a question of answers

i realised there were a few unanswered questions in some of my earlier postings. in this posting i try to answer them to the best of my ability!

in the posting about 'the ultimate why' i had posed a few questions - what is the ultimate answer for all our whys? is there one single answer that answers all our whys?

ok, here's my take on this.

i believe that all our 'whys' lead to one final answer.

why do we do everything that we do?

we do everything that we do because we want to be happy, to achieve fulfilment and to feel complete.

even if we believe we are doing some actions like charity or some sacrifice for somebody else's benefit, if we look within ourselves closely enough, we have to admit that we are doing it because we derive some sense of fulfilment or satisfaction in these actions.

in fact, i would go to the extent of saying that there is not a single activity, word or thought that we undertake other than for fulfilling our own desires and for our own happiness.

do you agree?

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and i was also told that there was a missing link in my posting about the 'evidence of reincarnation'.

in this posting i wanted to present the case of my kids as evidence of reincarnation. but i think the idea didn't come through clearly.the point i was trying to make was that 2 kids in the same family can be so different. now, the only logical reason to explain this huge difference is the personality package that they seem to have 'inherited' or brought along with them.

some of you might argue and say that the differences can be explained as genetic. but then my counter would be - what defined their unique genetic structure which in turn defined their unique personalities with its specific traits? are these traits truly 'carried forward' from some previous life or are these only just some accidental combinations of certain proteins in their dna strands?

i don't know about you, but i can't accept the theory that i am what i am because of some random 'accident'!

what do you think?

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evidence of reincarnation

here's the ultimate evidence to prove the theory of reincarnation beyond any doubt - my own kids!

my son, prasann, is going to turn 7 in october. after my daughter, sunanda, who completed 3 in may, was born, we suddenly realised how much of an angel our son is :-)

(click one of the following links to see their pic - http://picasaweb.google.com/ckguruprasad/TripToMahabaleshwar/photo#5063979959940848338
http://picasaweb.google.com/ckguruprasad/Picsmar2006/photo#5008812688469998018)

prasann and sunanda are as similar as chalk and cheese.

1. prasann might protest vehemently, but will not do anything that he is not supposed to unless he has got permission from his mother. (he knows who's the boss at home!)

but sunanda will stare her mother in the eye and continue to do what she pleases.

2. prasann is not a very social person. he would rather sit and watch a movie, or play a computer game, or go through some car magazines than go out and play with the other kids.

sunanda prefers to stay out or go to her friend's house than come home on her way back from her 'day care centre'.

3. prasann can't stand the sight of fruits. he just about manages to eat some mangoes (the alphonso variety). he eats without a fuss but is quite choosy about his food and rarely experiments.

sunanda likes fruits and is quite game to try out some new variety of fruit even if it doesn't look very appealing. she would take a bite of whatever it is that we are eating, diplomatically say it is good, and then politely decline another serving.

4. prasann is currently into his 'cars' phase. this was preceded by planes, trains, auto-rickshaws, and cooking utensils.

sunanda never went through any of these phases. she prefers books, puzzles, animals.

5. prasann is deeply influenced by religious practices and he instinctively prostrates to swamis & brahmacharis (monks).

sunanda does not quite the like the idea of doing this at all, nor does she feel any pressure to ape her brother.

6. and the clinching evidence is displayed in full glory at the dining table. after prasann finishes his meal, which usually ends with a generous serving of curd-rice (here's the recipe - http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/3925/recipe_rice_15.html), you would not be blamed if you assumed that a mini-typhoon hit his plate which also smacked his face while retreating! the effects can be seen over a significant radius beyond his plate.
and sunanda, the way she expertly handles the cutlery, can be easily mistaken for someone the 'brits' left behind when they departed indian shores. she is neat, meticulous and a dainty eater.

all of us have our own views about reincarnation. but most parents with more than one child will agree that our children make us pause and wonder about this theory, if convince us about it!

reality shows you will soon see!

this posting was inspired by two things.

first, i read this article about some british tv company (i thought this was one of those examples of brit humor) doing a reality show where they would get someone with a disfigured face and then get some corrective & plastic surgery done to reconstruct the face. and all this would be on prime time!

and second, within the next day or two, i read an article by anil thakraney who writes in mumbai mirror. (this is the second time i am referring to the mirror in my blog! tells you a lot about the junk i read! :-) ) here he mentioned that we would see weirder reality shows in the near future.

i made a list of shows that would be thrust upon us. and each would have their own following of enthusiasts!

1. a full season of the next big celebrity wedding. right from the courting to the engagement and the run-up to the d-day including the shopping and all that. and not to forget the pre-nuptials!

2. a 24-episode version of how your wet garbage gets converted to manure. and this would be telecast to coincide with your dinner time. bon appetit!

3. a 3-5 year show with a daily one-hour episode on the progress of the mumbai metro phase I. for the first few months the camera would just follow the file as it moves through the various ministries at mantralaya. (a competing channel could cover the progress of the worli-bandra sea-link construction.)

4. a year with the indian cricket team! the camera would follow the cricket team as they go through the motions of training, playing (on field and off), etc. each month one player would be the 'chosen one'. this would be a daily episode for an hour each day. i am sure there would be more action seen on this show than in the matches played by these players!

