A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running. Groucho Marx.

Hospitals have become nicer places these days. An assertion that will be hotly disputed by many and, I daresay, with good reason. Everything is relative and it all depends on how you compare the hospitals of today with those of yesteryear. Much will also revolve on your role as you enter the portals of a large ‘multispecialty hospital,’ as they are somewhat fancifully called. By which, I mean are you there in the capacity of a patient or just a carefree, or careworn, visitor keeping company and providing moral support to a close friend or relative who needs to be examined on some medical issue, emergency or the other? If it is the former, then you are not going to be idly reflecting on the hospital’s interior décor, the de rigueur avant-garde Lord Ganesh statue at an alcove in the spacious, Italian marble tiled lobby, with passers-by paying casual obeisance to the elephant god, the franchised branded cafes dotting the place and similar impressive accoutrements. Had my opening sentence employed the word ‘fancier’ in place of ‘nicer’ it is probable that the disagreement would have been muted. At times some of these grand medical establishments could be mistaken for a major airport. In one hospital, I did not misread a large sign outside a spacious, well-appointed, glassed chamber that read ‘International Lounge’ – cross my heart and hope to die! Not an appropriate phrase while discussing hospitals, but still.

If, on the other hand, you are being wheeled in as a patient for a consult, thoughts of contemporary artefacts, business class lounges and eating joints will be the last thing on your mind. Notwithstanding the benign and benevolent presence of Lord Ganesh or for that matter, Holy Mary Mother of God. Dark thoughts of the possibility of blood tests, CT scans, MRIs, being ‘persuaded’ to be a resident guest at the hospital for a few days (‘do I have medical insurance?’) and generally being poked around your frail body by a series of doctors, nurses and temps, fill your thoughts. Am I going to be under the surgical knife? ‘Scalpel.’ I binge on medical thrillers. More than the verdict to be passed on the diagnosis and the likely procedures and post-op biopsies that must inevitably follow, the daily bills being racked up prey on you in a manner consistent with some deadly virus that could be gnawing away at your vitals. Wiser heads than mine have often expressed the view that the treatment is often worse than the affliction.

I have also never been able to understand why a bevy of medicos, after examining the patient, insist on standing around close to him and carrying on endlessly about the intricacies of his situation. They do it well within earshot of the patient, in loud-enough stage whispers that come through clear as a bell. Perhaps they imagine stone-deafness is a natural corollary to any illness you may be down with. Psst, psst, they go whispering to one another. ‘I think a full body scan is in order,’ declares the senior doctor. ‘For the moment should we rule out malignancy?’ asks a bright young intern. ‘You could, but I will keep my options open until a full-scale endoscopy and colonoscopy is conducted,’ replies the senior doctor. By now, the patient genuinely cannot hear anything because he has fainted out of sheer fright.

Then again, I am just being needlessly alarmist. If it is your fate that you find yourself lying on a hospital bed, pencilled in to undergo a battery of tests and procedures, you may as well lie back and enjoy it. In any case, they will pump you with sedatives so that everything will just seem like a hazy, pleasant dream. Much will also depend on the kind of doctor or surgeon who has been detailed to take you under his tender, loving care. Once you have come out of the ether, after the surgery, with a standard ‘Where am I?’ you will be made an almighty fuss over by your near and dear ones. The doctor who conducted whatever procedure it was you had to undergo is likely to say something like, ‘You were wonderful Sir, wish we had more patients like you.’ There’s another inane statement for you. As if you had any control over what your completely inert body did or didn’t do while they were doing whatever it was they were doing and finally stitching you up. Still, you give the doctor a weak smile, ask for your mobile phone and thank him brokenly.

After keeping you in the hospital for a few more days for observation and recovery, surrounded by bouquets of flowers and get-well cards and selfies being taken to be instantly transmitted worldwide, you are finally given the green signal to be wheeled away to your home, sweet home, but not before hanging around for another three hours for the billing and settling of accounts to be completed. By now you are strong enough to ask your near and dear ones what the damage was. The answer is a curt, ‘Don’t ask.’ You console the family members (and yourself) by reminding them that the insurance chaps will cough up, but we all know that the paper work and procedure for that to happen will be another steep climb, even if you were on the ‘cashless’ system. Talk about pulling teeth.

Modern day cliches like ‘age is only a number,’ ‘you are only as old as you feel,’ ‘yesterday’s 40 is today’s 60’ and so on are repeated ad nauseum to make us all feel better. I think that’s a lot of hogwash. In many traditional societies in our country, crossing the age of 60 calls for special celebrations, rituals and the day is treated with the same unctuous religiosity as a ceremonial wedding. Which was all very well several decades ago, when people retired at the age of 60 or even 58, and were made to feel they should put their feet up and contemplate the infinite, as they were barely a shout out from joining their maker. Nowadays, social media is full of one-minute clips showing 90-year-old men and women doing press ups and running the half-marathon and looking none the worse for it; even if you discount much of it as AI generated. Crossing 100 years has become passé. Virtually every family has a centurion or two, and if they served the government during their lifetimes, their pension doubles! Lucky old sods.

As I conclude this contemplation on hospitals and doctors, I cannot help but hark back to the days of one’s childhood, when your friendly family doctor resided just round the corner from where you lived. And he was not averse to making house calls if the situation warranted. His method was unfailingly the same whether you complained of a stomach ache, chest congestion, raging fever, streptococcal infection or an ingrowing toenail. ‘Stick your tongue out, aaaah!’ he would intone. Followed by a perfunctory placing of his stethoscope at different points in your chest and back. ‘Deep breaths.’ Finally, the thermometer under your tongue or armpit (according to preference), which he would then peer at speculatively, look mildly concerned and without saying anything (and you didn’t dare ask), would write out a prescription, the contents of which only he, his compounder and God could decipher. The compounder will do his stuff in an adjoining, stuffy room and hand over a bottle of pinkish liquid with a serrated paper strip stuck on to indicate the dosage levels. It tasted like something out of the devil’s workshop but in three days, you were up and about, right as rain, humming Satchmo’s What a Wonderful World. Incidentally, I always felt it was extremely stupid to be threatened by our elders with ‘the doctor’s injection’ when we refused to eat our greens.

I recall a memorable snippet from Britain’s much-loved comedian of yesteryear Tony Hancock, whose unforgettable episode The Blood Donor, features this brief exchange, inter alia, between Hancock and a fellow patient at a hospital. To his companion’s appreciative comment about doctors, ‘What will we do without doctors, eh?’ Hancock provides this tart response, ‘Or conversely, what will they do without us?’ How true!

I have just returned from Chennai, having partaken heartily of the food of love, namely music; in common parlance, the December music season. Not just any old music, but the unfiltered, unadulterated pure offering provided by the doughty purveyors of Carnatic music, one of south India’s many gifts to the world of arts and culture. I have been doing this for over 25 years, year on year, without a break, leaving out the Covid years. I have, on many occasions, put down my thoughts on the various aspects of Chennai’s music season and it would be safe to assume that I have pretty much shot my bolt. Enough said. Then I said to myself, hang on, there must be something one can write about that has not been covered with a single-minded focus. That is when the metaphoric bulb inside my head came alight.

 A Japanese Zen Buddhist monk once asked, ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping?’ The question is rhetorical. Do not attempt to answer it. More to the point, how do we express our appreciation to these persevering musicians who slave day and night to bring us elevation and entertainment? We put our hands together and applaud. That is what we do. Nowadays, the more popular artistes are even showered with appreciative cat calls and wolf whistles, but we will put that to one side. I shall focus my essay and attempt to shine a light on ‘The Applause.’ In doing so, let me deconstruct this traditional show of approbation into different categories, since it is not merely a simple matter of clapping hands.

The spontaneous eruption. The singer has just completed a monumental exposition of Kalyani, exploring every nook and crevice of the raga, traversing up and down the scale leaving no stone unturned and no avenue unexplored. The audience sits in stunned silence and as the artist finally lands on home soil, the members in the auditorium rise as one, the applause never seeming to end. This does not happen all that often, which is understandable since a performance of such outstanding calibre is as rare as hen’s teeth. But when it does, it can bring the roof down.

