Here's looking at you!

The older I get, almost like a poster-child (!) for stereotypical aging, I seem to be less inclined to try anything new than ever before.  Even in the international in-flight entertainment, for which the choices were many--well, other than in that bizarre travel segment--not being adventurous meant that the options were significantly narrow.

Fellow passengers do not seem to provide entertainment either, these days.  Back in the old days, there was always some drama or the other that kept me intrigued and involved.  Like that one flight in which a passenger couple of rows away from me (thankfully, for reasons that will become obvious soon) started trying out every free alcohol there was on the serving cart.  "I love your airline for the free booze" he even remarked.  And soon threw up.  Now, that is some real live entertainment, when I was comfortably seated far away from his puke's reach ;)

But, these days, people are immensely more civilized, polite, even teetotaling (is this a real word, or did I invent it?) it seems.  The cabin crew do not hand out drinks to the tipsy either.  So, that fun has been, ahem, watered down!

Thus, I was left with choosing from the familiar.

First up, Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times.  Maybe because I am now old, and the movie is a lot older, Modern Times was not anywhere near as charming as it was when I watched it a couple of decades ago.

Perhaps movies lose their appeal and meaning when they are far removed from the contexts when they are made?  But if movies are expressions of art, and when paintings and music and literature can seem to be timeless, shouldn't classic movies like Modern Times have a similar appeal?

Soon, I was bored, again.

I scanned the list yet another time, thankfully (for reasons that will become obvious soon.)

Apparently I had overlooked Casablanca in my earlier reading of the menu.  I clicked on play.

A movie that is only so slightly younger than my mother.  Yet, with every passing minute, it confirmed the idea that there can be timeless movies as masterpieces of art, similar to the prized paintings, memorable music, or the profound literature.

I have watched Casablanca quite a few times, and yet I was smiling and chuckling at the humorous lines as if it was my first time ever.  When Captain Renault said, "It is a little game we play. They put it on the bill, I tear up the bill. It is very convenient," I laughed so loudly that my startled seatmate looked away from her screen in order to check what it was that I was watching!

Meanwhile, this old man knew it was time to expel some of the water that had been going in at a steady rate.  Having watched Casablanca plenty of times, I knew when exactly I wanted to pause the movie.  It was going to be when Ingrid Bergman's Ilsa looked at Humphrey Bogart's Rick with emotions filled in her eyes.

That moment came.

I hit the pause button.

I walked up to the restroom not bored anymore.

I returned.
I switched on the cellphone.
And clicked.
My seatmate watched my actions.  Perhaps I was providing her with entertainment? I couldn't care.
I clicked another shot just to make sure.
I switched the phone off.
I sat down, fastened the seat belt, and pressed the play button.

The next time, I will first scan the listing for Casablanca and watch it yet again.  So what if I have become old!

Get Lucky at a TexMex restaurant in India

It was about two decades ago, this time of the year, that we hosted the first of the few Swedish students.  She was a final year high school student, who was brave enough to experience the Bakersfield summer.  It was 110-degrees the afternoon that she landed, and when we brought her home, it turned out that the air conditioning system was dead!

She was a good sport, well-informed, and well-traveled.  When chatting with her, she talked about her interests in the kitchen, and I thought I might also plan the meals working in her preferences.  "What is your favorite that you like to make back home?" I asked her.

I was worried she might say "herring."  It was not herring and I was even more screwed.

"Tacos" she said.

Here was a teenage blonde from Sweden who loved making tacos back in her small town.  Twenty years ago!

It is a highly globalized culinary world in which we live.  Not my grandmothers' nothing-but-traditional food life.

I am always amazed and impressed with how much different foods have diffused throughout the world.  Yet, when the business thinker suggested that we go out to dinner, I didn't expect him to say "it's a TexMex place."

TexMex in India.  Go figure!

"It will be a good change from the Indian food you have been eating since you left Eugene" he added. True.  A good change.  But, really, TexMex in India?  Wow!

Given the city's nasty reputation for traffic, it was a smooth drive to Habanero.  We hadn't even entered the restaurant when I saw this:

O M G!
Live entertainment by a singer from Colombia!
In Bangalore.
In India!
The old country is not the old country I left behind, eh.

There she was singing with a Karaoke support, and occasionally tapping on the conga drums.  With a young crowd hooting and howling, and singing along sometimes.
A Colombian.
In Bangalore.

It was time to order.  I went with the vegetarian Mexican Taco Salad.

The Colombian kept singing.  There was not even one number that I didn't recognize, despite her best attempts to sing them all in a manner that made distinguishing one from the other quite a task.  A young crowd a couple of tables away continued with their hooting and howling.

The singer is the barely recognizable image in the dark in the middle

"She seems to be singing for you" joked my friend.

"If only she sang better" I replied.

"If she were better, then she won't be here" he said.

