It is Day 5 of the 5^th and final Test between England and India being played at the Oval in London, and I am writing this piece a few hours prior to the start of play. By the time I have finished tapping the last keys on my desktop, the game will be over. To that extent, I commence this piece without the benefit of hindsight. Of course, if the temperamental London skies do not open up apocalyptically, ruining the match altogether, we are almost certainly going to have a result. England need 35 runs to take them over the line to secure the series 3-1, whereas India will need to knock over the last three and a half wickets in double quick time to restore parity 2-2 and retain the Anderson-Tendulkar née Pataudi trophy. Why three and a half wickets, I hear you ask? That is down to whether England all-rounder Chris Woakes will be compelled to take strike one-handed with a broken shoulder to help his country squeak through. Flashback to the late West Indian pace bowler Malcolm Marshall who did the exact same thing with a broken thumb at Headingly in 1984. He then went on to take 7 wickets and the Windies won.

As long as the incandescent Joe Root was at the crease, it was all over bar the shouting in England’s favour. His brilliant partnership with the Sehwag-like Harry Brook had all but done the job. Then, against the run of play, both of them were dismissed by India’s tireless, Bumrah-less, spirited pace attack. Which left a very nervy Smith and the tail struggling to put bat to ball. India once again sensing hope. It has been that kind of series. That is when the rains came and play was called off, leaving the game tantalisingly poised for a couple of hours play today. Indian bowlers would have been rested overnight but will their upward momentum towards the close of play yesterday be halted? England will apply the heavy roller this morning making the pitch a little more batter friendly, but their nerves will still be jangling. In short, a nerve-tingling morning in prospect.

That is as far as the game itself goes. Moving on to the issue of the absent Jasprit Bumrah citing ‘workload management,’ I am not sure if there has ever been an instance when a player was named in the touring squad and allowed to pick and choose how many games he will play; in this case a self- imposed limit of three matches even before the series commenced for the world’s top-ranked fast bowler. I find that bizarre. It beggars belief that he played out his quota on largely batting friendly wickets, his potency defanged, then put his feet up with the series still hanging in the balance, as they went to the Oval for the final showdown. Ironically, England prepared its quickest, grassiest wicket for this game in the full knowledge that Bumrah will not play. Managing and nursing Bumrah was the team management’s quirky mantra. More than ever, we needed him steaming in and putting the fear of God into the English batters; not wrapped up in swaddling clothes and preserved in moth balls.

To the best of my knowledge, Bumrah is a decent bloke. Not a prima donna who needs to be handled with kid gloves. If his fitness was going to be a cause for perennial concern, he should not have boarded that plane to England. The selectors could have taken their chances with some tearaway rookie. After all, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma hung up their batting gloves for good not long before the team was announced and there was much anxious wringing of hands. They have not been missed. No one is indispensable.

Which brings me to Siraj, Krishna and Akash Deep. Mohammed Siraj has run himself into the ground, played every game in the series, stepped up to the plate and displayed a level of Herculean courage, skill and stamina that cannot be over-praised. If India pull off a win today, Siraj will be my undisputed Man of the Series, never mind the wonderful exploits of Gill, Jadeja, Root, Brook and the others. On second thoughts, he will be my MOS even if we do not share the series. What is more, in fits and starts, Siraj has received excellent support from Krishna, Akash Deep and on occasion, from all-rounders Sundar and Jadeja. That is one in the eye for our selectors. Bumrah is one of the greats, but he should not have been projected to be greater than the game itself. Mohammed Siraj, take a bow.

Postscript: India win! By 6 runs. Words are inadequate to describe what happened this morning at the Oval. Jaw dropping stuff. Suffice it to say that it was entirely appropriate that Mohammed Siraj was the Man of the Match, if not the series. Enough said.

(Published in the Deccan Chronicle on August 5, 2025).

          I recall my very first job interview in Calcutta with a well-known British company. For reasons not entirely clear at the time, it was called a managing agency house. Some of these companies had peculiarly English names like Bird & Co., Williamson Magor, MacNeill & Magor (the Magors spread themselves about), J. Thomas, Octavius Steel, Carritt Moran, Balmer Lawrie and the like. If memory serves, most of them had something to do with tea gardens, auctions and the tea business in general. Jute also figured prominently. There were other more instantly recognisable flagships like ICI, Lever’s, Nestle, Imperial Tobacco, Bata, Dunlop, Shaw Wallace, Metal Box and so on but one rarely received a call-up from these companies unless you were the son of someone known to someone else who happened to be a bigwig in that organisation. I am talking circa 1970 -71. ‘Influence’ still counted for something. The Institutes of Management in Calcutta and Ahmedabad (IIMs) had just opened their doors to those elite graduates who were admitted there for higher management studies and thereafter, promised a free ride into blue-chip organisations at a stupendous four-figure salary. Well, a four-figure paycheck was not to be sneezed at those days. They were called MBAs, an honorific that was virtually the equivalent of a doctorate.

          Life being simpler then, there was still enough room for those who could not enter the exalted portals of these IIMs but were considered decent enough (at lower starting salaries) to be taken in by many of these companies. You might even say they were quite easily taken in. The expression ‘decent enough’ generally meant the ability to speak fluent English (nothing else mattered), that you passed out of one of the better-known public schools in India; (‘Ah, you’re a Dosco’) carried yourself with a degree of aplomb, were able to wear a tie with a double Windsor knot, be able to tell the difference between ‘advise’ and ‘advice,’ and be able to pour a drink for your boss at the local club. And one for yourself, provided you took small sips standing behind your boss deferentially, with an eye on the refill.

          To know the meaning of ‘What’s your poison?’ went a long way in establishing your credentials. If you could go round nine holes of golf and hold your own, that would be considered an added bonus. Volunteering to play 18 holes would be tantamount to showing off – ‘a bit of an upstart.’ Smoking was not viewed as a deterrent. Au contraire. There were also organisations that went by the generic name of advertising agencies. I had no idea at the time what they did exactly, though I ended up making a career for myself in that profession; but that’s another story.

          Getting back to that very first job interview, the company Williamson Magor had British antecedents and the man who took the interview was an Englishman, I think. This was a preliminary interview, to separate the wheat from the chaff as it were, hence just the one interviewer as opposed to an intimidating panel. I rather fancied my chances because I had been a lifelong fan of the BBC World Service Radio and all their current affairs, sports, music, comedy and light entertainment programmes. Somehow, I felt this gave me a head start over my rivals, particularly as the interviewer was an Englishman. Or so I naively thought.

          To my very pleasant surprise, the man who sat on the other side of the table was none other than the well-known cricket commentator, Pearson Surita, he of the dulcet tones. Now whether Mr. Surita was an Englishman or a distinguished gentleman of Armenian descent long settled in India, was not clear to me. Not that it really mattered. As a cricket fanatic, he was one of my heroes. I immediately felt comfortable. I had long been an admirer of his sonorous voice over the air waves as he described the goings on at Test Matches at the Eden Gardens, Brabourne Stadium, Chepauk and elsewhere. Apparently, he was quite a big shot in the organisation to which I had applied. I could barely contain my excitement as he cordially invited me to sit down at his plush office. There was something avuncular about the man. After all, I suspect he was in his 60s while I was barely stepping out of my teens. It was as much as I could manage to stop me from addressing him as ‘Uncle.’ I went on overdrive with the ‘Sir.’

          Pearson (I feel no awkwardness in referring to him by his Christian name, now that he has joined his ancestors in his heavenly abode) asked me if I would like a cup of tea. In my humble station, I thought it might be impolitic to accept, so I demurred. He sensed my state of uncertainty and poured a cup for me anyway, after ascertaining, ‘Two sugars?’

           Getting down to brass tacks, he asked me if I would be interested in a job as a management trainee in a tea estate somewhere in the Dooars. I was somewhat taken aback at being offered a job without even being asked about my academic record and grilled on my understanding of the company I had hoped to join. And where on earth was the Dooars, anyway? I took courage and decided to deflect, seeing as who was asking the question.