5. and then there would be live feeds from 2 cameras from the compartments of our mumbai local trains. one would be in the ladies compartment while the other would be in the gents compartment. obviously the ad tariff would be higher on those days when the transmission is from the ladies compartment. this would be one of the most popular reality shows with transmissions to many tv stations around the world!
on this show you would see action, drama, suspense, tragedy, romance, thrills, etc. which would beat any of the mainstream potboilers hollow.

6. and of course, sooner or later, we will have a show just like 'the truman show' where someone is filmed right from their birth and would live life without realising that he (or she) is on tv 24X7!

do you agree that it wouldn't be the least bit surprising if these kind of shows get announced sooner than later?

do you have any wackier suggestions you want to list here? who knows, some of the readers here might actually end up using your idea and make a show... or maybe star in one! ;-)

the ultimate 'why?'

here's a mind exercise.

let's ask ourselves the question 'why?' for anything that we do... and when i say anything i mean anything.


why do i go to work?

why am i saving money?

why do i study/ go to college?

why do i aspire for greater things?

why do i listen to music/read books/cook?

... and so on and so forth....

and let us ask the same question to every response we come up with. where do you think this would lead us to?

would you arrive at some ultimate answer? what would be your ultimate answer? do you think each one of us would have a unique answer? or would we all have the same final answer?

watch this space for the answer :-)

(send in your responses and then lets see what we get.)

schools - the great levelers

we mumbaikars woke up one morning to see the front page of the mumbai mirror screaming "Pissed off dad buys school for his kids" (you can read the full article here - http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?page=article§id=15&contentid=200705250227128596aece596)

now, the mumbai mirror is not the kind of fare you would like to start your day with. but a headline like this demanded attention. especially for most people who are trying to get their young kids admitted in decent educational institutions.

most mumbaikars will agree that in mumbai it is easier to get invited to abhishek and aishwarya's wedding (http://www.rediff.com/movies/ashabhiwed.html) than to get your child admitted into a school of your choice! and for most people, no matter how important the whole world thinks you are, the entire admission process is a very humbling experience.

you learn early on in the process that you have to be ingratiatingly polite and smile at everyone in the school right from the 'chowkidar' (guard) at the gate to the all-important admissions coordinator who decides whether your admission form makes it to the short short-list or to the huge pile of rejects. that's assuming you have managed to get the admission form in the first place!

and if you are one among the majority with a reject letter in your hand (that's assuming the school has deigned to send you one) you dare not ask for reasons. you might believe that your child is god's gift to humanity but the school reserves the right to 'pooh pooh' your belief. in fact in most schools you would not even be able to get an audience with anybody in the school who matters. and even if you manage to meet someone, you can expect the person to feel mighty offended that you choose to question their evaluation process.

in fact the ego-crushing experience that the parents go through at most 'sought after' schools is so common that if any of the schools deviate from this attitude you begin to wonder if there is something wrong with the school.

after going through such an experience the reaction of people tends to differ widely -
1. some decide to buy the schools just to 'show them' and get back!
2. some are so relieved when they get the admission that they just want to forget the whole experience and move on in life. (some even undertake pilgrimages to the religious sites that they had promised to visit if they get the coveted admissions.)
3. some sagely analyse the situation to be a 'demand supply mismatch' problem and that this is something that one has to go through.
4. and then there are those few who truly believe that, in the long run, it doesn't really matter which school your child goes to.

and this is so very true. if we look at ourselves and people around us we see that most people shine brilliantly in life, irrespective of how good or bad their schools were. we personally know of so many great achievers who are from vernacular schools or municipal schools where we would never even think of admitting our children into. (i'd like to mention here that i am not, even for a moment, suggesting that it is not important to plan your child's education!)

i think it finally boils down to our own false notions, confusions and insecurities that reflect in the way we tackle this activity. we create these situations for ourselves by firmly believing that our children will get the best education only if they get admitted into a specific school. but education is not only about the 'pedigree' of the institution. there are so many other aspects that go into making for complete education.

do you agree?

"Don't just invest 'on' the child, also invest 'in' the child!" - Sw. Chinmayananda.

mom, i want to be a hair-dresser!

imagine if you were an indian kid from a middle-class family and had said something like this to your parents in the 70s or the 80s. they would have hit the roof and promptly got you checked by a doctor.

the only career options that were considered 'respectable' were engineering, medicine, software/ hardware (recent entrants into the list), law, civil services, bureaucracy/ government jobs, architecture, etc.

but in the last decade there's been a sea change in the jobs market and new job seekers have hundreds of options to choose from. many of these options would have been considered bizarre or looked down upon in the past.

so now when i look around me i suddenly find so many career options which suddenly seem to be not just acceptable, but also desirable by most of the youngsters today.

here's a list of some such jobs that i could come up with :

