Wrong numbers and cross connections

Raise your hand those of you who have never received a crank call on their mobile phones or, come to that, their landline phones. Any takers? Nope, I do not see a single hand going up and neither did I expect to see one. Those amongst you below the age of consent who are not aware of what a landline phone is, please consult you parents or anyone you know who is above the age of 50. Getting back to crank calls, they assail you in a variety of different ways. We are gradually getting accustomed to the sinister, fake ‘digital arrest’ calls about which we read in our broadsheets every other day. By now we are pretty much aware of how to deal with such calls and I shan’t delve further into the subject. If you are still innocent of the dangers involved in engaging with the fake caller, on your head be it. The same applies to friendly voices over the air waves who are keen to divest you of all your hard-earned cash by promises of untold riches in the shortest possible time. As a trial and to establish credibility, Rs. 3000/- is all you need to transfer to a specified bank account. Within three days you will receive a credit of Rs.6000/-. And the 6k does indeed arrive on queue. 6k grows to 12k and you are over the moon. Little knowing. You have been sucked into their odious web. Another get-rich-quick scheme hits the bullseye. ‘There’s a sucker born every minute,’ said P.T. Barnum. Don’t whine later that you were not warned.

As I have had my fill of telephonic criminality, I am confining this piece to the more gentle, accidental ‘wrong numbers’ which often give rise to amusement and anger at the same time. Here is a good example of something that happened to me only a few weeks ago. I dialled a wrong number on my mobile instead of another number I had not yet saved. Must have got one of the digits mixed up. I am all thumbs on my mobile. I thought I was calling my car service company. Instead, there followed what can only be described as an entertaining snatch of a not entirely unpleasant conversation. I opened the proceedings.

‘Hello, who am I speaking to?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Nobody? Is that your first name or surname?’

‘Haha. Very funny. Are you a stand-up? You called me, so you had better identify yourself first.’

‘Isn’t this the Prime Auto Service Garage?’

‘What if it is?’

‘If it is, I would like to speak to the service representative, Ronny, who is in charge of my car which is being serviced. I was promised an estimate for the work being done.’

‘Ah, but this is not the Prime whatever garage and I am not Ronny. However, if you are looking for some prime property on the outskirts of Bangalore, I am your man.’

‘Look, why didn’t you tell me that in the first place instead of wasting my time?’

‘Sorry about that. Just having a bit of fun. I do that whenever someone calls me by mistake. Today it was prime property, tomorrow I could be selling health insurance and the day after, if the mood takes me, I become the floor manager of the city’s largest retail mart for consumer durables. You know, smart TVs, refrigerators, kitchen appliances and so on.’

‘Yes, I know what consumer durables are, thank you very much. Now, if you’ve had your share of fun and games, I should be disconnecting. One last question. If you are none of those things you might be pretending to be, and you are not Ronny as well, what or who in fact are you?’

‘Just a 25-year-old educated, unemployed youth, hoping to hit the jackpot with someone like you who might be impressed by my clever ploy. And as you might have guessed by now, I have a nice line in repartee.’

‘What a big mouth you have!’

‘Said Little Red Riding Hood to Grandmother Wolf, if I know my fairy tales. Written by the Brothers Grimm, it’s a grim cautionary tale, as the Big, Bad Wolf literally makes a meal out of LRRH. And wolfs down her human grandmother as well for dessert. Why the Grimm siblings thought this nightmare-inducing stuff was fit for children to read at bedtime beats the hell out of me.’

‘How well read you are! And just 25 years old. How many nursery rhymes do you know? Tell you what, despite your smartass methods, you have struck a sympathetic chord. Now that you have my number, send me your bio-data by WhatsApp. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘And your name and occupation, Sir?’

‘That’s better. A bit of respect. My name? Charles Perrault should suffice for the time being.’

‘How much?’

‘Exactly. Not so clever after all, are we? Why don’t you Google him? On second thoughts, I will put you out of your misery. He is the other bloke who wrote Little Red Riding Hood with which literary masterpiece you appear to be so familiar.’

‘How come two people ended up writing the same story and both took credit for it? Didn’t they have copyright laws? Weird.’

‘In point of fact, they were both more or less the same story, only with a slightly different “moral of the story” ending. It is a bit odd, I agree. Why don’t you download them on Kindle for your bedtime read?’

‘Thanks, but no thanks. I am only half way through Jack and the Beanstalk. And thanks for reminding me. I have to learn Three Blind Mice and Little Jack Horner by heart by tomorrow morning. Or my teacher miss will be very cross. I will consider your offer and revert soonest.’ Too clever by half, with a penchant for sarcasm as well.

Anyhow, the line went dead. Pity. I was just starting to get into the swing of things. I would like to leave you, dear reader, with one more example of a colourful telephone call. I hark back to the early 70s when I was a management trainee in an advertising agency in Calcutta. The previous story, while based loosely on a true incident, was heavily embroidered by me to make it more engaging to read. This one is far closer to the truth in most respects. Those were the days of landline telephony and it had already gained dinosaur status in the City of Joy. Frequent disconnections and cross connections were the order of the day, but we soldiered on. Just untangling those frayed, corded cables was a job in itself. It was one such occasion when I was having a serious telecon over the crackling wires with an important client and this happened.

 Brand Manager (Vikram) – ‘When can I expect to see the final artwork of the press ad for our new brand of radial car tyres? It’s long overdue and we barely have a week before the launch. Your media chaps have already booked front page solus positions in all the mainline dailies and I cannot wait any longer. The boss is frothing at the mouth. No more iterations, please.’

Me – ‘We are almost done Vikram. Just giving finishing touches to the body copy. You and your boss are going to love it. Just give me till…’

(At this point a third voice, no right to be there, intervenes).

Third voice (an unknown female) – ‘Ooh, I would love to see some bawdy copy. Shall we set up a date?’

Vikram – ‘Hullo, hullo, who is this? I was speaking with Suresh. Are you from the agency?’

Me – ‘It’s a cross connection, Vikram. Bloody Calcutta telephones. Lady, will you kindly get off the line? We are discussing important issues.’

Unknown female – ‘And what’s all this about artworks? Are you holding an art exhibition? I could meet you there, if you tell me where and at what time?’

Me – ‘Meet whom? Me or Vikram?’

Unknown female – ‘Interesting question. Why not meet both of you? You have nice voices. A ménage à trois?’

Me – ‘Vikram, I am disconnecting now and making a police report. They won’t understand French, but I’ll take my chances.’

As I was disconnecting, I just about caught the mystery lady’s fading words. Something about being a wet blanket. Before she could say she will be wearing a yellow sari with a red scarf round her neck and standing outside Flury’s on Park Street at 6 pm sharp, whistling Roses are Red my Love, the line went dead. There is a tailpiece to this story. My client Vikram called me back a few minutes later sounding very cross. I thought it was about that delayed artwork again.

Me – ‘Listen Vikram, I told you I will come round in a jiffy and present the finished artwork.’

Vikram – ‘Forget the perishing artwork. Can you get that lady on the line again?’

I couldn’t even begin to fathom the salacious motives my client Vikram might have harboured in wishing to reconnect with our intrusive and anonymous femme fatale. What aroused my curiosity was her linguistic sophistication. Anyone, purely on the strength of aural waves, who can convert ‘body copy’ into ‘bawdy copy’ and casually throw in a French phrase like ménage à trois must possess a level of erudition that goes beyond the humdrum nuisance value of an attention seeker. However, wiser counsel prevailed and I did not pursue the matter any further, much to Vikram’s disappointment. There is a limit to how far an ad agency executive will go to please his client. If you ask me, the lady just happened accidentally to join this cross talk. And decided to take the mickey out of us. C’est la vie! Those were the heady days my friend, we thought they’d never end.

Postscript: The more observant amongst you might well be wondering how I figured out, on a phone conversation, that the lady meant ‘bawdy copy’ and not ‘body copy.’ It’s just the way she said it. And the pretentious ‘ménage à trois’ put the lid on it.

  War Games

Are they stars? Fireflies? No silly, they are drones.

We didn’t start the fire / No, we didn’t light it / But we tried to fight it. Billy Joel.

