at first as the preliminary signal of a temperamental machine. He took out several printouts and found them of high quality.

“You should start worrying, Daddy, when the print quality starts to deteriorate, not otherwise”, he advised.

I postponed the purchase of a new cartridge, especially as refilled ones have a habit of churning out smudged copies and new cartridges are very expensive. It was also not clear whether only the black ink was running low or the coloured one was also showing signs of strain. As I had not taken out manifold versions of coloured prints, I thought the colour cartridge could wait for a little while longer.

Two days before his departure Anurag bought two cartridges from the    Canon shop in Nehru Place, just in case. He replaced the black one and took out a print. It was first rate. He kept the colour cartridge in stock and advised me to replace it only when the need arose.

Little did I realise how much knowledge one must possess to replace a cartridge in a printer. When you open the lid, both the cartridges move on a frame three times before they come to a halt. That is the time when you remove the old cartridge and put in the new one. While inserting the new one you must remove the plastic tape that keeps the ink intact. I had that esoteric knowledge from an earlier encounter  and removed the tape. But when I operated the machine, it would not yield a copy.

To cut a long story short, I contacted Vinod Kaul, my brother-in-law’s brother-in-law, who deals with computer accessories. Several abortive visits later, Vinod was forced to take the copier physically to the Canon Service Centre. It turned out that the machine was throwing tantrums because of a dust allergy. It had to be serviced before it would come back to normal.

About 15 days ago, my wife told me in the morning, “Yesterday Mamaji had rung up around 11 p.m. Apparently your Facebook account has been hacked. Several videos containing obscene material have been inserted on the timeline”. I rushed to my PC and found the page full of videos. I opened one and found some obscene stuff. (A dog and bitch copulating, to be precise, though why an act of nature between two consenting adults should be termed obscene, I cannot fathom)

I had no clue what one did when one’s account was hacked. I thought of who I should consult. Suddenly I was reminded of a dialogue I had with Ajay Kaul alias Papoo who is the second son of my co-brother-in-law Shri Avtar Krishen Kaul. He recently took his parents first to Rameshwaram and Tirupati and then to Dwarka. A veritable modern Shrawan Kumar. When I praised him for his attitude towards his parents, he said, “Mausaji, don’t worry that Gugoo is no longer here. Any time you have a problem I am at your service.”

I said, half in fun, “You are talking like Abhinav Chaturvedi in Hum Log. He would keep on saying , ‘leave it to Nanhe!’ ”

“Yes, Mausaji, you can leave everything to Papoo”.

I rang up Papoo and told him about my predicament. He asked for my Facebook password and signed off.

After half an hour, he and his wife Shiva came to our house. Shiva said, “We have looked at your account. It was indeed full of muck. We have cleaned up the whole thing. So you can go back to work as usual.”

Papoo added, “We have coined a new password for you. It is this”. He passed on a piece of paper. “All you have to do is to inform your friends on Facebook and apologise. As far as Facebook security is concerned we have informed them of the attack. Thy will keep your account under watch. Normally there should not be a repeat attack.”

 I was amazed at the speed at which the younger generation moves. Had Papoo not been around, I would have been lying dazed, not knowing what to do first.

“What do I need to do?” I plaintively bleated.

 “Nothing. All aspects have been taken care of. You just sit back and relax. Leave it to Papoo, I promised you.”

 When it came to transferring the Tata Sky connection from Anurag’s name to mine, I thought it would be damned easy.  Anurag rang them up several times to ensure that the formalities were completed before he left. 

His subscription was expiring on 17^th October. Out of the cleanest motives possible, the company executive advised, “why not let the old connection complete its term and the new connection be taken from 17^th onwards?”

In between my wife rang up several times to be assured that the transfer formalities would be completed before 17^th October. When nobody came physically, we spent the best part of 16^th trying to get hold of an executive in the Customer Care Centre. Most of us have gone through the frustrating experience of talking to a computer. The computer gives you ten options and you have to choose. By the time you have tried to assimilate which option applies to you, it is time for a replay. Finally we succeeded in getting hold of a human being, who forwarded us to someone else, who forwarded us to someone else. Finally we were told that a work permit had been issued and the transfer would be physically completed next day.

We heaved a sigh of relief. It proved to be premature, because the work permit was cancelled by an SMS that evening. No reasons were given but we were invited to have another round of discussions with the computer in the Customer Care centre.

That is when I felt I had had enough.