I suppose that is true about most of us in whatever we do.  If we were better, we might not be where we are.  Nor would we be where we are if we were any worse. To be happy in where we find ourselves is what most of the challenge in life seems to be about.

The food arrived.  It looked good.  Will it taste as good as it looked?

I took a bite.
And another.
And another.
Soon, it was all gone.
It was a pretty darn good vegetarian Mexican Taco Salad. In Bangalore. In India.

As if all that excitement weren't enough, the Colombian rendered her version of Get Lucky.  I asked the business thinker if he recognized the tune.  He did not.  The shock of a Colombian providing live entertainment at a TexMex place in Bangalore in India paled next to the shock of one not recognizing Get Lucky ;)   

On this sweet life ...

Many, many decades ago, back in school, there was an attempt, feeble as it was, to start Boy Scouts and Girl Guides.  I have no idea what the girls did, but we boys didn't do much though, once, we even went on a day trip--on our bicycles, as I recall.

I was never interested in camping and tieing tying different kinds of knots anyway.  But, there was one aspect that impressed me--a Scout maintained a daily list of socially constructive actions, which could include even acts like helping an old person cross the street.

Yesterday, I was a Boy Scout, who helped an old woman on the street.

I was barely out of the compound on the way to buy a jar of honey to go with the jackfruit that awaited me when a woman, who was perhaps in her late 70s and attired in the old traditions of the old country, stopped me.  "Do you know where number 7 is?" she asked me in Tamil.  Obviously, I had no idea.

But, I did not have the heart to merely tell her that I didn't know.  There was a look of desperation in her.  It is an awful feeling of being lost--literally and metaphorically.  When somebody points out the way or helps along, life becomes a lot more pleasant.

"I am not from here.  But, I will try to figure this out" I assured her.

It was amazing how much more relaxed she became in her facial expression.

"I have come to see "S" and his wife, who recently had an operation ..." she started.  I bet she would have told me her life story if I had allowed her to.

"They have two numbers here--an old number and a new number.  Is "7" an old one or new?" I asked her, fully anticipating that she would not know.  Of course, she did not know.

"Can you call "S"" she asked.

"Oh, I don't have a cell phone."

"I have a phone.  But, I don't know how to call."

"Do you have the number?"

"It is in the phone."

I cannot understand why corporations cannot manufacture and sell simple cell phones that older folks can use.  To make a simple phone call.  But, the cell phones and their gizmos end up terrorizing the older folks.

She handed me the phone.  Her genuine trust in me humbled me.  I live in a world where we are always suspicious of people and their motives.

I located a number for "S" and dialed it.  I gave her the phone.

"It is ringing" she updated me.  Soon she started talking with "S" and asked him where "7" was.

I walked with her to the street adress "7."  "Romba thanks" she said.  She was now an assured, calm, smiling face, unlike how she looked when she stopped me.

This boy scout earned his jackfruit with honey.  It tasted all the more delicious.

Poor, poor me!

While Amazon might be trying its best to deliver groceries the same say that customers place their orders, that process works like a charm in the old country.  "Give this list to the store" my mother said as I was stepping out for a walk.  The grocery store is across the street, and you can reach it before you can say Jack Robinson.  The dutiful son that I always am (!) I handed the list to the guy at the store and a few hours later the delivery happened.  Can you beat that, Amazon? ;)

Along with the groceries, which was to meet the major needs for a month, the guy also delivered the bill. After looking at the bottom-line, father did a Redd Foxx-style heart attack act, though he has never heard of Foxx, I am sure.  Perhaps it is a similar experience with most fathers anywhere on this planet--after all, we men are programmed to try to be funny;)

Later, the discussions were about the cost of living and inflation, and comparing the costs to those in the old days.  "If we feel that groceries are so expensive, I wonder how a middle-class family with two kids manage" mother remarked.

Discussions like this are juicy topics for me, and I can easily slip into an academic mode.  But, I held myself in check.  However, I remembered that a few years ago, when a great-aunt asked me about how the price of bread in the US compared with the price in India, I gave her a jargon-free explanation that was essentially about Purchasing Power Parity and she appreciated that explanation.

"My plane ticket for this India trip was sixty times that grocery bill.  In other words, if I didn't come to India, I could have used that money to buy you groceries for five years!" I said.  I had their attention.  "With inflation, it will work out to only four years" quipped my sister.

The nerdy academic found the opening.

"Suppose you were to line up all the families in the world--not the extended families but the nuclear families--from the richest to the poorest, similar to lining up based on the height, where do you think you will be in that line?" I asked them.  "Will you be towards the beginning, with the rich, or in the middle, or towards the end with the poor?"

As I get older, I find that drawing people into thinking about serious stuff is not as difficult as it was when I was younger.  I guess experience matters a lot.  Now I know a tad more about how to thread that proverbial needle.

"In the middle" my sister replied.  "Of course, the middle" affirmed my father.

"You will be in the top ten percent, way up in the line" I told them.  Though, I suspect that they will be even farther ahead, close to the top five percent.