1. rj (radio jockey)/ vj (video jockey)/ dj (disc jockey) - some of these people are celebrities in their own right
2. physical instructor - this species has suddenly become a rare commodity and a status symbol for any celebrity worth his/her salt!
3. dietician - i could never decide what would cost more - the fees quoted by these dieticians or the esoteric foods they recommend.
4. hair dresser - is it the hair dresser who starts a new fashion trend (after a few accidents and experiments) or is he/she following the trend?
5. fashion designer - their clothes are like abstract art. each creation is apparently trying to communicate something but it sounds like all greek and latin to my ears!
6. yoga instructor - the new-age instructors don't teach good old yoga, its 'power yoga' or 'pranic yoga' or 'swaroopa yoga', etc.
7. vaastu/ feng shui consultant - unlike god who opens a window when he shuts a door, this consultant will close a door (no matter which direction the door in your house faces) and ask you to open another one elsewhere!
8. masseur - the star of this tribe is most definitely on the ascendant. you suddenly have spas, therapy centres, wellness clinics and other variants springing up in almost every street corner.
9. animator - all those hours spent in doodling in school or vandalising the desks with your creative outpourings while waiting for lectures to end are suddenly being highly valued!
10. accent/ voice trainer - earlier you would have been considered 'stuck up' if you spoke with an accent; now it could land you a well paying job!
11. event manager - in school you organised a picnic, in college you planned the annual social, and now at work you are organising everything from award ceremonies to office parties or product launches.
12. dance instructor - who would have ever imagined that you could make a successful career teaching people the salsa and the samba?
13. speciality chef - the food they cook never seems to affect their weight; and some of them get paid a lot more than you and i
14. online game master - they get paid for playing online games on the job!

but i think moms will take some more time before their eyes become moist and they jump up with joy when they hear you announce 'mom! i finally know what i want to be, a hair-dresser!'

i am sure there are more esoteric options i have not listed here. you know any you would like to share?

cooling our collective heels!

i was away with family on vacation for about 10 days. we covered wyanad, coorg and hassan. we had 2 other friends (with their families) with us on this trip. (for a photo album click here http://picasaweb.google.com/ckguruprasad/TripToWyanadCoorgHassan)

here are a few thoughts/ tips/ ideas i wanted to share with you.

1. when you are planning a vacation with kids, its a good idea to team up with friends who also have kids in the same age-group. makes for a much better quality time and far less trauma than if you were to do it yourself.

2. coorg is a beautiful place with largely virgin, unspoiled landscapes. there aren't too many resorts or hotels unlike in most other 'tourist destinations'. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodagu)
we opted for a 'home stay' with a wonderful couple - geoffery and kalpana muthanna. (http://www.indianbeat.net/index.php?option=content&pcontent=1&task=view&id=62&Itemid=113)
this meant we lived in their beautiful, spacious house in the midst of a 40 acre coffee estate adjacent to the cauvery river. we could go bathing/ swimming in the river. we did not choose the option of 'mahseer angling' or 'rafting'. we were introduced to many plants and trees including the sandalwood, rose wood, coffee, pepper, vanilla, the fiery 'gandhari' chillies, and so many more!

we also went to the 'dubare elephant reserve' which is a training camp for elephants run by the forest department. here you can bathe the elephants, watch them being fed and also go on an elephant ride.

the 'tala kaveri' or the birth place of the kaveri river was being renovated. this is a very important pilgrimage destination for the local coorgis and even tamilians. (http://images.narian.org.uk/image78.html)

3. our next destination was hassan in karnataka. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan,_India)

the chenna keshava temple in belur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennakesava_Temple) is a 'must visit' place. the temple is an architectural marvel and the sculptures adorning the temple are exquisite.

4. on our way back to bangalore on our last leg we stopped to visit the gomateshwara bahubali statue atop the vidhyanagari hill at shravanabelagola. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shravanabelagola)

we had to climb more than 600 steps cut into the stone hill to reach the temple at the top. standing at the foot of the 58 feet tall statue is a humbling experience.

all in all, a wonderful time!

and now, back to the grind and the grime of mumbai :-)

bundle of thoughts!

what if you were told you were nothing but a bundle of thoughts?

and thoughts are nothing more than just energy in a modified form. all the food we eat transforms into energy (and also blood and bone and tissue, of course). so food is the source of our thoughts.

and why then are our thoughts so different from the thoughts of all the others we know? we'll discuss this in another posting some other day.

now, coming back to our discussion about us being thoughts.

now let's follow this chain of thought :-)

everything i know about myself is nothing but a vast reservoir of thoughts. every idea, notion, belief and bias i entertain is nothing but a thought stored away in that massive memory bank of ours. in fact, that's it. our sense of identity is nothing but a cumulative effect of all our past memories that we access in a very complex way at every waking moment.

imagine you woke up one day and lost all your memory, just like they show in the movies. you would have no clue of who you were, who your family/friends/relatives were, what job you did, what likes/dislikes you had, your hobbies, your favorite movie/book/song .... nothing.

and suddenly you realise that everything you are, everything you believe yourself to be, every characteristic, every habit, every aspect of your ego is nothing but thoughts in your memory bank.

you, the person you believe you are, are nothing but a bundle of thoughts!

think about it! and i'd like to hear your thoughts in this regard.

single in mumbai

i wish i was a single woman in mumbai.

no, i am not going through a mid-life crisis. nor am i suddenly wondering which side i should be on!

i am just plain envious!

i believe this is the best time to be :
1. a lady (the men don't have half as many advantages)
2. in her mid-20s to mid-30s (not more not less)
3. single (that's the entire point; singledom = freedom)
4. working (you have enough spending power to last you through the first 15-20 days of the month)
5. living alone (please refer notes of point 3)
6. in mumbai (no other city gives her half as much freedom; maybe bangalore comes a close second)

if you are someone who satisfies all the above criteria, then the world is at your feet.

