‘Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth.’ Mike Tyson.

Ever since Muhammad Ali passed on into the great boxing ring in the sky, I evince scant interest in the pugilistic sport. Cassius Clay, as we first came to know of him, was a fast-talking, fast-punching and, for good measure, a handsome and charismatic young man who had the world, and indeed most of his opponents, at his feet. His immortal quote, ‘float like a butterfly and sting like a bee’ was enshrined in legend and song. Boxing as a sport was a closed book to me till I joined boarding school in Bangalore in 1960. During those early sixties, our sporting heroes were mostly non-Indians. Everybody thrashed us in cricket, we paid obeisance at the alter of Sir Garfield Sobers and Ramanathan Krishnan’s semi-final appearances at Wimbledon, immense as they were, would propel us into an orgy of celebratory overdrive. Rather like Milkha Singh’s 4^th place at the Olympics 400 metres (P.T. Usha was to reprise that performance several years later). The bar was not set very high. Hockey was pivotal to our sporting hopes and dreams in that we covered ourselves in golden glory on multiple occasions only to lapse into permanent decline. A false dawn.

Let me get back to boxing. When we boarders were taken to the motion pictures by our school masters, once a month, to one of the many English cinema halls in the vicinity (Elvis Presley’s G.I. Blues anyone?), we would spend our precious pocket money on popcorn or stick-jaws and wait, with bated breath, for the trailers and newsreels to commence. Apart from the Indian News Review which was mostly about Nehru or Shastri visiting Egypt or Moscow, China’s Zhou Enlai or the Queen of England visiting India, not forgetting the dreary accounts of agricultural production in the face of drought and something called PL 480, nothing that was riveting. A crashing bore for us boys. Then came the British Movietone News and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) newsreel when we all sat up bolt upright popping popcorn into our cavernous mouths, eyes agog.

Though politically naïve, if not totally ignorant at the time, the Kennedy-Nixon election campaign and the subsequent assassination of John Kennedy held our attention. Invariably, there would be a section on sport and boxing was in the limelight. Floyd Patterson, Ingemar Johansson, Joe Frazier, Sonny Liston, Henry Cooper and yes, our hero, Cassius Clay, before his conversion to Muhammad Ali were all lit up in neon lights. Not necessarily in that order. It goes without saying that no one caught our fertile, young imagination more than the last named. The Thrilla in Manila, Ali vs Frazier was to come later in 1975. Even without understanding the science of boxing or knowing the difference between a left hook and an upper cut, Ali’s personality and charisma captivated us impressionable lads. It was not uncommon to find us boys side-stepping, feinting and flailing imaginary jabs at one another, instead of walking unctuously from chapel service to the science lab or the classroom. This juvenile exhibition often earned us a sharp clip round the earhole from the master on duty, ‘Boxing, eh? I’ll box your ears in a minute’ was a common refrain. It was a small price to pay for the punches we were throwing at shadows.

Then came the unexpected announcement from the school’s sports master. The inter-house boxing championship was to take place, dates revealed and all those who wished to take part had to present themselves at the weighing-in. I thought this was a voluntary invitation (and it was) but our housemaster was not having any. Unless one of us was battling consumption, chicken pox, diphtheria or some other deadly affliction we had to enter. ‘Be a man,’ we 9 and 10-year-olds were told. For me, this was crunch-time. I had never, ever stepped into a boxing ring before (for heaven’s sake, I was barely ten years old from a traditional Tamil Brahmin family) and was not looking forward to it. Dormitory pillow fights and a scrappy brawl behind chapel was as close as I ever got to a fight. It was all very well mimicking Ali in our dormitories but this was the real thing. Bloody nose time. Given that I was quite puny at the time (not that I am a Hercules even now), I qualified for the feather-weight class. ‘Am I not below the minimum weight, Sir? I could get seriously injured. I prefer to represent my house in table-tennis. You should see my wicked forehand top-spin. If it’s cricket you want, my gentle off-spin is quite deceptive as well.’ For which impertinence, I was given a smack across the back of my head. (They can’t do that nowadays). Anyhow, after the weighing-in was completed, the lightweights, bantamweights and welterweights got measured up for height, weight and a quick physical. Heavyweight was not on the cards. The draw was to take place the same evening for the preliminary rounds. We were up early next morning to check who we were pitted against.

Then came the practice sessions. Not shadow boxing, mind you, but the real thing. With real, pulpy gloves. No helmet was mandated in those days. Our P.T. Master ‘Vincy’ Vincent was our coach. ‘Now come on laddies, let’s see what you’re made of. That’s it boy, lead with the left unless you’re a southpaw. Wait till you see the whites of his eyes. Jab, jab, jab. Duck, duck, duck. Feint, feint, feint.’ By now I was ready to faint anyway. After that, we had to run round the field three times, do some skipping and were finally let off, our tongues hanging out.’ We had to go through this routine every day for the next five days before the actual bouts commenced. Each bout was an elimination round. Three rounds per fight, each round lasting three minutes.

At last, D-day dawned. The referee, the bow-tied Bill Scott’s booming voice introduced us two boxers in the red and blue corners and made the ringing cry, ‘Seconds out of the ring, first round, fight.’ It was only later that I learnt seconds did not refer to a unit of time but to the coach and the two lackeys kneading and massaging my skinny hands, whispering sweet nothings into my ear. Believe you me, those three minutes each round felt more like 30 minutes given the nerves and the battering I was taking. All the while, supporters of both the boxers screaming encouragement, ‘Go for his throat,’ ‘His guard is down. Give him an upper cut,’ ‘Right hook, you idiot,’ ‘A roundhouse punch,’ and so on. What the hell was a roundhouse punch? At the end of each round, our Vincy and the two seconds, probably prefects, doused water on me and made me drink as much as I could without bringing it up. ‘Come on laddie, fight, fight. Lead with your left. You are ahead on points. Go for his stomach.’ Vincy was beside himself. ‘Sir, I am feeling groggy, can I give a walkover?’ I was half-serious. Vincy pointed his right forefinger at me. ‘How many fingers?’ ‘Seven,’ I lied. ‘Liar,’ he yelled, gave me an encouraging if painful headbutt and said, ‘Fight on, laddie.’ That was that.

My opponent, one Prem, was a good foot taller than me. I did not believe for one moment that he was less than 12 years old, the age limit for my category. There was no way I was going to even reach his stomach, leave alone his face. And as you all know, hitting below the belt meant instant disqualification. I set my mind on attempting to aim for the award under the fancy title, ‘Most Scientific Boxer.’ This involved no actual boxing at all. Just had to make sure you did not get hit and keep ducking, weaving and shaking your head sideways with the gloves covering your face so that your much taller opponent, Prem, could not reach you. As Ali said, ‘His hands can’t hit what his eyes can’t see.’ And lest I forget, plenty of skipping round the ring and leaning against the ropes as well. Rope-a-dope, I think they called it. Ali invented it. Every now and then I would just hug my opponent in a clinch and not let go. Till the referee’s admonishing whistle blew, ‘Break it up lads, break it up. No hugging. This is not a love feast.’ I could have also gone for the ‘Best Loser Award’ but who wants a loser tag against his name, best or otherwise?

At long last, the fight was mercifully over. Nine of the longest minutes I had ever endured. We stood beside the referee for the announcement. Old Scottie lifted the hand of the winner, Prem. It was not my hand but I had fought the good fight, lost on points and was not knocked out. Not even a technical knock-out. I was not awarded the ‘Most Scientific Boxer’ title either. That hurt. Apparently, you had to land a punch at least once on your opponent’s face or body, which I signally failed to do. After the fight, we two protagonists had to perfunctorily shake hands, or rather, gloves. We did not make eye contact. There was no ‘prem’ lost between us.

Simon & Garfunkel best captured the spirit of the aspiring boxer – inspirational but nowhere close to our nervousness and shaky legs in school. In the clearing stands a boxer / And a fighter by his trade / And he carries the reminders / Of every glove that laid him down / Or cut him till he cried out / In his anger and his shame / ‘I am leaving, I am leaving’ / But the fighter still remains.

Author’s note: Much of what is written in this piece is based loosely on fact and actual events. Loosely being the operative word.

What is the sound of one hand clapping? Zen Buddhist paradox or koan.

While doing a bit of surfing on the net, I came across this amusing anecdote. A man meets a friend in the street, looking worried. ‘What’s the trouble?’ he inquires. ‘Quick,’ says his friend, ‘I need help – do you know a one-armed lawyer?’ ‘Why does he have to be one-armed?’ ‘Well,’ says his friend, ‘I’m involved in a very complicated case, and every time I go to a lawyer he says, ‘On the one hand you can do this, and on the other hand you can do that.’

Presumably the moral of that gag is that when you consult your lawyer, doctor or investment consultant, you would appreciate a straight answer, a clear diagnosis or recommendation instead of beating round the bush and leaving you in a quandary. The last thing one wants from professionals who are retained to counsel and reassure you, and in whose hands you repose your faith, is a wishy-washy, neither-here-nor-there opinion. The unfortunate part of it is that oftentimes, that is exactly what happens. It is colloquially referred to as ‘covering one’s backside’ but it does little to enhance the client’s confidence.