          ‘Mr. Surita Sir, if you don’t mind my asking, is it possible that you could find me an opening as a trainee cricket commentator? I could be your understudy and work my way up steadily. I am passionate about the game and apart from yourself, I have closely followed the sterling descriptions over the BBC from the likes of John Arlott, Brian Johnston, Jim Swanton, Trevor Bailey and of course, yourself. Oftentimes I have enjoyed the commentary more than the game itself.’ Top that for buttering up the boss. By now my throat was parched and I was grateful for the cup of Darjeeling (or Dooars) to slake my thirst. I waited anxiously for Pearson Surita’s response.

          He looked at me and beamed knowingly. Taking a deep drag from his briar pipe, tamping it down every now and then and expertly blowing smoke rings he said, ‘My dear chap, while it was grossly improper on your part to change the subject from considering a job at one of our tea gardens to wanting to be a cricket commentator, I understand your keenness. You are not the first youngster to look at me and start babbling incoherently about cricket.’

          I was brought down. I thought I was quite coherent. ‘I am terribly sorry Sir, but to be a commentator would be a dream come true. How could I have possibly known that my interviewer would be “the voice” I had long admired. I would commit myself willingly to a lifelong career of hard work, fetching and carrying and doing odd jobs at the commentary box for a man of your station; if it will open the doors, if not the Dooars ha ha, for me.’ I was becoming a bit silly and light headed. That said, I was not averse to a bit of understated, but well-placed flattery. It got me nowhere.

          Pearson’s tone was still friendly but he regarded me with a bit of sympathy. Clearly, he had experienced this before. ‘Let me give you some good advice, young man. There is no career prospect for a youngster like you in the world of cricket commentary. All of us, particularly in India, have other jobs as you can see. We are paid a pittance to appear, we travel by train and stay with friends or at our own company guest houses. We have to take special leave from our company to take up commentary duties. It is not a career option. I suggest you go home, think long and hard about it. If you are still interested in a job at one of our tea gardens, I will see what I can do. Good luck.’ Dismissed!

          Naturally, I did not take up the job offer. My dad came to learn that youngsters employed at tea gardens spend all their evenings at the club, drinking, smoking, playing cards or snooker and generally leading a life of debauchery. A bit of an exaggeration but perhaps had some element of truth to it. The nice thing that came out of all this was that I received a very friendly, handwritten letter from Pearson Surita wishing me all the best and to concentrate on getting a good job in the city and to stop indulging in pipe dreams. I still have it somewhere. If only I could find it.

          Today, cricket commentary has moved from radio to television and is a safe haven as cosy, post-retirement billets for former international cricketers. Some years ago, I ran into one of the exceptions, a non-cricketer MBA who has made it big in commentary – Harsha Bhogle. When asked how he broke through the maze defying the odds, apart from being very good at it, he laconically replied, ‘I was just lucky. I was in the right place at the right time.’ He too once worked in an advertising agency.

          As for me, I am ‘fortune’s fool.’ Like Shakespeare’s Romeo.

Ah, but I was so much older then / I’m younger than that now – Bob Dylan.

I am not the only one who is complaining that there is no more space in my home to keep books. The bookshelves are bursting at the seams and I have gone and ordered two more books, one by Sue Townsend and the other by Zadie Smith, authors I have never read before. The former is slim and the latter fat; I refer to the books, not to the authors, whose physical dimensions I am not privy to. Anyhow, Sue Townsend is now sleeping with the fishes, speaking euphemistically, and Zadie is not forthcoming on the subject. Back to these new books; where am I going to keep them and when am I going to read them? As I said, I am not alone in facing this quandary. Many of my friends are donating their ‘excess books’ to nearby libraries. I shall follow their example. Famous last words!

The omnibus volumes of the complete works of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, George Orwell and Arthur Conan Doyle can go for a start. Rabindranath Tagore’s poems can join them. That will more than make way for Sue and Zadie with enough room left to spare for lesser mortals. Not that I don’t respect those great novelists from yesteryear and the Bengali Nobel Laureate, he of the flowing white beard. Perish the thought. It is just that these volumes take up a great deal of space, are printed in almost unreadable 8 pt Baskerville type and no one is willing to even borrow them, leave alone not returning them which, for once, would have been a blessing. Those suffering from cervical spondylosis should stay far away from these heavy tomes. Sadly, that includes Shakespeare’s Complete Works.

You see what I just did there? Tried to impress you with how well read I am, but do not be taken in by my ham-handed attempt to deceive. It is a well-established fact that people who boast of impressive book collections have not read more than half of what is displayed in their private libraries. That is a given. A good few of the books are still snug as a bug in a rug in their original cellophane packaging, pristinely unsullied by human hands. However, when it comes to actually getting rid of them, one experiences a wrench.

Hullo, what’s this? The Complete Works of Ruskin Bond, Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi, Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus, any book by William Dalrymple or Martin Amis, Christopher Hitchens’ Arguably, Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani – these are tomes not to be trifled with. And fat, to boot. And don’t even get me started on the encyclopediae – Britannica or Penguin.  At least, political gadfly Mani Shankar Aiyar has carved up his impressive life story into three digestible, relatively slim volumes. ‘Give me books about me that are fat,’ as Julius Caesar might have put it but then, he would not have had to scrounge around finding space in his many palaces to display them. To add to my problems, my wife is a former Eng. Lit topper, who places more value on these volumes, excluding the encyclopediae, than I could imagine (not Zadie and Sue, the others). ‘Hands off,’ she rebuked, ‘why don’t you consider getting rid of your 66 Wodehouse novels and another 25 or so cricket and tennis biographies? They have been gathering dust for close to 50 years. Not to mention the amount of space they take up.’ Touché. I pretend not to have heard that. Silence is golden. Start on a project like this and it comes back to bite you in the fleshy parts. And I haven’t even touched upon Sartre, Kafka and Camus to give me an existential migraine. I will concede, however, to retaining my better half’s four J.D. Salinger novels (that’s all he ever wrote) for the reason that they are all very slim volumes and don’t take up much room. And a very good read as well.

At which point, the proper noun Kindle very properly raises its head. I will allow that the advantages of ordering a book online on the Kindle option are many. Instant transfer to your mobile, less expensive than the hardback or paperback versions and, it goes without saying but I will say it anyway, your bookshelves continue to breathe easily. What is more, I can order as many Wodehouse or sports books my heart desires without the distaff side getting a whiff of it. So far, so good. Or in the asinine words of that idiot copywriter who came up with the line ‘Sofa So Good’ for a brand of furniture. That said, there are some downsides. You can’t smell a new book ordered via Kindle. There is no tactile experience of riffling through the pages of Ian Rankin’s latest crime thriller. Above all, the adrenaline rush of a hardback edition being delivered at your doorstep after three days of anxious waiting – all this counts for nought. Still, something is better than nothing, I suppose.

Once upon a time, I went through the same catharsis with LPs, audio cassettes, CDs and DVDs, but what with Spotify and myriad cable and OTT choices available, those conventional options have been closed off. I am going through an emotional struggle on how to rid myself of these items. The Godfather trilogy, Cleopatra, Becket, My Fair Lady, The Lion in Winter, The Graduate, Fawlty Towers, all The Beatles albums, to say nothing of the Carnatic music gems collected almost since birth. At least, it seems that way. Throw in a smidgen of western and Hindustani classical and a smattering of cool jazz and my misery is complete. Nobody wants them. I cannot use them. So, I keep them. Bertrand Russell would have nodded in sympathy with that simple piece of logical cleft stick in which I found myself trapped. That said, there is a new breed of audiophiles who are willing to pay a king’s ransom to buy ‘ye olde world’ record players with diamond stylus and long-playing vinyls to experience a truly authentic, scratchy sound. Ah well, it takes all sorts. And I gave most of mine away for free! Will the recipients appreciate their value? Who can tell? Casting pearls before swine just about sums it up.

