Looking back.....

I love old movies. They are snapshots in time, giving us a glimpse of forgotten times.

Varumaiyin Niram Sigappu epitomized the late 70s and early 80s of semi-socialist India. We grew up in hard times - with the spectre of unemployment and poverty always in the background.

My mother's premonitions like.."you will get nowhere in life if you don't study well" used to used to bring forth images from movies likes these to mind.

"Step cut", "bell-bottom wearing" graduate men carrying files, looking for a job was our worst nightmare.


So did we grow up into the world we so feared ?. NO !

Not only did we leave behind the bell-bottoms and step cut, but along with it the misery of the mediocre life we tried so hard to get on top of.



So what's changed ?


Visu doesn't make movies like "Samsaaram Athu Minsaaram" anymore, not because he does not want to, it's just that the theme is irrelevant today.
The tense relationships between brothers in a joint family and tales of selfishness and sacrifice are all gone. Joint families are rare these days.

Those days, owning a car, and having an AC jutting out of your bedroom window, were signs that you have "made it in life". These don't mean a thing today.

Flying was a privilege those days, reserved for "the few".Today, you see flights queueing up on the tarmac for take off. I've even seen some fellow passengers complain about the occasional 30 minutes delay, often tempting me to say "buddy, ask your dad, he probably took 36 hours to reach Delhi from Chennai and endured delays of several hours".

Those days, the roads used to look deserted at 8:30 PM on Fridays. People were home to watch the 6 to 7 songs our Doordarshan played in the name of "Oliyum Oliyum". Some even took the pain to write to "Ediroli" complaining about the old songs that were played the previous week. The host was always polite promising new songs the subsequent week. Now my bluray player has a youtube app, I can watch millions of songs of my choice.

Doordarsan's National program. The cultural invasion planned by Delhi, to ensure everyone tries to learn Hindi. Sorry Delhi, these are meaning less today.

Vacations those days meant, going to your grandparents or aunts place for a get-together. Today, people prefer to go to Europe or at least a plush Holiday resort inside India.

OK. The decade of high GDP growth in India has made us wealthier.

But are we happier ?

I don't know. I think we were as happy doing the old things.

Hard Rock Jarugandi

I was in Hard Rock Cafe a few minutes back.....Led Zeppelin was playing loud, the smoke was hanging in the air....the atmosphere was charged, absolutely ethereal, then they turned the lights on, like the "Jarugandi" in Tirupati, Sujju and I were shown the way out. We along with the house full of people walked out grumpy...damned it's not even midnight !!
In a lot of ways religion is like alcohol. Both delude us... and give us temporary relief from the worldly stress. Why go to Tirupati when you can pray at home ? is like asking why to go Hard Rock Cafe when you can drink at home ? Both give us a feeling of solidarity....getting to see people like us...in one place. One small difference though.....the people who go to Hard Rock Cafe know they are going to get deluded......

One Life.....

I sometimes wish life was like video games, where we have multiple lives, when we can afford to lose the first life, the second and then "game over". I thought about this recently after a colleague of mine passed away when he was just 45. One massive heart attack. That was the end of everything. You might think he was one of those pale, ailing guys who wrote his will, waiting to die. NO. He was not. He was "healthy looking" like us; walking, talking, joking and waving his kids good bye to office. Should we just dismiss this saying "it happens to others". I suggest we don't. We are as mortal as everyone else is, and no "Supreme God" can save us no matter how much we pray. So how safe are we from such tragedy ? Should we not introspect ? Let's look at some of the risk factors and explore mitigation strategies. I expect our Ortho-Psycho-Ezhil to guide us here.

Risk 1 : Smoking.
We all know the risk, but we still choose to ignore it. Hoping that some miracle will save our lungs and heart. They say nicotine is the "most addictive substance" known to humans, and most people who try to quit, fail. Making famous people like Mark Twain comment, "Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times".
But they say it is never too late, check this link for the short and long term benefits of quitting.
http://www.everydayhealth.com/smoking-cessation/immediate-and-long-term-benefits.aspx

Risk 2: Habitual drinking
If you're a smoker and habitual drinker, you give your body what is called as "double whammy". Habitual drinkers cause considerable damage to heart and liver.

Risk 3 : Obesity
If you're a smoker, habitual drinker and obese, then it is "triple whammy". Your condition is serious and you immediately need to seek some help.