- you have at least half a dozen eligible men (it could even include some married men) wooing you
- you get invited to most of the happening parties and events in town
- you don't need to spend a penny (read rupee) at these dos
- you can stay out as late as you like, you can choose to stay over at a friend's (and nobody is likely to ask you which 'friend' it was)
- you don't have parents/elders/relatives asking you to behave/ get married/ dress decently/ etc.
- you can live at the cutting edge of fashion without having to worry about 'what will people say?' (so people stare; let them!)
- you don't have to attend family functions unless the food is worth the effort (you can always say you had a late day at office)
- you can have parties at your pad, again without worrying about hiding the empty bottles and 'airing' the room (the neighbours hardly know of your existence)
- you can eat out if you feel too lazy to cook

i am sure the list can get longer and have many more interesting entries. you have something to add?

an action-packed, adventurous life!

my wife blames me of corrupting her after marriage!

she claims that she was a far more organised person who planned well in advance and never waited until the last moment to start working on things. i think she's lead a very colorless, uneventful life until she got married to me :-)

what she means is that she (which includes her family) would usually land up at the train/ bus terminal or airport at least an hour before the actual departure time. and then they would wait patiently until the train/bus/aircraft rolled into the terminal and then they would have enough time to settle down in their allotted seats and make some polite conversation with the co-passengers.

my life has been far more action-packed than that. i've lost count of the number of trains, buses and flights that i've missed. i've boarded the wrong train more than once.

its not been so bad after marriage (i guess its my wife's influence!) but we've still had our fair share of near-misses. there was a time when we wanted to return to chennai from tirupati and we literally jumped on to a moving train. (i decided to buy the tickets just as we saw the train moving into the station.)

and then there was the near-miss when another family and we were trying to get to delhi after attending vivek's wedding in lucknow! (read vivek's blog at http://dil-vil.blogspot.com/) we abandoned the taxi in the middle of a traffic jam and moved our luggage onto a cycle-rickshaw (click here to know what a cycle rickshaw looks like http://www.traveladventures.org/continents/asia/images/chandnichowk07.jpg). the ladies and kids managed to walk to the station much faster while my friend and i were battling through the crowds outside lucknow station and managing to dump all our luggage into the train just as it started leaving the station!

but the closest miss was during my recent trip to dubai. my flight was at 5.40 am from mumbai and i decided to reach the airport the previous night itself so that i could catch some sleep at the airport itself instead of having to wake up at an unearthly hour at home! i reached the check-in counter just at it opened at about 2 am only to be told that my passport was not valid. that's when i realised that i was carrying my old cancelled passport.

my wife started frantically searching through all the usual places at home with no luck. i decided to get back home and called up a colleague and anita (our finance & admin head and one of the most resourceful people i've ever come across). they both rushed to office, woke up the security and managed to find my new passport in my office drawer. i promptly left home once again and reached the airport at the same time as my office colleagues.

and i managed to get to dubai on the flight i was supposed to be on!

now imagine if i were as well organised as my wife, i would have missed out on all such adventures! (she must be shaking her head in exasperation while reading this :-) )

i am sure i am not the lone adventurer. some of you must have more interesting stories to share! i'd love to hear them!

irony in our modern world

i've been in dubai all this week for some client meetings.

and i'm carrying back some volvic flavored water for the kids. i have not seen this kind of flavored drinking water back home. and this is what i find ironical. i am carrying back water from dubai (which is in the middle of a desert) to india!

i have been travelling from dubai to abu dhabi by road almost every day. it is amazing to see the extent of construction going on in dubai. the largest number of cranes in the world are apparently deployed in dubai right now.

what also strikes you is the amount of greenery and flowers in full bloom all along the well planned and immaculately managed roads. there is also hectic construction activity going on for a metro rail in dubai. the project was given the go-ahead in may 2005 and is expected to be completed in 55 months (http://vgn.dm.gov.ae/DMEGOV/dm-metro-news01). and by the looks of it it should be completed within that time.

dubai is a melting pot of many cultures. the largest groups of people you see are indians, pakistanis, filipinos, chinese, egyptians, lebanese, moroccons, russians and many europeans and americans too. at a superficial level there seems to be no discrimination against any specific community here. but most of the indians i spoke to do feel a sense of insecurity about their jobs, the rising prices, etc. (rentals have escalated by more than 100% within the last 2-3 years).

but for me dubai lacks a soul. there is a lot of glitz and glamor, but it all seems very fragile. i guess the fact that most of the funds pouring into the ecconomy here is from the underworld and from people who are avoiding taxes in their respecti8ve countries only adds to this sense of dicomfort that i feel. i prefer visiting other asian countries, but give me 'aamchi mumbai' (our mumbai) and 'mera bharat' (my india) anyday :-)

it happens only in india!

there are some of these quirky, bizarre and completely inexplicable things that you will come across in urban/metro india that would take you by complete surprise! i believe these are the reasons that make living in india one filled with surprises every day, sometimes unpleasant but mostly pleasant.