In conclusion, try as I might, I am unable to find a satisfactory solution to my problem of plenty. It will remain unresolved as I cast my roving eye over all my books and entertainment options. That being the case, I shall happily drown my sorrows with a single malt and click on to Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony on my Spotify, while I once again read the sleeve notes of the album on my 45-year-old vinyl LP, among the handful I had retained. That would well and truly put the lid on it.

The handicap of deafness is not in the ear; it is in the mind. Actress and activist Marlee Matlin, who was deaf from early childhood.

Over the past few months, I am being warned and mildly admonished by my better half that I am probably suffering from incipient deafness; ‘Deaf as a doorpost’ being a frequent refrain. Consistent with the stand taken by most people who are ‘accused’ of being hard of hearing, I am into stout denial mode. ‘What me, deaf? Why don’t you speak clearly instead of mumbling to yourself?’ To which the good wife’s response is swift. ‘This morning, I asked you to bring down the Venetian vase from the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard. And what have I got? The medicine box. And not for the first time. We need to consult an ENT specialist.’

‘Well, it certainly sounded like you were asking for the medicine box. You are always asking for it. And please stop saying “read my lips,” a task beyond me when you speak sotto voce with your back turned towards me. No lips visible to read from the back of your head.’ I can be quite sardonic when the mood takes me.

I did not get a response, from which I could deduce that she might also be going deaf or that she was just giving me the cold shoulder. Probably the latter, as she seems to hear every sibilant syllable I utter, even when it is not intended for her shell-like ear. Then again, fair’s fair. I do sense a slight, just teensy-weensy drop in the efficacy of the functioning of my auditory canals. Put it down to a normal, age-related malaise. Nothing to get into an almighty twist about, but I do find myself saying ‘Sorry?’ or ‘What?’ with an alarming frequency when somebody makes a simple conversational remark; with my head deferentially cocked towards the person making the remark. A tell-tale sign, some might say of trouble with the tympanum. In fact, my wife says it about 27 times every day, if you leave out the tympanum bit. On a good day, I can catch it clear as a bell about 15 times. Which is just about par for the course. There’s plenty of ambient noise around where we live – schools and construction work topping the list. That is my defence and I am sticking to it. I am sick and tired of listening to the school kids mauling the National Anthem daily at 9 am, just when I am taking my shower. At least, soapsuds notwithstanding, I am standing for the Jana Gana Mana!

The others – friends, relatives and so on – will be too polite to comment openly, though they might whisper to each other about what they feel might be an embarrassing issue viz., my hearing disability, real or imagined, each whisper ornamenting the previous one. These Chinese whispers do not bother me one bit, because I can’t hear a word they are saying. Which can hardly be classified as a sign of deafness, incipient or advanced. Whispers, Chinese or otherwise, are by definition, not meant to be heard. As the old toothpaste advert promising to rid you of halitosis would say, Your Best Friends Won’t Tell You. So, I go into the Alfred E. Neuman mode, ‘What, me worry?’ Those from the present generation, born after the millennium and wondering who this A.E. Neuman is – think gap tooth, think Mad Magazine. Failing which, put your trust in Google or Yahoo! Not that you needed to be told on that score.

Anyhow, I have been successfully, if unwisely, putting off this visit to the ENT doctor for some time now but it would appear that the sands of time are running out. The chickens are coming home to roost. The issue was precipitated a few nights ago when my wife asked me if I would like the fan to be put on at the speed of 2. I was probably half asleep as I replied, ‘Yes you may switch the lights off, if you wish.’ The explanation that I was half asleep carried no conviction. I thought she said something about a deaf adder under her breath, but it could so easily have been ‘I am getting madder.’ Tough to pick up verbal nuances when you are just about to drop off.

It is a bit of a mystery why many of us get coy and into a self-denial mode when we are asked if there is a problem with the hearing. After saying ‘What was that again?’ and sidling up to the person with a ‘Sorry, didn’t quite catch that. Those blasted Air Force jets are doing some aerial exercises what with the air show coming up and boy, you can’t even hear yourself think. You were saying?’ See what I mean? Somehow, one does not seem to have this issue with other handicaps. You are quite happy to drone on about your astigmatism, rheumatism, lumbago, diabetes (‘My fasting sugar is acting up, but I am into millets, red rice and sugar free tabs’), not to mention neuralgia, osteoporosis and lower back pain coupled with cervical spondylosis. Puts me in mind of a delightful episode from one of Wodehouse’s short stories. Major General Aylmer Bastable is in high dudgeon when one of the toffee-nosed earls at a cure spa mocks him for making a fuss over a mere bout of gout. ‘Snob! Thinks he’s everybody just because he’s got telangiectasis.’

We can talk endlessly, even with a sense of pride, to anyone within earshot about all these afflictions but when it comes to hearing-related ailments, we become palpably shy. A close friend recently inquired politely if I considered getting a hearing aid. To which my response came quick as a flash. ‘My wife deals with all matters to do with hiring maids, so you had better ask her.’ My friend and my wife exchanged knowing glances.

All said and done, it looks as if that visit to the ENT chap is inevitable. He will try and push some new-fangled, state-of-the-art hearing device (‘so cunningly tiny and embedded so artfully it cannot be noticed by anyone’) at a throwaway price, including special manufacturer’s discount, of Rs.6 lakhs (‘We are giving it away really’), German technology made in China; but of course. What is your cut, Doc? It occurred to me that I could buy a decent second-hand car with that kind of money, but I must concur with my life-partner that a second-hand car, however decent, will do nothing to improve my hearing. Assuming always that I do have a hearing problem, a point on which I believe the jury is still out.

Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar was prescribed as part of our school syllabus at the Senior Cambridge level. There were many memorable quotes from the play which we keep referencing from time to time in conversation and in our writings. One of the lesser-known quotes, but one that is relevant to the topic under discussion is attributed to Caesar when he urges Mark Anthony, ‘Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf.’ When the Emperor so commands, you move swiftly to his right hand without making any snide comments about his hearing disability – if you knew what was good for you. The great man was already suffering from epilepsy or ‘the falling sickness.’ Clearly, he had just the one functioning ear in an age where they had not heard of hearing aids. At Caesar’s funeral, Mark Anthony commences his speech with that immortal line, ‘Friends, Romans and Countrymen, lend me your ears.’ There can be little doubt that the entire citizenry of Rome was all ears.

Finally, one must accept that there are degrees of deafness. If one is stone deaf, one can only offer sympathy and speak in sign language. In Tamil, insensitive kids employ the word damaaram, a somewhat pejorative term suggesting, onomatopoeically, the sound of a loud fire cracker going off which the poor afflicted person can barely hear. I grant you that that is beyond the pale, but kids will be kids. Speaking for myself, I am fully confident that my problem, if indeed there is one, is but a passing phase. I intend getting my ears dewaxed first. After which you can drop a pin, and I guarantee you I will hear it, clear as a bell, falling on stony ground.

Postscript: Beethoven composed his monumental 9^th Symphony, and pretty much everything else, when he was profoundly deaf. Chew on that.

During the past few weeks, there has been much excitement in Bangalore around an art exhibition featuring just the one single canvas. This lone canvas was by the Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Not to be confused with the other painter and sculptor Michelangelo who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and sculpted the astonishing David. People I know who have a smattering of knowledge of Caravaggio and people I do not know who know nothing about Caravaggio were agog. The newspapers were full of it. This one single painting is titled Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy* and was painted by Caravaggio in 1606. Obviously, the painting carries no expiry date even if the painter himself expired centuries ago; a lasting credit to our modern methods of preservation (of the painting that is, not the artist). It was displayed at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) as part of its India tour. How a canvas painted in 1606 can be classified as modern art beats me, but there you go. Art has its own irrefutable logic. Did I go and take a look at this much talked-about painting that was valued at $50 million? No, I did not. Traffic jams and uncertain weather in the city, not to mention Wimbledon and the Test series in England on television put the brakes on my vaulting ambition of being an art connoisseur. Nevertheless, the NGMA reported a 20 to 30 percent increase in footfall. It is as well they had brought in just the one original canvas. Had they added one of Van Gogh’s self-portraits, particularly the one with his right ear in a bandage, the stampede would have been unmanageable. Bangalore has had its fill of stampedes in the recent past, thank you very much.