The other day, I was at my GP’s clinic for a routine throat infection problem which needed a quick-fix medical prescription, a course of salt gargle and, as they say in England, Bob’s your uncle. However, the course of a doctor’s consultation rarely runs smooth. I walked into the medico’s chamber looking as cheerful as it was possible while coughing intermittently.

‘Good morning, Doc.’

He quickly put on his face mask (you can never be too careful these days with coughing patients) and greeted me perfunctorily.

‘Good morning, and what seems to be the problem?’

I would have thought that was obvious. Still, I soldiered on. ‘Sore throat, Doc. Streptococcal whatever you wish to call it. It’s in the air. A course of antibiotics should do the trick.’ As usual in front of a doctor, I tried to sound casual and unconcerned, jabbering more than required.

‘Allow me to be the judge of that’ he responded tartly. ‘Please stick your tongue out and open your mouth wide. Aaaah! Yes, tongue thickly coated and the back of your throat is a sorry mess.’ He then pressed a button under his table for the nurse.

‘Nurse, please take the patient’s temperature, blood pressure and pulse reading while I see the next patient.’

I followed the nurse to another room where she did the needful. ‘Look nurse, I am not running a temperature and my BP is always rock solid. Do we really need all this?’ She just said those two immortal words and shoved the thermometer into my mouth before I could blab any further, ‘Doctor’s orders.’ There was a finality in her tone that brooked no argument. In any case, I couldn’t argue, what with the thermometer stuck in my mouth. Simultaneously she strapped the inflatable cuff round my left arm and went to work with the inflation bulb, valve and stethoscope watching the pressure gauge like a hawk. She certainly knew her onions. When all that rigmarole was done, she scribbled some numbers on a piece of paper.

‘All normal, nurse?’ I asked. She made no response and strutted off to the doctor’s chamber with her scrap of paper. She then asked me to wait till the patient inside came out. ‘So how did my numbers stack up?’ I might have betrayed just a wee bit of anxiety. ‘Doctor will speak to you,’ she said, rather ominously.

At last, I got the call after the patient inside came out coughing uncontrollably. Perhaps I should have also worn a mask, what with germs floating about the place, if floating is what germs do. It is my firm conviction that perfectly normal people can catch all kinds of infection when they walk into a clinic or hospital. Stands to reason. Anyhow, I walked in breezily.

‘Here I am again, Doc. Like the proverbial bp. No, no, not your kind of 120/80 BP. Bad penny. Sorry, just shooting the breeze. The nurse took all the tests. Did I pass? By the way, great win for RCB yesterday. I know you’re a fan.’

The doctor was not to be distracted by my nervousness-induced small talk. ‘Look, I am not sure what to make of this. Your BP is slightly elevated, temperature just under 100, and the throat is really ugly. I do not like the redness and the yellow, pus-like formation. Hmmm.’

‘Well, I don’t much care for it either, Doc. What are you going to do about it? That is the question.’ Come to think of it, I did not like his ‘Hmmm’ one bit.

He hummed and hawed some more. ‘To do or not to do. That is the question.’

I was beginning to get a bit fidgety. ‘Less of the Hamlet soliloquy, if you don’t mind Doc. What is it that you wish to do or not to do?’

‘Send you for some more tests. I am conflicted. There is a decent lab just down the road, I could prescribe a further analysis including blood samples and chest X-rays. An MRI can be considered, if push comes to shove. You have insurance? On the other hand, I could prescribe some strong medication and watch and wait. What do you think?’

You see what I mean? It went on like that for a few more minutes. He also added that he is a CSK fan to which I offered my condolences. I finally lost patience and he probably lost a patient. I told him I have an urgent meeting to attend and that I will get back to him later in the day. I went home, sucked on several throat lozenges through the day, salt-gargled three times with hot water and the next morning, I was right as rain.

It was not very different with my investment consultant. The market has been going up and down like a yo-yo, mostly down. Every time Donald Trump makes an announcement about the war in Iran and in particular, the Strait of Hormuz, my meagre ill-gotten gains tend to do a flip-flop which might very well account for my elevated BP and throat allergy which my doctor was so conflicted about. I was on my mobile in a trice and called my financial doctor for the umpteenth time.

‘I say, have you seen the Sensex this morning. Down 1500 points. Don’t know about Hormuz but I am in dire straits. Should I pull everything out and put it into an FD in my bank? Low on interest yes, but high on safety. I am already in the red. Can’t afford to be taken to the cleaners. What say you?’

Long pause from the consultant. ‘You have a point Sir. Situation is volatile. We have solid information that India’s trade deal with the U.S. is going through and that Iran and the U.S. are on the verge of a deal. Our fundamentals are strong. On the other hand, Israel is still refusing to play ball. Which is why, I am not sure. Why don’t we wait for a couple of days more?’ While I go bankrupt.

I was miffed. ‘What Donald Trump thinks today, he does not think tomorrow eh? All that geo-political hogwash just to tell me you don’t know. Why can’t you stick your neck out and let your yea be yea and your nay be nay, as my Warden in school used to say? I can’t put you in jail, even if I am skint.’

‘On the one hand Sir, I can’t deny I am also in a bit of a hole. Then again, on the other hand…’

I cut the line. I decided to consult my car cleaner. He will give me a shrewd idea of what to do. It is the same story with my lawyer.

 ‘Do you feel we have a strong case?’ I ask my legal beak about the accident damages case.

‘That depends on who the judge is. If it is Judge Grumps, we could be in for a rough ride and might have to move to a higher court. On the other hand, if we strike it lucky and get Judge Smiley, we could be in for a windfall. It all depends.’

I was about to add, ‘Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,” / Like the poor cat i’ the adage?’ Then again, I thought better of it. He would have just looked blankly at me.

At the end of the day, doctors, investment consultants or lawyers, we can’t do without them. We are caught between two stools. Rather like those characters from Dante’s Inferno, trapped between two circles of hell. And lest we forget, we shell out an arm and a leg for the dubious privilege.

Why is it that no one, and I mean not a single, solitary person, has anything good to say about anyone on our television news channels? Politicians naturally are the prime targets, crosshairs clearly emblazoned on their backs inviting us to take aim and shoot. We elect them every five years to represent us in parliament, and they make it a habit of going out there and making a complete pig’s breakfast out of whatever it is that they are supposed to be doing on our behalf. At least, that is the impression one gets while watching the news on television. You can ask me to stop watching television, at least the news channels, but where would the fun be in doing that? Or rather, in not doing that. Mind you, it is not just the politicians or their representatives who sling mud at each other on a daily basis. They just happen to be soft targets. Our country is virtually impossible to govern without displeasing someone or the other. The ruling party at the centre or in the states, keeps muddling its way through. At times they actually manage to do a bit of good. Then again, try telling that to the opposition parties.

The ruling BJP party, having spread its tentacles across most of the country barring the southern states, considers the opposition to be a bunch of disjointed invertebrates who can just about manage to put one foot in front of the other without tripping up. The ruling dispensation adopts an insufferably patronising tone, if not downright insulting, and this does nothing to make their opposing parties any too chuffed. Many analysts aver that the level of opprobrium hurled at the opposition alliance is well earned! Contrastingly, the opposition party representatives make it their avowed business to take their nomenclature quite literally and make it a point to oppose anything and everything that the ruling dispensation does. Most of them strut around with a massive chip on their collective shoulders, ready to condemn every single move that the government makes. With friends like these, who needs enemies? The trick is to win elections. Once you do that, you are sitting pretty. Never mind the tongue lashing all round. As the popular song goes, ‘The winner takes it all, the loser has to fall.’

Having said that, here is the piquant twist. I am reliably informed that at the parliament canteens, if that is not too downmarket a term, they lay a good table. The catering is top class (presumably vegetarian) at very friendly prices. Why do I mention the canteens? Because it is here, where the nosh is most toothsome, that ruling and opposition party members sit together and feed their faces while being so excessively bonhomous and friendly that you would scarcely believe they have just been spitting fire and brimstone at one another while the nation’s business was being transacted in their respective Sabhas. They slap each other’s backs, indulge in friendly banter and jollification while the ghee masala dosa or aloo paratha goes down a treat, and the filter coffee begs for a second round. A cozy club, in short. However, the moment they return to the Lok or Rajya Sabha post prandial, the gloves are off and they revert true to type, looking daggers at each other, yelling and screaming while just stopping short of hurling slippers across the Treasury and Opposition benches. Once in a while even that abomination has taken place.

I will have to assume that much of the drama in parliament is enacted for the television cameras so that their publics all over the country can sit back and approve the shenanigans being played out on their behalf. Bring on the popcorn or the jhalmuri! Since the average citizen on the street has little to go on other than what he or she views on the idiot box, it occurred to me that I could offer a few tips to some of the key players in parliament as well as most of the garrulous panelists on our home screens who suffer from a bad case of verbal diarrhoea. They keep saying ‘Just 10 seconds more Arnab / Navika / Rajdeep / Rahul’ and go on for another 500 seconds.

Bearing all this in mind, I would like to gratuitously offer my two cents worth to our tallest political leaders, television anchors and panelists such that they might present a more acceptable version of themselves and those whom they are mandated to represent.