In case you have not noticed, there’s a serious combat in progress on our borders. Only we cannot actually call it a war unless certain provisions of the Geneva Conventions are met. As I am not familiar with the laws and bye-laws of the Geneva Conventions, I am not at liberty to use the W word. At least, not in this specific context. Which is a crying shame. There are drones flying around, anti-defence missiles effectively scuppering any destructive aims those enemy drones might be harbouring (not that they are aiming very well), enemy planes are being shot down (we’ll take their word for it), pilots captured, ports and terrorist camps being destroyed. Not to mention, the N word being mentioned in hushed whispers. All present and correct, but this is not a war (there, I have gone and said it). Not yet, anyway. You could have fooled me. If matters proceed on present lines, we might very well be told that ‘war has been declared.’

On careful observation and constant repetition by the powers-that-be, it has been borne in upon me that our country is only retaliating to an initial act of barbarism by our unfriendly neighbours. To stay with the official argot, we are not taking any ‘escalatory steps on the escalatory ladder’ to further exacerbate the situation. In this game of snakes and ladders, we know who the snake is. We are only reacting to provocation. We ask biblically, ‘Who threw the first stone?’ We will never do that, perish the thought, but if the enemy persists in exporting terror across our borders and resorts to unprovoked shelling of our sacred land, taking innocent lives based entirely on their religious persuasion, then retribution will be swift and unmerciful. It’s strictly tit for tat. We did not start this, but by God, we will end it. Sooner than later. God knows, they’ve had it coming to them. That is the official line. It is quite amusing how many times we invoke the Almighty’s name before proceeding to wreak havoc and mayhem.

‘Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war,’ cried Julius Caesar (as imagined by Shakespeare) in a fit of anger, and he knew a thing or two about wars. And fits. The Roman emperor was given to periodic bouts of ‘the falling sickness’ as they called it, which partly explains his tendency to ride into battle at the least provocation. The present scenario is vastly different. War (the hell with it, I am done with anodyne synonyms) is in the air. Quite literally. With all these drones lighting up the night sky, it looks like Deepavali has come early this year. It is not an entirely frivolous or inappropriate parallel as ‘good’ attempts to overcome ‘evil’ in the guise of Lord Rama putting paid to the nefarious designs of the rapacious Ravana. We are also being constantly told by our media experts that our enemy is going ‘off-ramp’ thanks to our ‘measured, calibrated, proportionate response,’ ‘kinetic superiority,’ and the immense pressure being ‘ratcheted up’ by our defence forces. Not to forget, we have ‘boots on the ground.’ Plenty of them. If all this was not enough, ‘red lines’ have been drawn. What a lot of new terms we are adding to enrich our vocabulary, thanks to this conflict. I could have added collateral damage, but that expression is now old hat and not deserving of being placed in quotes.

The coinage ‘Operation Sindoor’ deserves special mention and a paragraph all to itself. Everyone by now knows its emotive significance after the Pahalgam massacre so I shan’t elaborate. It was a master stroke. Suffice it to say in the heady world of brand marketing, few could have bettered ‘Operation Sindoor’ to get the nation charged up. Some say the PM had a hand in it, which is entirely within the realms of possibility given his penchant for snappy slogans and an acute understanding of what will go straight to the hearts of all Indians. As a former advertising professional, I can only say that the late, lamented Alyque Padamsee would have been immensely proud had he thought of ‘Operation Sindoor.’

There is little doubt that our country’s leadership and armed forces are doing a grand job keeping our borders safe and putting the Hun to the sword. Or to the S-400. And the Akash Teer, which has set the cat among the pigeons. There will of course be, inevitably, claims and counter claims by both sides of the conflict, but we will swear undying loyalty to our brave warriors and their version of events is more than good enough for us. We eagerly await some fiery, rousing war time speeches from our Prime Minister, who is a past master at this sort of thing. If for nothing else, just to know what on earth is going on. Thus far, he has maintained a stoic silence but I am sure he is just keeping his powder dry. His speech writers must be at it, burning the midnight oil. Those more cynically inclined will say that he is waiting for a state election campaign to extract full mileage from the situation. Timing is all. Nothing like a war to get everybody’s blood up.

Winston Churchill is not a favourite amongst Indians, and for good reason, at least among that generation of Indians that remembers him. However, you cannot deny that his war time speeches had the Brits and their allies lapping it all up, pumped up and ready to bring Hitler to his knees. ‘We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall never surrender.’ Striking a slightly more ironic note, the then Prime Minister of the UK had this to say, referencing enemy sources, ‘In three weeks, England’s neck will be wrung like a chicken. Some chicken (long pause), some neck.’ His audience, hanging on his every word, collapsed in patriotic mirth. Widely regarded as a man with the ‘bulldog spirit,’ Churchill was not entirely without a sense of biting sarcasm. Lady Astor, who was the first British woman to be seated in Parliament was clearly not a fan of Churchill. She is reported to have said to him. ‘If I were married to you, I’d put poison in your coffee.’ Churchill’s response was swift, ‘If I were married to you, I’d drink it.’

Our Prime Minister Modi’s eloquence in Hindi (and probably Gujarati) is legendary. And if the mood takes him, he can throw in the odd quote in Tamil and Bengali. Let us not cavil about the pronunciation. The attempt is laudable. His present silence on India’s conflict with our neighbour, while somewhat puzzling, is hopefully calculated and strategic. He could be biding his time and once the opportune moment arrives, there will be no stopping him. He will show Churchill a clean pair of heels. One can but wait with bated breath. If one person from the Indian political spectrum has spoken with great conviction and articulation it is, ironically, the opposition’s Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who has put forward India’s stand on this imbroglio to the world at large with great clarity and fluency. Which is hardly surprising given his wide experience in international affairs and his storied oratorical skills. His party colleagues might be shifting uneasily in their seats but that is their problem.

The problem with the present fracas between us two neighbours is that no one seems to be quite sure what we are up to. Just when things appeared to be well and truly on the boil, the nation was told that a ceasefire has been announced. Donald Trump, as is his wont, wasted no time in taking credit for this apparent cessation of hostilities, rushing in where angels fear to tread. The word ceasefire, however, was never uttered by the official government channels of communication. There were many ifs and buts associated with this surprisingly sudden development. And even as many people heaved a huge sigh of relief and many others expressed anger that we had the tools and did not finish the job (to paraphrase Churchill), the enemy started sending out drones once again. Some said this was due to a confusion in the enemy camp, that the ‘ceasefire’ instructions had not reached their front lines. Others were of the view that the defence forces of Pakistan were in no mood to listen to their political bosses. Naturally, there was much confusion all round and even as this piece goes to press, no one is clear as to where anyone stands. Donald Trump ought to be red-faced but he is not one to be perturbed by such minor setbacks. If indeed we do have a setback.

This is a continuing story. It will only end when it will end if it will end. Meanwhile we wait for our beloved Prime Minister to step up to the plate, clear his throat and give our boys and girls (bravo Sofia, Vyomika and your ilk) a rousing pat on the back. And give our enemies a right royal dressing down. We are waiting.

Postscript: We were just treated to an outstanding presser from the three arms of our defence divisions – Army, Navy and Air Force. They explained the current situation in great detail, took questions from the media and responded with thoughtful and comprehensive answers. As Indians, one can feel proud that we are in the capable hands of such intelligence and competence. After witnessing this press meet, I am convinced the PM was probably right in staying in the background. At least for now.

Paperback Writer

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book? / It took me years to write, will you take a look? The Beatles.

Indian writers and writers of Indian origin, and they are not necessarily the same thing, are ruling the roost in the publishing world. Salman Rushdie doesn’t count, any more than does V.S. Naipaul. Rushdie is more English than most Englishmen. Naipaul was a Trinidadian-turned-Englishman. Shashi Tharoor is decidedly Indian, notwithstanding the brogue. And he can jaw with the best of them in Malayalam. More often than not, our decorated authors are a dead cinch to be long-listed and at times, short-listed by Man Booker on the honours board. Once the all-knowing Booker gives the nod, the sales (hardback and paperback) start going through the roof. Eminent authors from the west speak in glowing, if somewhat patronising, terms about Indians writing with such felicity in English. Book reviewers fall over each to sing hosannas to the new releases. Truly, our writers are the toast of a nation and we Indians can rightly puff our chests out with pride. Your correspondent was fortunate to meet up with a senior functionary (who prefers to remain anonymous) from one of India’s leading publishing houses, Kinfe Edge Publishing (name changed). Over tea and biscuits, I was granted exclusive rights to publish brief extracts from some of the mouth-watering, appetite-whetting, upcoming novels that will hit the stalls before India’s long, festive season kicks in.

