Listen to our Noise!!

It is always amazing to discover….think of any topic and do a Google search…within a few seconds, you will see millions of related topics staring at you! What had to be written seems to have been written million times over and perhaps thought through a zillions times over. When I picked the topic describing us Indians as “noisy,” I wondered what’s new that can be written as a story?

I can easily think of one – top of the mind recall…India is the only country where you can make noise and get paid for it…now, whether one pays to earn a few minutes of silence or pays because of the satisfaction of the service received is perhaps left best to the individual. Right or Wrong, I for one wouldn’t like to venture finding the perfect answer!

A typical day in the neighborhood starts with the an experiment with the truth…Pavlov’s dog and I remember having posted a small piece in my Facebook profile a couple of months back; actually a couple of years back – noise does make time fly!! Unlike most writers and bloggers, I would like to quote from my own text: “I am sure you must have read or heard about Ivan Petrovich Pavlov’s famous experiment on ‘Classical Conditioning’ called ‘Pavlov’s Dog’. A bell is rung before the dog receives his food. Repeat this process and the dog automatically salivates upon hearing the sound of the bell. In a comical manner I found myself to be a victim of this classical conditioning syndrome! Ever since Bangalore Municipal Corporation took over maintenance of our locality about a year back, we have a 3-wheeler garbage van visiting the neighborhood, door-to-door. To announce his arrival, the assistant blows sharply on his whistle tied to a thread and worn as a necklace. Initially, I found his blowing the whistle pretty stupid, but a few months of his irregular call, the moment we hear a sharp whistle, one of us at home rushes out with the garbage to get rid of the generally piling waste! The conditioning is so perfect that the mind does not discern…these days, the moment we hear the whistle, it is assumed that the garbage van is at the door-step. It gets confusing when on a Sunday morning, you want to catch an extra wink and then you suddenly hear that sharp whistle. Startled, I hurriedly woke up and groggily took the pile of garbage to the front gate, only to discover that a friendly neighborhood kid on his new bicycle was blowing hard and furiously on his new toy whistle. I wonder who was more surprised – the kid or me, when I kept peering past the kid to see where the garbage van had so quickly disappeared. I wondered with a sheepish grin, why Pavlov had to experiment with a dog, with so many of us, dumb fellas around!”

A while later, one hears a series of vegetable vendors selling all varieties of greens shouting hard and strong. The timing is perfect…the spouse who does the cooking can actually decide on a daily basis on what to cook based on which vegetable vendor is noticed and called first besides the variety of greens being sold. When I asked my wife one day about what’s cooking for breakfast, she said wait till the first vegetable vendor calls – I will decide once I complete the purchase.

Having crossed this hurdle on what to cook for breakfast, lunch or dinner (keep in mind that any two of the meals is a repeat, what you have for breakfast gets packed as lunch, for example); the next loud noise you hear on the street outside is a series of women with large baskets of flowers, delicately perched on their heads – the entire spectrum of seasonal flowers are readily available at the doorstep. At this time I must add that each of our Gods must be worshiped with a particular flower of his or her choice to get their blessings. You make a wrong offering and the God’s may think you are crazy! Again the timing  of the arrival of these flower vendors is near perfect…fresh after a shower, the first thing our folks do is to light a lamp in God’s own room and decorate the place of worship with flowers of his or her choice. The arrival time of these flower vendors is after all not a coincidence, but designed keeping in mind the daily household routine.

Close on their heels and since charity begins from home, there are visits by a series of alms-takers and believe it or not, they announce their arrival by using a variety of noise making  instruments. A conch could be an example and blowing hard into it can melt your inner emotions into giving. Then there are others accompanied by an emaciated four legged living thing. They use a simple metal plate and a metal rod to make noise of their arrival…the metal to metal clanking can be extremely irritating and God forbid if you ask these folks to move on, noise is produced with vengeance – it can probably bring even the roof down!! One is compelled to pay to buy some peace, and isn’t that crazy? This reminds of the comic strip ‘Hagar the Horrible’ and the troubles he faces when the taxman comes knocking on his door! We aren't as creative as Hagar in giving excuses and instead, pay-up.

Once people at home settle down for their first hard earned break after serving breakfast to the school going children and office-goers and later see them off, the next noise-maker isn’t far away…he’s our home-grown rag-picker also called Kabadiwala, he will want anything from your home starting from old newspapers to broken-down gadgets. While he does compensate with some money, it’s a question of accumulating a sizable chunk before disposing the trash. But the way these vendors come and shout in front of each house, one would feel that we have little else to do but manufacture junk daily. Over time I have noticed that these street vendors start off at a young age, their voice at an apologetically low level – almost as if they were sorry to disturb your peace at home. With time however, it becomes a full-throat blast and when you do have something to dispose, they just bark making you feel as if they were doing you a favor for taking away the trash. Isn't this a great “Negotiations Tactic.”