The apologetic applause. For some reason, irrespective of the quality of the performance, the audience has been hardwired over the years into believing that we must put our hands together, never mind if the artist’s effort was demonstrably undeserving of an applause. When a song has been completed perfunctorily, the audience feels it is incumbent upon it to display some kind of gesture. Just to show that there is no ill feeling. This results in a deeply embarrassing and hesitant, underwhelming clapping by a handful, while the singer or the instrumentalist wishes the stage under him would swallow him or her up.

The impromptu applause. Some artists, without meaning to do so, can draw applause right in the middle of an exposition. This could happen when the singer goes all the way up to the highest register on a 7-note scale and stays there for a while. Or when a rapid-fire swara or scalar improvisation threatens to shake hell’s foundations before the violinist and percussionists all join hands with the singer to end the fireworks and drink in the rapturous applause while patting each other on the back on stage. A bit of self-congratulation never hurt anybody.

Applauding on length. This is an interesting one. When an artist essays an alapana and / or a kriti and finishes the whole thing off in double quick time, the audience feels short-changed and fails to show its appreciation. It might have been a brilliant rendition, but the length was too short. The effort was not worth the candle. It did not work up the required head of steam to forcibly extract an applause. The other side of the coin is when the musician goes on endlessly, often in adagio molto (very slow), boringly repeating phrase after phrase and finally, when the audience has virtually given up the ghost, decides to put them out of their misery, the congregation cheers and applauds enthusiastically like the reverberating clap of thunder. More out of relief that the agony has ended than anything else, but try telling that to the performer.

End of concert applause. If you are still sitting at the venue till the final curtain comes down and the traditional Mangalam has been rendered, you have no option but to stretch your hands and legs and give the performers on stage your show of gratitude by applauding. That is the very least you can do, even if you are the last man standing. Never mind if the other 20 or 30 stragglers are rapidly rushing out to catch an auto or a call taxi.

The art of applauding at a western classical concert. If you are a connoisseur of western classical music and particularly if you are not, you will quickly learn that there is a time to applaud and a time not to applaud. They are very particular about this. Take, to provide an example at random, that you are attending a recital of Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony at the Royal Albert Hall in London. All very prim and proper. This monumental orchestral masterpiece has four movements, a standard structure of classical symphonies. Opening with the stentorian Allegro con brio, followed by the Andante con moto, then a fast Scherzo and closing out with the grand Finale. In case you are wondering, I got all that from my precious vinyl record album sleeve notes!

An English friend of mine advised me to applaud only after I see the others in the audience do the same. The thing is, when the first, second, third or fourth movement is over, you instinctively feel an applause is due. It is a typical Indian impulse. This can be deeply embarrassing as the rest of those around you, who are more attuned to the idiosyncrasies of attending a western classical music performance, wonder which planet you descended from. You can only applaud when all the four movements have been completed and Zubin Mehta genuflects to take a bow. I have always felt this practice to be quite illogical and that you should be allowed to cheer as and when the mood takes you. Just as we do here in India. Which is why I was delighted when I attended one such classical concert some years ago in Mumbai, when a large group of the uninitiated was present. They kept clapping loudly whenever they felt moved to do so, and they couldn’t give a damn about all the stiff-upper-lips glaring down at them. I turned round and whispered to one of the puzzled foreigners seated next to me, ‘When in India, do as the Indians do.’

As the late irresistible and irascible writer Khushwant Singh once said, ‘There is no wine in the world as heady as applause; and it has the same effect. It temporarily subdues anxiety and restores confidence.’

---

Deccan Chronicle January 12, 2026.

                     

---

 

I am not quite sure when people started opening their sentences with the words ‘like’ or ‘so.’ I rather suspect this unfortunate habit is of a recent vintage, and largely confined to the younger set, by which I probably mean those around the age of 40 or younger. Applying the irrefutable logic of numbers, you would doubtless have deduced that people around the age of 40 years, give or take, are prey to this deplorable practice of indiscriminately strewing ‘like’ and ‘so’ about like so much Christmas confetti. This infection has also caught on among many older men and women, who ought to know better. Perhaps this mode of conversation is considered fashionable, the new small talk. Possibly I am not seeing the wood for the trees. While the phenomenon can be seen in most parts of the English-speaking world, it is particularly evident in India. To illustrate, let me provide a few examples of conversations I have had with people of varying age groups during the past few years.

I ran into a college student at a book fair, a teenage girl who might have just qualified to get a driving license. We were browsing at a well-stocked book stall, and I watched her closely as she picked up Mother Mary Comes to Me, the runaway best-seller by the redoubtable Arundhati Roy. In a spirit of camaraderie and good fellowship towards another book lover I remarked, ‘You are a fan, then? Of Ms. Roy’s works, I mean. Have you also read her The God of Small Things?’ She looked at me a wee bit suspiciously, then noting my silver-grey, correction snow-white mop of hair, she appeared reassured that I was not flirting and proceeded to respond. ‘Like, I don’t know uncle.’ That uncle thing put the lid on it. She continued. ‘So, like I was saying, everybody was talking about this book like. Like I have not read her books before. So.’ A strong finish to a diabolical sentence!

Fair enough. She had made her point. I also asked her if the book title reminded her of a very popular song title. She thought hard, screwed up her eyes tightly and drew a blank. ‘Like I am not sure uncle. Like it’s something to do with Mary, yeah? Mary, Mary…’

‘Yeah, and nah, not quite contrary’ I butted in, getting into the spirit of things. ‘The Beatles, Let it Be.’ She looked at me vacantly. Clearly the swinging 60s meant nothing to her. I took courage and, sotto voce, sang the first few bars of the lyrics to her. When I find myself in times of trouble / Mother Mary comes to me / Speaking words of wisdom / Let it be. This time the girl did look alarmed, put the book back in its socket and was off in a flaming blur. She was blameless. Any young girl would have headed for the hills had a man of my age broken into song without so much as a by your leave. Some of the onlookers and even a couple of the sales staff at the stall came rushing to see if anything was amiss. Accusatory stares all round but I gutsed it out. ‘I was only singing Let it Be under my breath’ I said and handed them a copy of The Collected Works of J.D. Salinger (containing four of his most celebrated books). ‘Kindly raise a bill for this.’ That neatly took care of the stares.

More’s the pity. I could not get to the lovely Paul McCartney chorus, which basically involved repeating Let it Be half a dozen times and the other browsers could have joined in for the singalong. I apologise to the author if I deprived her of royalties for one more copy of the book that has probably already sold a million copies worldwide. Arundhati Roy is not exactly breaking into a sweat over where her next meal is coming from. Later that afternoon, I came across that girl again. Before she could swiftly turn tail, I expressed my regret and said something like, ‘So, I am so sorry. I used to sing quite well in my younger days. Like I was an A singer in school. Now my voice has gone to kingdom come. Please go back and buy the book. She writes well. An understatement. Your English will improve. You will not scatter so many likes and sos in conversation.’ She looked somewhat mollified, ‘Thank you, uncle. I will think about it.’ She was already getting better. No like or so in that last, albeit short, couple of sentences. You might have observed that I too dropped a so and a like when I addressed her, just to show there’s no ill feeling.

I now move on to the dreaded double negative in speech. That two negatives make a positive is not just a well-known adage, but one that the world of mathematics and science has battened down as an immutable principle. By inference this applies equally when we converse with one another. Forget about young students who may still be learning the ropes on the finer aspects of grammar. Television anchors and panellists in India, may their tribe decrease, think nothing of blissfully employing the double negative, thus indicating precisely the opposite of what they meant to convey. One prominent news anchor proclaimed loudly to a panellist, ‘I will not invite you to my programme till you don’t learn to be polite.’ The panellist in turn was not found wanting as he shot back with a, ‘Never mind, I will never come to your show till you don’t respect my leader.’ An Indian cricketing icon once said, ‘Till you don’t take catches, you cannot win matches.’ I think you get the drift, dear reader.