First off, let me start with our Prime Minister. As everyone knows only too well, PM Modi has stoutly refused to address press conferences, a decision that has come in for frequent criticism and one that came to the fore recently when a young Norwegian journalist attempted to confront him and was peremptorily given the brush off. However, whenever the PM chooses to address the public directly, either on special occasions, elections (particularly after a spectacular victory) or while addressing the parliament, he has a few pet peeves that he never fails to touch upon. Irrespective of the subject he has chosen to take up, giving the Congress Party a severe scolding is an absolute must for our leader. It is almost an article of faith with PM Modi that his peroration will be peppered with sentences starting with ‘Yeh Congrayj….’ Followed by spouting a litany of misdeeds attributed to the Grand Old Party since independence. He never misses a chance to rub it in, good and proper. I am not here to debate whether this is appropriate or not. The man must and will do what works for him and he does his homework thoroughly. My fervent appeal to him is to look for other targets, just for a change. The Congress Party and their first family have been done to death; done and dusted.

While on the subject of the Congress Party, I move swiftly on to their leader in parliament, Rahul Gandhi. Since television close-ups are a primary source of visual evidence and conclusions drawn therefrom, I would strongly suggest a few changes to how our LOP comports himself in front of the cameras. Firstly, he should stop winking into the middle distance whenever he thinks he has made a clever comment or barb. He did just that while directly addressing the PM on one occasion and never heard the end of it. The wink is more ‘too-clever-by-half’ than just clever. I would suggest he ought to smile more frequently, even if he intends to be ironical. Rahul Gandhi is naturally blessed with dimpled cheeks and the smile brings out this pulchritudinous quality which is bound to receive rave reviews on television. Young ladies will swoon and that is all to the good. He also has this distracting habit of constantly fidgeting with the microphones with both hands during his public speeches like it is second nature to him. This should be avoided especially when there are sound technicians and sundry lackeys around to do that job. While on that note, his voice appears to have acquired a grating, disturbing gruffness that ought to be attended to. He should consult an ENT specialist soonest. Lastly, why this obsession with the white tee shirt? I grant you the half-sleeve sporty outfit shows his biceps and chest to good effect (56 inch?), advertising his fondness for ‘hitting the gym,’ to employ the current parlance. Why not a different coloured tee shirt every day? Black to register protest, green for the environment, saffron for…..no, better avoid that colour. He can always get back to white if he wishes to show, metaphorically, the white flag. Not likely, but you never know. In sum, he could do a lot worse than pick up a few sartorial tips from his bete noir, India’s Prime Minister.

I conclude this reflection with a brief note on our television anchors and how they could look more appealing on screen. Republic TV’s angry not-so-young man Arnab Goswami, never out of his pukka blue suit should, attire-wise, reflect more of the Bharat ethos he propagates so passionately. They are tearing down the Delhi Gymkhana, Arnab. What price three-piece suits? Karan Thapar raises the sartorial bar a notch, distinguished grey hair in place and the occasional bow-tie to go with his clipped accent. CNN-News18’s Anand Narasimhan appears to have struck the right chord – understatedly turned out and always shrewdly says Bharat, never India. I love Barkha Dutt’s professionalism and the meticulous homework she puts in on her podcasts which is reflected in the respect her panelists hold for her. It’s just that she could do a tad better than just hurriedly getting into whatever clothing she could lay her hands on before rushing off to the studio. Rahul Kanwal, NDTV’s new boss, is usually quite natty but he has this tendency to perform his own version of the Bharatanatyam while presenting his insights. Navika Kumar is graceful in her traditional sari though she tends to throw her weight around. As for Rajdeep Sardesai, it won’t matter a jot what he wears, the I&B honchos will keep sticking pins into his voodoo doll lookalike.

That about sums it up. The television is, above all else, a visual medium, meant to entertain. Politicians, anchors and panelists will forever be defined by what they wear and how they look. ‘Watch the birdie!’ What they say will be forgotten as soon as our television sets are turned off. There’s a sobering thought.

Underneath the mango tree / Me honey and me can watch for the moon / Underneath the mango tree / Me honey and me, we plan marry soon. Monty Norman’s calypso from the film Dr. No.

The mango season is upon us, and if it were not for the IPL, the recently concluded assembly elections and the never concluding US/Israel – Iran imbroglio, not necessarily in that order, all dinner table and party conversations will have been dominated by the mango. Under the circumstances, the luscious fruit is finding it hard to get a word in edgeways but not for want of trying. Let’s face it, the mango is a delicious fruit, probably the queen among fruits (or is it the king?), and the average Jai or Jaya in India cannot wait for the newspapers to formally announce its arrival. Rather like anticipating the monsoon hitting Kerala(m). India is the world’s largest producer of mangoes, which gives it an exalted status for the globe’s fruity bragging rights. When it comes to mangoes India is way ahead of laggard China, a distant second. Eat your heart out, President Xi.

At his recent tête-à-tête on the sidelines during Prime Minister Modi’s 5-nation tour of Europe, his dialogues with the heads of Italy, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands could well have been dominated by issues pertaining to bilateral trade keeping in mind the EU-India Free Trade Agreement. Not to forget the historic Chola copper plates our Prime Minister wheedled out of the Netherlands. It is thus entirely possible, and I am only conjecturing, that our Prime Minister, while accepting the customary gifts from the different heads of state exchanged, along with handwoven silk scarves and other exotic objet d’art, boxes of succulent Indian mangoes. The mango motif, if indeed it figured, faded into the background as India’s brand of Melody toffees was especially reserved for the Italian PM Giorgia Meloni. Which was the cue for our social and conventional media to go completely bonkers.

Evidently some bright spark in our bureaucracy, or perhaps our PM himself, who is no slouch with word play, took up PM Meloni’s algebraic equation that Meloni + Modi = Melodi and spun it for what it was worth, presenting her with a bagful of Melody toffees to sweeten the deal! It was an overwrought pun but it received over-the-top television coverage here in India. From Melodi to Melody was but a small step, and perhaps a giant leap for  Parle confectionary, the makers of Melody and beneficiaries of this fortuitous serendipity. Last heard, they were laughing all the way to the bank, given the humongous amount of free advertising the brand received. Melody toffees are presently stocked out and Parle’s factories are working overtime to meet the demand. Social media went berserk, going clean off the charts. The only unhappy person appeared to be Congress leader Rahul Gandhi who, as is his wont, mocked the PM for his toffee diplomacy while doom and gloom, if not total Armageddon, was drawing nigh here at home. Rumours that Parle have despatched an assuaging carton of Melody toffees to the Gandhi scion may or may not be true.

Notwithstanding all the geo-political distractions, I am guessing that the mango would not be denied its due place in the seasonal scheme of things. Given the mango pecking order, it would not have been surprising if the Indian Premier wore a superior smile, with a keen eye on the cameras, while handing over a box of Banganapalli, Himsagar and Alphonso, while the chief honchos of the European nations would have been hard pressed to find a suitably delicious response. If a Norwegian press reporter tried to badger him with inconvenient questions about freedom of expression back home, our indefatigable PM merely swotted them away like so many gnats. He never answered a press reporter in India. Why would he start now on foreign shores?

Frankly, I have no idea if the mango played any part in Mr. Modi’s Europe sojourn, but my imagination would like to believe it did. So much for mango diplomacy. Let us return to our social whirl. I was a fly on the wall at a dinner hosted by a prominent socialite a few days ago, and the mango was the central subject of conversation, once the party folks had tired of discussing Dhoni’s rousing non-return to CSK and if the unstoppable BJP will ever meet an immovable force. Or vice versa. The latter being laughed out of court given the recent assembly election results. Here are some random snatches of tittle-tattle I was able to eavesdrop at the party, as I flitted to and fro sipping my tall, cool glass of aam panna.

‘I just can’t wait for the mango dessert. There’s nothing quite like the pure, sliced Alphonso with a dollop of vanilla ice-cream after that rich, spicy Indian curry,’ chirped a loud, visiting American lady journalist. ‘Can’t get enough of it, and to hell with watching my weight. The mango Trumps everything else. That’s with a capital T,’ she added, giggling girlishly at her own unfunny pun.

Then of course, no mango season can be complete without pearls of mango wisdom issuing forth from the mango snob. ‘You know, everyone runs after the Alphonso like it was the nectar of the gods. I grant you the finest Alphonso is quite a treat, but I do believe it is a tad overrated. For my money, the Himsagar from West Bengal takes the cake, if you’ll pardon the mixed culinary metaphor. Not to forget that West Bengal is also currently the flavour of the season in more ways than one. There’s just that right blend of sweetness and a slight hint of sour mischief that makes it an all-time favourite. While I yield to no one in my admiration for the estimable Banganapalli from Andhra, it will have to bow before the Himsagar’s majesty’.