Risk 4 : Stress
If you're a smoker, drinker, obese and stressed. Guess you should rush straight to the hospital and get yourself checked thoroughly.

Besides the above 4, there are genetic factors as well. But that's not under our control.
Hmm...I have some or most of risk factors listed above, so will I die in my mid 40s or 50s ?. The chances are high !!
Is that the end, then ? ...Fortunately, NO.

It's never too late. By adopting a healthy lifestyle we can significantly mitigate these risks. But,what's healthy ?. Quit smoking immediately. Eat a fat free diet with lots of fruits and vegetables. Start jogging or exercising.

Besides, most important, is to have regular health check-ups to diagnose any source of problem early on. Instead of waiting for the "fatal surprise", then blame the whole thing on cruel fate as we normally do.

Shopping Instinct

I read this somewhere. They say "shopping" is instinctive in women.
Sounds interesting. Lets try to put things in perspective.

Evolutionary psychology always gives us interesting things to think about. The theory goes like this. We(humans) have existed as Homo Sapiens for almost 2,00,000 years. Of which, we started agriculture around 10,000 years back. That's only for about 5% of our past. Then what were we doing for the rest of the 95% of our past for food?. We were "hunters gatherers". The men hunted game and the women gathered fruits, vegetable, nuts, etc. The meat gave the needed protein, while the fruits and vegetables supplemented our diet.

They say the hunter gatherer life we lived for so many tens of thousands of years has a profound influence on the way we lead our lives today. Men go fight(hunt) it out in the work place for money, status, etc. Women take care of the domestic needs, gathering things needed for household. Today's retail shops even gives the real gathering feeling, where things are laid out to be gathered and taken home.

The gathering we did as hunter gatherers was "free" and served to supplement out diet. But unfortunately shopping today "costs", and more often than not women buy things men deem "not needed". Any surprise why men throughout the world complain about their wives shopping habits?

I want to write more, but I gotta go..... I'm late for my Sunday "Gathering".

P.S : All characters appearing in this blog are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

Get-together

After months of anticipation and days of preparation, it finally happened. For a day, 36 Venkatachalam street was shifted to Manipal county, Bangalore.It was a momentous day, seeing the entire clan under one roof. Rather, over one lawn.

The weather was perfect. The lazy breakfast on the lush lawn was followed by Tatha's felicitation.After a "brief history of Tatha" that was read out our doc, everyone came forward to speak what they knew about this nonagenarian, who's beaten all odds for nearly a century !.Almost like Tennyson's brook...."for men may come and men may go, but I go on forever".

After all that, the "seven wives" were seen anxious about the sudden disappearance of the "seven brothers".Where do you think ? huh ? Toddy tapping ?. We might have done that centuries ago as a profession, but now, the business been taken over by big corporations who give us a chance to be only "consumers".And maybe, it was being in the toddy supply chain for centuries that caused some subtle changes in our DNA sequence, that we inherited through our maternal genes that made all seven the "consumers" we are.

It was a great day, except for a few anxious moments at the pool and the sack race injuries.Looking forward to more of these get-together in the future....

Kaathaadi

Diwali means different things to different people. For most, it is the fire crackers, the sweets, watching some new movie "first day first show", wearing new clothes, etc. But if you're from anywhere around "North Madras", there is "Kaathadi". Not flying kite on a Diwali day is almost blasphemous.

After celebrating Tatha's 90th birthday, we decided to fly !. Prem'na and I went to kappal poli chetty theru, purchased a lotai of "pre-manjaed" tread. Surprisingly, the cost of kites have not gone up since those days. We were able to get one dozen "Bombay Kaathadis" for just 40 Rupees. It was a lot of fun flying, we also managed to "cut" 4 kites, though lost 2.

This reminded me of some "kaathadi jargon", I'm listing a few below, see if you all can add more.

Manja : The magic potion made out of boiling extremely strange ingredients. Some experts claim to know the perfect formula to make the absolutely inseverable thread.

Peru-Vandi: The thick thread that most people use to fly kites.

Siru-Vandi: A little more esoteric, used by a few who believe that this thin thread can cut through thick thread more easily.

Deel: The ultimate battle, where our manja making and kite flying skills are tested against that of others.

Gaalia Paar: The victors of the deel chant this in unison, heart breaking if you're the vanquished and happen to hear this.

Baana: The really big kites with 'sungu', that need a lot of wind to fly. Flying these monsters is what separates the men from the boys.