A quick aside. A linguistics professor once said that while in English, a double negative signalled a positive, in the Russian lingo, a double negative remains a negative. Under the circumstances, if Donald Trump, on requesting Vladimir Putin to stop raining bombs on Ukraine is met with a ‘nyet, nyet’ it simply means Putin will continue to bring grief to Zelenskyy, and might add in Russian, ‘Till they don’t give up Donbas and Odessa, I won’t stop dropping the bombs.’

There are exceptions. Exceptions that only prove the rule. Americans have patented the double negative to establish the positive. ‘I ain’t got no friends’ means the person has no friends and not the other way round, as it ought to mean, strictly speaking. Pop groups, irrespective of the country they hail from, have long since accepted the American way as the norm. At least, when they sing. Pink Floyd, the British supergroup, made millions by crooning, We don’t need no education. As did the Rolling Stones, equally British, with I can’t get no satisfaction. I suppose ‘we don’t need any education’ or ‘I can’t get any satisfaction’ would have sounded too unfashionable and plebian. Perhaps they had a syntactic issue to go with the lyrics and music. We can only surmise. Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady said it best, ‘There even are places where English completely disappears. Why, in America they haven’t used it for years.’

Lest I be viewed as a prig, I hasten to add that I am merely observing subtle shifts in the varying ways in which we speak English. It is not to be viewed as trenchant criticism. I say it as I see and hear it. In the event, I have only skimmed the surface. There are many layers to this subject worthy of a doctoral thesis. In the words of former American comedian Al Jolson, ‘You ain’t heard nothing yet,’ a ringing slogan the late U.S President Ronald Reagan used to good effect at the hustings, except he slightly changed the line to ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.’

Postscript: Apropos nothing, recent events of great import on the international stage put me in mind of a calypso that Harry Belafonte regaled us with back in the day. You can join me in the chorus it if you know it. Ma-til-da, Ma-til-da, Ma-til-da she take me money and run Venezuela. Rumours that Venezuelans are singing this song on the streets of Caracas, replacing Matilda with some powerful American names, will bear verification.

          

I was at the Bangalore Lit Fest last week. Ever since I moved from Calcutta to Bangalore some years ago, I have been meaning to attend the BLF, to accord the festival its popular acronym. However, something or the other arrived to militate against my putting in an appearance. I reckoned that I was the poorer for it. As one who is never happier than when curled up with a Wodehouse on my umpteenth reading or the impressive offerings of the Amis father and son duo, Kingsley and Martin, or indeed, any of the great contributors and editors of the now defunct Punch magazine, I sorely missed the Fest. Even if I was not sorely missed by anyone.  I decided to make amends this year and registered my name online to indicate my eagerness to attend. Not that anyone checked. I just breezed in and there I was, surrounded by bookworms, bravely shouldering my way through a throng of eager beavers soaking in the heady atmosphere of intellect and erudition.

Wonderful thing, reading. And books. Which puts me in mind of one of Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson’s (The Finkler Question) columns where he had recommended the following succinct slogan for World Book Day: “‘Read, read, you little bastards,’ the exhortation to be delivered by a masked flagellator sent to every school in the land. A proposal the organisers rejected, presumably on the grounds that ‘little bastards’ contains too many syllables for the little bastards to read.”

During my days in Calcutta, winter gatherings of book lovers did not carry the impressive, some might even say pretentious, title of a literary festival. Plain and simple, it was just known as the Calcutta Book Fair. The exhibition, for that was what it was when you got right down to it, consisted of a plethora of book stalls, telescoping into each other, vying for space and attention. Publishers, famous and modest, advertised their presence and impressive titles on view in the local newspapers. It goes without saying that there were food stalls aplenty (‘the phees phry coated with mustard is to die for’), and cotton candy vendors dotting the grounds attracting children and parents alike. Not to mention the almost statutory Ferris wheel to keep the kids in good humour. It was a fair after all.

 In a separate enclosure, someone quite well known will present a talk on Rabindranath Tagore or dwell at length on Shelley’s influence on Bengali poetry and literature. It was an elevating day out for the family, students and the local intelligentsia, of which there was no dearth in our City of Joy. Boys were there to impress the girls (‘Have you read Salinger’s Franny and Zooey? You haven’t? Eeesh!). The girls were not found wanting with their tart response either (‘And have you even heard of Kafka’s Amerika, and don’t keep showing off about The Metamorphosis. We have all read it.’) And so the long day wears on as the mermaids sang each to each over several cups of tea and T.S. Eliot. ‘Hurry up please, it’s time.’

Pardon me if I droned on a bit about the Calcutta Book Fair, but to me it was an interesting counterpoint to what I witnessed at the Bangalore Lit Fest. First off, I must express more than a smidgen of sympathy for the organisers of the Fest as they were done in by the now infamous Indigo imbroglio resulting in quite a few prominent no-shows. That said, Shashi Tharoor made it as advertised and greatly anticipated. Hurrah, all is well! I will come to Tharoor in a bit. Bangalore based, much-admired historian Ramachandra Guha was spotted flitting about in a hurry (perhaps avoiding selfie hunters) while his budding author scion, Keshava held court with aplomb at a couple of the panel discussions. More celebrity spotting was to be there for the taking in the forms of International Booker Banu Mushtaq, Sudha Murthy, Vir Das and Pallavi Aiyar, to name just a handful off the top of my head. There were many more, in spite of Indigo’s shenanigans. Given the largely open environment, one was grateful that the fickle rain gods stayed away.

A word about the venue. What was once a prison has now been converted, with not a little imagination by the powers-that-be into a huge venue for all manner of gatherings – cultural and political. Organised protests also find a welcoming space here. Formerly the Central Jail, it is now called, appropriately, Freedom Park. Famous political leaders have done time here behind bars. Spread over a sprawling 21-acre land space Freedom Park, even without any event happening, is worth the trek for its curiosity value alone. With its imposing Central Watch Tower, Cell Blocks, Gallows and Sculpted Prisoners among other attractions, any student of history can spend an instructive afternoon in what is nothing less than a historic museum.

In the event, the organisers of the BLF should be commended for using intimate, and understandably constricted, prison spaces cunningly to organise panel discussions amongst authors and moderators. Wide open spaces were devoted to erecting large covered shamianas and a stage to conduct similar events. These spaces were used simultaneously to provide the general public with a packed feast of programmes. So much so that at times many visitors were found frantically poring through the supplied brochures to figure out which event they ought to be attending. As mentioned earlier, it didn’t help that some of the star speakers could not make it to Bangalore.

The food courts, to coin a term, were full to brimming. At one point, not finding room at any of the panel discussions and feeling peckish, I sauntered towards the eating joints, not knowing exactly where they were located. Spotting a group of young men and women in animated discussion, I asked them where the cafes or canteens were. They asked me to stay put exactly where I was as that is where the interminable queue ends. Moving at a swift snail’s pace, I guessed it would take me at least another hour to buy coupons and stand in another line to get my egg roll and Coke, if they had not been sold out by then. Happily, I found a friend holding two veg sandwiches walking by. To stop him and grab one of the sandwiches was with me the work of a moment. He was that kind of friend. At least, I wouldn’t collapse in a heap for some while.

Time to get to the climactic part of the evening. Shashi Tharoor in the spotlight, topping the bill. Hordes of men, women, boys and girls were seen rushing and descending on the venue like the ancient Assyrian, collectively coming down like the wolf on the fold. If the boffins at the BLF, troubled by the Indigo setback and consequent loss of important speakers, needed a celebrity to get the pulses racing, the politico cum writer cum eloquent orator, he of the dulcet tones was just the man they needed. As the gloaming set in on Freedom Park, the Shashi Tharoor show commenced. I am in no position to share with you details of what must have been a riveting finale. I could not see or hear a thing. Standing room only, miles from the proceedings. Rubberneckers stood on tip-toe well outside the packed venue to get a peek at the personable Congressman. Just as well Arundhati Roy or Vikram Seth was not there, else bedlam would have ensued. I wished the rubberneckers well and made hasty tracks towards the parking lot.