Hunting the Hun, by Major Gen. (Retd) Arun Bakshi

A company of 17 Pakistani soldiers had been worsted in a bloody battle, deep in the forests of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, engaging in hand-to-hand combat and the occasional gunfire. We were 5 in all. We lost Subedar Charni Singh, who laid down his life to save my life. Telecommunications with HQ was snapped. 4 against 18, 17 Pakis perished but their leader, Major Aftab Younis stood defiant in front of us. He was unarmed and bled freely from his nostrils. I had to hold my fire. I struck a friendly note. ‘You have a nosebleed, Major. Would you like it staunched?’ The Major was bloody, but unbowed. We army folks are like that.

The Major sneered. ‘I don’t even know what staunched means, but if you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.’

I kept up the banter. ‘I seem to have heard that line from somewhere. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly? Of course. Clint Eastwood, though that particular punch line came from Eli Wallach in a bathtub, his gun hidden under the soapsuds. You watch Hollywood movies, Major?’

The lone enemy survivor was not amused. ‘I would rather die than be captured by you. Kill me now, or I swallow this cyanide pill hanging round my neck.’ My soldiers rushed towards the Major. I held up my hand, barked an order and they froze. Our boys are trained to obey. I looked at the Major. Straight in the eye. Still with Clint Eastwood, I switched to Dirty Harry. ‘Go ahead. Make my day.’ The Major looked crestfallen.

(Read the rest of this 574-page real life thriller, written in a guts-and-glory style, in which blood and gore mix nicely with passion and patriotism. Plus, references to several more war movie titles like The Longest Day, Haqeeqat, Hindustan Ki Kasam and Border are guaranteed. You want war stories? This is the real McCoy).

The God of not-so-small Things, by Arunima Roy.

It was the height of summer in Nabadwip, the village in Bengal that boasts of more temples than worshippers can visit in a whole year. Just a 4-hour drive from Kolkata. April was a dry month. The eagerly anticipated nor’wester (kalbaisakhi) did not arrive to cool tempers and temperatures. The temple priests, through a direct line from Ma Durga, predicted May will be worse. Rani found a shade at the foot of a large banyan tree just across the broken pathway from the Durga temple, much patronised by the locals and visitors. She was sweating and panting profusely and hoped someone would notice her plight and come to her aid. No one did. Rani could feel in her bones that the end was near. At last, a 12-year-old girl ran towards the fast-dehydrating Rani with a bowl of water and screamed to her mother to bring something, anything that the poor thing could eat. Rani barely looked at the girl, her eyes rolled upwards, she was trying to say something but all that came out of her mouth was a soft, whistling sound. Could this be her last breath? The girl, Bulbul was her daak naam, was beside herself with grief. She begged Rani to drink from the water bowl. At last, Rani struggled to stand up, took a couple of licks from the bowl, looked with immense gratitude with her cow eyes at Bulbul, sank to the floor and silently passed away, her tail wagging briefly at the girl before the final moment. Bulbul was inconsolable.

(This is a story of unending grief, sorrow and copious tears. 312 pages of dense descriptions of humans and animals braving through immense suffering. Heat and dust with a vengeance. The late maestro Satyajit Ray would have smacked his lips to make a film out of this tale. After all, the great man had theatres flooded with tears thanks to his celebrated film on the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, Ashani Sanket, all those years ago. Pick up the book and keep a box of Kleenex handy).

Lalgudi Days, by R.K. Narasimhan

The violin strains of Sankarabharanam came wafting through the house on Gowri Manohari Street in the quiet village of Lalgudi. Having completed his early morning rituals and obeisance to all the godheads, the man of the house turned his devotion to his sacred instrument while his 8-year-old son followed every movement of his father’s bow and expert fingering with precise strokes. It was too hot and stiflingly humid to sit outside on the open thinnai. It was hot inside the house too and they had no electric fan installed in the early 30s. The elder’s wife Parvati, ‘fanned’ the two of them with a hand-made, palm leaf visiri, all the while her admiring, longing eyes trained only on her preternaturally gifted son. Nobody felt the heat.

‘Sankarabharanam is the most basic raga in our system, Balarama,’ explained the boy’s father to his ardent devotee. ‘In school, did not your English music tutor teach you the basic western scale, the solfège system, those seven notes do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti? Sankarabharanam is notated in exactly the same scale, except we play it with gamakas, beautiful cadences while the westerners play it flat. Here, let me show you.’

Little Balarama sat and watched his father with rapt attention. All of a sudden, a large, black scorpion fell on his old man’s lap from a gap in the poorly tiled roof. The intense heat of Tamil Nadu attracted all kinds of creepy-crawlies during the hot season, which was almost throughout the year. Balaraman was horrified but kept his composure and drew back his bow to swat the poisonous scorpion away from his revered guru and father’s lap. However, Sabesa Iyer, for that was the family patriarch’s name, held up his hand and firmly instructed Balaraman to do nothing.

‘Just keep playing, Balarama. Tyagaraja’s Swara Raga Sudha is such a beautiful song and will ensure no harm will come to me. As father and son went into the depths of this monumental kirtanam (composition),the scorpion hopped off the father’s lap and disappeared into the crevices of the outer wall of the old house. Balarama was stunned and stupefied, his mother had profuse tears running down her cheeks while the old man kept exploring Sankarabharanam’s subtle nuances with his eyes blissfully closed.

(This 180-page novella takes us deep into the heart of the Cauvery delta, where Carnatic music was an article of faith. A touching story of how a little village boy of humble beginnings from a modest, but determined family, utterly devoted to his parents, reaches the highest echelons of Carnatic music, braving intense heat and great deprivation, not forgetting snakes and scorpions, to conquer the world. RKN delivers yet again with his simple, homespun stories and their lasting lessons of dedication and piety).

An Inspector Calls

With apologies to J.B. Priestly

Good morning, Inspector. I was not expecting a visit from you. Not at two in the morning. Is there anything wrong? Can I help you in any way with your inquiries?

Yes, I was sleeping. I believe it is normal for decent people to be fast asleep at this time of night. Or rather, this early in the morning. That goes for the rest of my family including Rusty, our pet Golden Retriever. Not forgetting the cook.

The security fellow at the gate was sleeping as well? Tell me about it. And you had to wake him up? There you go. Asleep at the wheel. I have had it with him. I will have to complain to the company. This will have been the fifth such incident.

No, no. You misunderstand me, Inspector. Got the wrong end of the stick. I did not mean the police have knocked on my door at the dead of night, or pre-crack of dawn to wake me up five times. I meant having to change the security staff for the fifth time.

Why did Rusty not bark? He is a Golden Retriever, Inspector. Six years old but still a puppy. Always happy to welcome anyone who comes in at any time of the day or night. We have never heard him bark. Look at him, wagging his tail and inviting you to come in and tickle him under his chin. He loves that. And if you tickle him under the belly, you are friends for life. You can offer him a chocolate brownie, if you happen to have one. 

You don’t? Never mind. He has had his fill for the day. Now how can I be of assistance? Please come in and take a seat. I could offer you some coffee, but my cook sleeps like a log. Even an earthquake won’t wake him up. He will be most irate if I try to rouse him. And I cannot afford to lose him. Sadly, I don’t know the first thing about making coffee.

My wife? She is a very light sleeper and I dare not wake her up. There will be hell to pay. She is probably awake already and wondering what the fuss is all about. What is the fuss all about, Inspector?

You received a call from our neighbour that an armed intruder has entered our premises? You mean our neighbour was awake at this late hour and observed a suspicious person, armed to the teeth, entering this house? What was my neighbour doing staying awake and spying on my house? And why did he not call me in the first place?

I agree that is my neighbour’s business when he goes to bed, but still. Guess I should be grateful to him, but then, where is this mythical armed intruder? My security fellow would have some idea, if he wasn’t counting sheep.

He was in the land of Nod? Well put, Sir. His snoring alone can wake the dead. He is wide awake now? Did you question him, Inspector?

To what end? Good point. Ah, he accidentally took an extra sleeping pill and that knocked him out for the count. But we are wasting time chit-chatting while the armed robber is ransacking my house. We need to find this miscreant, if indeed there is one. No time to waste. Ah, so sweet. Rusty has brought my wife’s Versace bedroom slipper to you. He is always doing that when guests come visiting. Ever since he was a puppy. Just take it from him and throw it away. He will fetch it and hand it back to you. It’s a game he plays.

Why did I not keep a German Shepherd or a Doberman? Good question. They are dangerous animals. Apt to go for your throat if something upsets them. And we have kids in the house.