Speaking for myself, these cocktail circuit fancy mangoes are all very well. Priced extortionately (‘Rs.250/- a kilo, daahling, for this sinful pre-season Kesar from Gujarat’), you cannot avoid severe indigestion at those sinful prices. For me, there’s nothing like the raw mango peddled by the street vendor, expertly sliced, diced and smeared with salt and chilli powder. That’s what we used to devour standing outside our school gates. And we did not come down with food poisoning. I am talking ‘swinging ‘60s’ here. At 10 naye paise a slice, it was like mann(g)a from heaven. A true Aam Aadmi Phul. As a rule I try to go easy on puns, but I could not resist those two opportunities to indulge myself. An admonitory slap on the wrist is in order.

The mango snob is rather like the wine snob. The whole idea seems to be to preen his encyclopaedic knowledge of mangoes, and the more he has paid for it, the more his awestruck admirers hang on his every word. ‘Ok folks, we all know India is the largest mango producer in the world, and most of us are familiar with all the varieties. But wait till I fish out something special just for this small group of mango aficionados. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the world’s sweetest mango. This is the Carabao mango from the Zambales orchards in the Philippines. It cost me a prince’s ransom but hey, what’s a few bucks between friends?’

So saying, he invited us to tuck into a slice of the Carabao dipped in a specially prepared Filipino avocado sauce. It tasted like nothing on earth, by which I do not mean it tasted ethereal. Au contraire, I would not have offered it to my dog,  fussy pooch. It was as much as all of us could do to swallow the damn thing and not bring it up till we ran to the nearest loo. We did not wish to offend our host but we declined a second helping saying it was too precious to waste on common folk like us with such plebeian tastes. Perhaps it was an acquired taste, like caviar. I think he got the message.

All said and done, you cannot keep us Indians, be they the hoi polloi or the upper crust, from discussing the mango threadbare in all its myriad facets. After all, the mango season lasts barely two to three months, and if you do not dive in and get yours as quickly as you can, you are going to rue your missed chances. And the connoisseur will continue to mumble his respectful ode to the Chaunsa from Himachal Pradesh, the Dasheri and Langra from Uttar Pradesh, and the Totapuri from Karnataka. Last but not the least, there’s the Mulgova from Tamil Nadu. Celebrated in legend and song and widely dubbed as ‘the Alphonso of the South’, a description the chauvinistic Tamilians scoff at. Their riposte would be that the Alphonso should be called the ‘the Mulgova of the West’. Quite right too! The new CM Joseph Vijay could take a leaf out of that observation and gain more brownie points from his adoring populace.

So there you are. We will fight over pride and prejudice, but the mango in India will reign supreme. Alas, for too short a time. I am reminded of a song, composed and performed to much acclaim by a Calcutta based band, The Cavaliers, during the heady 60s. It was called Love is a Mango which became a huge local hit as it was released during the mango season. I might be romanticising this, but what the hell! Some of my college mates played in that band and even today, when I take a succulent bite off a Himsagar, Love is a Mango plays in my head. What can I say? We are all going bananas over the mango.

It is downright cussed, if not plain ridiculous, that those of us who live in the Garden City of Bangalore, a gross misnomer if ever I came across one, should keep whining and going on about the unpleasant weather during the months of April and May. Yes, the heat and humidity, once unknown in the city during this time of the year can be physically and mentally stultifying. ‘We never had fans in Bangalore.’ Thus far, the rain god Indra has also been disobliging. Perhaps El Niño has got the drop on Indra. Then the rains, huffing and puffing, do arrive and the air-conditioners are turned off forever. We can then move on to complaining about other things like the traffic jams, load shedding, lack of infrastructure and public transport, new constructions sprouting like a rash, trees being felled willy-nilly, threats to the ozone layer, parking woes and several other sins of commission and omission. Incidentally, if you do not like my saying Bangalore instead of the localised Bengaluru, tough. Feather and tar me, if you wish. Old habits die hard. The masthead of the daily newspaper The Telegraph in Kolkata still says Calcutta. Bully for them. Always hoping and praying that the new dispensation in that capital city of West Bengal does not decide to rename it Ma Kali Durga Nagar or some such divinely dictated moniker. Stranger things have happened elsewhere in the country.

Incidentally, as an off-the-cuff comment, a bit of a non-sequitur really, it is the mango season, short though it will be, and it is the one bright spot on the horizon. That is some compensation for all the other travails we endure during these summer months.

The human species has developed and fine-tuned the habit of cribbing about anything and everything. We are never satisfied with the status quo, never mind which generation we belong to. Which is why we are forever moaning, teary-eyed, about the ‘good old days.’ What is more, we always find the grass infinitely greener on the other side of the fence. I now live in Bangalore and formerly spent many a turbulent year in Calcutta. As a city that attracts immigrants like moths to a flame, I know of many friends and acquaintances who have moved to Bangalore from Calcutta, either to seek greener pastures on the job front or to buy property and lead a quiet, retired life. Hope springs eternal. If you happen to be sitting in a waiting lounge in any one of Bangalore’s leading hospitals, chances are there will be a Bengali family within stone-throwing distance. Ditto at an airport departure area. Oftentimes, this has resulted in striking up momentary friendships, even if they are just akin to ships that pass in the night. Though not a Bengali by birth, my identity with Calcutta and the Bengalis is deep. I speak the language colloquially, after a fashion, and can spot a fellow Bengali from a mile off.

Then comes the inevitable fraternising and the joy of being able to exchange pleasantries in that beautiful language. In passing I can confidently state that though born a Tamilian, my friends from Tamil Nadu will invariably respond in English if I open the conversation in my mother tongue, a strange affectation. If I address a Tamilian with that familiar greeting ‘Sowkhyama?’ his reply is bound to be something on the lines of ‘Very fine Sir, which is your native place in Tamil Nadu?’ See what I mean? With a Bengali, never mind which strata of society he or she belongs to, the lingo will just flow like treacle. And they love it when a non-Bengali speaks their language, even if imperfectly. ‘Urre baba, khoob sundar Bangla bolchen.’ Once you have got past that initial exchange, the conversation will quickly move to politics, cricket (don’t forget to mention Sourav Ganguly) and, if you are in luck, Satyajit Ray and Ingmar Bergman. Mamata Banerjee and Suvendu Adhikari are best avoided. Recent tumultuous happenings post the West Bengal state elections may witness some fundamental changes in peoples’ mindset, for better or for worse. We will just have to wait and watch. Meanwhile it is best to give the subject a wide berth.

As more than 25 years have passed since I left Calcutta to settle in what was then a reasonably salubrious Bangalore, I have had enough time to start beefing about the terrible conditions in India’s IT capital and how rosy and wonderful things were ‘back in the day’ in Calcutta. That is what inevitably happens when you are unhappy with your present state and long in the tooth, to boot. Cynicism comes easily. If you were truly objective, you will recall how you suffered interminable power cuts under the Communist regime in Calcutta while you were swotting for exams under the ministrations of a rapidly dying inverter at home. Then, just to be an awful tease, the power would flicker briefly raising hopes, and quickly die on you for hours together. As to the local transport, we would clamber precariously on to the 2B red bus or the No.24 tram to and from college, barely getting a toe hold, cheek by jowl with a gaggle of sweaty, grimy, ill-tempered humanity, inhaling a lungful of carbon monoxide belching from the bus. I recall an occasion when an elderly gentleman kept philosophically digging his nose during the entire journey. When at last his stop arrived for him to disembark, one of the other passengers tapped him on the shoulder and asked him in chaste Bengali, ‘Dada, kichhu pelen?’ (‘Dada, did you unearth anything?’) Dry humour can surface in unexpected places.

Cut to the present. When a group of friends in Bangalore who can all be described as ex-Calcuttans, to coin a term, gather at the Bangalore Club, a pleasant enough location, the conversation would invariably shift to reminiscing about what a marvellous time we all enjoyed in the culturally vibrant atmosphere and broad-minded populace that characterised that city of dubious joy. While all that is not entirely untrue, my limited point being that the mind naturally discards the negative aspects of the past and concentrates on what we truly cherished. Which is probably a very good thing. That is the very nature of nostalgia, all of us looking through rose-tinted glasses. Spotify may have democratised and made immensely convenient our access to music, but we will keep harping on our dust-laden, scratchy LPs or spool cassettes and tapes. ‘The sound was truly genuine. Spotify is all artificial and digitised.’ The poet Longfellow exhorted us to ‘let the dead past bury its dead.’ That’s all very well, but the past keeps rearing its head, particularly when you are at an age when there is not much of a future to look forward to. On the whole, I prefer the gurus who lecture us to ‘stay in the present.’

I shall end this lugubrious rumination on the past, present and future by referencing the world of sport to buttress the point I am struggling to get across. The aged cricket lover, on being told of a 15-year-old tyke called Sooryavanshi who slams sixes for fun is bound to respond with a sigh, ‘When will we ever again see that classical forward defensive push, bat and pad locked together? Sunil Gavaskar! When comes such another?’ A conversation on tennis will yield a similar response. ‘This Djokovic, Alcaraz and Sinner. They are good but they just keep running from side to side and blasting the ball to kingdom come till one of them drops with sheer exhaustion. Even the spectator gets dizzy. Give me a Laver, McEnroe or a Federer. A beautiful service motion, a couple of balletic steps to the net and the volley crisply put away for a winner.’ My short answer to all this rhetorical ‘When will we ever see’ nonsense is to direct them to YouTube and invite them to search for whichever antediluvian hero he would like to wallow in the past with. Who knows, even the luxuriously bearded W.G. Grace might put in an appearance, provided he has not been a creation of the dreaded AI.