One concluding observation on the BLF. Almost every panel discussion ended with an invitation to the stalls where the books of the authors were displayed. Orderly queues were formed as visitors, having presented their mobile phone face to the ubiquitous QR Code, clutched their books and waited avidly for the author to autograph the flyleaf of the book and perhaps, agree to a selfie for good measure. This has now become standard practice, an integral part of book fairs, or lit fests as they have been upgraded to. Let us face it. Authors must put food on the table as well, and every little bit added to what they have already got makes just that bit more. That said, Lit Fests are now part and parcel of India’s cultural and literary landscape. Every important city has one. The downside of all this excess dabbling in book releases (can there ever be too much?) is that it can inevitably breed mediocrity. More can be less. The brilliant polemicist, the late Christopher Hitchens did not mince words on the subject. ‘Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.’

Finis.

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot / And a big yellow taxi took away my old man. Joni Mitchell.

No one hails a taxi anymore. Shades of coming out of a cinema or concert hall, standing on the edge of a pavement and waving your hand frantically yelling ‘Taxi’ as another one whizzes past without bothering to stop. Those days are gone. Maybe the yellow cabs are still plying in good, old Calcutta, where I used to semaphore at taxi cabs frequently with little success. Calcutta takes its own time coming to grips with the dial-a-cab online generation and bully for it, say I. What you see in many cities, for the most part, is people milling around street corners, glued to their mobile phones, trying to call up one of a myriad number of cab hire services, whose vehicles are moving along at a leisurely pace or parked somewhere in the vicinity. You can even track them squiggling along on your mobile GPS. When the vehicle does arrive somewhere close, you and a dozen others rush to peer at the number plate to see if it is the cab you had booked. It can get quite frantic.

Nevertheless, once you are safely and comfortably ensconced in the back seat, or in the front if other members of the family are bringing up the rear, you can begin to strike up a conversation with the driver. As a rule, most drivers are not averse to a spot of chit-chat, particularly if the drive promises to be long with plenty of traffic jams along the way. Some of the drivers can be painfully garrulous. There are some drivers who are reticent and prefer to keep their own counsel. Which is fine so long as they are well-versed in the local topography, possess more than a rudimentary idea of where the short cuts are, not to mention the uncanny ability to avoid most of the one-way thoroughfares.

Incidentally, you want to be wary of the silent, brooding type of driver, probably nursing a secret grudge or sorrow. It could be the onset of manic depression. If you are still not with me, watch Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver on OTT. Spoiler alert: it is not for the faint hearted.

Then comes the interesting but not insurmountable challenge of which language to employ while conversing with the driver. If you take cities like, Delhi, Chennai or Calcutta, you can be reasonably sure that Hindi, Tamil or Bengali respectively will be the preferred tongue of choice though most of them can speak at least one other language. In Bangalore, where I live, a linguistic melting pot where people from all over the country converge looking for employment, the name of the driver alone does not definitively signify his mother tongue. A Venkat or a Raju can hail from any of the four (now five) southern states. Ditto a Joseph, a Karim or a Bashir. They could all be migrant itinerants from anywhere in a country like India where the peripatetic job-seeker is the rule rather than the exception.

A cheerful driver enlivens the drive and keeps you in good spirits. While such a one is unfailingly polite, he will not fight shy of letting his window down and discharging a volley of colourful oaths if a neighbouring car or two-wheeler attempted to cut across dangerously in front of him. Having got the invective in the chosen vernacular off his chest, he will roll up his window and profusely apologise for his intemperate language, particularly if there are ladies present in the car. ‘Sorry Sir, Madam, but that fellow was breaking traffic rules and might have caused an accident. This is the only language these fellows understand.’ The fact that we did not catch the return volley of abuse from his target was just as well. It is a well-founded truism that when it comes to road rage, the other fellow is always at fault.

Allow me to get a quick word in on car horns. I doubt if there is another country in the world where horns are employed so persistently and indiscriminately as in our own motherland. Most drivers have one palm semi-permanently placed on the horn. The resultant din is calculated to break all sound barrier laws, which in any case are observed strictly in the breach. For crying out loud, what do our drivers hope to achieve by blaring away at a large family of bovine creatures dreamily chewing cud and blocking the road? This is Bharat. Learn to live with it.

Matters don’t always have to be tense. On one occasion, I got talking cricket with one of my drivers. Always a safe subject to open a conversation with just about anyone in India, cabbies being no exception. ‘Tell me Raju (or it might have been Bashir), you must be a T20 fan. I am sure you have no time for the long-format, Test matches.’ Bashir (or Joseph) surprised me with his prompt response. ‘Sir, this T20 is masala cricket, just hitting every ball for six or four. No skill involved. I pity the bowlers who get to bowl only four overs and get slammed all over the park. Give me Test cricket any day. Five days of thinking, strategizing, two innings and the winner would have truly deserved it. Even a draw can be very exciting at times. Test match for me, Sir.’ I am, of course, translating and paraphrasing Venkat’s (or Karim’s) views loosely, but his mature and sophisticated take on the game took me by surprise. I felt abashed at thinking the less of him.

If it is election time, which is pretty much all the year round in India, who better than the all-knowing taxi driver to give us his seat-of-the-pants prediction on the likely results. With his uncanny pulse on current affairs, his predictions are usually right on the money! I will take his word against any jumped-up television psephologist.

Some drivers have the annoying habit of keeping the car’s music system on while driving, without so much as a by your leave. Whether the passenger is interested in the latest hits from Bollywood, Tollywood or Kollywood is of scant concern to them. One feels awkward to request them to shut the damn thing off, but needs must. You fish out your mobile and dial no one in particular, but it is enough of a broad hint to instruct the driver to stop Lata Mangeshkar’s high-pitched soprano or Kishore Kumar’s yodelling in mid-stride. After that, the driver himself is hesitant to turn the music on and you can then sit back in peace. One feels sorry to have to deprive the poor chap of his small joys, but there is a time for Lata or Kishore. A passenger at the back wrestling with his thoughts is not the right time.

Then your driver gets a call from home. He has to take it. He plugs in his ear piece. He looks at his passenger apologetically to indicate it’s his wife and he can cut the call only at his own peril. The next five or six minutes go by in listening to his better half and being at pains to explain to the apple of his eye that he cannot pick up the kids from school nor can he pick up the chicken biryani on the way home and could she rustle up something in the kitchen. At which point he removes the ear piece and holds it well away from his left ear as the good wife’s screams can be heard loud and clear. One’s heart goes out to the poor chap.

Oftentimes you call for the same driver multiple times because you have got to know him and he is familiar with all your usual haunts. GPS not required. At a pinch, he will even take your pet pooch out for walkies. By now the driver is almost a friend, if not quite a bosom pal and you encourage this association, unaware of a looming threat. Finally, it happens. He touches you for a not insubstantial loan. Sob story coming up. His father is going in for a bypass surgery. Tears well up in his eyes. He has managed to mop up most of the money but is short of 25k. By now you are choking up as well for your dear taxi driver friend and proceed to cough up the dough. He thanks you brokenly and promises the loan will be repaid with interest inside three months. You wave your hand grandly and waive the interest. You feel good about yourself for having done a noble deed. Dear reader, you know how this story ends. It ends badly. No sign of the blighter thereafter. Does not respond to your calls, probably changed his sim card. Bye, bye, 25k. Bypass surgery, eh? Pull the other one. Ah well, as P.T. Barnum famously said, ‘There’s a sucker born every minute.’

Shakespeare, through his character Polonius in Hamlet, has this to say about treating friends: Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried / Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel. If Shakespeare had been aware of them during his time, he would have made an exception and drawn the line at taxi drivers. Not all taxi drivers are devious, I grant you, but some of them are. If you are not on your guard, they can take you for a ride.