They would be so much more efficient and useful than Rusty? In what way? Ah, for barking their heads off, waking the entire neighbourhood and jumping at the throats of armed intruders. Excellent point, Inspector. I will consider getting a Doberman as a companion for Rusty, if he does not tear the poor angel to shreds. I should set him loose first on my security staff.

You would like to search the house. Naturally. I shall be your guide. I think it will be a complete waste of time, but you are the boss.

Why do I think it will be a complete waste of time? No tell-tale signs. Well, for one thing Rusty here would have offered him my wife’s slipper. The Versace luxury slipper, left foot, however has not gone missing. It is right here, safe and sound. That tells me. What does it tell me?

Please be patient with me, Inspector. It is three in the morning and my brain is somewhat frazzled what with cops swarming all over the place.

I know it’s just you Inspector, but it feels that way. You are a powerful presence. You feel like twenty inspectors. To get back to my point about Rusty and the left-foot slipper, it tells me that there has been no intrusion. The brigand could not have entered our bedroom boudoir to look for jewellery, else my wife would have screamed her head off. Have you ever heard my wife scream? Or shriek? The word banshee springs to mind.

Cash? Who keeps cash these days, Inspector? It’s all UPI. That leaves only my precious M.F. Husain canvas of Bollywood diva Madhuri Dixit, one of the great artist’s favourite muses. Worth about Rs.7 crores. Come and admire it. It is my pride and joy displayed in my study. I will switch the lights on. You will appreciate the Master’s light and shade effect. There it is. Voila!

Good God! There it is not. Whatever happened to my Madhuri Dixit? My wife will murder me after doing her banshee imitation. Inspector you simply must do something. I am as good as dead. Let us search the basement.

You don’t think Madhuri Dixit will be in the basement? I was alluding to the thief. In fact, you don’t think the thief is within 50 miles of our residence? Let us knock on the door of my neighbour. He will be able to give us a description of the culprit.

You are right. By now, my neighbour would have been here to help you out with your investigation. The cunning crook crept in under cover of darkness and made off with the painting. There must have been a vehicle parked outside. Do you think my neighbour took down the number of the licence plate? No? Bloody hell! Should we not ask him?

Was my neigbhour aware of the existence of the Husain canvas? Is he a suspect? Aiding and abetting? No, no. Please do not pursue that line of inquiry. He is as innocent as a baa-lamb. Just has peculiar sleeping habits.

Why is no security alarm system installed on the premises? Well, I am paying a bomb to the sleeping beauty, namely the security chap from a big company. And I have a curious, deranged neighbour who stays awake all night watching over our house. Wonder if he has a pair of binoculars. We might be able to obtain an identikit of the criminal from him. Can you send for your composite artist, Inspector?

You are not very sanguine, Inspector. Your smirk is revealing. I am finished. Disaster stares me in the face. Was the painting insured? Why not, you ask. Well, there was a substantial black money component involved in the transaction and I would rather not go into all of that for now.

Are you saying there is nothing more to be done, Inspector? There is? Do tell. Register an official complaint with the police. Sack the security staff. While I am about it, sack the cook as well. I can sense a divorce in the offing. Get a Doberman immediately and provide additional security for Rusty. Copy that.

Pardon? Oh, I watch a lot of crime movies and serials, Inspector. The Inspector’s lackey always says ‘copy that’ when given an order or instruction, meaning he has understood and will act accordingly. I always thought it was a strange expression.

I should present myself at the station tomorrow, Inspector? Certainly, but please don’t reveal the black money transaction on the Husain canvas I thoughtlessly revealed to you. I must get that painting back. I am sure it will show up somewhere.

It will show up in Tokyo? In some Japanese, billionaire art-collector’s museum? And I will not be able to do anything about it. Mon Dieu! Then fall, Caesar! Apologies. When my mind is in a whirl, I fall back on Shakespeare.

Thank you, Inspector. I will see you tomorrow at your den. Good night. Or rather, good morning. And here’s the reverberating Rusty with my wife’s slipper. Right foot, this time. Please say ‘Good boy’ and hurl it as far as you can.

I shall retire and kill a bottle of Chivas Regal. If the robber hasn’t cleaned out my bar as well. Care to join me for a night cap? No? You are on duty. Good man. Drive safely.

Old Friends

 Can you imagine us years from today / Sharing a park bench quietly? / How terribly strange to be 70. Simon & Garfunkel

There is this old school class mate of mine, let’s just call him RK whom I had not met for several years and whom I ran into quite unexpectedly. All said and done, a decent sort of chap, but apt to get irritable and tetchy if you spoke to him in a way that he did not fully comprehend. Don’t be fooled, it was all an act, a big pretend given that he did more than passably well in English in his Senior Cambridge exams. It’s just that he made a fetish out of it and, in fact, revelled in it. Clearly, nothing much had changed. I greeted him as I would a long-lost friend, which happened to be the case.

‘Hey, RK old pal. Long time no see. What gives? You know what, this calls for a stiff, celebratory drink. There’s a nice pub nearby. I am buying.’

RK responded in typical fashion. ‘How do you mean “what gives?” And what exactly is a “stiff drink?” And what are we celebrating?’ Speak clearly and cogently. You are as vague as I always remembered you.’

He was being true to type. Deliberately provocative. I kept my calm. Given the circumstances, you might even say I was quite bonhomous. If I did not actually hug him, it was a near thing. ‘Come on RK, don’t start on that again. I need a strong drink. I am bushed.’

‘Come again?’

‘How do you mean, “come again?”’

‘I mean, what exactly do you mean by bushed?’

‘And I meant what exactly did you mean by “come again.” We are beginning to sound like an Abbot and Costello cross talk sequence. We are at cross purposes and you, my friend, are beginning to tire me out. That is what I meant by bushed. Like you hadn’t tumbled to that anyway. And that is why I need a stiff drink? Look, must we squabble over language already? This is not a class in linguistics. We have not met in ages. Let’s go and live it up. It will be closing time shortly.’

He glared at me balefully. ‘I can hardly characterise going out for a drink as living it up. If you are bushed and upend three stiff whiskies down the hatch, you will be on a steep downer. Living it up indeed!’

So saying, we hotfooted our way to this pub and found it full to the brim, as were many of the tall glasses on the low tables. Anyhow, we managed to wedge ourselves between some serious elbow-benders on a couple of barstools. I ordered two draught beers. ‘You are ok with a draught beer I take it RK, or have you become abstemious?’

‘Now who is using big words?’ riposted RK. ‘Would I have joined you on this pub crawl had I been abstinent? Draught beer is fine, but hardly a stiff drink as you have been tom-tomming all evening. Still, it won’t burn a big hole in your deep pockets.’

I got my chance. ‘Quite so, RK. Draught beer is small beer.’

RK took a large draft of the draught beer and stared at me. ‘If you are going to keep conversing in puns and double entendres, I shall make a quick exit stage left.’

‘Pursued by a bear?’ I was starting to enjoy this.

‘Pursued by a what?’ RK looked flummoxed.

‘Bear. Large furry, fearsome creatures found in Alaskan forests and in the Polar regions. The former are also known as grizzlies. If you run into one of them, the result could be grisly.’ I laughed at my own overwrought pun. ‘Mind you, the Polar bears look cuddly, from a safe distance. Anyhow, the expression is a standard cliché in some of the comedies we used to act in school. Like the character who bounds in from stage right and says, “Tennis anyone?” and promptly disappears never to be seen again. I am not sure of the origins of the phrase “pursued by a bear” but I always smiled involuntarily whenever I came across the expression in a Wilde, Waugh or Wodehouse novel. According to our English master, it was Shakespeare, believe it or not, who first notated the words as stage direction on the margins of his manuscript for one of his plays, The Winter’s Tale. We live and learn. From Google.’ I could sense RK’s eyes misting over. A kind of glazed look came over him. Perhaps it was the beer, if not the bear. He looked irritable, which appeared to be his default facial setting.

‘You know, I deeply regret running into you. Should have ducked smartly away from your line of sight. What is with this old boy, school days obsession that afflicts so many of us? We meet once in a blue moon and when we do, do we talk of Modi, Gandhi (all three of them), Trump, Waqf or Musk’s ambition to colonize Mars? Of course not. We become tiny tots again and revert to type. Pursued by a bear while exiting stage left. Next thing I know, you will want us to sing the school song.’

I ordered another round and cleared my throat. ‘Now there’s a thought The alma mater song. We can get on to the house songs after that. What a brilliant idea. Right, after the count of three, ‘On straight on….’