"But, the reason you feel like you are in the middle is this--you are thinking in the context of the people you know and interact with, and compared to some you feel a lot poorer, and you end up thinking you are somewhere near the middle."

"I will be even ahead of you in that line" I added.  I am one of those global one-percenters, which is often why I wonder how rich the super-rich must be and how they feel that their stand against sharing even a tiny sliver of their incomes is morally defensible.

"It will be a tough life for the poor" my sister reflected on the data that was sinking into her.

A tough life is an understatement.

If only we realized on a daily and ongoing basis that we--including you, the reader, unless you are a student--are incredibly rich people on this planet.  But, humans that we are, we forget and cry poverty all the time.

Poor me!

Into the swing of things ...

My childhood home was surrounded by trees. Five huge tamarind trees, seven or eight mango trees, a cashewnut tree, two bearing lemons, and a bunch of trees that did not produce any edible fruits.

In one corner of this compound was a lovely swing.  A swing with a plank on which two kids could sit or stand.  My brother and I have had countless competitions on that swing--two of our favorites were how high one could swing, and how much farther one could jump off that swing.  And, of course, many of these ended up in fistfights too!

While the swing at home was an outdoor one, grandmother's home had an indoor swing. A swing that was long and broad enough to serve as a bed.  It was in the inner courtyard, which served us kids well because we did not have to deal with the midday sun.  We cousins who gathered at grandmother's home during our annual school vacations have played, eaten, and also slept on that swing.  And, yes, lots of crying at the swing.

Thus, old as I might be, even now I am always drawn to a swing when I see one.

I was swinging away at the local park when a self-appointed righteous citizen, clad in a dhoti, chastised me for my merriment.  "The swing is for children, and you should not be swinging" he scolded me in Tamil as he contorted his facial muscles to produce a contemptuous expression.

Over the past few days, a couple of minutes at the swing has been a part of my early morning routine.  It is my reward for the hour-plus of walking in the insanely hot and humid morning.  After those couple of minutes, I slowly walk back home.

That local guy, who was perhaps no older than I am, perhaps has never had the pleasure of swinging away life's problems.  He perhaps has never experienced the priceless joys of swinging.
There is a pleasure in gentle swinging.
There is a different pleasure in the wild arcs.
Another pleasure with company.
Thrills are different in the morning hours versus in the evenings.
Indoor versus outdoor.
What a joyless world that guy must be in if he has never known such simple pleasures of life!

"It is all ok" is all I replied in Tamil.

That response did not go well with him.

Consistent with the culture of self-appointed righteous citizens, he immediately shared his concerns with two other middle-aged men, who then turned around to look at me swinging.  I wanted to wave a hi to them, but I did not.  The citizen kept gesticulating at my direction as he continued to talk with them and they too regularly turned their heads towards me.  I continued to swing.

I slowly walked back home thinking about the cold, fresh, mango juice in the fridge. I wish I could drink the mango juice while seated on that swing, just like in the old days.

Parting is such sweet sorrow ... the fascinating real life

"You can write or read during the nearly five-hour train ride" the business thinker said as he graciously drove me to the train station.

Sounds logical. But, I don't read or write when on the train.  Rarely ever on the plane either.  Definitely nothing serious.  Perhaps I read a newspaper (no, not that newspaper.)

"I simply watch the landscape and the people.  Real life is fascinating" I told him.

This train ride was no exception.

A young woman stood on the platform wiping with her handkerchief the tears from her eyes.  When her hand was freed from the eyes, she blew kisses to the young man who was seated across from me, a row in between us.

We men do not have the luxury that females have when it comes to displaying emotions.  Women cry at airports and train stations and the world is ok with it.  If we men showed that kind of emotions, then even most women won't give us a second look!  We act tough only to attract the female kind!

It seemed that the young man was trying his best to keep the emotions under check.  He kept miming her to get going.  She continued with the air kisses.  He then texted her something--I think it was to her that he texted.  She looked down, which I assume was at her phone, and then looked up and smiled at him and blew kisses his way.

The train started moving.
Tears flowed down her cheeks as she waved.
She walked with the train.
And then she jogged along.

That was the last I saw her.

The older I get, the more I feel troubled by the sight of a young woman in tears.  Perhaps I see my daughter in every young woman.  I am willing to bet that no normal father can watch even a minute of his daughter's cries.

The young man sat transfixed for a while.  I was tempted to go up to him and tell him it is all ok.  But then we are men.  I sat where I sat, and he sat where he sat.  If I had a son, would my reactions be different, I wonder.

Had I been reading, I would have missed out on all these.  I will any day bear witness to the Juliets blowing kisses to their Romeos.

But then there are moments when I am convinced that reading is a much better option.

Had I been reading, I would not have known about a middle-aged man who was digging boogers out of his nostril.  In the "executive class."  I suppose that too is real life.  A disgusting part of real life.  But then such disgusting acts make those partings all the sweeter.

Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

The train staff were worse than my aunts!

One of the most charming aspects of the train rides in India: the rhythmic "tadak, tadak" punctuated by lengthy whistle sounds from the engine.  A lifetime of memories associated with those sounds.  But, sitting inside the air-conditioned "executive class" I could hear very little of the "tadak, tadak" and not even a faint whistle sound.

Which is why I walked over to stand by the door for a few minutes and take in those sounds.  The happiness from listening to that was simply priceless.

"Tadak, tadak."

Perhaps I stood there with a big grin on my face.  The on-board railway catering staff--two guys in their late twenties--smiled back at me.  And this time I consciously smiled at them.

"Coffee, tea, sir?" asked one.  I nodded a negative.

"Tadak, tadak."

They continued to go about their business.  Noticing that I was kind of squished in by the door, thanks to the food crates stacked up there, one of the staff cleared up everything from near the other door and motioned me to take up that better real estate.

I liked those two guys.  They were systematically taking care of things and with pleasant demeanors.  I wanted to take photographs of those two, but was not sure how much it would be an imposition, and an exercise of economic privilege, if I were to ask them.  I wimped out.

"What if I took photographs of the coach, and in that process included them in the shot?" I thought to myself.  After all, the coach is a public space.

"Tadak, tadak."

I worry that I overthink things.  Maybe life is far too simpler than what I make it out to be.  But then such thinking is the only way I can exist.

I took out my camera and framed a shot of the coach through the glass door.  And clicked when one of them appeared in the view.  A little more of "tadak, tadak" and soon, I was back in my seat.  A couple of hours later, the train rolled into the station platform and my task was to locate the argumentative Indian.

Forty-eight hours later, I was on the train, to get back to Chennai.  It was the same catering staff.  "Oh hey, thanks" I said to one of them when he handed me a water bottle and a wide grin.

A little while later he came to serve hot water and instant coffee.  I was dying for coffee, even if the horrible instant version.  "A double, sir" he said with a smile and a wink, as if he read my mind that I was drooling for coffee.  I noticed that he had handed the rest only one packet each.  Boy did I need that double pack!

Soon, I was by the door to listen to "tadak, tadak."  I returned to my seat.

The catering staff set about serving soup.  I was hungry enough that I could have eaten anything.  I finished the soup and the breadstick.

The other smiling guy asked me whether I would like more soup.  I moved my hands to indicate a no.  He asked me again, and I again smiled and vocalized a no.  As I moved my hand away from the bowl, he poured more soup into my bowl.  He smiled and said something in Hindi.

His hospitality reminded of how my aunts back in the day treated our "no."  When they asked whether we wanted more food, it was not a question but an expression of their intention to serve us some more.  There was no point saying no to them--if we covered the plate, they even served on top of our fingers!  I am glad that some old traditions have not died out.

"Tadak, tadak."


(An old one, as the train gained speed out of Sengottai, where grandmother lived)

Shit, shit, shit, shit ...

I knew for certain that I had to gear up for the revenge of the cosmos.  I had outsmarted it with the train seat, and held on to my own during the stormy ride for a tie.  I just didn't know what the next challenge might be.

After a dinner of wonderfully tasty bananas--yes, that is all this healthnut had for dinner in order to compensate for a tad unhealthy lunch with old college-mates--I decided to unwind by playing a couple of rounds of bridge online.  Awful tables I was at and I quit soon after.

I turned the television on, hoping that something might be there to amuse and involve me.  It is amazing how there can be a gazillion channels and, yet, nothing to watch.

Even as I kept changing channels hoping against hope that I will land on an interesting show, everything went dark. The TV and the lights.  Even the diffused light from outside through the window curtains.  The AC was dead.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit ..." is all I think kept uttering.

Ever since old age crept up on me, which was about a decade ago (!) I always carry with me a small flashlight or a camping-style head-lamp when I travel outside the US.  This time too, the head-lamp was one of the first things I tossed into the suitcase when getting ready for the India trip.  But, the "shit, shit, shit, shit ..." was because I forgot to take that with me to Bangalore, and it was back in Chennai.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit ..."

It was pitch dark.  I didn't have my cellphone near me either.  That would have helped, not merely to place a phone call, but because it is one of those old, old cellphones that has a tiny flashlight built into it.  It is my father's, and he simply refuses to use any newer phone.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit ..."

I groped my way to the door.  Even when I had checked in, I had made a mental note of the emergency exit down from the fifth floor. I reached the door and was about to turn the handle when a thought struck me.  What if in anticipation a thug or two was waiting outside the door to thump me on the head?

I paused for a second.  But, the slight panic from the claustrophobia was worse than any potential thumping on the head.

I decided I would not slowly open the door, but surprise the heck out of whoever it was outside by quickly opening it.  That is what I did.

A minimal light was in the corridor.  Phew!  I suppose the emergency lighting system had kicked in.