I rang up Papoo. He heard me out and said,” Do not worry, Mausaji. This will be sorted out in five minutes.”

It was 8 p.m. I put my TV on. It flashed a message saying that our balance with the company was down to Rs. 13.  Soon thereafter,our transmission ceased.

It would have stayed that way but for Papoo. Apparently he rang up the company, found out that our balance was exhausted, made a payment of one month’s charges online and got the connection restored.

Does not sound like magic. But for me it was. I could not have got through to the CCC in the first place. Secondly, I do not know how to make an online payment. If payment in cash had to be made, it could only be on the next day. Thirdly, I did not know where the Tata sky office for Greater Kailash was located.

If this is not magic, I would like to know what is. For me now, anytime I have a problem I cannot solve myself, I have a second son. My slogan is, “Leave it to Papoo!”

Caution:  Lest there is some misunderstanding,Papoo’s services are not available to all the oldies who are confused by the Digital Age. He is available only to his Mausaji.

A HOLIDAY FOR RAJ

                              A holiday for Raj

These days people are on the move all the time. My Mamaji Shri R.K.Sadhu has just returned from Stockholm. My sister Asha and her husband Dev are currently in Singapore. My cousin Usha and her husband Rattan Lal Raina are visiting their son in the States.

Why am I saying all this? Today, this is ghar ghar ki kahani. Children are settling abroad and parents visit them.

Raj is special. She is bound to her hearth and home with hoops of steel and is not one of those gallivanting grahasthins who hanker after holidays and  hotels. She is happiest looking after her own brood like a mother hen. 

Sathya Sai Baba told her once in a personal interview that she would have to spend most of her time looking after the  welfare of many generations. Raj  replied promptly, trying to display her knowledge of arithmetic, “ Yes, Baba I have to look after four generations.”

Baba smiled mischievously and looked obliquely at Urvashi, our daughter-in-law. “No, five, “he said.

 Baba was right! For many years now she has had to cater to five 

generations of Kaws ranging from my mother who is ninety to Amrit who is nine. With my son’s family moving recently to Cleveland, her attention span has come down to three.

So when I recently went to Panchagani in Maharashtra, she sneaked in a holiday for more than a week.

I have been going to Panchagani now and then to participate in training programmes run for senior officers of the Government in collaboration with the Department of Personnel, Govt. of India.I have been waxing eloquent about the ambience of the place, its plateaus and valleys, strawberries and silence,   trips to nearby villages and  temples, mild climate and flowers, tips for inner governance and changing life’s agenda.

As it turned out, she got a rude introduction to the place. The flight from Delhi was delayed by half an hour and heavy rainfall and traffic Increased the time taken to get out of Pune town by another hour. It rained all the way to Panchagani and it was quarter past ten when we finally reached our destination.

Luckily the management had taken care to keep a hot case in our room with a delightful fare of dishes. The room was warm and welcoming. We had a leisurely meal and then fell into deep sleep.

Raj attended our training sittings  in the next few days and found them quite absorbing. The major theme of our sessions on inner governance proceeds to expound the central thesis advocated by Buchman, the founder of MRA. It is simply put thus: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

The teachers at Panchagani are all volunteers, trying to transform the world as per their heart’s desire. The training methodology is quite different, replete with incidents from their own lives, songs by large groups of international interns, short video films, interesting management games and so on.

There was a short visit to Grampari, a village development project, where the Director’s wife Jaishree runs various programmes of rural arts and crafts, teaching the villagers to take clean drinking water, give up drinking and to respect their womenfolk. I have been there quite often, so I let Raj go to the village, along with the other ladies who had accompanied their spouses.

She showed me the knickknacks she had bought at the craft centre, mostly bags and purses to be distributed as gifts to her many nieces.

That evening we had a talent nite of the trainees where they presented a variety entertainment programme. At dinner we had met Asma, a Kashmiri Muslim girl who has married a Gujarati boy. I asked her whether she could sing a Kashmiri song. One thing led to another and the result of this casual conversation was the presentation of a duet by Raj and Asma. Later I sang a Ghazal by Ghalib “Dil-e-nadaan tujhe hua kya hai” . And on a special request Raj and I sang on old duet “Mohe bhool gaye sanwariya “, which is a favourite of ours from our Himachal days.

Next day, we had a lecture by Anil Swarup, the Secretary (Coal) who explained how he had successfully handled the coal auctions. It was an electrifying presentation. Anil is a powerful speaker and brings both personalities and problems alive to his audience.