RK stopped me in my tracks. ‘For God’s sake, this is a pub, short for public house. You cannot start singing school songs here. They will turf us out. Get a hold on yourself.’

‘Nice one RK. I like the phrase “getting a hold on oneself.” And you were upbraiding me for borrowing lines form Wilde and company. Look, there’s a band here playing some absolute rubbish. It’s so loud I can’t hear myself think. Fine, let us forget about the school song. Probably sacrilege to render it in a pub while guzzling beer, small or otherwise. Let me go and ask the band leader if he knows the chords to Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline. You can join me in harmony for the chorus line.’

RK once again became schoolmasterish. ‘What is it with you? I agreed to join you for a small drink that was small beer on your budget, and you want to reprise Neil Diamond or Engelbert Plum Pudding, having downed just a glass and a half of the frothy stuff? I dread to think what you will become if you drank any more. Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson? I think I’ll call it a day. Well alright, just one for the road if you insist. Just to show there’s no ill-feeling.’

‘Engelbert Plum Pudding! That is so good, RK. More catchy than Humperdinck. Given your present state of mind you should be crooning the great balladeer’s hit, Please Release Me, Let Me Go. What say you? Bottoms up.’

RK finally smiled. ‘You said a mouthful there. It’s alright pal. I did enjoy our serendipitous meeting, if that is not too big a word for you. For a refreshing change of subject, I will leave you with a conundrum I am unable to unravel. Why does everyone say that Chennai Super Kings’ presiding deity, Captain Cool Dhoni is blessed with a retiring nature? Right now, it looks as if our Mahi Bhai will never retire!’

We both laughed heartily and walked out of the pub (after I settled the bill) feeling like the two old school mates we really were. I was eternally grateful that RK did not start on his fanciful cricketing exploits in school (6 for 24 and 52 not out in the inter-school final. MoM). That would have been tiresome and I was already bushed. Whether we were walking straight or not I could not tell, but we warbled ‘On straight on’ in raucous disharmony, startling the pub’s house cat, Macavity, from his deep slumber at the exit door. Not that we cared.

   No taareef for Trump’s tariffs

This tariff business has got the whole world in a twist. The President of the United States of America, Donald Trump vowed to impose reciprocal tariffs on countries which enjoy an advantageous tariff equation against the United States. That appears to include every single country on God’s green land including little-known islands where only penguins and seals exist! An auspicious date in April was earmarked for the new tariff regime to kick in. Not for nothing did the poet laureate T.S. Eliot declare that ‘April is the cruellest month’ in his seminal poem, The Waste Land. All this to get things back on an even keel, as far as America was concerned. At least, as far as Trump was concerned. That accounts for pretty much most of the world that export goods and services to the United States and import from that country as well.

Trump has been as good as his word (or as bad, as some may aver). Financial and economic pundits from all over the world have been expressing their unflattering opinions in print, television and social media. Here in India, boffins from the Finance and Commerce Ministries must be working overtime to understand the full implications of Trump’s major salvo and to figure out how best to minimise the deleterious effects it may be having on our economy and on Dalal Street. Despite these preoccupations, the Waqf bill squeaked through in both Houses, but that’s a story for another day.

Speaking for myself, much of what is being discussed on the imposition of tariffs tends to go over my head. Suffice it to say that I am one of those whose primary and admittedly selfish interest is to keep my eyes peeled on how the stock markets are behaving and what likely impact the President’s unilateral actions may or may not have on my own portfolio. As I put this blog to bed  markets worldwide are behaving very badly indeed, Trump’s home country leading the way in pursuing the bears. Not a bull to be seen anywhere on the horizon. Having plonked my relatively meagre nest egg on bank fixed deposits and cautiously on market related mutual funds, as most middle-class retirees tend to do, I needed to understand a bit more about the subject, if I did not go bankrupt before then. Accordingly, I placed a call to my portfolio manager and invited him home for a bit of a chat.

There is this strange thing about portfolio managers. They are always smiling, ear to ear. Now and then the markets do perk up and they will have every reason to display that sunny disposition. That one can understand. However, when the Sensex and the Nifty are tanking like all hell has broken loose, it beats me how  our fund guardians can look like they have just won the lottery. It is one of life’s eternal mysteries. Anyhow, I welcomed my consultant and as he settled himself comfortably armed with the ubiquitous laptop, I observed that his demeanour suggested that the Sensex was on a bull run and not, as was the case, being hounded down by rapacious bears. I was somewhat frigid but he did not seem to notice.

‘Good morning, Sir and how are we today?’ he began cheerfully, sounding just like my GP.

‘You tell me, my friend. Markets are going south so fast the authorities might have to apply the circuit breaker.’ As you can see, I could come out with the jargon just to impress these johnny-come-lately experts.

‘Now, now Sir, there is no cause for alarm. Your portfolio consists mainly of blue chip, large and mid-cap stocks and they have been only marginally affected. Anyhow, at present levels, the markets are most attractive for fresh investments and that is why I have come with some amazingly outstanding proposals for you to consider. If you have some spare cash lying around.’

I really had to hand it to him. Here I am fearing doom and disaster, and this young investment bozo was displaying a level of sangfroid I could not have believed possible. Before I could challenge him on what I felt was his misplaced optimism, particularly with regard to ‘spare cash lying around,’ the young gun continued.

‘You have to take the long-term view, Sir. Rome was not built in a day, if you will pardon my slipping in that quote. I say that to all my clients. I have it on excellent authority that India is on a featherbed of a wicket as far as our relations with the U.S is concerned. Tulsi Gabbard is almost a Hindu, Kash Patel is a Gujju, Vivek Ramaswamy is a Tam Bram and Trump loves all of them to distraction. Ergo he loves India and he loves Modi. The 27% tariff levy on India has already been reduced to 26%. More lollies are on the way.’

I had to throw some cold water on the young man’s ardour. ‘Listen my fine, feathered friend, before you start singing Tu cheez badi hai, Musk, Musk, let me put you straight on one or two vital issues. This tired, old cliché of taking the long-term view is all very well if you are talking to a 30 or 40-year-old. I am in my 70s and my long-term vision can only be viewed from my rear-view mirror. It is decidedly in the past. I am willing to listen to plans that can impinge on my savings over the next three to five years, tops. Capiche, my dear kemo sabe?’

He was slightly befuddled. ‘Sorry Sir, I didn’t quite catch that.’

‘Of course, you didn’t. Never heard of Lone Ranger and Tonto? Since you pulled all that Rome wasn’t built in a day stuff, I was just getting a bit of my own back. Let’s get back to business, shall we? Tell me exactly why I, a mere retired senior citizen from a populous country should not panic over all this tariff tamasha when even the natives in Cocos (Keeling) Island, Christmas Island, Heard Island, McDonald Island and Norfolk Island are having kittens over Trump’s tariff tantrums? Have you even heard of these places? In other words, no place on earth is safe. Feed all that into your laptop and see what gives.’

My hedge fund friend appeared to be hedging his bets. He seemed shaken but not entirely stirred. These chaps are made of stern stuff. ‘I get your point Sir and you have every right to feel jittery, but I am here to apply the soothing balm. In precisely one week’s time the markets will recover all its losses and you will be smiling again. You have been wisely invested for many years and have seen many up and downs. Swings and roundabouts. You have booked profits on several occasions, bear that in mind. Don’t take on so. The experts say that India has played Trump’s tariff game very smartly.’

I snorted somewhat cynically but he was cool as the proverbial cucumber. ‘By the way Sir, what or where is McDonald Island? Have these burger kings, not to be confused with Burger King, taken over an entire island? The islanders and the penguins must be feasting on Big Macs big time.’

I was not impressed. ‘Are you trying to be funny? The fast-food chain you are referring to is MacDonald’s. The island is McDonald. Slight difference in spelling. Anyhow, I can’t say I am entirely convinced by your explanations and you have not said anything I don’t already know about this tariff imbroglio, which is not very much to start with. We will conclude our meeting here. Have a cup of tea and some dry rusks, which is about all I can afford at this time by way of hospitality.’

We partook of the meagre refreshment on offer and he left smiling broadly and thanking me profusely for the time, tea and rusks. It was as much as I could manage not to slam the door behind him.

My ears might have been playing tricks with me but I distinctly thought I heard the young man breaking into a few snatches from that old 60s Tom Jones hit on his way out, Smile away your blues / And let the sun come shining through / Laugh and you will see / You could be happy with me / All you gotta do is smile / And the world smiles too.

