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.

State of Fear

The recent swine flu pandemic and the way the media is presenting it to us reminds me of the book "State of Fear" written By Michael Crichton. In this book, Crichton talks about the "ways of the media", of how they like to keep the public in a perpetual "state of fear" and about the motives of the media for doing so.

He talks about how, despite the drop in crime rate in the US, the general public, due to media, perceived a rise in crime rate and were much more scared than ever. He picked on the controversial issue of global warming, contending that the warming and cooling of the earth are normal phenomenon happening over centuries having nothing to do with human activity; with media focusing only on parts of the truth thereby keeping the public in a "state of fear".

Our Indian media seems to be doing the same now. When I was in the US last month, the number of swine flu cases there surpassed a million. Per capita, this is much higher that what we have here in India now and from what I gather, even the fatality rate for swine flu is just about the same as that of the normal seasonal flu that strikes every year. Even worse, about a thousand people in India die every day of TB, which is as contagious and can be fatal. But our media has found something new....to keep us in a "state of fear".

It's a small world !

Well, they say it's a small world. I'm sure all of us felt that sometime or the other.

Catching up with Siva and Family made me feel so last week. Though this was not as surprising as me bumping into an old friend of mine in a restaurant in Tokyo, this was indeed thrilling.

It was nostalgic. Thinking about cycling down together(doubles) to new paradise library in Vellore and now driving to downtown Chicago.

More pics in this link

http://family.webshots.com/album/573372950NtwzGX

East x West

Some quick comparisons..

Space : The first thing that strikes someone who lands in US is the vast amount of space available. Huge parking lots for small restaurants, and miles and miles of nothing. In sharp contrast to Japan, where space is highly valued and optimised. Japan has half the population of America, crammed in a country the size of California.

Food: The portions are large and rich, with cheese and meat. In contrast to the small portions of lean Japanese food. People here drink coke instead of water, the Japanese drink ochya(green tea). Guess that explains why the Japanese live longer and also why US is grappling with obesity.

Public Transport: Is almost non-existent here. The photo above is that of a station in the place I live, just a track with nothing around it, no humans waiting to board the train and the trains consistently late. In Japan, life revolves around the trains and stations. Real estate value is determined by the distance from the station. The farther the cheaper.

Work: My customers in Japan say they are busy and work 16 hrs a day, my customers here too say they are busy but work only 8 hrs a day. The office is empty by 5PM.

Customer Service: Even in extremely cheap places in Japan, customer service is excellent. They truly consider customers as God, fall at your feet and do all it takes to satisfy you. Guess you need to pay in America for good customer service.


People: Japan is homogeneous, one race throughout. America is extremely multicultural. But the Japanese tend to be more polite, humble, helpful and great team players. The Americans seem a little more assertive, brag a lot and very individual.

So my choice ?, I like US for the space and seemingly laid back life. But the people in Japan make you forget the space crunch and hard life style.

Betsu Betsu !

I found this hilarious passage in the description of Indian culture in an India travel guide. Quoting below.

"It is customary to put up a token friendly argument with your host or any other member of the group when paying bills at restaurant or while making purchases. The etiquette for this is somewhat complicated. If you are someone's personal guest and they take you out to a restaurant, you should offer to pay anyway, and you should insist a lot. Sometimes these fights get a little funny, with each side trying to snatch the bill away from the other, all the time laughing politely. If you don't have experience in these things, chances are, you will lose the chance the first time, but in that case, make sure that you pay the next time."

What appears apparently funny to someone from the West or any developed country is part of our daily life. I'm sure all of us would have gone through this quite a few times.

In Japan, "Going Dutch" is called "Betsu Betsu". Which literally means "separate separate" or more appropriately in Tamil "varai varai". A group of friends or acquaintances going to restaurants order what they please and when it's time to pay, say "betsu betsu" to the waiter, walk to the counter, orally say what each ate, pay ONLY for their part and walk out. This might sound crude to some of us(I was horrified !). We are more used to the "tragedy of the commons" type of, one person paying at a time and a tacit agreement that the other people pay later(which might never happen). I've always wondered why we had to settle for a dicey system of payment which is hugely biased against altruists who end up paying more often than the rest.

But the answer may not be in altruism as most of us perceive, as much as it is on the disparity of wealth in our society. Though one person is expected to pay for expenses, the unsaid expectation is that the wealthiest pays for the rest. I took the below data from bbc website.

WEALTH DISTRIBUTION IN INDIA
Top 1%: 16% of wealth
Top 5%: 38% of wealth
Top 10%: 53% of wealth
Bottom 80%: 30% of wealth
Bottom 50%: 8% of wealth
Bottom 20%: 1% of wealth
Bottom 10% 0.2% of wealth
Source: University of Western Ontario, 2006

The above disparity of wealth will certainly exist among friends or acquaintances who go out together in India. It will not be possible to do a "betsu betsu" easily as they do in an "almost equal" Japan or any other developed country. But things are changing. With the recent economic boom, the middle is slowing tending towards the top. Does it mean that we'll also start doing "betsu betsu" ? the author of the passage on Indian culture will rewrite the advisory ? maybe not !