There was a trip to Mahabaleshwar temple on the programme. The trainees went separately and we had a car for two members of the faculty and their wives. Although it stated to rain we did not pay much attention to it, this being the season for rain. But when we reached the temple, there was a sudden and sustained downpour which made the ascent to the temple impossible. We waited for half an hour ,but Lord Shiva not showing any indication of relenting, we had to reluctantly withdraw.

On the way back we paid a visit to Maypore, an enterprise run by a Vohra, where strawberries are grown on a large scale and then converted into numerous products. In their restaurant we had a pizza and strawberry ice cream and coffee. It was yummy.

Thus the programme progressed as per schedule. We had a brain storming session with the Secretary Personnel, who had brought all his senior officers. The discussions centred mainly on two issues—performance assessment and citizen-centric system of governance. The discussions were very instructive and satisfying, with some novel suggestions coming up. Only time will tell whether any of the ideas would see the light of the day.

Soon it was time to leave. We left Panchagani with some regret in our hearts. But one thing was for sure. The holiday was a good break for Raj. Let us see when we can leave our Kaw Aul (Crows’ Nest) at Pamposh next.

_______________________________________________________

MAALISH KERALA STYLE

Kawcaw

                        Maalish-Kerala style

When I had a bout of low grade fever a few months back, I didn’t take it seriously. No one knew why I was running fever.

In the good old days they called it “P.U.O”. When, in the early sixties of the last century, my disease was diagnosed as PUO, I thought I had contracted one of those unmentionable, incurable ailments that was only whispered or aspirated, never put into words. Gingerly I broached the subject to the doctor. He looked at my face frozen in fear and trepidation and laughed outright.

I was aghast. Imagine a doctor deriving merriment from his patient’s predicament!.

“What is funny, Doctor Saab?” I asked, a trifle petulantly.

He saw that his response had hurt my sentiments.   “No, no. Believe me, I was just laughing at us doctors and the games we play.”

“Games? What games? ”

“Look here, my dear young man. PUO is no disease. It stands for Pyrexia of Unknown Origin. When the doctor finds a fever without understanding its origin, he writes P.U.O. He doesn’t wish to admit his ignorance.”

The doctors of today do not possess this brand of self-deprecatory humour. They call everything they do not understand as ‘viral fever,’ as if it is a diagnosis.

So officially I had viral. My platelet count went down. Whenever the thermometer crossed 100 degrees, I had a tablet of Crocin. I drank plenty of fluids, hoping to flush the febrile elements out of the system. After ten days, the fever subsided and stayed down. I was declared cured, but I was told not to overstrain myself as it might bring on a relapse.

This fever gave me a certain weakness in the legs, which made it difficult to walk normally. I exercised the muscles, I drank coconut water and juice, and ate apples and pomegranates and drank Protinex with my milk, but the weakness persisted.

One day, when we discussed the matter in a family council, my wife suggested we try out the Kerala Massage. We did some exploration and then located the Santhagiri Ayurveda and Siddha clinic at Saket Family Courts Complex. We had some previous experience of the Kerala system and knew that they relied almost totally on a set of massages by different names.

Very soon I had embarked on a seven day course of massages on the entire body. I had three masseurs with some bottles of oils which were heated to boiling point. Then two of the hefty ones vigorously attacked my body as if it was an object to be revamped and redeemed from its primordial state of weakness. First I lay on my back and the fearsome twosome rubbed the boiling scented oils into me through the pores of my skin. Then I was asked to lie down on my sides and then on my belly, and they did some more of the same.

The rubbing went on for nearly one hour. The warmth and the tactile sensation and the  scent of far off herbs drawn from God’s Own Country was so powerful a soporific that once or twice I caught myself snoring away to glory unaware that I lay on a plastic sheet on a bed carved out of a tree-trunk, in the ferocious grasp of muscled masseurs unknown to me.

After the massage came the bath and then the teeka on my forehead and on the crown of the head. Soon I had put on my clothes and been reunited with my wife who had waited in the anteroom. We met the doctor and he prescribed medicines, elixirs, pastes and capsules, He also suggested a diet chart which depended heavily on red poha and such other delicacies of Kerala.

After a week of this, I was shifted to rice potli treatment, in which after the oil massage, my body was subjected to momentary touches of fomentation by potlis of cloth containing boiled rice and milk.