1. this is a road sign i noticed while i was at nehru place in new delhi. i crossed this sign and then it struck me. i retraced my path and couldn't believe my eyes. i took this pic on my mobile phone and kept it for posterity. i mean, where else in the world will you find a road sign that says 'no pachyderms!'

2. and then there was this bank i was visiting down south. during a break in the meeting i decided to visit the comfort/wash room. i noticed there were the usual two doors, one which said 'Ladies' with the tell-tale drawing of a shapely figure denoting the dairer sex, and the other which said 'Gents'. what got my attention was the third door marked 'Officers'! when i mentioned this to one of the bank employees later he shared an internal joke where most of them assumed that this door was used by the 'third sex' :-)

3. and i'm sure most of you have seen some of these sign-boards in some of the restaurants, especially in the irani restaurants.

- No combing

- No outside food

- No hand-washing in plates

- No special tea

- Milk not for sale

p.s. i will add some more entries into this posting. i would like you to share similar anecdotes which i could include.

what did you just say?

recently i was chatting with a friend trying to find out how i could get my picture uploaded on my gmail account so that it could show with my profile. (just goes to show how vain i am ;-) )

during the conversation a statement was made which went something like this -
"if you roll your mouse over your name you should be able to see your pic". that's when i did a double-take and asked 'what did you just say?'!

for a moment, just imagine you were in the early or mid seventies when we didn't have television, computers and mobile phones (and while i am at it, let me also add that at my house we didn't have - telephones, cable tv, refrigerator, micro-waves, piped gas, washing machines, etc). if i were to make such a statement to someone, they would either assume i have finally come unhinged or i am making some off-colour joke or something.

i then tried to list out some more such statements we use almost everyday which would sound weird or nonsensical if we had uttered them in the period i mentioned ealier. (the statements in brackets are the possible reactions that you might have received to these statements)

the amazing thing is that we are talking about language changing during our own life-times!

1. let me sms/text you his cell number (people would assume you are talking in code about people in prison cells!)

2. can you please switch over to mtv or ftv? (people would assume you are asking them to change brands of something. except that they would wonder what item are you talking about!)

3. do you have a swift or a getz? mine's a city! (you would be looked at in a kindly fashion as people would assume you are mentally disturbed)

4. let me log in and upload my file and zip it across to you! (a case of too much star trek!)

5. let's grab a coke and a 'mac aloo tikki burger' with some fries to go with it! (you are definintely imbibing some banned susbtances!)

6. let's meet at k-lounge tonight. dj plays some cool trance! (what's so cool about dhananjay playing his off-key harmonium? and where in the universe is the 'lounge'?)

7. you should try the hummus and the falafel. and then wash it down with a chianti. (dabbling with banned substances again!)

8. my son got his first 'beyblade' today! (how can you say such crass things? its not something to be proud of! you wouldn't say that if you were the father of the girl!)

9. did you crack today's sudoku? (is that some form of martial art you are practising?)

10. let me try ping you or finger you and see if there is any response. (don't you dare get fresh with me!!!)

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i'm sure you can up with more hilarious examples. please do share them here.

the role of role models

can you think of a single choice that you make where you are not influenced by some role model?

think about it!

whether we acknowledge them or not, and whether we are even aware of them or not, all of us have role models. and the way we think, act, speak and behave is largely influenced by our role models we have chosen for ourselves!

this might be difficult for some of us to swallow. but if you pause to think and ask yourself honestly, we model ourselves on people we look up to. and this basic truth reflects in almost all aspects of our lives - trivial or significant.

why do you choose a particular brand of toothpaste? why do you wear a particular type of dress? why do you read certain books, listen to music, eat in specific restaurants, and do most of the things that you do? why do you color your hair a particular shade, or decide to go bald?

why do you opt for a specific career path? why do you want to marry a certain kind of person? why do you want a particular lifestyle?

why do you want to go where you want to go? and be what you want to be?

in most cases there is a role model who is inspiring us to reach out and go beyond the boundaries drawn out by our own minds. i guess this is why our scripture/teachers/elders exhort us to choose our company well. because my choice of company, to a large extent, determines the quality and direction of my journey!

i'm so glad to be journeying with you :-)

our new-age children!

bringing up children today in today's world is definitely not child's play. when i think back to my childhood days (which is too far back for comfort) it seems as if i had a fairly easy time growing up and had a ball while at it! (some people might remark here that it definitely shows in the way i've grown up... and not in a generous sense :-) ).

let me list out a few things that starkly bring out the differences between our own childhood and that of our kids today -

1. i learnt to swim in a 'nalah' or an irrigation canal, where a friend taught me how to breathe and stay afloat. we used to have a whale of a time during our vacations where a group of enthusiasts used to travel on our bicycles to this nalah next to the empress garden in pune. i was in the 7th or 8th standard/grade then.
my son started his swimming classes right from his play school days. he agonises over it, refuses to let go of his floats and kick-board, knows all about various strokes, and takes a shower before and after he's done with the swimming session.