Speaking of Van Gogh and not to be outdone, there is a show called The Real Van Gogh Immersive Experience that is currently on in Bangalore. You can go there and get dazzled by audio-visually and digitally immersing yourself with the tormented genius’s life story (which is pretty grim), his famous works like Sunflowers, Wheatfield with Crows, Irises and much else.  However, it is not the same as goggling in awe at the real thing (as disturbed ‘Nazi’ Peter O’Toole did in The Night of the Generals), notwithstanding the 22,000 lumens of projection technology, as advertised.

In case you are getting the impression that I am a philistine or something, let me clear the air. I have taken in and appreciated some of the most famous paintings and sculptures around the world and in India over the years. You might say ‘after a fashion,’ but you cannot visit Madrid and not pay homage to Picasso’s Guernica. I must confess all this happened after I got married and found my wife knew quite a bit about Picasso, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Matisse, Dali (what a stunning moustache!) and all those masters from Holland, Spain, France and so on. Prior to my nuptials, the only art I was exposed to was in school at art class. I would draw two mountain peaks with my crayon, a rising (or setting) sun in between the peaks, a flock of birds in flight represented by tick marks, one statutory tree (with or without some low-hanging red fruit) and a lake portrayed by a flurry of blue lines. If the mood took me, I would add a small boy or girl who looked more like a stick insect. I felt I had got the hang of impressionism! I called it A Study in Still Life. Mrs. White, our arts teacher, received my offering with mixed feelings. She would ask me to hold it up for the class and exclaim, ‘Very nice, very nice indeed.’ Then again, she was equally prone to say, ‘Rubbish. You call that a tree? Looks like nothing on earth. And what is that? A stick insect?’ See what I mean? It all depended on her mood that day and how many cigarettes she had smoked. All in all, she was much better during the afternoon classes than in the morning. I think she was a late riser.

There is another reason why I did not attend the exhibition featuring Caravaggio’s single canvas. No, it was not because I had already seen it in Rome or wherever, because I had not. Apparently, it is from a private collection, if Google is not lying. The main reason is that I have viewed it several times on my desktop in the privacy of my study, and have been able to appreciate the Master’s play on light and shade for which he was justly celebrated. Magdalene looked as ecstatic on my state-of-the-art Dell widescreen as she would have at the NGMA. No jostling crowds and worrying yourself sick over whether you have parked your vehicle in a no-parking zone. The fact that the painting was displayed in a temperature and humidity-controlled environment with enhanced security could only have made viewing that much more challenging with hordes of art-lovers and students (armed with paints and brushes) craning their necks to get a proper glimpse. Photography is banned for a variety of reasons but these instructions are usually observed in the breach. Watch those mobile maniacs go berserk shooting selfies against the ecstatic Magdalene.

As I could not, or would not, attend the Caravaggio display (frankly, calling just one painting an exhibition seems somewhat of an overstatement, but I bow to superior judgement), I was curious to glean some more vital information. Not so much about the painting itself as I could get all the dope I wanted and more from the internet. Caravaggio and the Magdalene woman were haunting me in my dreams by the time I had finished my surfing. No, I was more interested in the mechanics of how the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre in collaboration with the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art managed to get this priceless exhibit into India and what all that entailed. I called the NGMA several times before someone answered. It might have been an official as the lady was well-spoken. On the other hand, as so often happens these days, it might have been a fake person who just happened to pick up the phone and decided to have some fun. Either way, I take no responsibility for the call’s authenticity. I opened the batting.

‘Good morning, Madam. I am an art lover and would like to ask you a few questions about the Caravaggio exhibition. If you would be so kind.’

‘Are you from the press? If so, why don’t you visit us? I can try and make the time. I don’t have much time to talk on the phone.’

‘I fully understand, Madam. No, I am not from the press, but I write a weekly blog which has a wide readership of about 17 people, all very knowledgeable on art, music, literature and so on. What is more, I am suffering from a severe bout of gout and am unable to travel. I can call you later this evening, if you are busy right now.’

She seemed to have bought my gout fib; hook, line and sinker. Sounding slightly sorry, she said ‘Why don’t you call me after 8 pm tonight? That suit you?’

‘Perfect,’ I said and hung up.

As my wall clock started to chime eight times that evening, I called the lady at the exhibition centre (she shared her mobile number) before the eighth chime went. No point in dawdling and giving grace time.

‘Hello Madam, it’s me again, the art blogger.’

‘Ah yes, how can I be of help? Since you are suffering from gout and cannot be here personally, I can mail you the all the information you need on Caravaggio and Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy. Anything else?’

‘That is most kind of you, but I have access to all that on the internet. I have Caravaggio coming out of my ears right now. My line of questioning is somewhat different. And unusual.’

‘Yes?’ She sounded suspicious. ‘Go ahead.’

‘First off, since this is such a rare, precious and original work of art, how much did the insurance cost to bring it in to India? A bomb?’

‘I am sorry but I cannot divulge that kind of information. Ask me something else.’ She seemed miffed, the earlier warmth was missing. She may not be a fake, after all.

‘Pardon me if this sounds impertinent, but how do you know for sure that this Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy is the original and not a very clever copy? A lay person can’t tell the difference, what with all the enhanced technology available these days.’

‘You are right, that is impertinent. And offensive. I think I shall terminate this call and make a crank call report to the police.’

‘No, no, please don’t. I did not mean to offend or insult. I am not a crank. This is purely for academic reasons. I was trying to figure out how art galleries such as yours ensure there is no funny business. I was once staring at the Mona Lisa at The Louvre and a fellow starer told me it was not the real thing but a darned good copy. The real Mona Lisa was stored carefully, according to him, in The Louvre’s vaults. Anyone stealing the Mona Lisa on display won’t get more than 10 euros in the grey market.’

‘Very droll, I am sure. Sorry, but I cannot and will not dignify your question with an answer. I hope your gout gets worse. Good night.’

Madame Cruella! I am not a gout-sufferer but she was not to know that. Anyhow, that was that. I don’t understand why she was getting so hot and bothered. It was a simple question. She could have just said the Caravaggio was the genuine article, the Real McCoy instead of being so defensive. Now I am really beginning to wonder. I think I will call my friend in Rome to find out if the original Mary Magdalene is hiding somewhere safe and feeling ecstatic. Mamma Mia, that will be a scoop!

*My researches reveal that the title of this Caravaggio canvas is variously shown as Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy, The Magdalen in Ecstasy and Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy. Or if you prefer, La Maddalena in Estasi in Italian. I settled for the first option.

‘If that’s what the law supposes, then the law is a ass’ – Mr. Bumble in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.

Here is some good news for those roadside Romeos, those mobile lounge lizards who lean casually on their two-wheelers just outside the girls’ college gates, smoking their cheap fags while waiting for the girls to come strolling out. At which point, the wolf whistles and ‘I love you, babe’ cries start ringing out. For the most part the girls just give the boys ‘the big ignore’ and simply move on. Once in a rare while, one of the feisty girls would stop and give the pretend Lotharios a mouthful. ‘Next time you try any of those cheap tricks, I’ll call the cops and have you booked for harassment.’ Not that the warning stops the boys who carry on regardless. Surprisingly, against the run of play as it were, this is where the good news for the boys comes in.

Their lordships at the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court, in their infinite wisdom, have recently passed a ruling that merely saying ‘I love you’ with no intent of any sexual funny business, cannot be construed as harassment. To quote verbatim from the court order, ‘If somebody says that he is in love with another person, that in itself would not amount to an intent showing some sort of sexual intention.’ How would they know if the intent was intended or not? Court orders invariably tend to be somewhat repetitive and orotund, but let us not quibble. Jurisprudence revels in its own unique parlance. The judge was overturning a 2017 conviction under the POCSO Act. The press report goes on to inform us that this man from Nagpur, eight years after he was sentenced to three years’ rigorous imprisonment for harassing a 17-year-old girl, was granted bail. Justice delayed may be justice denied, but I guess it is better late than never. Now he is a free man. Free to hang around outside school or college campuses mouthing ‘I love you’ to any female passer-by who catches his fancy. Should one of the girls make as if to deliver a tight slap to the miscreant, he will simply whip out the court order and wave it at the poor girl’s face who, in turn could face a harassment charge herself! There’s irony for you.

