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.

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 !

health advice websites

A few good websites for general public on health.
www.patient.co.uk
www.healthtalkonline.org

Ezhil

Memories of 36 venkatachalam street

I wonder what memories people have of achi/thatha's house.
For me-
Spending holiday in a huge house with garden to play cricket, mottai madi for flying kite,dining table for playing table tennis,whole house for ice boys(have i spelt it right?).
Getting up early in the morning to play cricket ,playing table tennis very late at night annoying thatha.
Yogan anna's nellikai/sorbuth sale.
Prem's heroics with kite and manja.
Card games.I can't remember but someone used to cry for not being included.
Atleast one person getting hurt during the holidays.
Missi amma's house/dog.
Watching Bioscope without thatha's permission and being chased back to the house.
Breakage of things due to our naugtiness.For example we broke the light while playing cricket(i think it was prem) and achi tried to defend us against thatha by saying that it fell on it's own.
Thatha's way of buying things-ball,pencil,dress wholesale and cutting costs.
Hindi classes somewhere nearby, dropped by dhanam periyamma( I guess she was the brightest of the lot).
Also coached by dhanam periyamma the day before my entrance exam at PS school,Mylapore.
Bangalore periyamma's arrival (usually after our arrival) and the Arun ice cream treats(chocobar on special occasions).
Yogan anna,sujju bringing latest posh things like skate shoes.
Renuka akka getting special attention(eg. going to movies) from everyone as being the only female child,I guess it didn't bother me unlike Yogan anna.
Bangalore periyappa sitting in the front room lecturing about burma bazaar.
Egmore periyappa bringing tv when the one at thata's house broke down.
Lunch served by bangalore periyamma with competition for the special plate.
"Namam" ritual for people guessing the wrong sex for the news reader on tv.
Yogan anna and rajkumar anna forming an alliance and talking about "adult" things
Mama's treat of taking us to cinema(Rajnikanth starrer-Thaivedu )followed by balu hotel parotta.
Crying in the stairs when everyone leaves at the end of holiday, .
Final goodbye at Parrys bus stand when we take the 21 N bus to mylapore and others taking bus no 9,10 or 17 to egmore.

No feeling of discrimination and a sense of one big family.

I hope our next generation will grow up with such positive feelings and experiences.

Ezhil Anand

Obama

People all over the world talk about a black president in a white majority country,which has a negative history of slavery and skewed civil liberties.
But I always argue that in india, inspite of it's negatives, had at one point a Muslim president and a sikh prime minister in a hindu majority country.

Hello

Hi Arun
Well done and hope we can continue the good work you started.Good to see big brother Yoganna and Raj's posting.
I haven't seen the photo displayed and can't recognise the girls!!
Will post in detail later.
Ezhil

HI ARUN N WELCOME YOGI

HI GUYS,
WELCOME ALL GUYS TO COME ON BOARD IMMEDIATELY N SHARE WATS UP???

Black Dog and New Mohan

This is not Led Zeppelin's Black Dog or about the old actor Mohan.

It's about the "Black Dog" we consumed in a place called "New Mohan". An interesting name for a place so old. It all started when Yoga, Sujju, Ezhil and I decided to go for "a tipple" on a quiet Saturday night, just when all bars close for the day.

Sujju at the driver's seat was "hell-bent" on getting to an "ambi-place". A term we'd coined on the fly to describe places that are plush, where the waiters greet you to your seat and serve food with garnish. It was past 11 and I said "Sujju, forget it, just go where Yoga is asking us to"; and Sujju obliged.


New Mohan was not bad from outside, the inside was a different story. We were guided through a small space open to the sky and then to a stairway (to heaven ?), the entire place was kind of slippery because of rain (or someone's puke ?), though I still hope it was the former.

I carefully climbed up the stairs, taking special care not to touch anything around. We were on top and were greeted by a cat munching some chicken bones left over by other "tipplers". The place had some kind of a courtyard and we could feel the mild drizzle. Surrounding the courtyard were wet tables and chairs with a lot more chicken bones and left overs from other "guests". To top things up there was a clothsline running on top of most tables with underwears and baniyans fluttering in the breeze. I was searching for Sujju to tell him how wrong I was to urge him to dump the "ambi-place" hunt, and how right he was in being obstinate about finding one. But Sujju was not following us, he had apparently got a call from office and was attending it below.

Yoga tried to make things better by pushing the bones off the table and wiping the chairs dry. And so we sat down - just teasing Yoga about the kind of place he's got us to. But deep inside I knew that this feeling of unease would not last long.

Finally we were settled and decided to go for the costliest they had there, just to avoid any kind of discomfort the next day. The "child laboured" kids who served us for that night got us something called as Black Dog. We "downed" a few glasses and in the state of euphoria induced by the Dog we discussed world politics, Richard Dawkins, etc. The euphoria made me completely oblivious to the surrounding ambience. In fact, I was so "comfortable" with the place that I started to contribute to the mess by throwing a few chicken bones and stuff over my head and behind. What happened next is a little hazy, but I know we reached home at about 3:30 AM(thanks to Sujju's skillful driving). Only to wake up with a splitting headache the next day. Black Dog was Bad Dog.

Yoo Aroon ... Way to go...

that was great aroon.... ( As per numerology ) great thought from a great guys...

lets keep this place rocking and pour in lots of our positive achievements and feelings....

The Triumph !

What are these kids here celebrating ? Victory ? . Of LIFE over death, GOOD over bad, JOY over sorrow ...or maybe... all of these. LIFE has indeed been GOOD and JOYous !. Considering that we were a bunch of cousins born during the semi-socialist India of the sixties and seventies, I'm sure we were lucky too. In a country where human life is abundant and hence dispensable, we were the lucky ones that survived(so far) all forms of "casual terminations" that happen all the time.....from the millions of road fatalities, the quick and easy electrocutions during rain, the sudden floods, the unexpected tsunamis, the ever threatening bird flues, the current terror attacks, etc.. The list goes on and on. This blog is not about the frail nature of life but rather the Triumph of life itself. About life which had its origins in "36 Venkatachalam Street", a place where we'd spent our childhood holidays, a place that brings forth fond memories of innocent, unforgettable joy.