And just as I relaxed at the door and took a couple of deep breaths, the lights and the TV came back on.

"Is it the real thing, or the generator?" I asked myself.

And everything went dark again.

I didn't even have time to panic.  The lights came back yet again.  I assumed that this was the real thing.

I double-locked the door.  Shut the TV off. Shut the lights off.  Felt at ease with the diffused light from the outside through the curtains.

Sriram 2: Cosmos 0.  One was a draw.

I won!

That which does not kill me makes me stronger, indeed.

It was a dark and stormy night

"No problems, I will go back in a taxi" could easily have been my last words!

I offered to take a cab because I felt sorry for my friend who had driven: an hour-plus to pick me up, after which he drove for slightly less than half-an-hour to the restaurant; then an hour-and-a half to show me his home and for me to meet with his family.  I figured another three hours of a round-trip driving to drop me back at the hotel is the worst punishment that I could inflict on a friend, whom I was meeting after 29 years.

As I got into the taxi, a couple of raindrops fell.  I know for sure they were raindrops.  The sky had quickly darkened like during the last days of Pompeii.  I sat in, said bye, and as the car started moving, the clouds burst open sending down gallons and gallons of water.

The driver, who was probably in his late twenties, drove like any taxi driver in his late twenties.  Sudden lurches to the right or to the left whenever he thought he saw an opening to go forward amidst the chaotic traffic that was getting insanely chaotic with the rain that was not letting up.

Lightning and thunder and gusty winds.  A couple of miles in, the roads were already flooded.

The driver couldn't care about all these conditions. He picked up his cellphone and chatted with whoever it was in Kannada, which was beyond my comprehension.  Meanwhile, he shifted gears, adjusted the air-conditioning, increased/decreased the wiper speeds, and occasionally remarked something to me, which I could not understand anyway.

I am always ready to die.  But, not a painful and torturous death, which I feared awaited me that evening.

Meanwhile, pedestrians were jumping on to the road seemingly out of nowhere--after all, there were very few streetlights--and on every occasion I was convinced that the taxi would knock them down dead.  As if that weren't enough, motorcycles and scooters zoomed in from the left and the right, and sometimes continued along on the sidewalk.

It was as if I had been inserted into a videogame.  And I am not good at videogames.  The last time I played I had a little bit of youth left in me and even then I didn't care for those games.  Here I was in a videogame reality show.

I kept scanning the landscape for any bit of "I remember seeing this when going to the friend's place" but always drew a blank.  Were we going in the correct direction?  Did the cabdriver figure out I was an easy prey?

"How much more?" I asked him at one point.  He didn't know what I was asking him.  "Innum evvalo dhoorum?" I asked him in Tamil hoping that he knew at least a little bit of that language.  He did.  "10 minutes" he said.  I know India enough to know that when people say it is only ten minutes more to go, well, it is anything but ten minutes.

More urban flooding. More honking. More swerving. More road rage.

Suddenly he swung left to turn into a main road.  "Ring Road.  Kyaa hotel sir?" he asked me now in Hindi.

I, of course, had no freaking clue.  "Park Plaza" is all I replied.

A minute later, I told him, "ask somebody."  I forgot the Hindi word for "ask" else I could have said that in Hindi

He crawled, while honking at the pedestrians and autos.  I spotted the signage and pointed out to him.  The hotel was on the other side of the road, with a median in between.  "U-turn kahaan hai, sir?" he complained.  I suspect he wanted me to get down right there, and then cross the street dodging the insane traffic.  No way was I going to play that videogame.

"Go main road. Then u-turn" I used simple English.

He was not thrilled.  But he agreed.  The turn was more than a mile later.  Another mile in the other direction and we entered the hotel driveway.

Neither the cosmos nor I won this round ...
... to be continued ;)

The travails of a solo traveler

I had forgotten how busy a train station can be in India even in the early hours of the day, in the darkness of the clock barely past five.  The heat, the humidity, the crowds, the noise, and stray dogs seeming to bear witness to everything that happens, is a world away from my daily existence by the Willamette River.

"I travel to get out of my comfort zone" is one of the many responses I give students if ever they ask me about my peripatetic preferences.  Especially when the older I get, the more I seem to want to stay with the familiar and the comfortable.

Getting into the coach--the compartment, in the vernacular--was, thus, a wonderful entrance into a world of cool and quiet comfort.  An aisle seat in the direction of travel.  Phew!

I stepped out to confirm my name and seat number 51 on the chart by the door.  It was the correct train and coach.  Phew!

I settled into my spacious seat.

If everything is so well, then the cosmos might have other plans, I worried.  Experiences I have had in plenty, right from my formative years in the old country, when I have been subject to the disadvantage-of-the-young-single-male-traveler.  Almost always, I have ended up losing my seat that I would have carefully selected.