2. i used to walk to school and back with a gang of neighbourhood friends. i would look forward to school each day just for this walk. each day used to be a new adventure. and then when i reached secondary school (6th standard/grade) we used to drive our bicycles to school. which gave us a whole new sense of freedom!
kids go to school by the school bus and i doubt if most would ever ride their own bicycles to school.

3. i never attended any hobby/activity classes till my 9th standard/grade. i used to be part of the school choir and was also on stage every year for plays, dances, choir-singing, etc. once we got back from school our time was occupied with completing our home-work and playing scores of games with all the neighbourhood friends.
kids today attend all kinds of classes almost every day of the week. these include music (instrumental & vocal), dancing, chess, karate, swimming, art, etc.

4. during our summer vacations we used to travel to someplace within india or to our own native place (where my parents were born). we used to travel second class, bear the brain-sapping summer heat, and reach our destinations grimy and smelly. but the journey would always be memorable and fun! (i never travelled in an aircraft till i was 23.) and all the local travelling at these places was usually by whatever public transportation was available.
kids nowadays usually vacation abroad. travelling by flight is fairly de rigeur, even within india. public transportation is largely avoided.

5. toys and books were rare luxuries which we got for some special occasion like birthdays or doing well in an exam. (similarly, eating out was a rare treat!) we climbed trees, made up our own games, caught fish in bottles in nearby streams, made mud-castles, got wet in the rains, ...
most kids today have more toys than they can remember. eating out with friends and family is a very frequent phenomenon! they play games on their x-box, don't play in the mud or get wet in the rains, have never climbed trees, easily get bored in spite of all the games/toys they have, ....


don't get me wrong. i am in no way advocating that we deprive our children of all the good things they are getting exposed to.

but i somehow can't help feeling i had loads more fun when i was my son's age. do you feel the same? any answers why? and i feel, we ourselves are to blame... do you agree?

mumbai local - II

i got the overwhelming go-ahead from innumerable people which prompts me to continue with this series. and if you think i am going to share more details of the numbers, you can think again :-)

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many non-mumbaikars might wonder why any sane person in their right senses would want to inflict such torture on themselves and willingly contribute to the 'Super-Dense Crush Load' (SDCL) by commuting in local trains everyday?

no, its not mass-masochism! it just happens to be the most reliable way of commuting across the two linear stretches of mumbai city (known as the central & western lines). let me give you an example of what i mean.

just last week i had to attend the wedding reception of a friend, in a suburb called kandivali, which happens to be the next station to malad (which is where my office is located) on the western line. i left office at about 7 pm and all i had to do was cross over from malad west (all of mumbai is divided into west and east as bifurcated by the railway tracks) to kandivali east. the distance which is about 3-4 kms should have taken me all of 30-45 mins by road, given the rush-hour traffic. well, i walked into the reception at 9.15 pm! give me the SDCL any day!

coming back to the rule book of local train travelling in mumbai, here goes -

1. if you are a male traveller, never make the mistake of travelling by the ladies' compartment. you will most probably be told off by the ladies and some might even pull the alarm chain to stop the train and have you hauled off by the local constabulary, who would only be too glad to do the needful, if only to earn a few additional rupees from you!

2. if you are a lady traveller, never make the mistake of travelling by the gents' compartment. you would most propbably be told off by some of the men for doing something as rash as this. (it is not exactly a pleasant experience to experience the SDCL, even if all the men around you are paragons of virtue and are ignoring the fact that you are a woman in their midst!)

3. during rush hour (which happens to be almost any time of the day) when the train (especially the virar fast) pulls into the terminus at either end of the suburban line, wait at some distance from the door and allow the people scrambling in to such in and grab whichever vacant seat is available. you should also try getting hit by flying hands, elbows and office bags.
but at all other stations in between, you should allow the people to alight first before you allow yourself to be swept in by the crowd. (the trick is to position yourself such that you enter at an angle to the door; else if you position yourself bang opposite the door you will only get swept away by the alighting crowd leaving you with little chances of boarding the train).

4. at each station the train halts at, you should remember to get in or out only from the rear-half of the door (which is demarcated by a vertical bar for people to hold on to). the 2-3 men/women standing in the front-half will just not budge if you are trying to alight or get in.

5. if you have to alight at a station you have to start inching towards the door from the previsou station itself. you keep asking the person ahead of you if they would be alighting at the next station. if they are not, they will automatically make way for you till you reach the person who will be alighting at the next station.

6. if you are travelling in the second class compartment you can ask the 3 people seated on the seats to squeeze in and perch yourself on the edge of the seat. but if you are travelling first class, you don't do that. even if you do try, you will only get scowled at!

7. if you are carrying a bag, you can ask the persone next to the overhead luggage rack to help keep your bag on the rack. nobody ever refuses.

8. and if you have dozed off, somebody will shake you by your shoulder to wake you up once the train arrives at the terminus. and most people around you will nod and smile understandingly.

9. an altercation in a second class compartment could end up in blows while in a first class compartment it usually ends up in loud vocal fights. but 9 times out of 10 the situation is defused by the other travellers who will ask both parties to cool off.

10. it is acceptable to ask a fellow traveller for a sip of water (if he is carrying a bottle) or his newspaper if he has finished reading it. very rarely you will be refused.