My heart went out to him.

      IPL. Still crazy after all these years.

Mahi and Kohli – they define the IPL

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is upon us. Once more with feeling. This is the 18th edition of this obscenely cash-rich tournament and no one seems to be tiring of it. It is another matter altogether that many cricket followers, particularly those of an older generation, swear blind that they will never watch another IPL game if they can help it. The conviction is palpably absent in their voice as they rain invective on this instant, slam-bam form of the game. When the day arrives and their favourite franchise is in action, you can bet your bottom dollar they will be sitting in front of their television screens eagerly looking forward to watching Dhoni, even if he decides just to stride majestically to the crease and walk back to the pavilion after facing a mere four deliveries, which may or may not include a couple of crowd-pleasing maximums. Or over-boundaries, as some radio commentators of a bygone era used to describe them. If Chennai Super Kings are fielding, then the fans will feast their eyes on their Thala pulling off an age-defying diving catch or whipping the bails off in a flash behind the wickets. The great man keeps mum on retirement plans, as on most other things, and his fans want him to play till he is 50. I tell a lie. Make that 60. And no one is prepared to lay any bets against such an eventuality.

Then there is Virat Kohli. If Dhoni is the ageless father figure of Indian cricket, then Kohli is its ageless sex symbol. Rippling biceps, well-trimmed goatee, body language full of aggro and a Bollywood starlet for a wife. What more can a man want? Or a woman, come to that. And with all that, lest we forget, a terrific batsman who has had the best bowlers in the world for breakfast. If the mood takes him, Kohli can do a fair imitation of a trapeze artist when his team bags a wicket or when he routinely takes India over the finishing line. Pity the bowler whose shoulders he leaps on with gay abandon. Whether it is elation or anger on the field of play, King Kohli can match King Kong! A cricketing equivalent of Novak Djokovic – a beast on the court and a thorough gentleman off it. At least, that’s the word on the street. Makes no difference, the crowds adore the former Indian skipper. After Dhoni, that is. Sachin? Who dat? Public memory is fickle. We live in the here and now.

I decided to catch up with a cross-section of cricket lovers and probe them on what they thought of the IPL. I dived into the deep end of the catchment area of cricket. I stood outside one of India’s better-known stadiums so that I could buttonhole all and sundry as they were getting into the stadium, or coming out of it, and challenge them with a few well-chosen questions. Every single one of them had just cricket on their minds and that helped.

I first stopped a 12-year-old boy (he could have been 15) who was holding his father’s hand (at least it looked like his father) and was about to ask him which his favourite IPL franchise was. Then I saw that he was wearing that famous yellow tee-shirt with the number 7 and ‘Thala’ emblazoned at the back. At which point, I bypassed the kid and sought another victim. No point going after the bleeding obvious.

Two high school girls, in high spirits were my next victims. The match had just given over. I asked one of them if they enjoyed the game. The first one, wearing an RCB tee-shirt gushed, ‘Virat is too cute, yaar, love his goatee.’ Her partner butted in with a ‘Kohli, Kohli. Anushka, I am so jay of you.’ This was going nowhere, so I asked the twitchy twosome, ‘So who won the match?’ The answer was swift, ‘Who knows and who cares? Kohli, Kohli,’ they chanted. They love their cricket, this generation.

A 70 something gentleman ambled out slowly, tapping on his mobile for his driver. I waited for him to finish his call and went up to him. ‘Excuse me Sir, but do you really enjoy this instant-noodles type of IPL cricket?’ He thought for a while and replied, ‘You know, in 1963 at the Eden Gardens when ‘Prince Salim’ Durani used to hit sixes on popular demand….’ I had heard enough. If I had allowed the senior citizen to continue, he would have gone on till the cows came home. Or till his car or Uber arrived. Which would have been about the same time. I smartly ducked and sought another prey.

I spotted a man of Oriental aspect, as Sherlock Holmes might have put it and wasted no time in blocking his path. ‘Good evening, which part of the world are you from?’ ‘India,’ he replied. Surprised, I said, ‘I could have sworn you were from China or some such. We normally don’t come across too many people like you at cricket matches.’ ‘My friend, don’t jump to conclusions. Looks can be deceiving. My family has been running a popular Chinese restaurant for over four decades in this city.’ I regretted being so presumptuous. ‘My apologies. Are you a close follower of the game?’ ‘Not really, don’t get the time. It’s just that my 95-year-old grandfather was keen to know if any player in the IPL bowled the Chinaman. I am here only to oblige him, as I did not have a clue what a Chinaman was.’ ‘Other than you, ha ha,’ I laughed at my own poor joke. ‘Ha ha yourself,’ he said and invited me for a dim sum and beer to his restaurant. Nice chap. Had a sense of humour. For a Chinaman!

Time was running out as I had to file my copy. I trudged my way back to hail an auto. In the receding distance, I could hear faint cries of ‘Dhoni, Dhoni, Kohli, Kohli.’ Must have been a CSK vs RCB game, I thought to myself as I climbed into the phut-phutty.

(An edited version was carried by Deccan Chronicle dt. 1/4/25)

Boring!

A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it. Henry Ford.

It is widely accepted that while being overly aggressive, offensive or too clever by half is not a personality trait to be admired, there can be no bigger pain in the posterior region than that of being a bore. Therein lies the rub. Bores can otherwise be pleasant to engage with, they may even be gifted in many ways. A handful of them have gone on to achieve great things in life. Scientists, sportspersons, musicians, novelists, politicians, toppers all in their respective fields but there is no guarantee that some of them, and they are the exceptions, if you have had the misfortune to be buttonholed at the club bar or somewhere else, won’t turn out to be crashing bores. Particularly if their best days are behind them.

The thing about being ensnared by a bore is that, oftentimes you are never sure what is coming. The conversation, or rather the monologue, starts harmlessly enough. After five or six minutes, it dawns on you that you are trapped with no escape route. You have not been able to get a word in edgeways and your mind is beginning to wander. Your eyes mist over with a glazed look and you keep looking frequently and ostentatiously at your watch, which the bore ignores with impunity. For the most part, you respond with a mechanical ‘Oh,’ ‘Ah,’ or ‘I see,’ not having the faintest what the bore is yakking on about. The modern-day trend is to feign a yawn and say, ‘Boring’ and walk away. Alas, we were brought up to be civil. Some bores will bore you over the phone but, at least you can interject with a ‘Sorry, that’s the doorbell, will catch up later,’ and disconnect.

If someone tells you he has never been boring, he is being more than economical with the truth. That goes for yours truly as well. Simply because I am writing a column having fun at the expense of bores, does not mean I cannot be guilty of that unwritten commandment, ‘Thou shall not bore another human being to death.’ The warning signal to watch out for, when you are in convivial company, is when your wife or a dear friend (both can be the same person) gently admonishes you with an ‘I think they have heard that yarn about your hattrick in school many times before, dear. You’ve downed one too many. Time to make tracks.’ At least, that is the gist of it. I am not much of an imbiber, but I do not require alcoholic stimulants to get people around me fidgety, once I am on a roll. Having blithely included myself in the list of probables as it were, I am now free to guiltlessly dive into the deep end on my current subject of choice. With a little help from some acclaimed published sources.

We all know that a confirmed hypochondriac holds pride of place when it comes to boring the pants off his companions. ‘I will give small eats a wide berth, if you don’t mind. Tummy trouble. Now if it were just a normal stomach upset, that would be one thing, but I keep getting these shooting pains at the pit of my stomach and I fear it could be something more serious. My GP simply brushed the whole thing off as a figment of my imagination. Take two antacid pills twice a day after meals and you will be right as rain. I was not convinced. I decided to get a scan done and you know what…’ And on and on he drones, while his friends are beginning to disappear having received ‘urgent calls’ on their mobiles. Puts me in mind of one of the Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome, ‘I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me. Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished. But I will tell you what is NOT the matter with me. I have not got housemaid’s knee. Why I have not got housemaid’s knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got it. Everything else, however, I HAVE got.’

Beware of the man who starts a sentence with, ‘I shan’t detain you long,’ or ‘Did I tell you the one about…?’ I can state with absolute certainty that he has told you the one about. Yes, my friend, you have. More than once, and that is an understatement. But here’s the thing about bores. They don’t listen to what the other chap is saying. They bash on regardless. ‘In that case, I had better start at the beginning. Waiter, another fresh lime soda sweet for my friend here please.’ And the long evening wears on. Here I would like to cite an interesting example from one of P.G. Wodehouse’s early gems. No, it’s not from another Jeeves-Wooster, the Golfing tales or Blandings Castle caper. This the Master wrote in 1903 for the celebrated but now defunct Punch magazine. Anonymously. That it was, indeed, Wodehouse came to light much later.