It’s the same with music. Ask me and I am bound to say, ‘There’s nothing like The Beatles or Bob Dylan, M.S. Subbulakshmi or Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Bach or Beethoven.’ That being the case I might as well close with these lines from the legendary 82-year-old Irish soul balladeer, Sir Van Morrison, ‘The beauty of the days gone by / It brings a longing to my soul / To contemplate my own true self / And keep me young as I grow old.’

The assembly elections in five of India’s states, which includes one Union Territory is now, mercifully, over. Or, is it? The aftermath of this enfranchising exercise will linger on for several days, if not weeks. Chief Ministers have to be named, hopefully without acrimony. Where there is little doubt as to who the CM will be, as is the case in Tamil Nadu, a different challenge in arriving at a simple majority, involving scrounging around for support from pliant candidates from other parties, is in progress. Palm grease is retailing at a premium. This is one instance where the Governor of the state, otherwise a decorative figurehead, takes centre stage and the Tamil Nadu Governor is making the most of it. Some might even aver that he is making a right royal meal of it.

 An erstwhile leading, and now rapidly fading, Congress has already jumped ship from its declared ally, the DMK, to extend support to a party led by a celluloid demigod – a trademark of Tamil Nadu politics. A Faustian pact, many would characterise this as. An ought-to-be-outgoing Chief Minister, the pugnacious Mamata Banerjee, refuses to recognise that she has been resoundingly defeated at the hustings. Apparently, nobody told her. Crying foul, she continues to sit on her erstwhile throne, liberally smearing it with Araldite. The concerned authorities might need the services of a crowbar to unseat her. As I pen this, I note that brand Fevicol, with its sharp sense of satire and topicality, has been quick off the blocks to take advantage of the adhesive parallel. Good on them.

Even in ‘God’s Own Country’ Keralam, where the UDF coalition has won handsomely, the CM’s post continues to be a matter for intense speculation and deliberation, if not contention. In Assam, there are no Doubting Thomases as the cherubic Himanta Biswa Sarma of the BJP sings and dances his way to a thumping victory, third time running. In the midst of all the excitement the Union Territory of Puducherry is all but forgotten – a mere footnote. ‘It’s all happening,’ as some of our cricket commentators love to say. As to what exactly is happening is a matter of considerable befuddlement.

I felt it might be a good idea to buttonhole a representative from each of these parties, winner or loser, and get some idea of what their party bosses feel about the results just announced. Obviously, it had to be necessarily a junior functionary, as most of the seniors were busy cadging, cajoling and generally carrying on, plotting and planning. Winning or losing an election is one thing. What happens once the verdict is in (or out) is another kettle of fish altogether. As I could scarcely be expected to travel by air to the various destinations, my pockets being extremely shallow, the internet and my mobile phone had to be my instruments of choice to get a word in edgeways with these party apparatchiks. For the most part it was a hit-or miss affair. Even when someone finally, after several tries, came on the line, I had to take his or her word for it that I was speaking to the genuine article, in a manner of speaking. To kick off, I called the Kolkata HQ of the BJP.

‘Hullo, good morning. Who am I speaking to? Sorry, you want to know who I am first? Fair point. I am a nobody really, just a freelancer who does not have the clout of any of the big media houses. The findings of this interview will not appear in any newspaper or periodical. Just in my weekly blog, which is read by not more than 17 people, at last count. TV? Certainly not. This is not a video call. You will put me on to someone? A karyakarta? Great.’

I then wait for about 15 minutes while the music on hold plays Saint Tulsidas’ Shri Ramachandra Kripalu Bhajman on an endless loop. It was so hypnotic I fell into a trance. Finally, someone comes on the line.

‘Jai Shri Ram. I can give you two minutes. One question only. Shoot.’

I shoot. ‘Since Mamata Banerjee is literally stuck to her chair, how are you planning to unseat her? And since you said shoot, can you also tell me who shot your leader Shuvendu Adhikari’s most trusted aide?’

‘That is a very good question, I mean about Mamata Didi. They have applied so much Fevicol on her seat that nobody is able to unstick her. Her party colleagues have all scooted looking for fresh jobs, most of them waiting outside our office. We have approached the R&D people from the Fevicol company. They are on their way with chemicals and other implements. We, who are now the ruling party, are trying to be helpful, despite her intransigence.’

After that the line went dead. Two minutes were over. I must say he surprised me by using words like intransigence. It was also clear that he was unwilling to volunteer an opinion on the assassination of Mr. Adhikari’s aide.

Next port of call, the TMC. The phone rang for several minutes. Finally, a lady’s gruff voice came on the line with a terse ‘Yes?’

‘Good morning, I am an independent, unbiased blogger. May I speak to someone, however junior he or she may be, and get a statement on what your party’s next move will be, after the recent electoral reversal?’

‘There is no one here right now. They have all gone looking for jobs or hunting for experts on adhesives. What do you want?’ The lady sounded quite annoyed. Why, I have no idea, but I persevered.

‘In that case is it possible to get a statement from the former Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee?’

‘Mamata Didi to you, you little twerp. And don’t you dare say former Chief Minister. And it is she you are speaking to.’

‘Oh, I am so sorry Didi. I was not expecting you to answer the phone. I hope I am not disturbing you.’ I was very apologetic.

‘I have no option but to answer the phone. I am irretrievably glued to this chair and they have all run away, leaving the party helpline phone on my lap. I can give you one question. I am in a foul mood.’

I could sense that by her tone. I was also taken aback that she knew words like ‘twerp’ and ‘irretrievably,’ leave alone how to pronounce them. Derek O’Brien must have been coaching her. Anyhow, her coming on the line was a huge bonus. I went ahead and popped the question. ‘Didi, were you defeated at the polls because of the Special Intensive Revision, SIR?’ I waited for her response with bated breath.

‘What a stupid question! Why am I even talking to you? Of course it is SIR, what else? SIR, SIR, SIR, SIR, SIR! Only SIR. Nothing else. Bhujeccho? What is wrong with you? Maatha kharaab? You must be a BJP agent. I will find out your number and you will be taken care of. Once I am able to get out of this chair.’

Then the line went dead.

After that I lost all interest in speaking to anybody else. Although I speak fluent colloquial Tamil I cannot, for the life of me, follow what people like Stalin and EPS are saying in their Dravida bhasha. As for Vijay he has decided, for now at least, to follow the dictum, ‘Silence is golden.’ Wise man. He has been kept fully occupied running up and down to and from the Governor’s residence. He has been given the right, royal runaround. He should take time off and watch a CSK game at Chepauk and indulge in some ‘whistle podufying.’ Who knows, Dhoni might hobble in, calf strain notwithstanding, to slam a six or two in the TVK Chief’s honour. A few selfies of the ‘two thalas’ won’t hurt the optics either.

That leaves Assam, Keralam and Puducherry. These are constituencies where the winners have enjoyed a cakewalk and the losers have not applied adhesives to their chairs. Furthermore, they have not resorted to using foul three-letter words like SIR. In short, they have nothing spicy to contribute and I deplore bland interviews. Having said that, I will have to deny myself the immense pleasure, however remote, of getting the dulcet-toned Shashi Tharoor (‘He on honey-dew hath fed’) on the line. He will, naturally, speak in English with me as my Malayalam is virtually non-existent. However, that is not a foolproof guarantee that I will follow every word the silver-tongued Parliamentarian utters.

Finally, here is hoping that in a few days’ time all the five Chief Ministers will be duly sworn in and none will be sworn at.

Forget about Donald ‘No more Mr. Nice Guy’ Trump and Bibi Netanyahu threatening Iran with dire consequences and Iran returning the compliment with interest. Forget about Trump escaping yet another assassination attempt. Some cynics are going, ‘Third time lucky, maybe.’ Cruel, cruel. Then again, forget about Trump barefacedly denying to the CBS ’60 minutes’ channel that he is not a rapist, ditto paedophile! Forget about Iran threatening the entire Gulf kingdom with mayhem if they keep supporting the satanic duopolistic powers, meaning the United States and Israel. Europe does not count and the Russia / Ukraine conflict has been put firmly on the back burner in terms of occupying our mind space. Forget about China, at your own peril. Forget about naval blockades in the Strait of Hormuz. Forget about Pakistan doing its cravenly obsequious bit with an eye on the main chance. Forget about India not doing very much about anything at the moment – the state elections take precedence over everything else. All else can be loftily ignored. Or benignly neglected. We have lived with this scenario for well over a couple of months and frankly, it is beginning to pall. It is entirely possible that after the local assembly polls, which is engulfing the nation, the central government will wake up once more, bloody but unbowed, to the looming oil and gas crisis and turn its gaze towards the Middle East and further afield, to the US of A.