11. and it is completely acceptable to sing aloud if you are travelling in one of those compartments which has a group of singers. these singers usually travel together by the same local every day. you get a choice of bhajans (devotional songs) or film songs.

so that was my own version of the survival guide for mumbai suburban train travel. if any of you have more tips to contribute please send in your comments.

(in some future posting i will also list out some of the major benefits of suburban/local train train travel in mumbai!)

mumbai local - I

would you like to live life on the wild side? rough it out for a while? try out some dare-devil stunts? you can experience all these and more and you don't even have to travel too far (well, at least not if you are a mumbaikar - a mumbai resident)!

no, i am not talking about bungee-jumping or hang-gliding or fighting the leopards from the sanjay gandhi national park bare-handed. all you need to do is travel by the 'mumbai suburban train' during peak hour!

you have led a secluded, deprived life if you have been to mumbai and have not travelled by the 'local' as the suburban train is called by the locals.

but first let's put things in perspective. to give you a sense of what i am talking about, let me share some statistics from some credible sources here.

"Along with its neighbouring suburbs, Mumbai forms the world's sixth most populous metropolitan area with a population of about 25 million. According to the BBC, Mumbai is certainly set to outstrip Tokyo as the most populated city by 2020."
(source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai)

"Bombay suburban services are run by CR and WR. Both run many hundreds of trains every day, and carry around 6 million passengers a day, roughly evenly divided between them. CR services connect the eastern suburbs to the city, whereas WR services connect the northern suburbs to the city. [4/02] CR runs around 1090 services daily, whereas WR runs around 980 services. Supply has not kept pace with the demand, however, as the number of passengers grew about 2.5 times as fast as the capacity of the system through the 1980s and 1990s."
(source - http://www.irfca.org/faq/faq-metro.html)

"Due to its extensive reach across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, and its intensive use by the local urban population, overcrowding has grown to be a compelling problem (4,700 passengers are packed into a 9-car rake during peak hours, as against the rated carrying capacity of 1,700). This has resulted in what is known as Super-Dense Crush Load of 14 to 16 standing passengers per square metre of floor space.
(source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai_Suburban_Railway)"

you might think that commuting by these trains every day is a horrifying experience. but for the seasoned veterans (viz. the season pass-holders) the daily grind actually is an uplifting, spiritual experience of sorts!

and if you are a first-timer, and for a moment lets assume you actually managed to overcome the panic gripping you when you actually see the 'Super-Dense Crush Load' of people, and you actually manage to get into the train (maybe you actually changed your mind about getting in but then you got swept into the train by the rush) you will very quickly realise that there are some unwritten golden rules that everybody follows. and the sooner you learn them the better the chances of your surviving the trip! (and till then you stick out like a sore thumb even though you don't have enough leg-room to place both your feet squarely on the floor! not to mention that you, and not just your thumb, end up feeling sore all over after the trip!)

so here's my own short & sweet rule-book (or survival guide) on how to commute by the local and live to tell the tale!

but i'm running beyond my self-imposed 'post length' here. so i'm going to have to share these 'life secrets' with you in my next post.

p.s. other 'travel-war veterans' among the readers here are requested to send in your list of rules so that i can filch them and include them in my list :-)

i'm an englishman in new york!

i'm an alien, i'm a legal alien
i'm an englishman in new york

these are the lyrics of a song by sting. these words came back to me recently during a discussion with a friend (who was not born in india but whose fore-fathers/mothers were indians about 2-3 generations back). she mentioned that even though she feels uncomfortable with the crowds and the noise and the pollution in india, she still feels home when she is in india. she feels safest when she is in india. she doesn't feel she is an alien.

another good friend recently visited pakistan and was also in islamabad on work. his older relatives, when they knew he was going to visit islamabad, had asked him to visit certain places that they could remember of when they were still living there. now my friend was born in india and had never been to pakistan before, but he mentioned that visiting this place of his fore-fathers was an emotional moment for him.

my wife and i get asked often, especially when our friends coming visiting from abroad, why we did not choose to emigrate to some other country. when we looked at this question and analysed what we truly felt about it (beyond all the obvious answers like 'india is today the true land of opporunity' and that 'we can afford a much better lifestyle here than in any other place in the world') we realised that the one single most important reason was that we did not want to live anywhere we would feel even remotely like an 'alien'.

now i can understand people like me (and i am sure there are many of you who feel similarly) feeling so strongly about this. i think it could be explained by the fact that i was born and have been raised on concepts like patriotism, pride for our country, etc. but what i cannot understand are the feelings that my friends were talking about!

1. do you think if i spent enough time in a foreign land i would be able to overcome the 'alienness' that i believe i will feel?