This case apparently dates back to a decade ago when a high school student was stopped on the road by the accused, who is said to have held her hand, asked her name and declared those three magic words that have been the subject of so many love songs in music recording history. Soul singer Sam Cooke’s For Sentimental Reasons has close to 25 ‘I love you’ repetitions in a 2 ½ minute song. At least, it seems that way. No one arrested the singer. The record sold millions. Putting Sam Cooke to one side, at the time our protagonist was accused of sexual harassment and stalking and later, convicted and sentenced. The report is unclear as to whether the sentence was carried out. His legal counsel put forth the argument that his actions did not meet the ‘legal threshold’ for sexual assault or stalking. A thin line but that is legalese for you. One wonders if the point where someone crosses the line is actually written down in some obscure act.

As I am sure everyone reading this knows only too well, there is a world of difference between ‘I love you’ and ‘I want to make love to you.’ If you do not and innocently use the latter expression to somebody you have met just recently, you could find yourself in very hot water. Again with the legal lingo, I am not sure that an action will not lie. Apart from being beaten up within an inch of your life, you could find yourself behind bars for a very long period. Now why do I bring this up? Quite simply, I was thinking of a line I hear all too frequently in Tamil movies and serials. Non-Tamilians, please bear with me. The hero declares to his lady love, ‘Naan unnai love pannaren.’ The transliteration of this sentence reads as ‘I am making love to you’ in the present continuous tense, which in turn can be loosely and more accurately converted to ‘I want to make love to you.’ The poor hero meant none of this. He was merely declaring, in the noblest of spirit, his love for the girl of his dreams, a sentiment he hopes will be returned in full measure. Whether his gentle advances will be accepted or rebuffed is neither here nor there. I am merely dealing with the semantics in the fond hope that the girl does not haul off the ardent lover boy to the Madras High Court. I can vouch for the fact that they are very straight-laced about these things in Madras.

I am not for a moment suggesting that the college student (if indeed, he was one) did not harbour ulterior motives in blithely declaring, ‘I love you’ to a passing girl. The moot point is we do not know for sure. Could one deduce from the tone of his voice, the manner in which he said it that signalled to the object of his desire something more sinister than a mere, heartfelt Sam Cooke moment? That said, if he went on to grab the girl’s hand (as he evidently did) while mouthing sweet nothings, then the girl might just possibly, and that is a very slim chance, convince the long arm of the law to agree to hear her plea. It will largely depend on which side of the bed the judge got up from that morning. On such small, mundane details do weighty judgements perilously hang.

In order to get a woman’s perspective on this vexed subject (I think they have a much better feel for these things than many high court justices), here is celebrated novelist and poet A.S. Byatt who puts the thing in a nutshell. ‘There are things I take sides about, like capital punishment, which it seems to me there is only one side about: it is evil. But there are two or three sides to sexual harassment and the moment you get into particular cases there is injustice in every conceivable direction. It’s a mess.’ So my friends, irrespective of your age and romantic (if not sexual predilection), next time you come over all soppy, sentimental and Byron-esque (Oh love, how perfect is thy mystic art), pause and reflect before uttering those three irresistible words, ‘I love you.’ And for heaven’s sake, never in Tamil. Those hawk-eyed judges at the Bombay and Madras High Courts are watching.

Many moons ago, when my parents were based in the Far East, my father would subscribe to the local English newspaper, as it might have been The Straits Times in Singapore or The New Straits Times in Malaya, as it then was. We happened to live in both these countries over a seven-year period during the ’50s before the old man was transferred by the bank he served, to India. As a special treat for us toddlers, he would add on a couple of tabloid comics on Sundays. Beano and Dandy, Nancy and Sluggo, Dennis the Menace; not the celebrated American Hank Ketcham creation but a rowdy, trouble-seeking, spiky-haired alter ego from the United Kingdom; and many more. By an extraordinary coincidence, both the ‘Menace’ versions were first published on March 12, 1951, the respective publishers claiming they had no idea of the birth of the other, identically-named twin. That’s one to go into the venerable Ripley’s Believe it or Not, now brought out annually in book form. Truth to tell, my dad was as big a fan of these ‘funnies’ as we kids were and on Sundays, the clamour over who gets first crack at the comics was palpable.

That brief historical perspective was only to get on to the main subject matter which has been occupying my mind for some time now, namely, the use of many expressions, which are not strictly words, but sharp expletives which have now become a part of our everyday lexicon. The genesis of these non-words could very well have emanated from comic books and cartoon films. Normally, you will not find these ‘words’ in any respectable dictionary, but constant usage and public pressure have given some of them a backdoor entry and legitimacy. The internet search engines, however, are not too fussed about being respectable and are quite happy to include anything someone heard someone else mutter something indecipherable at a public loo. That said, it was those comics that first started this manner of casual talk; at least, that is my impression and I am sticking to it. Our English teachers at school were dead against comics which only made us embrace these picture booklets all the more. With these few words, let me dive in and expound on the raison d’etre of this contemplation.

For starters, let us take the word ‘Eek!’ For the purposes of this piece, we shall assume poetic licence and call them words. Ideally, the word should be in italics, but not compulsorily so, followed by an exclamatory mark viz., Eek! For reasons I am yet to fully comprehend, the expression has always been ascribed to the female of the species. For example, ‘Eek! a rat,’ cried Veronica, or ‘Eek! a mouse,’ screamed Betty. The presence of a large bandicoot might have involved a loss of consciousness to the two protagonists. Two points of interest are worth noting from those two outbursts. Archie and Jughead are never called upon to say ‘Eek!’ even if they are petrified of rats and mice. Secondly, the unique honour of exclaiming Eek! has been solely bestowed upon the perceived threat posed by the rodent community. Nobody ever goes, ‘Eek! a python,’ or ‘Eek, a mad elephant on heat.’ In such circumstances, particularly where the male of the species is concerned, the F-word springs to mind. I am too hidebound to spell it out, but Donald Trump had no problem with it in his recent utterances over the Israel-Iran conflict. ‘F#*%! I made Israel and Iran stop the war. Just as I did with India and Pakistan.’ Or words to that effect.

A quick interjection here. These ‘words’ are not to be confused with onomatopoeias, like ‘hiss’ and ‘buzz,’ though it’s a near thing. Then we have ‘Oops!’; another expletive that has no known grammatical provenance but has now gained currency and one which can be employed in different ways at different times. ‘Oops! I am so sorry. I went and spilt the piña colada all over your lovely, Kanjeevaram silk sari.’ The expression is also frequently heard when someone says something he or she should not have uttered, being of a very sensitive or delicate nature. ‘Oops! Did I drop a brick just now, when I described that show-off as a congenital idiot? I had no idea he was the Chief Minister’s son. My bad.’

If you happen to accidentally stub your big toe against the foot of your bed, there is only one thing to be said. ‘Ouch!’ Off-the-cuff, I cannot think of another exclamation that comes anywhere close to ‘Ouch!’ to do full justice to a sudden stab of pain that you had to experience unexpectedly. By definition, this can only apply to minor injuries with no serious consequences barring some passing pain which a rubdown with Iodex can rid you of. Au contraire, if someone bonks you on the head from behind with a sledgehammer, ‘Ouch!’ just won’t cut it. Chances are you will not be able to say anything at all. Again, as I had demonstrated with ‘Oops!’ there is a non-physical aspect to ‘Ouch!’ as well. This too has something to do with causing hurt or embarrassment to another person, but in a metaphorical, read emotional, way. ‘Hi Geetha, lovely running into you like this. Where is that dashing husband of yours?’ Geetha wears a wan look, her eyes welling up and goes, ‘We split up.’ You go blue in the face and mutter, ‘Ouch! Sorry to hear that. Still, as you are here, what can I offer you?’ A weak response, but one makes do.