An allegory

It has been widely rumoured that the two chief honchos who carry the enormous burden of running one of our country’s most important and prosperous states, let us dub them Number 1 and Number 2, have had differences to iron out and scores to settle. As a common citizen, I am not privy to the precise nature of this alleged contretemps, though Chinese whispers suggest that it has something to do with an unwritten, unverified understanding that Number 1 will graciously make way for Number 2 to acquire the numero uno slot during their term of office. Being Chinese in origin, the veracity of the whispers will bear close scrutiny. That said, the present incumbent of the Number 1 chair has made it plain he has no intention of vacating it for the benefit of Number 2. Wild horses will not shake his resolve and unseat him. His seat is coated with Araldite. Is Number 2 sulking? The photos in the newspapers suggest that his smile is somewhat strained, but he insists we should not read too much into it.

On persistent questioning by the inquisitive and intrusive media, each of the two Big Chiefs has repeatedly said that it is the coterie at the High Command that they will answer to and on their instructions alone will movement, if any, take place. All this while proclaiming undying fealty to their party. Persistent gossip that one or the other of the two is imminently catching a flight to the country’s Capital have thus far proved infructuous. Of course, it is entirely possible that the notoriously inclement weather at this time of the year around the environs of the Capital has made flying at short notice a hazardous proposition, particularly if Indigo was the carrier of choice. The all-knowing media reckons that that explanation is somewhat facile and that there is more to this imbroglio than meets the eye. It must be added that the high-profile visit of the Russian President to New Delhi could have been a further dampener to lesser mortals flying into the capital to address their own agendas.

Meanwhile, the august members of the High Command have expressed their wish that the two chief protagonists running this critical state should sit down and sort out their own issues and not attempt to run to Mummy and her brood at every turn with a request to pour oil over troubled waters. If indeed the waters are troubled requiring the injection of some elbow grease. Mummy can do without cry-babies. She has problems of her own to grapple with when leaders with genuine ability are thin on the ground. We ordinary citizens are in the dark on this matter, relying entirely on unreliable media sources for enlightenment.

Subsequently, it has come to light that Number 1 and Number 2 have decided to have a series of breakfast meetings to iron out their differences, discuss weighty matters of state in pitiless detail and not put undue pressure on their bosses to intervene. This could also effectively squash any creeping aspirations of sundry, wannabe bit players, waiting in the wings to try and step in and usurp power when the Captain and Vice-Captain have taken their collective eye off the ball. One can never be too careful in politics, what with all manner of inquiries swirling round their heads.

These breakfast tête-à-têtes have consequently assumed immense importance and the much-reviled media, the chattering classes and the general populace are waiting with bated breath. Shades of historical international summits such as the Yalta Conference in 1945 starring Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin to put the kybosh on Hitler’s ambitions for world domination. They too must have had quite a few hearty breakfasts, not to mention long, liquid lunches and dinners. The lavish conference halls at this beautiful Crimean resort were, doubtless, redolent of Romeo y Julieta and Trichinopoly cigars, to say nothing of the finest cognac money can buy.

Anyhow, not to put too fine a point on it, our very own Number 1 and Number 2, more modestly inclined, agreed that desi breakfast was the way to go, and let Delhi or the devil take the hindmost. As these meetings were to be held in the strictest confidence, no one was allowed to be present in the dining hall of either of the two leaders, during the petit-déjeuners, barring the statutory photo-ops for the media. Lensmen had their fill of the VIPs drooling over the impending repast and had to scram immediately thereafter, leaving the leaders to tuck in. Taking no chances, stone-deaf waiters  were recruited to attend to the gastronomical needs of the leaders. A cunning, fool-proof plan.

One therefore had little choice but to rely on our old friend Fred the Fly, sitting unobtrusively on the table, largely unnoticed, pricking up his ears and picking up on the conversation. An added bonus for our household fly (Musca domestica) was that every now and then he could alight on one of the toothsome dishes and partake to his little heart’s desire. If he is swatted away, he could land on the broad shoulders of one of the two main heroes at the table. Fred attended as many as four such breakfast summits and finally shared his findings with the media. The details may be somewhat sketchy, but finally, we had our very own Deep Throat – Fred the Fly.

The local daily correspondent opened proceedings. ‘Fred, can you tell us how the meeting went?’

Fred smacked his lips, fluttered his little wings and said, ‘It went swell. It started with a plate of steaming idlis, accompanied by coconut chutney and piping hot, onion sambar.’

A stringer piped in. ‘That’s great Fred, but what did they actually say to each other?’

Fred leaned back on his black wings. ‘As this meal was at Number 2’s residence, Number 1 was gracious. He praised his colleague for keeping a good table. Adding that the idlis were really soft and fluffy but the sambar could have done with a bit more salt.’

‘And what happened next, Fred? I have to file this important story in an hour’s time. Please spill the beans.’

‘Ah, beans rings a bell,’ cut in Fred. ‘The beans poriyal, an unusual item for breakfast, went down a treat. It paired well with the next item on the menu, the rava masala dosa. Yum, yum. I was really buzzing.’

A young lady from one of the leading TV channels was getting impatient. ‘That is great to know Fred, but really, what did Number 1 say to Number 2 about vacating his seat?’

‘There was no question of vacating seats. Both of them were perfectly happy sitting where they were, expectantly waiting for the piece de resistance, the native country chicken dish, Nati Koli, though No.1 did mutter something about the leg-piece being a bit tough. Boy, did they attack that with gusto! I managed to find a greasy morsel on No.2’s hand-woven gamcha. Lip-smacking!’

An elderly correspondent from a leading local daily was beside himself. ‘Arre Freddie, are you going to give us some real news or what? All you have managed is to whet my appetite. At least, ask them to share some of the breakfast. We are famished.’

Fred smiled. ‘Don’t be so impatient, Sir. I haven’t even started on the dessert. Kesari halwa, with some outstanding Mysore filter coffee to die for, served in silver tumblers, to wash it all down. These things take time, Sir. As for sharing some breakfast with you lot, let me see if there are any leftovers.’

At this point, the press meet broke up, feeling badly let down, while Fred the Fly winged his way back to the dining room to attack the remains of the day. The two leaders had left to attend to matters of state after this hearty feast. Whether there was a feast of reason and flow of soul, we are not in the know. In the distance, Fred the Fly could distinctly hear the satisfied belches of the two leaders.

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I quite enjoy picking up a conversation with complete strangers. This could happen just about anywhere. Mind you, not every stranger you broach is likely to return the compliment, but you press on regardless. If your target, if that is the word I want, is reticent you take the hint and try your luck elsewhere. If you don’t take the hint and pursue, on your head be it. The waiting room at a doctor’s or a dentist’s chamber is usually an excellent place to get fraternal. A typical scenario can go something like this.

The man sitting next to me was absorbed in a paperback. I peered at the cover and took first strike.

‘Good morning, nice book you’re reading. P.D. James. Big fan. Big, big fan. One of my favourite fictional detectives, Adam Dalgliesh.’ That was a good opening, I thought.

‘Yes, I am reading it, and would like to continue reading it without being interrupted. If you don’t mind.’ I thought I detected an incipient frost in the gentleman’s response. Rather than reading the signal, I persisted.

‘The Black Tower, eh? One of her best and that is saying something. I shan’t spoil it for you and reveal the ending. This much I can tell you. It was not the butler that did it.’ I smiled broadly at my own, time-worn cliché. I was just trying to be convivial. He didn’t see the funny side of it. He got up and pointedly moved to another seat at the far end of the room. I raised my voice and called after him.