In short, forget about international war games and geo politics. I am doing a 180-degree turn. I have my hooks into domestic violence, by which I do not mean macro issues affecting Bharat that is India, but micro matters that take place in our homes. Not in mine specifically, but in quite a few homes. My thoughts, at the moment, are with two male members of a family living far apart in Hyderabad and Vadodara, who expressed extreme unhappiness with their respective wives’ culinary offerings and paid the ultimate price. I know what you are thinking, dear reader. The aggrieved husbands, returning home after a hard day’s toil, express their dissatisfaction at the menu by hurling their dinner plates at their ducking wives, food spatters their kitchen walls, the wife wails and they trot off to some eatery nearby to sate their appetites. You could not be more in error.

In a macabre turn up for the books, here is what actually happened and I kid you not, as The Times of India is my witness. The husband in Hyderabad threw a petulant fit because his wife did not prepare his favourite chicken curry for her lord and master. One’s heart goes out to the man. He loves his chicken curry, was dreaming of tucking into it on his way home. Being denied the same on his arrival and sitting down to dinner, and finding his plate replete with cabbage and greens, not to mention two dry rotis, he expressed his disgust in no uncertain manner. Yuck, about sums up his feelings. Vegetarians will never understand this aversion non-veggies have to spinach, beans, ladies’ fingers and other leafy vegetables. Rich in vitamins but the meat fancier cannot quite get his teeth into it. Vile abuse was then hurled at the poor wife. She responded in kind. What was till then a perfectly normal slanging match, a noisome argy-bargy, soon took on frightening proportions. The good lady wife had ‘had it up to here’ with her hubby’s constant backbiting and bickering, her blood was up, she eyed the freshly honed sickle lying in a corner of the room. To pick it up and deliver a swift blow to her life partner’s neck, with plenty of wrist work and follow through was with her the work of a moment. ‘I shall have my revenge,’ she appeared to be telling herself. Remorse and recrimination, to say nothing of her heinous crime and the consequent punishment, can come later. A momentary lapse of reason, blood thirst satisfied with some justice, and she was prepared to face the long arm of the law.

A little over a thousand miles away from Hyderabad, in the city of Vadodara (formerly Baroda), another domestic contretemps was brewing. A labourer, possibly a construction worker, the press report was not clear on the precise nature of his occupation, comes home for lunch and sits down for his afternoon meal. The report is not forthcoming on what was on the luncheon menu but the husband looked askance at his plate and proceeded to issue a volley of oaths at his wife. Perhaps it was, yet again, the complete absence of chicken, mutton or fish that so incensed the husband. I am only conjecturing.

On the other hand, they may have been strict vegetarians (it was in Gujarat, after all) and the wife fobbed her husband off with some cold rice and dal. Period. No fried potatoes, dal fry, boiled carrots and paapad to go with the main course. Enough to get anyone’s hackles up. The labourer husband went on a shouting spree, one would surmise, and at some point, the wife seemed to tell herself, ‘Up with this, I shall not put.’ She did not merely stop with the verbals. She picked up, what the newspaper described as a ‘bladed weapon’ and without so much as a by-your-leave, proceeded to stab her husband multiple times on the head and chest.  The neighbours, hearing the deathly screams, rushed round to help. By then the assaulted husband had shed his mortal coil. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. This is Nari Shakti at play. The lady of the house is now cooling her heels in a police station, unrepentant.

The daily newspaper, aka ‘The Old Lady of Bori Bunder’ had displayed these two grisly crimes as a twin story with a common headline which ran, ‘Food for thought: Culinary, Cautionary Tales.’ Side by side, the two stories were sub-headed, ‘No chicken at dinner, man shouts at wife; she kills him’ and ‘Man refuses lunch his wife cooked, gets murdered.’ They could have added that his goose was cooked, but the poor sub-ed might have had a local to catch from Victoria Terminus, and the paper had to be put to bed. And he might have been a vegetarian.

I realise that I lay myself open to criticism from right thinking people who might well go, ‘The world is in turmoil, WW III is at our doorstep and you are going on endlessly about a couple of guys who literally got it in the neck because they were not served chicken or potatoes by their harried wives. Where are your priorities?’ Tell you what, I have a snappy answer to that stupid question. If the Times can ‘go on endlessly’ about the chicken and veg starved husbands, I do not see why I should hold my horses on the subject. Our women have been held back for too long, and if they choose to take out their frustrations on their ungrateful husbands with ‘bladed knives,’ bully for them. If push comes to shove, our women will take arms and risk imprisonment or worse, but they will take no prisoners. In the words of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, ‘If you prick us, do we not bleed? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?’ (Shakespeare’s grammar can at times sound dodgy). As for me, I gobble up whatever is served for lunch and dinner without a murmur of dissent. I place a high price on my neck.

In sum, I can do no better than to reprise Sir Winston Churchill’s defiantly ironic words in 1941, reacting to his allies’ dire warnings about Hitler. ‘In three weeks, England will have her neck wrung like a chicken. Some chicken! Some neck!’ Brave words, but when Churchill went home for dinner and was served a plate of cold cauliflower cheese by Lady Clementine, he wolfed it down uncomplainingly. It was war time after all; rationing was on and stringency was the watchword, and it was more than the Prime Minister’s neck was worth than to demand steak and kidney pie of his good wife.

Kids want a saviour, don’t need a fake / We’re gonna rock to the rules that I make / I wanna be elected, elected, elected. 70s rocker,Alice Cooper.

Elections for various state assemblies in our country have just been done and dusted, barring the 2nd phase voting in Bengal. We are still waiting for the dust to settle. In a few weeks from now, the results will be announced, sweets freely distributed, firecrackers bursting at every street corner, accusations of chicanery and booth capturing will be hurled by the defeated parties at the winning party or alliance and the Election Commission. Much brouhaha will be made of the alleged SIR rannygazoo, and the EVMs will come in for more brickbats. This is par for the course. The election cacophony has been in the air for some months now and gaining momentum and decibel level with each passing day. Although not as humongous a task as conducting a countrywide general election, it is humongous enough to be getting along with. The greatly put upon Election Commission has had to oversee elections in Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, West Bengal and Keralam. I find that ‘m’ quite superfluous and irksome for the last named. Even Microsoft Word shows its disapproval with a red, squiggly line under the name. The strapline, Keralam. God’s Own Country does not have quite the same ring as Kerala. God’s Own Country. Anyhow, ours not to reason why.

Getting back to the elections, there must be excellent reasons why elections in our country are always held in the peak of summer. I am yet to come across a satisfactory answer from those in the know of these things as to the thinking behind this extraordinarily daft timing. As it is temperatures among political parties and their myriad supporters are running sky high. Add to this the impossibly high mercury levels obtaining all over the country, and you have to wonder what prompts our political leaders to risk heat stroke, dehydration and sheer fatigue as they go about their thankless task. Not entirely thankless to those who come out on the winning side, of course. To say nothing of the millions of voters standing in long queues with their tongues hanging out. The Prime Minister had to keep changing hand towels during his speeches to massive crowds in Bengal. The man was literally earning his stripes by the sweat of his brow. After all this, whether he will be deified or Didi-fied in Bengal remains to be seen.

 It is also a given that it is virtually impossible, under such trying circumstances, to expect our leaders to display a modicum of understated wit, sarcasm and irony during their campaigning. A Shashi Tharoor might be able to pull it off, provided he speaks in English, but nobody amongst the hoi polloi will follow a word of what he is saying. It’s a good job the suave politician from Keralam (that unsightly ‘m’ again!) is pretty fluent in his mother tongue, the palindromic Malayalam, and gives as good as he gets in the vernacular. Some years ago, when fellow Congressman Mani Shankar Aiyar campaigned in Mayiladuthurai, he did more than a fair job letting fly in Tamil, though he too is far more comfortable, not to mention eloquent, with the Queen’s (or King’s) English. These days, Aiyar’s party keeps him at a less-than-discreet arm’s length, but that has not dimmed the veteran’s weekly oratorical and journalistic sparkle on YouTube and in print.

For most of us who cast our votes and come home to follow the electoral process, observing happenings on television is as much a matter of considerable interest as it is a platform for unlimited, at times morbid, entertainment. God knows we have had our fill of Donald Trump and his shenanigans, and those sixes and fours galore at the interminable IPL is getting to be quite a drag. It is now time to watch our television anchors and their team of special guest speakers giving us the benefit of their views on what is likely to happen post the tiresome and tiring, aam janta’s exercise of their franchise. While we await the actual results, our television channels will keep us glued to our sets with their exit poll predictions, post which we will be dealt the Real McCoy, the actual results. Their teams will consist of psephologists and astrologers apart from the usual suspects of know-alls sympathetic to one political persuasion or the other. We, the chattering class, will avidly soak it all up.

That said, it is instructive to reflect on how the various parties approached households like mine to canvas for votes. A typical preliminary pourparler from a party whose name it will be superfluous to mention, will go something like this. The doorbell rings, you open the door and are greeted by a saffron, kurta clad gentleman with the familiar salutation, ‘Jai Shri Ram Ji Ki.’ At which point you can either slam the door in his face or extend a warm welcome, depending entirely on which side of the political binary you come down on.