Then there is ‘Oof!’ Yet another non-verbal response that is called for when you get biffed in the midriff area. This form of injury is more serious than the ‘Ouch!’ infliction but not fatal. Internal injuries are unlikely. You get winded, as you might in a boxing ring when Mike Tyson hones in on your stomach with a left jab with plenty of follow-through. You are left breathless for a while, that is the key to experiencing the ‘Oof effect,’ if you will pardon the coinage. World medical opinion is unanimous in its conclusion that the emanation of the ‘Oof!’ sound is non-serious and can be treated with a few deep breaths, some vigorous toweling and some encouraging words from your boxing coach like ‘Get up and fight you sissy, and make sure your right forearm guards your stomach.’ If the pugilist is a southpaw, you say it the other way round. ‘Seconds out of the ring,’ hollers the referee. Interestingly, unlike some of the other examples, ‘Oof!’ can never be used metaphorically.

‘Ugh!’ nearly always expresses disgust in a nauseating way. If you wake up at the crack of dawn and find that your pet pooch, which is suffering from indigestion has decided to unburden its stomach contents on to your bathroom mat, you instinctively go ‘Ugh! That is if you haven’t unknowingly stepped on the messy stuff, in which case a loud ‘F#*%!’ immediately comes into play, waking up the entire household. Only after that do you weigh in with ‘Bad boy, Paddy, bad boy. No breakfast for you this morning.’ That is perfectly fine with Paddy because he won’t go near his breakfast if you pleaded with him. If Paddy could speak, he is likely to go ‘Ugh!’

‘Yipes!’ and ‘Yikes!’ mean pretty much the same thing, indicating shock and surprise, and not in a very nice way. I suspect these two words came into being to provide boys and men with a suitable riposte to the female ‘Eek!’ which had, as we have demonstrated earlier, cornered the market when the mice came out to play. Our comic books are also quite fond of putting the term ‘Aargh!’ into the mouths of characters who are unpleasantly shocked by grizzly bears blocking their path in the mountain passes of Canada. I am not a great fan of ‘Aargh!’ (or grizzly bears, come to that) but there it is.

As I reach the end of this somewhat unusual perambulation of wordless expletives (and I am sure our readers can add many more of their own favourites), I felt it only right that I provide a couple of examples from India’s own, rich vocabulary of nonsense words. Not being a polyglot, I shall confine myself to just two. As a Tamilian by birth, ‘Ayyayyo!’ is an expression I have been used to since birth. It can mean just about anything. From a painfully disappointed reaction, ‘Ayyayyo! you failed in your exams again?’ to a shocked ‘Ayyayyo! my diamond necklace has been stolen. Call the cops.’ However, my favourite comes from my late grandmother-in-law, ‘Ayyayyo, Gavaskar is out.’ It is a versatile expression and can be used in multiple situations.

I also consider myself an adopted son of Bengal. The claustrophobically bustling city of Calcutta, its ins and outs were my old stomping ground for over three decades. Bengali is a beautiful language though ‘Eesh’ would not have been poet Rabindranath Tagore’s first choice to embellish his sublime poems. Notwithstanding, you will constantly hear this expression, primarily from the girls. The best way I can attempt to define ‘Eesh!’ which has several interpretations is that it is a sound indicating bashfulness, that issues forth when a girl is teased about a crush she is thought to harbour over a screen or cricketing idol; looks taking precedence over prowess. As in ‘Eesh! stop it. He is gross. How can you?’ meaning exactly the opposite. I think you get the drift. ‘The ladies of Calcutta / Do something to me,’ by crooner Bill Forbes played over the sound system, as the pretty ladies from the City of Joy, did the fox-trot with their beaux at the Saturday Club. Did they go ‘Eesh!’ when their partners echoed the singer’s sentiments and whispered sweet nothings into their shell-like ears? You’d be unwise to bet against it.

Somewhere on the outskirts of the city of Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh, a man died of snake bite, if the headline in one of the inside pages of my newspaper is anything to go by. This is not exactly news of earth-shattering importance in a hot and humid country like ours, where the genus serpentes flourish and more catastrophically, big Dreamliners crash barely after taking off. All the same, one’s heart goes out to the unfortunate snake-bite victim and his family. After all, India is famed for its centuries-old reputation as a land of snakes and snake charmers, an albatross of a cliché that we only now are beginning to rid ourselves of. Begs the question as to why I am kicking off this blog with this news item. To which I can only say in extenuation, that if it was good enough for The Times of India, it’s good enough for me.

Thereby hangs a tragic, if bizarre, tale. Apparently, this ill-advised gentleman had set himself up as some sort of snake expert, a minor celebrity in that locality where snakes abound. I suppose someone had to be. And when one of our hooded, reptilian friends made a friendly appearance in his vicinity, he was quick to seize the chance (and the snake) for some income generating publicity. Grown men, women and children gathered round, breathless, curious, armed with their mobile cameras, while the self-appointed snake charmer got right down to it and put some elbow grease into his work. A piece of cloth would have been spread out inviting the onlookers to throw coins and notes. UPI was out of the question. The snake man thought he was charming the snake. Only the snake was not charmed. The result was fatal. The man cuddled and cooed and picked up the cobra or viper (he was not fussy) and placed it round his neck while the mobile enthusiasts ooohed and aaahed in awe.

Now here comes the killer blow. As the viper or krait or whatever (the news item was not forthcoming on the specimen) curled round his pretend master’s neck, the misguided, quack herpetologist decided to kiss the snake by sticking his tongue out. Bad idea, but then it takes all sorts. More ooohs and aaahs, mobile cameras clicking away. At which point our Naga decided enough is enough. A hiss, a dart and the poor fellow’s tongue was the beneficiary of the full output of the snake’s venom; a kiss of death. The man collapsed writhing in agony, the snake slithered off into the undergrowth, its dreaded deed done, never to be seen again. The snake charmer was rushed off to the nearest medical facility but it was too late. The snake had claimed its victim. The mobile camera freaks scurried off, presumably in mortal fear. In fact, they rushed off to see who will be the first to post their real-life snake drama on Instagram. If they had tears, they were not prepared to shed them then and there. The poor victim’s open piece of cloth lay open, coinless and noteless, a mute witness to the unfolding tragedy.

This unfortunate incident raises an interesting question, and I am not about to expound on the larger environmental or naturalist contemplation of Man vs Animal vs Reptile. Far greater minds than mine have dwelt on this issue since time immemorial. If you are interested, Sir David Attenborough’s films and books are a good place to start. Joy Adamson’s Born Free is a classic. However, it is a humble snake fancier in India this time who unwisely decided to show his fans the reptile’s fangs, perhaps with the object of collecting some much-needed pin money, who lost his life. Others indulge in this kind of bravado just for a dare. There are instances galore of humans coming to grief because of some kind of exhibitionist streak that drives them to show the world how thrilling the whole exercise can be. A kind of deadly contact sport that often ends badly once the adrenaline rush passes. In the case of poisonous snakes, some experts have advanced the theory that once a snake divests itself of its poison on to another body, it loses all its venom and dies soon after, ready fodder for overhead circling birds of prey. Probably an old wives’ tale but it is of scant consolation to the deceased human; merely a matter of academic interest.

There have been several instances of zoo keepers coming to a messy end because of their familiarity with big cats and the like. It is a daily routine for the zoo attendant to take a pail of raw meat into a tiger’s cage, sit next to the man-eater and throw chunks of deer or buffalo meat, while children and their parents watch on goggle-eyed, clicking away on their cameras and smart phones. The zoo keeper is so full of hubris that he does not allow for the immutable truth in that old axiom, ‘familiarity breeds contempt.’ He pets the tiger, makes lovey-dovey, coochie-coo small talk and the onlookers love this feast of reason and flow of soul between man and beast. The tiger, unbeknownst to his keeper, momentarily loses interest in its daily deer or buffalo meat and thinks, ‘I am a man-eater. What am I doing scrounging on scraps of deer and buffalo? I rather fancy a chunk of man this morning.’ Before the zoo authorities can arrive at the crime scene, it only remains for them to pick up the pieces, inform the bereaved family and conduct a post-mortem, while Kipling’s Shere Khan sits contentedly in a corner of the cage, licking his chops. The Instagrammers and Face Bookers, though, have vicariously delighted themselves with all the blood and gore, now committed to their cameras for posterity. Before you can sing a snatch from that Jungle Book showstopper, That’s What Friends Are For, the whole world is a wide-eyed witness to this horror show.