‘You must watch the television serial. Roy Marsden is brilliant as Dalgliesh.’ The duty nurse walked up to me and asked me to remain silent. I tried telling her that I was just working off my nervousness, what with the doctor’s consult to discuss the worrying swelling in my throat and trying to be friendly. She repeated her instruction, curtly this time, to keep quiet and not further aggravate my throat condition. I told her to watch Tony Hancock in The Blood Donor. She handed me a very old, dog-eared issue of India Today lying on the table. The cover story was ‘Finance Minister Manmohan Singh presents the Budget.’ That was how old it was!

Another place where you wait for long periods is at the airport departure lounge. Pretty much every single person is fiddling with his or her mobile phone. Even those reading a book are doing so out of their mobile Kindle app. Others are keeping themselves busy watching Tik Tok or taking selfies of themselves and posting the results on Facebook or Instagram. ‘Hi Mom, flight slightly delayed but we should be boarding soon. Love you.’ Accompanied by several red hearts. Mind you, the message could also easily be, ‘Hi Mom, biting into this gooey chocolate doughnut, yum-yum. Love you.’ Accompanied by more red hearts and other indistinguishable emoticons, smileys, memes etc. Such is the intellectual pressure of these video cons that one can barely keep up. On one such occasion, I turned to a teenage girl sitting next to me and asked her how many hours in a day does she spend on her mobile.

‘I am not sure Uncle, let me see.’ She then closed her eyes and went mutter, mutter to herself, presumably calculating her daily routine and declared brightly, ‘If you take out the ten hours of sleep, I could be on the mobile for at least nine hours daily.’

‘Good God, you sleep for ten hours? What about waking up for school or college? Have you heard of Kumbhakarna from the Ramayana? No, of course not. It would have been epic if you had! Go ask Google Gemini.’ My sarcasm escaped her completely.

 ‘Anyhow, you will have to switch off your mobile once we are airborne,’ I concluded with a wry chuckle.

She was equal to it. ‘Uncle, I don’t crash before one in the morning, so I need my beauty sleep, never mind your Kumba whoever he is or was. I am done with college and I work from home, mostly networking. As for being airborne, I will turn my mobile on to flight mode and binge watch Friends. For the nth time. So, it’s all cool.’ She spoke at such a rapid-fire speed that I could have done with subtitles! At which point, I turned on my mobile to check my email and WhatsApp messages. And browse a bit on YouTube. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Incidentally, I felt her employment of the word ‘crash,’ even as a shorthand for ‘sleep’ was unfortunate, seeing as we were about to take off shortly!

Then we have a situation where an almost unknown person at a departmental store approaches you with an uncertain smile. Too late to duck, followed by that old, familiar line. ‘Haven’t we met before?’

‘No, I don’t think so. You must be confusing me with someone else. Sorry, must rush.’ Of course, I knew the blighter. Met him last several years ago somewhere and had no wish to renew acquaintance. A real pain, he tried to interest me in some financial instruments for investment. Eminently avoidable. I then tried to push my trolley past him to reach for a brand of salad dressing, but he wasn’t having any. Stood right in front and wouldn’t budge.

He was persistent, I’ll give him that. ‘Tell you what, why don’t we meet at the coffee shop after you’ve finished here. You will not believe the kind of schemes I have to offer. What say you?’ I was sure it was some Ponzi scheme or the other calculated to erode my meagre savings dramatically while increasing his. Scheming would be a good epithet to describe him.

‘Some other time, if you don’t mind. I have guests coming for dinner and the cook can’t wait. Bye bye.’ Just then, fortuitously, he had to attend to his mobile and I made good my escape to the billing counter. As fast as my legs and my trolley would take me.

The one person you want to avoid at all costs, but almost impossible to shake off is the bore who will talk endlessly regardless of how many times you pointedly glance at your watch anxiously or try to catch the attention of an imaginary friend somewhere in the middle distance. The bore is made of sterner stuff. Not for nothing did Oscar Wilde define this pestilential nuisance thus, ‘A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.’ You can come across such a person almost anywhere. I was sitting next to a young man at my bank waiting for the teller to call my token number. It was a long queue so we struck up a conversation, mostly one-way traffic. I took first strike.

‘Hullo young man, how often do you visit the bank?’ A harmless way to open a civil conversation, you would have thought.

‘What is it to you, old man?’ riposted the cheeky, young thing, removing his iPhone earpiece.

The ‘old man’ nomenclature stung, but I did not let it show. ‘Distinguished grey hair’ is greatly overrated. ‘Nothing, just making friendly conversation, but if you are not in the mood…’

He cut me in mid-sentence. ‘Purleez Uncle, don’t be such a bore. Can’t you see I am on a group chat?’

That was it. I had had my fill of this brat. I could have told him civility costs nothing, but that would have gone clean over his head. I decided to shut up, preserve my dignity and move to another seat. He called me a bore; the unkindest cut of all. I have never been accused of being a bore. The joke was clearly on me. Only I was not laughing. Once you start being addressed as ‘Uncle,’ you know it is a slippery slope. How did that Bee Gees song go? I started a joke which started the whole world crying / But I didn’t see that the joke was on me oh no / I started to cry which started the whole world laughing / Oh If I’d only seen that the joke was on me.

Acta est fabula, plaudite!

‘The only thing you’ve got in this world is what you can sell.’ Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman.

A few decades ago, if you paid a visit to a home with a modicum of house pride, you would unfailingly have found in their bookshelves or ornate glass cupboards, an entire line of leather-bound volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (EB). They would stand tall and proud alongside the Complete Works of Shakespeare, the Bhagavad Gita, The Oxford English Dictionary and possibly jostling alongside, some of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries and for light entertainment, at least half a dozen of P.G. Wodehouse’s best and brightest. The last couple of titles could easily be interchanged with Agatha Christie’s whodunnits and Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason courtroom dramas. Not forgetting the almost de rigueur Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, which were offered at a throwaway price if you were a subscriber to the RD. All of which do not preclude any other favourite of your choice, so long as we bear in mind that the Encyclopaedia Britannica was a must and consequently, irreplaceable.

Now here’s the thing. In my living memory, I do not recall ever having taken out a single volume of the EB series to bone up on the exact dimensions of the tallest mountain peak in the world, the deepest ocean bed, the biggest star in the firmament, the most poisonous, carnivorous plant in the Amazon jungles or for that matter, everybody’s favourite, the tallest and shortest humans ever to set foot on planet earth. The more arcane the information one sought, the more EB became your go-to source, not that one went to it much, if at all. That is just a very small sample of the enormous amounts of minutiae contained in the alphabetically arranged EB, hard bound volumes. Come to think of it, I cannot recall an occasion when my father, a professional banker, slid out one of the tomes to satisfy his curiosity on the question of which was the first bank in the world to go kaput and leave its customers tragically insolvent. The only time these volumes were ever taken out of their shelves, very carefully by my mother, was to blow the accumulated dust off the top of the books, open each volume right in the middle pages and slam them shut with a hefty ‘thwack’ to get rid of more dust. Place them all back diligently in the same order and her work was done. And dusted.

Which leads me to the inescapable conclusion that one displayed impressive volumes like the EB more for show than for any practical use. In our present digital age, this issue is purely academic, as internet searches allow us to discover, in a trice, the precise length of the Trans-Siberian Railway (down to the last decimal point) or the average number of quills to be found on an adult porcupine. Or fretful porpentine, as Shakespeare preferred to describe the prickly mammal. Clearly the Bard of Avon had studied the nervous mental state of the porpentine in some detail. What a man!

We now live in an age where FB rules and the EB is all but extinct, one with the dinosaur and the brontosaurus. If at all they have not been sold to the highest bidder at an antique auction sale, or conversely a ‘raddhiwalla,’ they can only be treated as museum pieces. As I have not visited a museum in ages, I have no means of knowing if the EB is preserved in mothballs at some such habitat. Perhaps I should visit a museum, if only I knew how and where to find one. When I punched in ‘museum’ on my GPS, it guided me to Museum Road in Bangalore which had a number of colleges, churches and commercial establishments. No sign of a museum anywhere. I am sure I will locate one in the near future with some diligent digital search. As to whether I will find a collector’s set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica there or not is a matter of conjecture. Incidentally, Amazon (not the jungle) offers amazing deals on all manner of encyclopaedias, including the Britannica. If you wait long enough, they might offer them free, delivery included, provided you have adequate space in your basement; if you have a basement. No takers reported so far.