In Calcutta, as it then was eons ago, you open the door during election time at your own peril. While you hold the door slightly ajar, it will be brusquely pushed open wide and four or five ruffians waving crimson flags, will extend a donation book with counterfoils in which a pre-determined figure would have already been pencilled in. Usually not less than Rs.500/-. When you look at them aghast and sputter incomprehensibly, they will turn menacing and issue dark threats should you step out of your home and hearth. Discretion being the better part of valour, you meekly cough up. It is the same strategy the hoodlums adopted when demanding ‘Pujo chanda’, donations for Durga Puja celebrations at the local ‘para.’ Whether such a situation still obtains in Didi’s state or not, I am unable to confirm. It’s over 25 years since I left Amar Sonar Bangla.

In Tamil Nadu, a state my ancestors ‘hail’ from, the current practice appears to be far more practical. Households are swamped with kitchen appliances like pressure cookers, microwave ovens, refrigerators and the like. Dollops of cash are also generously distributed. All the parties indulge in this limitless munificence, and since all of them are dressed in spotless, Surf Excelled white ‘veshtis,’ half-sleeve cotton shirts and ‘angavastarams,’ the beneficiaries of all this generosity, namely the voters cannot possibly distinguish one party worker from the other and will ultimately vote for whichever party takes their fancy – quite possibly a dashing celluloid hero of their dreams. Film stars enjoy a very special position in the hearts of a majority of Tamilians. In this glib assessment, I include Puducherry or Pondicherry as it once was, as this Union Territory is but an adjunct of Tamil Nadu and the people and their proclivities don’t change.

Keralam (there I go again) is a bit of a closed book to me when it comes to what it takes to woo voters. The state has, ever since I can recall, enjoyed the status of being ‘the most literate state’ in the country. Under the circumstances, one will have to assume the populace here will not be easily swayed by pressure cookers and empty promises. They know what they want and more pertinently they know what they don’t want. That being the case, irrespective of which party ascends the throne, the common man will retire to a nearby watering hole and avail himself of a large tot of brandy accompanied by a plate of fried mussels, clams and prawns. And for all I know, Shashi Tharoor might actually join them in the repast. For the nonce, the politically astute Tharoor is writing paeans of poetic praise to fellow Keralamite Sanju Samson, in honour of the newly recruited CSK hero’s brilliant exploits in Chepauk and elsewhere. Every little bit helps.

Finally, I make no comment on Assam because I have never been there and know so little about the hilly state. Close relations of mine worked in well-known oil companies there, but that does not appear to have done much good for our limited stock of the golden liquid, now that the Strait of Hormuz has become a sea of madness. Himanta Biswa Sarma seems set for another term as Chief Minister, the only state where the experts are in no doubt as to the likely outcome.

I shall now retire and anticipate, with bated breath, the dubious joys of switching channels while Arnab, Navika, Anand, Rahul (both of them), Zaka and their myriad guests go hammer and tongs at each other over all the minutiae that passes for the great Indian electoral process. And if that begins to pall, I shall move on to YouTube and revel in the worldly wisdom of Karan, Prannoy, Barkha and a host of vernacular experts, many of whom seem to have the pulse on what is really happening out there. So, get that bag of popcorn or the much-publicised ‘jhalmuri’ out with a bottle of beer, or if you are abstemious, a can of American Coke or Pepsi will do just fine. As a pal of mine said, ‘I hate Donald Trump’s guts, but I will have my Diet Coke.’ Happy viewing.

I can state, without fear of contradiction, that my expertise at my desktop computer can at best be described as passable. The same goes for my mobile phone. The latter contains a wealth of goodies which, for the most part I loftily ignore. A spot of messaging, checking out what the stock markets are doing, ongoing cricket or tennis scores and occasionally, particularly if I am in a car (not driving) or waiting at the airport or at the dentist’s, scanning for anything interesting on YouTube. That would be the sum and substance of my mobile phone indulgence.

Nowadays, I strictly avoid scrolling through the mind-boggling variety of news items that some of the celebrated search engines offer. The head honcho of India’s leading IT giant or Bollywood heartthrob Shah Rukh Khan or former cricketing hero Sachin Tendulkar, will appear on screen imploring me to park Rs.5000/- in some ponzi scheme that very morning (it has to be that very morning or the opportunity goes abegging), guaranteeing the while that I shall be richer to the tune of Rs. 1.75 lakhs by the same evening! For variety, I will also be informed that Clint ‘Dirty Harry’ Eastwood has just passed away (he is in his 90s), Eric Clapton and Dustin Hoffman are in critical care (hospital photos provided) and that Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and Sting will be doing a 31-city tour of the world with A.R. Rahman joining them in Mumbai and Bangalore. All fakes, or fibs as we used to say in school.

I do spend a great deal more time on my desktop. As a retired professional spending most of my sunset years at home, the desktop provides me with the luxury of sitting back and writing blogs (like this one) and crafting mails to friends, taking care to ensure that the apostrophes and punctuations are properly placed – a virtually impossible task on your mobile phone, where one is literally all thumbs. Having said that, it is not all a bed of roses with my desktop either. Let me elaborate.

The thing is my desktop computer, nice wide screen notwithstanding, is umbilically connected to my printing device. To employ an au courant computer-speak, they ‘talk to each other.’ So, when I fish out a document from one of my many digital files and wish to print the same, I issue a print command. The printer then proceeds to make a variety of strange sounds from the innards of its bowels, all manner of little lights flashing the while, and when all the fuss is over, the sheet of paper finally starts to slowly slide out of the printer. If you are lucky, the document comes out printed perfectly well and the computer makes another final, unintelligible clearing of its throat, as if to say, ‘What a good boy am I!’ However, things don’t always go to plan.

The computer and the printer may have taken the sacred vows of matrimony, but the course of true love does not always run smooth. Those little flashing lights on the printer I just mentioned, all is hunky-dory as long as the lights are blinking green. The moment the red lights come on, trouble is afoot. Either the paper is jammed good and proper, or the printing ink (black and white or colour) has run dry and worst of all, the much-touted nuptials between the printer and the desktop has sprung a leak. Usually, with an uncanny sense of poor timing, this crisis will come upon me or, God-help-me, my better half, just when she is putting the finishing touches to our income-tax-returns. By then, she has become my bitter half! Yes, I freely admit, it is she who takes care of the mind-numbing number crunching. I contribute to the effort by turning the A4 paper over on the printer, page after page. Always assuming the printer and my computer, are playing ball. I came across this quote by American columnist Dave Barry which hits the nail squarely on the head, ‘A printer consists of three main parts: the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light.’

It is not as if the desktop needs the printer to goad it into a serious error of its ways. It is perfectly capable of finding ingenious ways to make my life a hell on earth. Without so much as a by-your-leave, the vowels A and O will, on tapping the keys, become permanently depressed, never to rise again. They will flatly refuse to come out of their depression, putting paid to any further progress on my part to construct that perfect sentence we scriveners strive for. Their depression immediately leads to my depression. How will you feel if your final effort looked like this?  ‘D vid l id l w the mighty G li th.’ Pretty depressed, like A and O, I should imagine. Burn another 6k to buy a new keyboard.

Once in a proverbial blue moon, I will call up one of these IT nerds who, for a not-so-modest fee, will moonlight to come and help poor sods like me when we get irretrievably stuck in some technical glitch. To give them credit, they solve the problem, more often than not. While the nerd is at work, I watch him in sheer amazement and wonder. He operates at the speed of lightning. Every now and then he will stop to take a call on his ear-plugged mobile and utter some unintelligible gobbledegook to a fellow nerd in a lingo only the two of them can follow. Meanwhile, all kinds of images, graphs, numbers, sounds and colours flash on the screen. Does my desktop contain all this stuff, I ask him? What do I know, who only Microsoft Word and Excel know, I ask myself? He does not respond to any of my asinine queries and continues to work at a feverish pace. Must be getting late for another appointment. Another ten minutes of tapping and scrolling, and the nerd’s work is done. ‘Rs.1200/- Sir. UPI Sir, if you don’t mind.’ Making digital payments, fortunately, is within my ambit of competence, so I pay up without demur, but I am not finished with him yet.

‘One question before you go, young man. Thank you very much for taking care of the problem but can you, in layman’s terms, explain how you solved the issue? That way, I can take care of it myself if this problem crops up again.’

He replied patiently, if a wee bit condescendingly. ‘Sorry Sir, I have to rush for a meeting. It will take long to explain and you will not understand. If you face this problem again, which I doubt very much, just call me and I will be with you in a jiffy.’

And doubtless make another quick 1200 chips while you are at it, I thought to myself. I guess I should be grateful and not be quite so mordant. The chap knew his computer onions and I should not begrudge him making a quick buck on the side. Even if he had spent another hour explaining the workings of my machine and how to trouble-shoot, I should have been completely non-plussed. Having come to grips with reality, I get back to my desktop, send up a silent prayer, and proceed with my half-completed blog. Right then, let’s get this show on the road. What did the blighter say? Press Alt and Ctrl simultaneously, then press Shift and finally tap Enter. Or something that sounded vaguely like that. Bloody hell! I did all that and the whole page has been deleted. Every precious word. I should have written it all down, but the nerd was in such a tearing hurry.

At the end of the day, I could do a lot worse than follow the dictates of my favourite humourist, P.G. Wodehouse who said, when he was stuck for an idea or when the ribbon on his Remington ran out of ink, ‘I just sit at my typewriter and curse a bit.’