A gent about fifteen to twenty years older than me took up the seat across the aisle from me.  He asked his seatmate by the window whether he would mind trading seats with his wife.  "Number 1 is also a window seat" he said.  The guy couldn't because the rest of his travel party was in the row ahead.

I knew it was only a matter of seconds before I would be ... when I felt my left hand being tapped.

"Would you mind switching seats with my wife who is in "1"--a window seat?"

"Am sorry I can't.  I hate window seats and choose the aisle because I am a tad claustrophobic."

"Oh, that's ok."

"But, tell you what ... we can do a double switch if you want.  You can ask my seatmate when he or she comes, and then I can trade seats with you." Following baseball for a few years means that the game's "double switch" jargon comes easily.

Which is what happened.  Phew!

Sriram 1, Cosmos 0.

I now worried that the cosmos would want to get its sweet revenge ...
... to be continued ;)

The world needs taxi drivers too

Decades ago, Robert invited us over to his place for dinner when his mother was visiting.  A hyper-energetic college professor he was, who liked to cook too.  Thankfully, he spared us from eating matzos and instead made dishes like molé, which was awesome especially when that was the first time ever for me!

After the initial introductions, it was time for friendly banter.  I asked Robert's mother whether as per the stereotype she was disappointed that her son did not go into a career in law or medicine.  We laughed.

Mike was yet another deviation from the stereotypical Jewish lawyer or doctor.  The well-read and well-informed Mike hadn't formally educated himself after high school and, instead, pursued his passion in machines and was a highly successful at it.  Mike once took us to the synagogue to which he and his wife belonged.  He introduced us to some of the people there--professionals and tradespeople across the economic spectrum, and not the lawyer/doctor caricatures.

In the rut that we often walk, we tend to believe that the paths to prosperity are not many.  In my old days in the old country, the dominant belief was that a life of struggles awaited those who did not go into engineering or medicine.  My fellow argumentative Indian at this blog is a wonderful example to prove otherwise.  But, habits die hard, I suppose:

As many as 38 students — six girls and 32 boys — of the Neyveli Jawahar Higher Secondary School, successfully cleared the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced)-2014. They would be admitted to the Indian Institutes of Technology for the current academic year.
Chairman-cum-Managing Director of the Neyveli Lignite Corporation B. Surender Mohan felicitated the IIT aspirants at a brief function held at the Telugu Kala Samithi here on Saturday.

It is quite an achievement, yes, that so many from the same school gained admission to the prestigious engineering schools in the country.  Note, however, that the celebratory event was not held at the school but at "the Telugu Kala Samithi."  What's the connection?  This cultural organization had arranged for "coaching classes" for students.  I can easily imagine that the life of those students would have been nothing but hours in school, hours preparing for tests and exams, and then more hours at the coaching classes.  As long as it all works out for them; but, I worry that there is seemingly nothing done at all to encourage the growth and development of more than a one-dimensional human.

What do the rest of the students from that school do anyway?  After all, with or without coaching classes, not everyone will attend an engineering or a medical college.  

Turns out that the cosmos is always providing us with answers to questions.  It is just that often we are either asking the wrong questions, or are oblivious to the answers, or both.  Yesterday, I happened to catch one of those answers.

The taxi driver, a young man in his early twenties, seemed to be a tad hesitant about the roads and the routes.  "Shall I go via West Mambalam, sir?" he asked me.  I was sitting in the front passenger seat for the obvious reason--to get the blast from the AC vents ;)

"I have no idea" I replied and relayed the question to father, who greenlighted the suggestion. 

At the end of the round trip, when we were two minutes away from home, father asked him if he was new to town.  

"Yes, sir.  Only five months now."

"Where did you come from?"

"Neyveli, sir. Neyveli Township."

We all got excited that the young driver was from the place that has a special place in our hearts.  

"For more than twenty years we lived there" father said.  "All my children went to Jawahar School."

"You say children.  He looks at me and all he sees is an old man" I joked.  I had to.  Else, it is a boring one-dimensional life!

We wished him well as we got off the taxi. 

A Neyveli-born and raised taxi driver.  A couple of years ago, an artist from Neyveli.  How about that!

That was no cat on a hot tin roof

I was halfway through a sentence talking with folks at my favorite aunt's home when I ran for it.  No, not to the bathroom.  And, no, I did not see a cockroach.

I ran because a light rain started falling, the sound of which was amplified by the tin roof awning.

Not until one has experienced the intense Indian summers will one be able to understand and appreciate the emotive capacity that rains have in the old country.  And then the glorious scent of the water on the parched land--a scent that is an intoxicant to the parched soul.  It is no wonder that the first raindrops in movies tend to be dramatic because they really are in real life too.

I ran down the stairs and onto the open space.  The raindrops were heavenly.  While the bicyclists on the road were hurrying to find shelter under the nearest tree, I, with the luxury of not working for a few days, rushed from the shelter to the rain.