When all is said and done, one’s heart goes out to the encyclopaedia salesman of yore. I doubt very much if such a specimen exists anywhere in the world today, but time was when the salesman peddling encyclopaedias was the stuff of legend and song, almost a time-worn cliché. Equally admired by his bosses and colleagues for his indefatigable spirit and courage in travelling around the countryside, knocking on doors in an often-futile effort to sell these voluminous tomes, he was also reviled by housewives who were the salesman’s primary target as he invariably dropped by when the husband was off to work, fearing grievous bodily harm – the salesman that is, not the husband. Selling encyclopaedias was also a favourite subject for lampooning in comic strips in print and on television shows. I recall a sketch from an old Monty Python show, which I have reworked in my own imagination from a sketchy memory, as I cannot recall the exact dialogue. It takes the theme to absurdist lengths, a Monty Python trademark, to make the point.

EB salesman (rings the doorbell and raises his voice) – ‘Good morning, madam.’

Housewife – ‘Who is it?’

EB salesman – ‘A burglar.’

Housewife – ‘A burglar, did you say?’

EB salesman – ‘Yes madam. If you would be so kind as to let me in, I will help myself to some of your valuables and scoot.’

Housewife – ‘How can I be sure you are a burglar? How can I be certain you haven’t come to sell encyclopaedias? I cannot stand the sight of door-to-door salesmen offering encyclopaedias at special discounts.’

EB salesman – ‘Cross my heart and hope to die, madam. I know nothing about encyclopaedias. All I want is to burgle your sweet home.’

Housewife – ‘Well that’s a relief. Why didn’t you say so in the first place? You had better come in then. Can I make you a nice cup of tea? I’ll just put the kettle on and you can help yourself to anything your heart desires. Don’t you have a bag or something to put all the swag in?’

EB salesman (very hesitantly) – ‘Actually madam, I am not a burglar at all. I have been lying through my teeth and you were right. Profuse apologies. Can I interest you in a luxury edition of the Encyclopeaedia Britannica? There is something there about the Desert Horned Viper that will make your hair stand on end. Please madam. Take pity. It is as much as my job is worth. As a free bonus, I can throw in the complete works of Jane Austen – the Reader’s Digest Condensed version, of course.’

Housewife (looks pityingly at the salesman) – ‘Tell you what young man, I will not report you to the police for coming into my home under false pretences. You will never be able to burgle a baby’s rattle from its pram. And I have no interest in learning about the Desert Horned Viper or, come to that, the Iwasaki’s Snail-Eater. If you like, I can tell you a thing or two about the Hainan Black Crested Gibbon, also known by its biological name, Nomascus Hainanus. Look, you look like a nice chap. Have this cup of tea and a biscuit and be off with you. I hate it when burglars walk in pretending to be encyclopaedia salesmen. Or was it the other way round? Only yesterday, I had a nice-looking chap claiming to be a serial rapist, only to learn after letting him in that he was selling encyclopaedias. You can never trust anyone these days.’

Truly, one’s heart goes out to the encyclopaedia salesman. World famous director Woody Allen summed it up rather well. ‘There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an encyclopaedia salesman?’

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but every single day of the week, I get a feel-good message from somebody or the other pointing out helpfully that it will be the harbinger of great cheer. These lyrical messages are invariably embedded in some scenic or flowery imagery enhanced by some schmaltzy instrumental tune. I ruthlessly employ the delete option no sooner than I spot it. These images are usually forwarded with little effort on the part of the sender, having done the rounds millions of times on the internet. Nevertheless, I felt it incumbent to take serious note of these missives for a solitary 7-day period, going from Sunday to Saturday. That was the least I could do. And the most. With a little help from a couple of nursery rhymes.

Sunday’s child is fair, wise, good and gay. Let me start with Sunday, when somebody I do not know from Adam unctuously informs me that this traditional day of rest will turn out to be full of excitement. Whether I need excitement on the day of Sabbath when the Fourth of the Ten Commandments has enjoined me to put my feet up, I am not sure. Mind you, my own religion prompts me to no such instruction. Still, that is what the message on my mobile says and I wait for excitement to escalate on Ravivar with bated breath. To kick things off, the power supply in our apartment block gives up the ghost for over six hours. This is followed by our back-up inverter downing tools and consequently my mobile phone running on empty. Cannot approach the neighbours as they face the same fate. The service provider informs us that the breakdown is due to an unforeseen snapping of cables down our street, something they haven’t tumbled to in years. By the time power is restored we are completely bushed, order a pizza online, the promised 20-minute delivery arrives in 90 minutes, the pizza looking like something the cat had brought in. The WhatsApp soothsayer was right after all! Incidentally, I may or may not be fair, wise and good, but I am most definitely not gay! At least, not in the ‘gay’ sense.

Monday’s child is fair of face. Let us move on to Manic Monday. My social media astrologer is all pumped up. Time to make some smart moves. Do not fret about the stock markets. This is the ideal time to invest. Trump is starting to go soft on India, tariffs will be reduced, H1B is being revisited. Above all, NDA is sweeping Bihar. Markets are set to soar. Oh yeah? What about these ammonium nitrate terror blasts in Delhi and Kashmir? What if we attack Pakistan and Trump has a rethink what with all those crypto deals at stake? I am not a salaried employee anymore. I shall revert to bank FDs. Better safe than sorry. As for being fair of face, I looked in the mirror and I think the jury is out on that score.

Tuesday’s child is full of grace. On cue, my WhatsApp well-wisher informs me that the colour of choice for the day is blue. If you are buying a car, opt for variants of blue. Wash your clothes with Robin Blue. Is the brand still around? Fill your fountain pen with Royal Blue ink before signing important documents. Blue Curacao liqueur will be a nice way to finish off a special meal, if you are eating out. Doesn’t miss a trick, my WhatsApper. Only catch is that I am not buying a car and I have not the faintest idea what brand my clothes are washed in. Fountain pen, that’s a laugh. My trusty ball-point will do the job, however critical the documents I have to affix my signature on. The Curacao would have been nice, but curd rice, lime pickle and one green veg is on the menu tonight. Washed down with Aqua Guard filtered water. I am full of grace in my domestic bliss. Not much scope to go blue in the face.

Wednesday’s child is full of woe. Who wrote this twaddle? The sun came up bright and early this morning, the birds were chirping merrily. Wordsworth would have trilled. Our cricketers, men and women, are having a ball. ‘Wot me worry?’ as Alfred E. Neuman of Mad Magazine fame used to intone. ‘Woe is me’ is not my mantra for the day, whatever nonsense that WhatsApp chappie will have me believe. Then again, if I get knocked over by a two-wheeler while crossing the road or nipped in the ankle by a rabid street dog, I might have to change my tune. That said, till Thursday comes along, I am staying put at home riveted to my television, watching some great tennis and some not-so-great fire and brimstone on the Bihar elections. And woe betide anyone who tries to change my routine for the day.

Thursday’s child has far to go. This time you nailed it, my friend. I will be driving to the airport to receive a close relative arriving from Chennai. Which will take a good two hours, more than twice the amount of time it takes to fly in from Chennai to Bangalore. You might say I am literal-minded and that the WA fellow was speaking metaphorically, that I have a long way to go in life before I call it quits. Or something of that sort. Given my age, I am not sure if he even got that right. Anyhow, I will take my chances with the airport drive, traffic snarls notwithstanding. Add two more hours on the return drive, and I should be ready to hit the sack. I don’t know about Thursday’s child, but this social media nuisance is going too far.