Instances of killer whales in Florida, alligators and crocodiles in the Australian outback (remember ‘Crocodile’ Dundee rescuing damsels in distress?), stingrays on seashores, not to forget our good friends, the sharks which pose constant danger to seaside holiday makers and beach bums. Who can forget Steven Spielberg’s frighteningly realistic depiction of shark attacks by these killer mammals, notably the Great White Shark in his monumental hit, Jaws? The film ran all over the world for months on end giving sleepless nights to small children. ‘If you don’t eat your porridge baby, I will call that big, white shark.’ Parents! The box offices, however, were delirious. Shark fin soup was going at a premium in most Chinese eateries.

At a more mundane level in India, the unchecked proliferation of street dogs has resulted in injuries and deaths of infants due to dog attacks, on a disturbingly regular basis. Animal lovers are up in arms if the dogs are put to sleep while the authorities have found no answer to check the untrammelled growth of these canines, periodic neutering and spaying notwithstanding. It is an unsolvable stalemate. Killing certain species of animals humanely for meat (top that for a contradiction in terms) is one thing. However, encroaching rapaciously into forest land to expand human habitation will inevitably result in clashes between man and beast. A panther found relaxing in someone’s bathroom can be a nasty shock, for the human as well as the big cat, but whose fault is it in the first place? Someone recently posted a photograph on social media of a leopard taking a catnap in a toilet while a pet dog slept undaunted at a safe distance. Even animals have their own sense of space and know how to maintain a discreet distance. If we cage animals, mammals and exotic birds for our viewing pleasure, then some poor zoo keeper is going to pay a heavy price. I hark back to the estimable David Attenborough who said memorably, ‘We moved from being a part of nature to being apart from nature.’ Shere Khan and Salman Khan must respect each other’s space. That’s about the size of it.

What could be more evocative than to listen to the heart-warming words of the world’s most celebrated zoologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall, ‘from the moment when, staring into the eyes of a chimpanzee, I saw a thinking, reasoning personality looking back.’ Res judicata.

Many moons ago, circa 1967 probably, I was glued to my transistor radio listening intently to a BBC World Service programme called My Music, a witty and amusing quiz show in which some very erudite and musically inclined speakers were asked questions on various genres and aspects of music. In one particular episode, one of the participants decided to go off the deep end. He asked an apparently crackpot question to the rest of the panel, ‘What would happen if we replaced the word love with the word lunch in many well-known songs?’ I cannot, for the life of me, remember any of the songs that were suggested. All I can recall was the sheer hilarity that ensued as each participant went to town giving his or her own version, and often even singing it. Desperate as I was, what with the weekend drawing near and my self-imposed deadline to post a blog in jeopardy, I decided to draw inspiration from that programme and provide my own list of love songs, or rather, lunch songs to see what comes out of it. The results, to say the least, were surprising. Since love is a universal theme for songs, I am sure you, dear reader, can add to this list immeasurably. With that preliminary pourparler, here goes nothing.

When The Beatles released their immensely popular hit, All You Need Is Love, with a chorus line that made it a singalong song for the ages, I tried to imagine what the implication would have been had the song been titled All You Need Is Lunch. It is a valid proposition for discussion. After all, if the stomach is not properly taken care of, if hunger pangs are not fully sated when the call comes, love can take a nosedive. It is an existential issue. I daresay during their early days of struggle in pre-Thatcherite Liverpool, Lennon and McCartney, along with Harrison and Starr might have been worried about when or where their next egg or ham sandwich is coming from. Not to put too fine a point on it, they were not born rich. Around the time, they also composed It’s Only Love, a poignant number which would have been far more appropriately titled, It’s Only Lunch. Thus, striking a philosophical note as if to say, ‘Don’t fret lads, a big hit is just round the corner and we could have all the 5-star lunches and dinners our hearts could desire.’ And so it came to pass.

There have been many recorded versions of the 1950s song Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing, first released as part of the soundtrack of the film bearing the eponymous name. My own favourite rendition is by the man with the honey-dewed voice, Nat King Cole. Had the song been called Lunch Is A Many-Splendored Thing, you would not have found too many people disagreeing. Like The Beatles, Nat King Cole, a school dropout, also emerged from modest beginnings where a sausage roll would have passed for a decent repast. When the great crooner achieved worldwide fame with songs like Autumn Leaves, Unforgettable and L.O.V.E., the fanciest restauranteurs in the world would have laid out the red carpet for him to enjoy many a splendored lunch or dinner.

The much loved, gravelly-voiced Canadian poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen wrote many songs that his army of diehard fans loved. None more so than Ain’t No Cure For Love and Dance Me To The End Of Love. From what little we know of Leonard Cohen’s personal life (he was quite a private person) I can make an educated guess that to the extent that he thought of food, he could have been an epicurean’s delight. The term is derived from the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, who was devoted to refined, sensuous enjoyment, especially in matters of food and drink and one who sought pleasure but not excessive or self-indulgent pleasure. That he (Cohen that is, not Epicurus) lived on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s with his girlfriend Marianne (So Long, Marianne) seems entirely apposite. Epicurean? It’s an adjective that fits Leonard Cohen to a T. So, when you listen to those songs of his, tweak them to Ain’t No Cure For Lunch and Dance Me To The End Of Lunch.

Celebrated hard-rock British band Led Zeppelin, you would have thought, hardly qualifies to be spoken of in emotionally-charged tones involving soft feelings like love and matters inspired by Cupid. However, their earthquake-inducing number Whole Lotta Love was a monster hit which took Led Zep to the top of the world charts, registering 7.5 on the Richter scale. Had I been their manager (fat chance), I would have advised the band’s songwriters Jimmy Page and Robert Plant to cool down a bit and by great contrast, come up with Whole Lotta Lunch, with lyrics showing they are not just acid-dropping freaks but can enjoy a decent meal that would have made their grandmothers proud. No such luck. They went on their merry ways and ruled the rock music world, often skipping lunch and dinner but supplementing their energies with plenty of liquid nourishment of a kind their grannies would not have approved.

Another old classic, much popularised by the likes of Frank ‘Old Blue Eyes’ Sinatra was I Am In The Mood For Love. We all know Sinatra and his notorious Rat Pack gang loved the good life. He loved his food and wine and was a hearty trencherman. I daresay every time he felt the clarion call from his rumbling stomach, he would warble I Am In The Mood For Lunch and a luncheon spread fit for a king would have been his for the asking. Sinatra singing for his supper? Maybe, but not quite in the way you might think.

During the 50s and 60s there was no greater pop sensation than Elvis ‘the pelvis’ Presley. Until The Beatles and The Rolling Stones came along and rained on his parade. However, when Elvis bestrode the world of pop music and cinema like a Colossus, he was nonpareil. His seductive voice and killer good looks had the girls and boys ‘all shook up.’ His hit songs like Jailhouse Rock, It’s Now or Never (a.k.a. O Sole Mio), Wooden Heart, Teddy Bear and so much more had everyone foot-tapping and in a frenzied tizzy. And when he belted out, I Need Your Love Tonight, every teenage girl and her mother imagined they were enjoying wedded bliss with the star who demanded I Need Your Lunch Tonight. And in their dreams, they were only too willing to oblige, even if it meant serving left-over lunch warmed up, for dinner!