Bombay: The relatively smaller kites that are easy to maneuver.

Chain 10: The thread that most of us use for manja. Thinking back, I'm wondering if this has any use besides flying kites.

Bun Nool : The "tooth-less" thread that is used by small kids to fly kites just for fun.

Paper Kathaadi: The home made kite made from newspapers. Usually flown by road-side kids who can't afford to buy a real kite.

Vajaram: A plastic plate like manja ingredient that does not melt too easily. Yet another of those things whose real world use outside manja I'm not able to figure.

Bottle-load: Layman term for ground glass used in manja.

Sai-thuni: The piece of cloth tied to either side of the kite when there is a stability problem.

Adi-vettu & Mel-vettu: The direction from which we take on our opponent during a "deel". Mel-vettu being preferred for favourable results.

Ironically, the above jargon along with kite flying is going to go into oblivion. The day after we flew, the government imposed a ban on kite flying; a non-bailable offence now. From next year, we may just have to settle with the other "Diwali things".

Minority Report

Ever wondered why people of the same caste, religion or ethnic group tend to cluster in their dwelling ?.Like the Nadars of Washermanpet, the Bramins of Mylapore, the Muslims of Royapettah and Muni-reddi-palya.
Some obvious reasons. Similar people have similar needs and are easily catered to when living together. Similar people tend to share the same ancestry that might have originated in some location and continued to exist through generations. But I suspect a more serious reason behind this. Safety in numbers. But what the hell ? we are not animals, are we ?.
Let's look at some history.

Rwanda :This was not centuries ago, to dismiss as "barbaric past".It happened as recent as 1994 when the majority Hutus decimated about a million minority Tutsis, in a carnage that lasted about three months. The Tutsis though a minority were supposed to have a higher socio-economically status than the majority Hutus. The movie "Hotel Rwanda" was based on this. Jared Diamond,in "collapse" says that poverty and scarcity of resources were the underlying drivers of this genocide.
Nazi:We don't need to go into the depths of this, we all know it. This happened at the backdrop of the great depression of the 1930s. Jobless and desperate, the Germans were swiftly driven towards hatred by Hitler.Eventually setting up the most popular pogrom ever. Exterminating millions of minority Jews. Who even during the great depression were supposed to be economically much better off than the rest.
Ceylon & Pakistan: We all know how Prabhakaran took to arms after the Tamil genocide. And also how the Hindu population in Pakistan mysteriously decreased from 15% during independence to less than 2% now.
Japan: Unlike the above this was not genocide. After the Japanese economy started declining in the 80s there was a small rise in the crime rate. The Japanese were quick to blame the immigrant Chinese minority for this.

These are just a few samples, I'm sure every country has it's own story.
Yeah, but this is elsewhere, what does it have to do with me ?.
Hang on. Our backyard is no better.
Maybe we should ask the Muslims of Gujarat, the north Indians in Mumbai,the Hindus in Kashmir Valley or the Sikhs affected by the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi. Even celebrities like the Bachchans have not been spared from the Thackeray intimidation.

These are still far away for me.
Hmm, how about the "IT people" of Bangalore ?.
The word "IT people" is used synonymously with "outside people" in Bangalore.
"Outside people" who stole jobs that rightfully belonged to the locals.
"Outside people" who transformed Bangalore to Bang"hell"ore with traffic snarls and over population.

OK, OK. So what's the moral of the story ?
As history and the present suggest, the majority has always asserted it's right over the minority. Clever leaders will incite hatred for their own benefit. "Innocent" "sons of soil" following their wily leaders will go to any extent to "earn" their spoils.

So should we run away ?
It's your choice. And it's not that all minorities have met with tragedy. We've had many leaders and stars from the minority. But it's important that we be cognizant of history. As they say, "those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it."

Fine, I've decided to go back to my home town, am I safe now ?
Maybe not. We humans are notorious for creating differences, even when they don't naturally exist. As we've seen how same language speaking, genetically similar, nadars and thevars belonging to same religion have been fighting pitched battles down South. We recently saw the grisly video of Chennai law college students lynching each other in what was called "caste based violence".
This reminds me of what Carl Sagan says in "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors". Aggression, dominance/submission and violence are part of our nature. Part of the tendencies we've inherited from our "animal" ancestors. We are them, and so we seek safety in numbers.