Friday’s child is loving and giving. On the cusp of the weekend, my Friday prediction points irrefutably to visitors turning up at our place when least expected. ‘You will be startled and surprised when the doorbell rings and you open the door to welcome a couple you least expected!’ Now this is a double-edged sword. The WA message thinks it is handing out very pleasant news, whereas visitors who turn up unannounced screaming ‘SURPRISE’ can be very off-putting. Do we take this seriously and order something special for lunch? Should we make up the beds in the guest bedroom? Questions, questions. The end result is that we wait the whole day anxiously biting our fingernails, and when no one arrives till 11 pm, our joy knows no bounds. We had been put to a great deal of angst for no rhyme or reason. Perhaps the mystery guests might have been ‘loving and giving’ but we were not complaining.

Saturday’s child works for a living. This I can vouch for to be utterly true. My wife was born on a Saturday and was a working woman all her life. Still is. When she retired well before her time, colleagues asked ‘Why?’ and not ‘When?’ What is more, even after retirement, she runs the house as she would a corporate organisation, never resting till the domestics have cleaned up every last speck of dust in the flat, and if needs must, doing it herself. Every now and then, I would implore her to rest her weary bones. An unwise call because back would come the curt response, ‘Someone has to do it. Would you care to take over the domestic duties?’ At which point, discretion being the better part of valour, I quietly slink off to work on my next blog.

That’s the seven days my friends from the ether so caringly give me a heads-up on. I normally never even look at them but I should be grateful that they give me enough ammo for a blog. The Beatles had a huge hit during the 60s with Eight Days a Week, but they led a blissful life with no social media to ruin their peace of mind. Though what they would have done with the eighth day, heaven alone knows. Solomon Grundy had the right idea. He was born on a Monday / Christened on Tuesday / Married on Wednesday / Took ill on Thursday / Worse on Friday / Died on Saturday / Buried on Sunday. And that was the end of Solomon Grundy. R.I.P.

‘Actors go into it because it gives us the chance to play people a great deal more interesting than we are, and to say things infinitely wittier and more intelligent than anything we could think of.’ Prunella Scales.

Prunella Scales died last week at the ripe old age of 93. Those of you who may not be familiar with her work, I seek your indulgence. However, to most of us who know of her, the sole point of reference can only be her role as Sybil Fawlty in the iconic, 12-episode television sitcom of the mid-70s, Fawlty Towers. She was one-fourth of the quartet that has made Fawlty Towers the best loved comedy on British television to this day. What is more, its fame has spread to most parts of the English-speaking world. The remainder of that fabulous quartet, I need hardly remind you, were the creators of Fawlty Towers, John Cleese as Basil Fawlty and Connie Booth as the maid Polly. Not to forget Andrew Sachs as the hapless Spanish waiter Manuel, who passed away a few years ago and about whom I wrote an obit piece on that sad occasion. On the off-chance that there are those among you who have not had the pleasure of viewing Fawlty Towers, highlights from the series (if not the full episodes) can be accessed on YouTube.

Getting back to Prunella Scales as Sybil, who together with her fictional husband, John Cleese as Basil, ran the coastal resort hotel Fawlty Towers in Torquay, on the south west of England. Her constant run-ins with her husband’s unintended japes and his inability, quite literally, to put one foot in front of the other without tripping up horribly, had us in stitches. She was viewed as a harridan by her husband and the limited staff of the hotel, but her customers loved her. Prunella Scales had the unique ability to combine comedy with a finely-honed understanding of timing, an ability that endeared her to millions of fans who couldn’t get enough of her. And, in fairness, the rest of the cast as well.

Such has been Prunella Scales’ indelible association with Fawlty Towers that one might easily overlook her distinguished, multi-faceted acting career spanning over 60 years on stage, film and television. Suffice it to say that the average denizen on the street knew her only as Sybil Fawlty, having no idea what her real name was. The roles she essayed elsewhere were many and too numerous to list here. Prunella Scales was not just a one-trick pony dishing out slapstick comedy. Perhaps one of her more serious roles, one that earned her widespread acclaim was that of Queen Elizabeth II in A Question of Attribution, a one-act stage play, subsequently adapted to film, written by well-known playwright Alan Bennett. In short, Scales has demonstrated her ability to play all manner of roles and her status as a thespian to match many hallowed names that bestrode the world of British theatre and film, remains undiminished. She was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1992 Birthday Honours List, along with a slew of other notable awards. She was personally known to Queen Camilla whom she met socially off and on.

 Piquantly, a noted rose breeder in England named a rose after her name, Prunella.

On a personal note, my awareness of Fawlty Towers happened by chance in 1981 when I was working for a well-known tyre company in Calcutta. Our Managing Director was a Scotsman who was to retire shortly to return to the UK. At his farewell party where he was showered with the usual encomiums, he drew me aside and handed me a cloth bag containing four video cassette tapes containing all the 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers, about which I knew nothing at the time. ‘I think you will enjoy these tapes,’ he said to me. I was overwhelmed receiving a gift from our Big Chief whom we were bidding farewell to that evening. And that he had sussed out my fondness for British comedy. That was the beginning of my love affair with Fawlty Towers (a silent ‘thank you’ to Mr. Alistair MacIntyre). In subsequent years, I got myself the entire DVD set of the series, which is imperishable. If I told you I have viewed them on fewer than fifty times over the years, I would be telling a lie. A hundred times would be nearer the mark. And still counting.

I would like to conclude this tribute to Prunella Scales and to the television series she helped make so memorable, as I leave with you some of the most risible quotes from the series. Many of them will be better appreciated if viewed in context, but I will have to take that chance. Those of you who have not seen the episodes of Fawlty Towers, find a way to access it online or by any other means. If you have, then watch it again. You cannot get enough of it. God knows we could all do with a laugh in these toxic times we live in.

Basil Fawlty: ‘Don’t be alarmed. It’s only my wife laughing.’

Sybil Fawlty: ‘I can’t abide cruelty to living creatures.’

Basil Fawlty: ‘I’m a creature and you can abide it to me.’

Sybil Fawlty: ‘You’re not living.’

Basil to Sybil Fawlty: ‘Do I detect the smell of Burning Martyr?’

Basil Fawlty: ‘A satisfied customer. We should have him stuffed.’

Mrs. Richards (a dotty, aged, stone-deaf guest): ‘Faulty? What’s wrong with him?’

Sybil Fawlty: Psychiatry, that’s a relatively new profession, isn’t it?’

Psychiatrist’s wife (a hotel guest): ‘Freud started it in 1886.’

Sybil Fawlty: ‘Yes, but it’s only now we’re seeing them on the television.’

Polly (the maid): ‘Could I have a raise? Mrs. Fawlty said it would be alright.’

Basil Fawlty: I don’t think we see eye-to-eye vis a vis the frozen assets.’

Basil Fawlty: ‘Well, let me tell you something. This is exactly how Nazi Germany started! A bunch of idiots sticking their noses in, looking for something to complain about!’

Major Gowen (a senile, eccentric permanent resident): ‘The strange thing was that throughout the morning, she kept referring to the Indians as niggers. No, no, I said, niggers are the West Indians, these people are wogs!’

Regarding that last quote, John Cleese narrated recently that almost 50 years after the first telecast, hyper-sensitive, thin-skinned, literal-minded activists have suddenly woken up and objected to the use of pejorative racial stereotypical terms in Fawlty Towers. Cleese stoutly defended himself saying that was the way some people spoke in those days and that he himself does not support the views of the fictitious Major Gowen. Speaking of which, I was myself taken aback when I came across the word ‘nigger’ in a novel by the much-loved and adored P.G.Wodehouse, written around the early part of the 20^th century. Much heated debate has ensued over the deletion of the term in subsequent reprints of the novel. The jury is still out.

Well, that was just a soupçon of the biting irony and wit from Fawlty Towers, and there is a lot more where that came from. If this does not drive you to go and watch all the 12 episodes in one binge sitting, you are more to be pitied than censured. Prunella Scales,’ or rather, Sybil Fawlty’s passing gave me as good an excuse as any to relive one of my favourite television comedies. Sharing it with you, dear reader, only doubles that pleasure.