To cut a long story short, I undertook fourteen days of Kerala Massage. I wonder whether there was any impact of the treatment, but certainly it burnt a hole in my pocket. The only satisfaction was that the cost would have been four times higher if we had gone to Kerala for the treatment. I have also noticed that wives are duly impressed if you undergo an expensive line of treatment. It shows that you are serious in getting rid of the problem.

No use telling the poor things that there is no cure for old age, as it gently creeps on one, unbidden and uninvited.

As the poet  Ibne-Insha has sung,

“Qamar bandhe hue chalne ko, yaan sab yaar baithhe hain

Bahut aage gaye baqi, jo hain taiyar baithhe hain.”

TALE OF A TREE

Kaw Caw

Tale of a tree

It all started with Mr. Khazanchi deciding to plant a neem tree at the edge of his plot some thirty years ago. Pamposh was coming up and no one could foresee the shape this Kashmiri Colony would take in due course. There were 150 plots and each was allotted to a Kashmiri Pandit. The optimists thought it would always stay that way.

With Batta neighbours on all sides, one could make believe that one was still in Malla Pora, Bana Mohalla, 2/3 bridge, Srinagar, Kashmir.

 The years passed. The neem tree grew and it developed a huge trunk. Mr. Khazanchi had its branches lopped from time to time. Naturally, he tried to save his own house from the arboreal invasion. The tree was allowed free play across the road and it slowly and gradually developed a definite tilt towards us. To the extent that it crossed the service road and started wafting scented breezes into our drawing room.

At first, we did not mind. A neem tree is, by all accounts, a useful neighbour to have. Its tiny twigs can be made into daatuns. Its leaves are bitter to taste and can be used as an antidote to diabetes.  Ayurveda recommends that its leaves be chewed and digested every morning.

But you can have too much of a good thing. When the branches enter your bedrooms and the tree drops its leaves every day, it adds to the litter in the house and makes a mess of your interiors. So whenever the inroads became too intrusive, we called the horticulture wallahs, gave them something as chaipaani and had light pruning done.

Thus historical events led ultimately to the survival of a sole fat low-level branch, with which the horticultural department was not prepared to tinker. I suppose even chaipaani has its limitations. When we found the bottom line of horticultural honesty, we made out a case for lopping of the obtrusive branch and had it forwarded to the Forest Department.

This low level branch proved to be a great hazard to life, limb and property. Because it was low, no truck which had stacked material in it, could cross. Suddenly, at the most sensitive point in the Sunday afternoon siesta, the bell would ring its shrill summons. Both I from the ground floor and my son from the first floor would come out running, dishevelled and sleepy. The truck driver would express his apologies but could we please move the car parked on the side of the road, so that the truck could bypass the low-lying branch?  After the tenth such interruption of the holiday siesta, we decided to photograph the branch from various angles and made out    a forceful case for  lopping   off the branch.

I was told that an official of the Forest Department had inspected the spot but he was not convinced.

Soon thereafter, the matter became more serious. One day, there was a huge turbulence in the air. The trees shook up and down, as if acted upon by a veritable tsunami. As my son took out his car, the neem tree lost one of its huge members, missing my son’s car by millimetres. We were shaken up by the incident, which could have had serious repercussions.

And now the coup d’ grace! A water crisis hit Pamposh, with the motors conking out every  second day. The Jal Board sent out its tankers. One such tanker, filled to the brim and thus made much heavier, took the detour and     raced its engine while standing on     our ramp. When it left a few minutes later, the ramp had collapsed and been converted into a deep ditch. We engaged the services of Mange Ram contractor and he presented an estimate for the repairs. Several rounds of negotiations later, the tanker’s momentary romp on the ramp had   cost us a hefty sum of Rs. 13,500.

Now the Lakshmi Rekha had   been well and truly crossed. I spoke to my neighbour Shri Shakdher who also happens to     be the General Secretary of the Residents’ Welfare Association. We motored up to the Shooting Range where the Forest Department is located. We were lucky to have an audience with the Deputy Commissioner (Forests), who promptly permitted the lopping of the low-lying branch so guilty of misbehaviour.

What tilted the balance in our favour? Was it the tale of woe I narrated  to the officer?  Or the story of how we had,  in the Fifth Central Pay Commission, equated the Indian Forest Service to the Indian Police Service in all respects?

Or   was it my visiting card which was a proof of my past? 

Whatever the reason,    the tree is no longer a menace to our life, limb and happiness.

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