But, this was no summer rain. No lightning. No thunder.  It was but a passing cloud.  The drizzle ended.  It was a momentary rush of adrenaline like when we chance upon brightly painted nails on female feet that catch our attention.

I went back inside to continue the conversation.

"I cannot believe that my feet swelled up by the time I landed in Chennai" I said.  "My body knows that I am getting older."

I suppose there is a first for everything.  If there can be a memory of a first kiss, then why not a memory of the first foot-swelling too.  After all, life is not always about kisses and roses, but is about the aches and ailments too.  

My aunt, who has known me from the moment I was born, surely must be having a tough time reconciling the infant and toddler versions of me with the balding and greying--and now feet-swelling--me.  In turn, I find it difficult to deal with the aging of people who have loved me all these years.

If we are lucky enough to survive the obstacles along the way, we progress to an old age.  But, while immersed in our navel-gazing, we often forget that the old and cranky 90-year old was also once an infant, a toddler, a school-boy, a young lover, a zealous worker, a doting parent.  Swollen feet comes with this package, right Bill?

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

I hope I

An old car for an old man visiting his old country!

"You have not filled out the correct immigration form" the female officer told me with an expression that suggested a combination of irritation and disgust.

I don't blame her; after all, if I am being asked to work at midnight, I too will be cranky as hell.  Or, perhaps she was just being a Ramamritham!

"Do you have the form here?"

"No, it is there" she said pointing her fingers to a far away fixture on the wall.

I walked up to that one.  Two holders for forms and neither seemed to have any papers.

I walked back to her and reported that there were no forms.

She was even more irritated and disgusted.  "It is there in the wooden one."

I went there and fished around inside.  Dammit she was right.  There was one form.  One f*ing form was all that was there in those two bins together.  Couldn't these folks at least restock that damn thing?

Having filled it out, I waited for her to finish processing the person at her counter.

Meanwhile, a younger man waiting in line was getting visibly upset that I was making a dash for the counter. "Sir, the line is here" he advised me in a very Indian manner of spoken and body language.  I couldn't be bothered.  "She asked me to make a correction to the form" I said as I walked up to the counter.

The utterly smile-less officer stamped the passport and I moved on.

Welcome to India, I told myself.

I am sure the Indian visitors get a lot more hassled by the process when they visit the US.  But, hey, I can only blog about my own experiences ;)

I paid upfront for a taxi and walked up to the parking lot.  A driver led me to his cab.  An old black Ambassador with a yellow top.  It looked so old and beaten up that I worried it might not be air-conditioned.  "Does this have AC?" I asked him.  He nodded an affirmative.

It was stifling inside the cab.  I removed my shirt and stuffed it into the backpack.  Welcome to India, I told myself.

Mile high with a French attendant

"I can't believe they operate such prehistoric planes on transatlantic flights" I remarked to my seatmate as I settled into my aisle seat.  All because there was no monitor for every seat.  And worse, no individual choice on what to watch and when to watch.

The seventy-yearish woman smiled.

"Complaints aside, travel is really way more comfortable now.  I can still remember the bad old days when the rear of the plane was the smoking section" I added.

When a flight attendant, about my age, came by to check on something, I said something to similar to her about the monitors.

"Oui, Oui, we are hoping the plane will crash and then there will be enough insurance money to buy new planes" she said with a mischievous smile.  I was thankful it was a French attendant, and not a stereotypically stern German who might have ejected me from the plane!

"If you want, I can sing and entertain you with some French songs .... oooolalala" she grinned widely before moving on.

I turned to my seatmate, who had by then opened up a guidebook on Germany.  "You going to spend a few days there?"

"Gerrmany, and then Austria, Italy, Switzerland ... for two weeks."

"Boy, quite a few countries in a few days.  Soon it will be 'if it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium' kind of feeling maybe."

I noticed her puzzled expression.  "Oh, it is one of those old, silly, awful, summer movies.  Don't bother to watch it."

"Some silly movies are real fun" she said.

"I know what you mean.  Like Airplane."

She chuckled.

"I hope they will show that movie today" I said.  As if she watched a couple of scenes in her mind, she laughed.

She talked about the tour group and their plan.  And about a dinner and an opera.  And Salzburg.

I remembered all those places and activities from sixteen years ago almost to the very month.  I also remembered an awful groaner a music student once told me.

"When you and your group are in Salzburg, here is a terrible, terrible groaner you can tell them" I told her.

She seemed a groaner kind.  After all, she liked Airplane.

A tour group was walking about in the cemetery and were looking for Beethoven's site.  When they got to it, they noticed him sitting on top of his grave busily erasing music scores from papers that were all around him.  "Aren't you dead?" they asked in utter disbelief.  "Oh, I am de-composing" he replied.

She laughed and she laughed.  And she laughed.  She was a groaner kind alright!

As the plane stabilized after the ascent, I decided to access the internet.  Last December, I was thrilled with the web access from up in the clouds.