2. do you think that after a few generations the individuals born in another country will slowly lose their 'indianness'? would india only be a vague notion in their minds but a place they would rather avoid visiting or moving to?

i am sure many of you who read this posting are either first/second/nth generation indians living in other countries. i would like to know your 'take' on this. and i am sure the others would also like to know. so please send in your comments.

comments unplugged - II (thanks to the gujjus!)

the posting on 'thanks to the gujjus!' generated some interesting comments, including a list which outdid mine! i am posting it here for the benefit of the others who might not have had the fortune to read it earlier. (which basically means they were too lazy or did not know that there is a mechanism here to put up your comments! :-) )

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nani said...
Holi - played all year round. their sense of direction & control over force is fantastic. do a survey & we will realise how amazingly low the 'strike rate' is despite the ubiquitousness of the streams of the blood red fluid spurting out of trains, from double-decker buses, from speeding scooters. how many times have our worst fears come true and even a drop of blushing-red juice diverged from the jet to leave a love-bite on your Arrow white? to date, i ve only had my right foot baptised once. not a bad performance at all. so what if a red carpet has never been spread for my entry, the red walls have been sprayed.

Design - those 'mera shirt bhi sexy' patterns. only those allow your eye to unmovingly concentrate only on the backless choli walking alongside & nothing else.

9:40 AM


bindu said...
Gujjus truly have put forth an example of spirit and tolerance
-they have faced worst of situations of flood, earthquake, disease outbrake and many more
-The pioneer Dhirubhai Ambani also not to be forgotten

6:18 PM


Reema said...
I would credit them with the gujjuization of other cuisines - the indian hybrid mexican food, chinese bhel!!!(has to be of gujju origin) idli chilli dry - the shiv sagar menu is full of such delights!!

Also i don't think Mc donalds would have come up with a fairly decent vegetarian spread if it weren't for this breed who are known to eat out so frequently. The literally brought the Big Mac to their knees when they first entered India.

10:50 AM


Anonymous said...
A few things I can enumerate:

The Gujju cult -
1. Anyone (guys, especially...) who is seen playing pool inside a dimly lit UV pool parlour, wearing an oakley's dark goggles, Orange coloured Old Navy sweat-shirt, Sea-blue faded Diesel denims & brown leather belt with a Bull-shaped-buckle, Nike trainers in orange and blue, 'Just FCUK it!' - branded cap in dark blue, a Tissot watch, chewing an original Wrigley's Double Mint is most probably a brand ambassador 'Gujju'

2. Seedhe palle ki saree is a traditional Gujju way of wearing it where the 'palla' is brought forward over the right shoulder (in usual cases, unless one is a lefty) and the 'pallav' / palla can be showcased in the best possible manner

3. Himesh Reshamiya: We all love to hate him but can we ignore him???

4. The MSU of Baroda: My alma mater. Had it not been for this famous institution, we would not have seen legends like Shri Aurobindo Ghosh, our present President APJ Abdul Kalam (who is an alumni of my department - Physics) and International models like Nethra Raghuraman (Dept. of Psychology)

5. Narendra Modi: He's been superb as far as promoting Gujarat and its welfare is concerned

6. The people of Surat: Got plagued, then woke up to make it the cleanest city

7. Dry but not high: For being the only state where you can't get high on alcohol...legally!

8. The-perpetually-irritating-yet-so-easy-to-understand-and-learn-language

9. The sexy & intelligent Nandita Das, the daughter of the famous Oriya painter and an intellectual Gujurati lady

10. Indian movies which thrive on Gujju family, lifestyle, culture and heritage: Kal ho na ho, Dollar Dreams, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, to name a few. Not to forget our daily soaps on TV

11. Calling even one's spouse as "Bhai" or "Ben"

12. Majority of kirana / departmental shop owners are Gujjus and 72% of Mumbai-ites are Gujjus

13. WHile they are notorious for their sweet food, one must try their kathiawadi cuisine - hot & sweet... it's different and I love it!

I would call this section: "Romancing the Gujju!". Truly they are the EVERYDAY PEOPLE!

Aradhana

11:10 PM


subir said...
intriguing comment "Gujjus truly have put forth an example of spirit and tolerance".

Spirit, yes. I am told that in spite of inhibition, McDowell sells more spirits (no beer please) in Gujarat than other states.

Tolerance!!!! can we have a break?

9:30 AM

life without a maid!

one of the greatest luxuries we, those of us living in metros in india, have are the maids/ ayahs/ domestic help that we are able to hire to help with a wide range of domestic chores.

this army of people (the service providers) are a critical part of the daily lives of all nuclear dink/disk/dimk families. (no, i am not saying rude things about these families. these terms only stand for 'double income no kids', 'double income single kid' and 'double income multiple kids'!)

a good measure of how important these people are in our lives is the extent of trauma/ chaos they manage to inject in our usually-busy lives by their mere absence! life gets thrown completely out of gear the day they decide to play hooky. even our respective work-places don't get as badly affected by our absence. (maybe that tells us something about our respective value in the scheme of things!).

and on those days that we have to make do without the services of these people, we suddenly realise how dependent we have become on this luxury. i am also amazed at the energy levels of these people since they manage to do these chores in at least 3-4 homes each day. i get pooped after washing dishes after one meal!

btw, i am speaking so passionately about this topic because we are currently going through a lean phase without a maid. and i've just finished washing up after dinner!the mood at home these days, especially in the mornings, tends to be grim or 'on the edge'. (i firmly believe that communal prayer can work miracles. and i'm hoping you would pray that we quickly find a replacement maid! my prayers for personal salvation and global peace can wait until then.)

and this is the reason why i never ask my wife the question - 'who is more important to you - the maid or i?'. i am mortified that she will give me an honest reply!