(A one-act play)

As the curtain rises, Donald ‘The Almighty’ Trump, Pete ‘Attila’ Hegseth, Marco ‘The Cuban’ Rubio, Steve ‘The Golfer’ Witkoff, Jared ‘The Son-in-Law’ Kushner and Bibi ‘I-know-what’s-in-the-Epstein- Files’ Netanyahu are sitting comfortably on the plush sofas at Trump’s Oval Office in The White House. Sitting away from them in a corner of the room on a straight-backed chair is the White House Press Secretary, Karoline ‘The Clueless’ Leavitt, taking notes. A table full of refreshment service, including tea, coffee, soft drinks and small eats can be seen. Buffet service is the order of the day, since waiters, like walls, have ears. Trump opens the conversation.

Trump – ‘Right fellas, here is the latest position on Operation Epic Fury in Iran. We, that is Bibi and I, have bombed the stuffing out of Iran. And Bibi is going solo in Lebanon. Frightened the bejesus out of them. I am talking about Iran. There is nothing left there. All the leaders are blown to kingdom come, all the missiles and aircraft have been smashed to smithereens. I am waiting for confirmation on Kharg Island and the nuclear enrichment plants. Pete, can you bring us up to speed?’

Hegseth – ‘Thank you, Mr. President. May I say what an inspiration our Lord God, the Almighty and Yourself, both same thing really, have been to us and to every single military brave heart…’

Trump interrupts

Trump – ‘For God’s sake Pete, you can keep the flattery and licking-my-boots exercise for later when you address the media. Get on with it, will ya? Time is money and you know how important money is to me.’

Hegseth – ‘Sorry, Mr. President. I will come straight to the point. We have over 200 combat aircraft circling Kharg Island, even as we speak. We have to also keep an eye on that enrichment plant in Isfahan. The problem is the Iranians have 500 anti-aircraft guns, not to mention drones, aimed at all our planes. And our forces are also watching over the heavily mined Strait of Hormuz. So, we are a bit stretched and hesitant about shelling them. But if you give the green signal, we can go ahead. As Churchill said, “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.”’

Trump – ‘What kind of garbage are you spewing, Pete? I don’t give a rat’s ass what Churchill said nearly a hundred years ago. I thought this was a covert operation. And what about those 150 aircraft that flew in to rescue that poor soldier hiding in some mountain crevice? Oh, hang on everyone, I am getting a call on the hotline from Tehran. One of their leaders wants to talk.’

Netanyahu – ‘I thought you said we had bumped off all their leaders. Which leader is this who wants to talk to you? I think I will just go ahead and nuke them.’

Trump – ‘Hold your horses Bibi, for crying out loud. You are forever crossing me. I thought we were pals. Just because you have something on me….never mind. Let me take this call from whoever is the guy speaking on behalf of whatever is left of their leadership. I am not putting him on speaker because he might get cagey and not reveal his true plans.’

Trump spends the next 10 minutes speaking to the unknown Iranian leader through an interpreter. When the call is over, he turns to his expectant audience.

Trump – ‘Holy Moses, guess what guys? Iran is begging me for a ceasefire. They are down on their knees. I threatened to wipe out their entire civilisation. That’s got them on the hop. Sleepy Joe Biden never had the guts to do that. The feller at the other end, I couldn’t quite catch his name, said he is now the leader of the country and his people want us to stop the bombardment. Iran is suing for peace, as I believe the expression is. Right Karoline?’

Leavitt – ‘If you say so, Mr, President. The expression is new to me.’

Trump – ‘And I thought you had majored in communications. Nice hair-do, by the way, and the gold cross round your neck is a thoughtful, evangelical touch. By the way, didn’t that religious nut, Bob Dylan say God is on our side? Why don’t you try the platinum blonde look, Karoline? You will be a dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe. The television cameras will drool. We can do with the distraction. Sorry, I am rambling all over the place. Not getting enough sleep.’

Rubio – ‘Mr. President, if you will pardon my interrupting, what Bob Dylan actually said or sang was, ‘That if God’s on our side, he’ll stop the next war.’ That is a moot point. Can we get back to the telecon with this supposed Iranian leader, who is suing for peace? What exactly does he want and did he spell out any terms?’

Trump – ‘Ah Marco, Marco, always on the ball. Didn’t know you were a Dylan fan. Wait till I annihilate Cuba. You will be the King of Cuba, Marco. Thanks for dragging me back to the subject on hand. This Ayatollah chap…’

Witkoff – ‘Is he an Ayatollah?’

Trump – ‘They are all Ayatollahs, Steve. Don’t worry about it. How is the putting coming along, by the way? You were terrible on the back nine last Sunday, Steve. You are supposed to be a 9-handicap golfer. I might have to change partners at this rate. Anyhow, let me examine what his terms are. Karoline, I am expecting a fax any second now from Tehran listing out their terms for peace. Will you trot across and bring it, dearie?’

Leavitt – ‘Right away, Mr. President. One quick question, just came in from the New York Times. They ask why, if you have stopped 8 or 9 wars so far, as you have claimed, you are not able to stop this war with Iran, which you yourself started, aided and abetted by Mr. Netanyahu here. The Times is asking, not me.’

Netanyahu – ‘New York Times, eh? I will nuke their offices this minute. They won’t know what hit them.’

Trump – ‘And neither will the entire New York City and State. Please Bibi, why are you so trigger happy? I have no love lost for the New York Times either, and you can add CNN to that list. Let me deal with this.’

Netanyahu – ‘Donald, what got my goat was these NYT chaps saying you started the war with Iran, aided and abetted by me. As if I was your lackey or something. Some cheek! It’s the other way round. It was I who wanted this war to start, for many years now while you hummed and hawed. In the event, you were aiding and abetting me. Just to set the record straight. You had to back me, of course, otherwise I might have had to spill the beans. About you-know-what. As I say, “Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.” Shakespeare.’

Trump – (looking alarmed) ‘Ok Bibi. Don’t blow your top. I am impressed. Nobody has threatened me with Shakespeare before. And stop this nonsense about spilling beans and letting slip the dogs of war, whatever that means. We are holding up Karoline. Run along, girl. That fax message from Iran. Pronto. Leave it to Leavitt, eh?’

He turns to his audience and guffaws at his own poor joke. The others don’t join in his mirth. Karoline rushes out of the Oval Office in a blur.

Trump – ‘While we are waiting for the fax message, Jared, what is your view on the whole situation? You have been rather quiet.’

Jared – ‘I was just observing and learning, Pops, from you and the others. And dreaming of crypto and a few lucrative real estate deals in Pakistan.’

Trump – ‘Less of the Pops please, Jared. We are not at a family dinner. Mr. President will do nicely. Ah, here comes the fax. Let me read it.’

Trump reads the message and promptly blows a gasket.

Trump – ‘Effing hell! Who the eff do they think they are, these s-o-bs? I am going to nuke the hell out of them. Where the eff is that red button and I want the code. Who the eff are they to make demands?’

Netanyahu – ‘Now, now Donald, who is going all nuclear and ballistic now? You can’t use language like that. Not very Presidential. This is going all over the world. Calm yourself. If you want any nukeing to be done, just tell me. I’ve got itchy fingers.’

Trump – ‘What, are these proceedings being conducted in camera?’

Leavitt – ‘Mr. President, ‘in camera’ means ‘in private,’ without cameras. It is one of those English language quirks. We have a battery of cameras here, shooting everything.’

Trump – ‘Oh shoot. Why the hell was I not warned? Those films or cartridges or whatever, cannot go out of this room. See to it, Karoline. By the way, where is JD? Not sulking, I hope?’

Rubio – ‘The Vice President is on his way to Islamabad, Mr. President. Steve and Jared will join him right after this. Their flight is waiting. You sent him to negotiate with the Iranian representative and the Paki interlocutors, Munir and Shehbaz to find a settlement. We even drafted a statement for the Pakis, who released it to the media, forgetting to delete the word ‘Draft.’

Trump – ‘That’s daft. Monkey see, monkey do, eh? Right, then this meeting is at an end.’

Rubio – ‘One suggestion, Mr. President. On the pretext of meeting his in-laws in India why don’t we get JD to stop in New Delhi and butter up Modi? India might be a tad restive what with all of us cosying up to the Pakis. We can use all the friends we can get.’

Trump – ‘Good thinking. Make it happen, Marco. By the way Jared, who are you talking to on your mobile? How many times have I told you…’

Jared – ‘It’s your wife Melania, Mr. President. She has just declared to the world’s media that she was not involved in a relationship with Epstein. New York Times and Washington Post are waiting for your response. With bated breath.’

Leavitt – ‘Mr. President, shall I draft a press release?

Trump gets up, kicks his sofa, hobbles in pain holding his right foot, hurls the jug of water at the painting of George Washington, hollers a volley of unprintable oaths, and stomps out of the Oval Office.

The curtain comes down while Edwin Starr’s hit, War, what is it good for? Absolutely Nothing plays over the theatre’s sound system.

                                     The End

Playwright’s note: Given how swiftly events move on the international geo-political scene, a sequel production is in the pipeline.