This time, sadly, the access was for a fee.  Not free anymore.

Later that flight attendant returned with drinks.  I told her that the movie stank and that the wifi was not free.  She, therefore, owed me a couple of Edith Piaf renditions.

She opened her mouth as if to sing. She then seemed stumped at not being able to recall any song when she knew Piaf's songs.  She tried those same motions again. Launch failure.

When the French attendant walked the aisle to collect the trash, she stopped at my seat.  "At least for you it is only this time and you are done.  For me, it is my job. The airline told me a couple of years ago that I had to move from Paris to Frankfurt or lose my job.  I now spend 600 Euros a month because of it.  Better this, otherwise I won't have a job."

It was a dull flight after that.

It goes with the territory

The summer after the first year of graduate school, I went to Venezuela with a group of fellow graduate students for three weeks on a research project.  After the first two days in Caracas, we proceeded to Maracaibo, which was the project site.

It didn't take long for many students to grumble about the heat. Our professor casually remarked, "it goes with the territory."

I remember that I didn't complain much about Maracaibo's heat and humidity even as the Anglos in the group whined.  They had good reasons; the temperature in late-May and early-June when we were there was awful.  Maybe the reason I didn't complain then was rather simple--I hadn't known anything better, having been out of the hot Tamil Nadu conditions for only a few months.

Lake Maracaibo (Venezuela) ... 1988

Since then, I have come to love that phrase, "it goes with the territory."  The older I get, the more I appreciate it.
Snow in January in Boston?
Rain in Oregon?
Well, "it goes with the territory." 

Thus, as much as I would love to complain about the heat and humidity in Chennai, which is almost exactly what I experienced in Maracaibo twenty-six years ago, I know better--"it goes with the territory."

But, seriously, this hot?  This humid?  Have I become this wimpy after twenty-seven years away from this place?  It also means that I won't ever go back to Juanita in Maracaibo? ;)

Over the years, I have come to understand how "it goes with the territory" is applicable to non-meteorological contexts too.

No electricity in rural Tanzania?
Mosquitoes in the Alaskan summer?
Atrociously small hotel rooms and bathrooms in Venice?
Dysfunctional Congress?
"it goes with the territory."

But, seriously, this hot? This humd? This blinding sunlight?

On clocking in and clocking out ... at 3:45 in the morning!

"My parents died more than a decade ago.  Spend time with them when you can.  I am happy you are doing this."

That string of sentences did not come from a member of my extended family.  Nor from my narrow circle of friends.  But, from the taxi driver who dropped me off at the airport.

Perhaps it is the wannabe journalist in me that, consistent with the stereotypical writer, I almost always end up talking with the drivers.  They usually have had interesting and offbeat lives, have seen a broad variety of us humans than most of us do, and have fascinating takes on existence.  I am yet to meet a taxi driver who was boring--a contrast to the many in other walks of life from whom I have tried to run as fast as I can, especially when they are pompously boring or arrogantly boring.

He was punctual to the minute.  At 3:45 in the morning! He already earned his tips.

A guy who has a decade on me.  "Only for four years" he replied when I asked him about his taxi driving career.

Naturally, I was curious about what else he did before this.  Insurance salesman, for the most part.  "Sitting behind a desk, making phone calls.  Insurance is just insurance. Claims are just claims. Selling is just selling" he said.  It was clear that he was only a few steps away from being driven insane by the monotony of it all.

It is unfortunate that the modern life has removed from our work--for most of us--any sense of meaning in what we do.  Hunter-gatherers had purposeful lives, brief as they were, when they spent their days hunting and gathering and storytelling.  As Charlie Chaplin so wonderfully captured in Modern Times, our work now is, for the most part, variations of the monotony that the taxi driver experienced in the insurance business.

I know I am one of the lucky few who knows that I simply cannot do anything other than the teaching and writing and thinking that my work is, which is also what my life is about.  When people ask me what I do, I am increasingly tempted to say "I am a thinker."  But, I am afraid that such a response will further alienate me from people! ;)  The enormous pleasure that comes from such an existence of meaningful days is simply immeasurable.  I should know--from my past experiences as an electrical engineer and as a transportation planner, when everyday work was worse than what I might have experienced with Torquemada.

The taxi driver seemed happy with what he is doing now.  "I have a drift boat and I go fishing with my son" he said when I asked him about his downtime passions.  A younger version of him was a very different guy who went biking across the country.  "I met my wife in Florida when I biked all the way to Daytona.  Going to Daytona is like a pilgrimage for us bikers" he noted with a smile.

"How does your wife like Oregon, coming all the way from Florida?"

"She loves it here. We are now divorced, but are good friends.  She loves it because unlike in Florida, she can truly be whatever she wants to be here in Eugene.  You can always find like-minded people and create your community here."

I know.  Which is why I love living in Eugene.  And great it feels to get that affirmation from a taxi driver.

And now I am off to spend time with my parents when I can.