Bob Dylan is not the kind of singer-songwriter you would associate with writing soppy, sentimental love songs. He was the poet who shook his angry fist at the establishment and at the world’s wrongdoings while warning his publics that The Times They Are A’Changing and that answers to difficult questions are Blowin’ In the Wind. In saying that, I might be doing injustice to the man from Minnesota, originally christened Robert Zimmermann. He did address matters of the heart a number of times, none more plaintively than Lay, Lady Lay and I Want You. However, his song Love Minus Zero found me scratching my head. The lyrics do not even mention the title. I then thought that if Dylan visited a restaurant and ordered a Lunch Minus Zero, the waiter, long used to the star’s obsessive weight-watching, would holler out to the kitchen, ‘Lunch for Bob, low calories and no carbs please. And a diet beer to wash it down.’ He might have added ‘Don’t think twice Bob, it’s alright,’ if he had been aware of the bard’s output.

While concluding this idiosyncratic piece, it occurred to me why I could not find any songs from women who could fit the bill. Before I get brickbats hurled at me from the distaff side, I had to do some quick thinking. Women look at both love and lunch in completely different ways to men, and I was predisposed to put forward the male point of view. But hey, women musicians have given us some beautiful songs extolling the noble virtues of pure love. Carole King’s Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, Joni Mitchell’s Solid Love and Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You, spring to mind amongst several others. However, I do not wish to satirise or trivialise them by force-fitting the lunch motif into those lyrics. Gastronomy, sometimes bordering on gluttony is still a male preserve. Lunch comes first before their thoughts turn to gentler emotions. Don’t take my word for it. No less than George Bernard Shaw said, ‘There is no sincerer love than the love of food.’

Stand-up comedy is a very hard thing on the spirit. There are people who transcend it, but in its essence, it’s soul destroying. It tends to turn people into control freaks. Film director Mike Nichols.

At the outset, let me make it abundantly clear that I have nothing against stand-up comics. They are probably fine human beings, kind to animals and take great care of their aging parents. Always assuming their parents are old enough to need taking care of. It is just that I am not particularly enamoured of the idea of a man or a woman standing up (ergo stand-up) on a podium and cracking jokes to an intimate audience at the speed of lightning while their fans crack up with uncontrolled mirth at every single utterance of the performer on stage. Jerry Seinfeld was among the early entrants to this form of amusing people, but I greatly preferred his sit-coms in the brilliant company of his partners in crime – Elaine Benes, Cosmo Kramer and George Costanza. Seinfeld must have had good reason to drop the stand-up routine at the start of each episode after a couple of seasons and move straight into the storyline for subsequent versions. A wise move.

Stand-up comedy originated from the English music halls and American burlesque traditions. It has flourished in America though American comedy, by and large, leaves me somewhat cold barring exceptions like Seinfeld or Bob Hope and Buster Keaton from an earlier vintage. The British tended to look askance at stand-up as a genre but the virus has affected the ‘scepter’d isle’ as well. Witness Ricky Gervais, whose stand-up routines seem forced, often offensive and unfunny as compared to his brilliant portrayal of the bumbling, pretentious David Brent in the television series, The Office. The Brits perfected the art of self-deprecating, understated humour and satire. No one comes close to it. As John Cleese of Fawlty Towers fame said, ‘A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people.’

The stand-up craze has now caught on in India; big time. Young couples and their friends find nothing more entertaining and elevating than to take in our budding stand-up stars rattling off their own version of satire and low-brow humour, across languages, while they roll in the aisles, delirious tears cascading down their cheeks. In our metropolitan cities in particular, youngsters find nothing more entertaining to pass a late evening hour than to listen to someone regale them with Modi put-downs and Rahul mimicry. You may well ask who the heck do I think I am being superciliously patronising about gifted young people who are doing nothing less (or more) than spreading sweetness and light while all around us we are surrounded by gloom and doom. Good point. Slap on the wrist accepted. Each to his own. If stand-up is your thing, go for it. So long as you allow me to have the freedom to express why I am not a fan of the art form, if one can so describe it. If I am raising hackles, put it down to collateral damage.

A wag once said, ‘Stand up comics say funny things. Great comedians who interact with others on stage or film, say things funny.’ It’s a subtle difference. The operative word here is interact. There is a situation that is created in a play where the audience is primed to anticipate the actor’s response and when the punch line is delivered, the appreciative laughter is instinctive. Hence situation comedy or sit-com. I am not suggesting that comic sequences in films and plays cannot fall flat. Of course they can, but between the script, the director and the actors, when everything gels together, you are the fortunate soul in the audience who will break into a broad smile, and not necessarily roar with guffaws. A stand-up comedian is expected to come up with a punch line every time he opens his mouth. After a point, the strain begins to show; on the performer as well as his audience.

In Indian movies, a comic actor is nearly always a comic actor. Period. Labelled for life. The great Mehmood’s only job in Hindi films was to get film goers to laugh. It hardly mattered what he said or what antics he got up to. From the moment he first staggers on to the screen, the urge to laugh is already embedded into our psyche. Likewise, the irrepressible Nagesh in Tamil films. On rare occasions, the comedian was required to descend into bathos. A bad idea, unless your name was Charlie Chaplin who mastered the art of bathos (The Kid, Limelight). In order to make us laugh, we want our comedians to laugh, not cry. If they must cry, the situation must demand that the lachrymose comedian must get us to laugh our guts out. A good example of this is to be found in vintage Laurel and Hardy films. Laurel is the one who, every now and then, breaks into tears over some disaster or the other. However, the said disaster was intended to be funny and Laurel’s plight leading to tears even more so. No amount of description can convey this unless you actually watch a Laurel and Hardy film and see the former blubbing while the audience roared with laughter.

The extraordinary reception that stand-up comedy has received in India is evidenced by the fact that Amazon Prime Video gave us a series named Comicstaan, which pitted young, upcoming stand-ups in competition against each other. I hear it did pretty well, running for three seasons before Amazon decided to call a halt. Perhaps it was too much of a good thing. Perhaps they have just taken a long break before hitting us with Season 4. The original Hindi version was later followed by a Tamil version, which was also a riot by all accounts. In fact, Tamil stand-ups like Alexander Babu and Bosskey are household names in Tamil Nadu and the folks from down south simply cannot get enough of them. Even our esteemed friend Shashi Tharoor tried it. Once. If you ask me , he is better off doing gravitas.

Given all the facts I have recounted, what is my beef with stand-up comedy and why am I given to perversely boasting that I have never been to a stand-up performance? An inversion of inverted snobbery? Fair’s fair, in order to write this piece, I did watch a few of the stand-up stars on YouTube. Just to see what makes them tick. A couple of valid reasons come to mind. The old, slapstick, slipping-on-a-banana-peel type of comedy has ceased to enthral our younger generation. Not that it holds much appeal for the older generation either. Stand-up is relatively fresh and has an obvious attraction. Smaller audiences gather in intimate venues and the comedian appears to be speaking directly to you. The subjects chosen to tickle your ribs are invariably relevant and topical. All good. The moot point is will it sustain or is it just an ephemeral shooting star? A passing phase. Will our youngsters twenty or thirty years from now still be enjoying stand-up comedy or will they have moved on to something else, attention spans being limited by the confined 6.5” screen of a smartphone? My point being this; when I first watched Fawlty Towers, I was in my late 20s. And I am still enjoying it in my 70s. There is a timeless quality to it and similar productions from that era. One must reserve judgement.

The thing about comedy is contained in the aphorism, ‘different strokes for different folks.’ What is good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander. If you boil it right down to its bare essentials, I think it has something to do with age. In fact, it has everything to do with age. When I watched those video snippets of Comicstaan, I could not even summon a smile. My bad. ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.’ Which just about sums it up. As I said at the top of this piece, I have no grouse against stand-ups. Just not my cup of tea. If I am giving it the thumbs down, it is nothing personal. Meanwhile, I offer a peace pipe. Go well, my young stand-ups. If you can make people laugh even for a moment, you are doing a great service to humanity, which has all but forgotten how to laugh. One caveat, do not try to seek me out in the audience. I shan’t be there.

Now then, where is my well-thumbed copy of Uncle Fred in the Springtime?