In a two-part short story titled, Dudley Jones, Bore-Hunter, the object of Wodehouse’s satire is none other than Sherlock Holmes. Holmes’ stand-in is introduced to the reader as follows. ‘Dudley Jones was a man who devoted his best energy to the extinction of bores. With a clear-sightedness which few modern philanthropists possess, he recognised that, though Society had many enemies, none was so deadly as the bore. Burglars, indeed, Jones regarded with disapproval, and I have known him to be positively rude to a man who confessed in the course of conversation to being a forger. But his real foes were the bores, and all that one man can do to eliminate that noxious tribe, that did Dudley Jones do with all his might.’

Musicians are, by and large, a noble lot. As long as they perform on stage or in a recording studio. Singers or instrumentalists, they may have their good and bad days, but the audience generally takes kindly to them as there are not too many around who have the requisite skills to hold their fans in thrall for long periods of time. Parts of a concert can be boring to some, but the fans wait for the good bits to wake them up. Most musicians are reluctant to engage in long, drawn-out conversations or speechifying as they believe that is not their forte. Many of them do speak well, but prefer to keep their opinions to themselves. That said, I have known some Carnatic musicians who love to convert their concerts into lecture demonstrations. They talk more than they sing and that can be trying. And boring. ‘This is the first song my guru taught me. He made me practice it more than 50 times before he allowed me to perform it on stage.’ Wild applause. That is all very well except that he has narrated this particular tale to us more than 50 times. And why does he keep looking at his laptop if he has practiced this song so many times?

It is instructive to examine the issue of boredom in music from a western perspective. Here is Jude Kelly, artistic director of London’s Southbank Centre on the subject. ‘An audience must have the confidence to admit that there are structural inadequacies in the great works. We’ve all had moments when we’ve dozed off. But there is also a sense that the best art is like life. Some of it is a bit dull, but you need the boring parts to appreciate the climaxes. Reaching the end of a Wagner opera is like climbing a mountain: part of the achievement is in the struggle to get there.’

Finally, a word on teachers. During our impressionable years in school, the quality of our teachers was central to our ability to absorb and enjoy our lessons, irrespective of the subject being taught. The teacher who held our attention was the one who did not treat his class as a flock of sheep. He would interject his lessons with the odd light-hearted quip. ‘Boys, do not copy your neighbour’s mistakes’ was a gentle admonition that made us laugh and taught us a lesson in thinking for ourselves. On another occasion, our Moral Science teacher was explaining to his class the importance of prayer and how it helps the students to assimilate the values of life and trust to a higher power. ‘Does anyone have another opinion?’ A back bencher piped up with, ‘I don’t pray because I don’t want to bore God.’ ‘Who said that? Vikram, was that you? Stand up and explain yourself, boy.’ Vikram stood up and said, ‘Actually Sir, it was the actor Orson Welles.’ The class was convulsed with laughter and the teacher saw the funny side of it and joined in the mirth.

In sum, I agree with the late George Harrison who said that ‘The Beatles saved the world from boredom.’

Leaves that are green turn to brown

I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song / I’m twenty-two now but I won’t be for long / Time hurries on / And the leaves that are green turn to brown. Simon & Garfunkel.

Not finding anything earth-shattering to write about this week (if truth be told, it happens to me every week), I was moping around the house scouring newspapers, keeping the television set on for interminably long hours on the off-chance that some entertaining nugget would come my way and I could start beavering away at my keypad. No such luck. Kejriwal, Modi, Trump, Zelenskyy, Rohit, Virat, Rahul (both of them) have all become yesterday’s news. During my early teens in school, if someone came up with second-hand news, we would tease him mercilessly thus, ‘Stale news stinks and so do you.’ For the full effect, it had to be delivered in a screechy, sing-song voice. We were an insufferable lot, we boarding house boys. In short, posting a column week on Sunday week is not a walk in the park. If I manage to pull something off before desperation and thoughts of self-harm set in, it is only because of sheer bloody-mindedness. That is precisely when I spotted this dried, withered leaf peeping out from the middle of that estimable tome, Cardus on Cricket, on my bookshelf. A bookmark! but where did that dried leaf come from? It has lain pressed between pages 134 and 135 for at least 15 years, give or take, since I last read it. A superb book, a literary cricketing classic but my interest was riveted on the leaf. It was an ‘Eureka!’ moment. Not a non sequitur, in case you were wondering. I had my idea for the blog. And thereby hangs a tale or three.

Let me revert to that dried, brown leaf converted into a bookmark. It was bright green when it gently alighted on my head from a tree, the botanical genus of which I am ignorant, somewhere while traipsing in the verdant, beautiful Black Forest in Germany eons ago. I was about to instinctively brush it away, as one usually does when something unexplained falls on your head, often a bird moving its bowels. My wife, who has a keen eye for all things pertaining to plant life, decided to preserve the leaf as a souvenir from our trip to this part of Deutschland. ‘This is the Black Forest. We may never come back here again. This leaf will be a constant reminder.’ So saying, she secreted it away somewhere in her handbag. This was so much more imaginative than spending a small fortune in a gift shop in Frankfurt’s Duty Free. Now, whenever I look fondly at the brown and frail leaf, I think of those chorus lines from Simon & Garfunkel’s lovely song, And the leaves that are green, turn to brown. The song goes on to elaborate on the leaves, And they wither with the wind and they crumble in your hands. I dared not touch that leaf for fear that it might have completely disintegrated.

Stepping lightly away from leaves, I shall now turn my attention to stones and pebbles. We have a few of them at home mostly serving as paperweights or just something to put into an empty brass or glass bowl. These are not just any common or garden pebbles. A couple of them were picked up on the beaches of the Costa Brava in Spain. Smoothened by years and years of erosion, they are lovely to touch and feel and, for the most part, just to look at. Therapeutic, as well. Once again, I am serendipitously back with Simon & Garfunkel and another line from that same song, I threw a pebble in a brook, and watched the ripples run away, and they never made a sound. And the leaves…You know the rest.

As for the stone, we chanced upon it in the Lake District in England. There is nothing pretentious about it. Just a greyish, misshapen lump, like any other stone you might find anywhere on a city street. The poet Wordsworth, who lived in this area would not have been inspired to knock off a verse on sighting this stone had he tripped over it. But here’s the catch. On this non-descript stone was an imprint of a shell which might have excited any anthropologist. Not being able to find one readily, we showed it to our hotel manager, a Basil Fawlty type of individual. He examined the stone carefully, looked at it this way and that, took a magnifying glass to it and finally declared, ‘I think you’ve found a gem here. 14th century, I shouldn’t wonder, the late Middle Ages. Plenty of volcanic activity about at the time. Take it to Christie’s or Sotheby’s in London and you might become a very wealthy man.’ He was clearly having me on. The mischievous glint in his eye was a dead giveaway. We brought the stone home with us, along with the leaf and the pebbles, but every time I look longingly at that stone as it rests on my bank statement file, I cannot help wondering if I missed out on the main chance. The stone could have acquired international fame and I, a small fortune. Instead, like Bob Dylan’s rolling stone, it remains a complete unknown.

I shall always remember the look on the Calcutta Customs official’s face when he asked me if I had anything to declare. I was sorely tempted to take a leaf out of Oscar Wilde’s canon, ‘I have nothing to declare except my genius.’ Wiser counsels prevailed. Instead, I produced a bagful of stones, pebbles and one half-dried leaf. He was about to say something nasty, but a carton of Benson & Hedges silenced him instantly. He chalk-marked our suitcases with a flying tick of approval. There were more bottles of Scotch in the suitcase than the permissible, duty-free limit. Remember, these were the 70s. Even if you were a non-smoker, a few cartons of imported ciggies went a long way in keeping the wheels of bureaucracy well-greased.

Amongst other collectibles that I did not have to pay a penny for during our travels abroad in the distant past, mention must be made of my hotel room keys (in duplicate) in Birmingham, which I failed to return as I checked out. You may rightly surmise that this particular hotel was still operating in the pre-digital era. The keys, with their plastic room tag, were guiltily jangling in my blazer pocket as I reached the station to catch the train to London King’s Cross. On arriving, I called up the Birmingham hotel reception and proffered my embarrassed apologies. The lady at the desk was very sweet about it. ‘No problem, Sir. Those keys will serve as a constant reminder of our hotel when next you visit Birmingham.’ By now they must have changed the keys to the digital card format.

Bus and train tickets, theatre tickets, (Phantom, Cats et al), a ticket each for Wimbledon and Lord’s, admission cards for Madame Tussaud’s, the Louvre, the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh and other must-see destinations around Europe – all these are lying around somewhere along with our photo albums stored over the decades. When am I ever going to get around to digitizing them? But somehow, it is that leaf from the Black Forest, those stones and pebbles from the Costa Brava and the pair of keys from the Birmingham hotel that bring a broad smile to my lips. It is true, as a cynical friend of mine tartly pointed out, I could have picked up an identical leaf from a tree outside my home or stones and pebbles if I took a leisurely stroll down the Marina Beach in Madras and passed them off as exotic souvenirs from far-off lands. No one will know the difference. Then again, I will. And that makes all the difference.

News channels move over, the Podcasters are here.

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I have all but stopped watching the news bulletins on television, along with their noisy debates. As I am channel-agnostic, my disenchantment with the news as purveyed cuts across all television channels. There are two reasons for this cynical observation. The obvious one is the abysmal quality of the anchors (with a couple of notable exceptions) as well as their field correspondents, most of whom appear to have staggered fresh out of college. Wet behind the ears, as my English master in school had it. There is simply no gravitas in their reportage, whether they are standing in front of a Chief Minister’s palatial residence, gripping a microphone, hoping for a sound bite on some corruption charge, along with all the other rival channels, pushing and jostling, waiting for the gates to open and some unidentified limousine to drive out. Else you are likely to find them commenting from a disaster site where a building under construction has just collapsed slaying ten. On one occasion, a young girl correspondent gave frantic chase to a minister as he put his hand up and hurriedly dived into his car. ‘Sir, Sir, please. What do you have to say to the victims’ families?’ I could have told her it was a hopeless pursuit.

 Cut to the studio for the much-touted debate at prime time. Need I say more? Ten faces, including the redoubtable anchor’s mug, stare at you, and some of those faces don’t even get a chance to get a word in edgeways, given the cacophony of the combined voices in non-unison. If the anchor is unhappy with the line taken by the guest, he or she will not think twice about cutting him off just as the unfortunate panellist is gathering a nice head of steam. Some very distinguished commentators at times appear on these shows much to their everlasting regret. One must assume the appearance money is good.

Those are primarily the negative reasons why I have stopped watching news channels on television, and I am happy to state that I am in excellent company in this regard. The more positive reason as to why I have no more requirement to waste my time with the regular news channels is thanks to the new, improved YouTube offerings – Podcasts to accord its proper title. Forget about the entertainment choices, they are too numerous to mention and I have dwelt at length in the past about the joys of watching clips from sport, humour, interviews with the high and mighty and so much more. And when you add Netflix, Prime Video and Apple TV to the cable smorgasbord, one’s cup truly runneth over. Not wishing to be sidetracked, let me confine myself to the main purpose of this contemplation, namely current affairs.

On YouTube, you get a multiplicity of choices, both Indian and foreign, where not more than one or two distinguished experts sit and discuss at length the important headlines of the day. For those with a keen interest in wishing to understand, in-depth, the issues bedevilling India’s politics or economics, the likes of Barkha Dutt, Palki Sharma, Smita Prakash and Karan Thapar, just to name a few, speak to knowledgeable experts on a variety of subjects. The anchor lays down a marker in terms of explaining and outlining the limits of the topic and the guests are given a free hand and more than ample time to elaborate on their points of view. One does not usually get the impression that the invited speakers come to the studio with a pre-determined agenda. The exchanges are marked by a ‘feast of reason and flow of soul’ and no animus is displayed. They make their points with refreshing candour and an injection of humour, a rarity on our screens. Some of these self-same participants, on our regular television channels, have often been seen tearing their hair out merely to make themselves heard. Ask Anand Ranganathan, J. Sai Deepak, Abhijit Iyer Mitra or the Poonawalla brothers, just to provide a soupçon. When you get firebrand Mani Shankar Aiyar firing on all cylinders or the suave and ever so sane former Foreign Secretary Krishnan Srinivasan eloquently elaborating his views, we are in for a treat. Shashi Tharoor is a perennial favourite when he is not beset with his own political challenges.

I cannot not mention the case of podcaster Ranveer ‘Beerbiceps’ Allahbadia, who got so carried away with his phenomenal success that he went overboard with a harebrained level of idiocy, asking a guest a highly tasteless and personal question about his parents. He can consider himself extremely lucky the Courts let him off with a stern rap on the knuckles. That he apologised profusely is neither here nor there.

Lest you get the wrong impression, it is not merely the English-speaking programmes that I am talking about that grab eyeballs. Some of the podcasts in Hindi like The Jaipur Dialogues with the laconic Sanjay Dixit at the helm, approaches sensitive subjects with a delightful sense of irony, tongue firmly in cheek as both he and his guests who are podcasters in their own right (Abhishek Tiwary, Sumit Peer, Aadi Achint along with a plethora of palmists, soothsayers and astrologers) treat viewers to an elevating and entertaining programme. My Hindi has greatly improved as a result, not that that is of much consequence to the powers-that-be in Tamil Nadu.

The same goes for Sree Iyer of PGurus, who runs his programme from Washington (The Capitol conspicuously projected behind him) while conducting his interviews with several experts from India. Special mention must be made of ‘Scoop Raja’ Rajagopal who commences all his observations with a sloka in Sanskrit from one of India’s religious texts prior to launching his diatribe against whoever may be in his crosshairs on a particular evening. They wear their religious caste marks prominently on their sleeves. Or rather, on their foreheads. These gentlemen do not hesitate to display their allegiance to the ruling party, but they do bring to the table an impressive bank of knowledge and experience along with their homespun philosophy. Those who espouse the cause of the opposition alliance have their own podcasting channels from which to denigrate the Prime Minister on a daily basis. In other words, battle is truly joined and provides infinitely more elevating viewing pleasure than your run-of-the mill news channels.

If you are interested in what is happening in the United States, Western Europe, Ukraine, Russia and so on, the choice of podcasts to watch on YouTube is humongous. You need look no further than the celebrated Joe Rogan whose incisive interviews had even Donald Trump sitting with him for hours. Probably the only Indian who had Rogan star struck (by his own admission) was our very own Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev! Search for Victor Davis Hanson or Bill O’Reilly and you are assured of a most erudite and reasoned discussion on the political turmoil in America, the convoluted and dangerous issues surrounding the Ukraine-Russia conflict, with bit players like Starmer, Macron, Vance and others in walk-on parts but always completely overshadowed by the all-encompassing, omniscient presence of Donald Trump.

Snippets from the US Senate hearings and the ensuing debates (these are real debates) provide us in India with a deep understanding, not to mention the entertainment value that people like Trump can give us. Have you ever heard a sitting President refer to a former President as a ‘stupid President?’ That is what Trump called Biden who, in turn, had earlier described Trump as an idiot. A slanging match for the ages! In short, a splendid time is guaranteed for all. It is worth bearing in mind that if Trump sneezes, India could get a severe cold. The unseemly spat involving Trump, Zelensky and Vance at the Oval Office continues to remain at the top of the hit parade. Viewers simply cannot get enough of it. What is more, several computer-generated ‘funnies’ have come out of this infamous incident taking pride of place on social media.

When all is said and done, one must determine for oneself if anything you watch on television should first and foremost be elevating and entertaining and the devil take the hindmost. I am inclined to veer in that direction. After all, if I wish to be seriously involved in matters of state, I can read from a variety of excellent sources. There are exceptions even on the telly, as I have pointed out earlier in this piece, but in the main, you want someone compelling to hold your attention. That is why I have turned my back on the conventional news channels where the quality of delivery traverses the bandwidth from silly to utterly unwatchable. It becomes increasingly clear why some wise sage dubbed it ‘the idiot box.’ If you are not careful, it makes idiots of us all.

Pulitzer Prize winner, American author and columnist Dave Barry, with delicious irony said this about the news on television, ‘I would not know how I am supposed to feel about many stories if not for the fact that TV news personalities make sad faces for sad stories and happy faces for happy stories.’ That pithy one-liner, more or less, puts the lid on it.