Having generally got your trash cleared and the home restored to its homely self, it’s the turn of the gentle, yet aggressive carpet and bed-spread vendors. Mind you these don’t come cheap and at best one can purchase a bed-spread once-in-a-year and I would call that a luxury! A carpet usually lasts for some nine or eleven odd years; purchasing is really a rare occurrence. But the way these vendors come knock on your door, ring the bell till you open it out of sheer frustration, one would think buying a carpet is a daily chore…

Just as you have made yourself a small lunch, there comes the next shocker…the fortune-teller with his “budbudkay” – this is a miniaturized version of a 2-sided drum, a palm top variety with two attached strings and a hardened knot on its free end. As this guy twists and rolls his palm with the miniature drum, the knotted string knocks hard on the drum-skin making a peculiar sound – literally translated from sound to word is the word itself – budbudkay!! The younger the fortune-teller, more is the swishing of the palm and more the noise. These young guys are kind off home grown mind readers (undoubtedly, this is an acquired skill) and if by mistake their eyes fall on you while walking past, he will most certainly plant himself at your doorstep and reel out all that happens in general with any family in any case, the world over. In a moment of weakness, it is likely to appear that this fortune-teller knows everything about your past and who knows he may have some solution or a trick to rid you of your present problems. At the end of it all, you may feel lighter in your mind however, it will be sometime before you realize that you are lighter on your wallet too.

After a light meal, when you decide that it is time to catch up with your afternoon siesta, you have the courier boys come knocking. At times it could get pretty comical with the questions that these folks are likely to ask. My son’s debit card was sent through courier and when my wife answered the door, the first question before handing over the package was “How is Rahul related to you Maam?” My wife replied, "he is my son". So far so good! The second question was the clincher…”For how many years do you know him?” Wow, I realized, we have indeed become slaves of the script!! The second incident took place when I was at home and answered the courier’s call. The package was addressed to me from my banker – they had sent me the monthly statement. The first question was “What is your name Maam? (they are so used to women answering the door, he must have been wondering what is this stupid guy doing at home!). When I answered ‘Viswanath’, his next question foxed me completely, “How are you related to Viswanath R Rao – the name on the package.” My mind was racing on establishing a link between me and myself, when thankfully he realized his own folly and retreated saying, “That’s okay, Maam!”

Afternoon and evening hours are peaceful with lesser vendors but there are occasional visits by vendors with cart-load of plastic buckets, aluminum pots & pans, who trade for old used vessels and plastics at home for new replacements. It can get pretty interesting for an onlooker, but when the stakes are high, arguments can get very heated – it would be impossible to tell who is the winner and who the loser! Call it a win-win situation…both feel immensely satisfied that each of them got the best deal!!

In general, the fruit vendor is the last in the series with his cart full of fresh seasonal fruits – dinner is incomplete without a fruit as a dessert. Off late and to my dismay, I find some of the flower vendors coming late in the evening trying to either hive off their unsold goods or convince us that the flowers will be in full bloom the following day! One among this tribe has such a loud voice that he can be heard three streets away and I am seriously not joking.

These days people talk about recession and the existing tight monetary controls. However, there is no respite in home construction and extension activities. Construction activities take place round the clock and the high speed drills, pneumatic sledge-hammers, grinding machines, ceramic tile cutters only add to the noise and clutter. The final straw is the borewell machines that come with their self-contained power units. The noise from this combo units can be unrelenting and finally when they reach the water table after a couple of days of round-the-clock boring and the combo unit is finally switched off, there is a deafening silence!  Finally, some respite to the ears...

It also makes me wonder about what are we missing? The noise - you bet!! We, the don’t care Indians are indeed very noisy. And, by the way did I forget to add the noise we create for ourselves at home and call it music?

Cheers!!      

True Tales that are Stranger than Fiction!!

When I sort of hung my boots and left active work life in May 2011, I was pretty sure that I would have immense time to pursue my new found hobby as a blogger. Each day, I used to have a conversation in my own mind that tomorrow would be a better day to sit down and seriously make an attempt at writing. The justifications my mind presented were so convincing that I kept patronizing and never got down to writing.

The family’s visit to the temple town of Lord Venkateshwara at Tirumala in July’12 made me quickly pen a few paragraphs. This post received good feedback from friends and acquaintances and I was hopeful that the Lord had finally given me the much needed push. Well, to cut a long story short, it was just that I had indeed been procrastinating pretty well; the divine intervention had nothing to do with my laziness factor!!

But surprisingly, it was a pilgrimage trip to Sringeri Sharadamba’s abode in Oct’12 that did the trick. Although a faint memory, now that we have moved three months into the future, what stands out is the connection between this trip of ours and the previous one undertaken some fifteen years back. It must have been 1995 or 96, when we decided to travel by our first car – a navy blue Maruthi 800. Just as we were entering the outskirts of Kunigal town on Bangalore – Hassan highway, my younger son pointed the dashboard meter showing the engine temperature. It took me a couple of seconds to comprehend what was odd in the meter reading! In unison, both my sons said that the pointer was standing steady at ‘H’ and not the usual midway between ‘C’ & ‘H’!! It was a deserted highway with no possibility of help if the engine were to cease – that it hadn’t was in itself a miracle. We decided to take a chance and keep driving till we could find some help. We were lucky to hit a petrol bunk which had service/washing facilities. The attendant/mechanic first cooled the engine down in a phased manner and then made an attempt to check what could have gone wrong. We found absolutely nothing wrong…but not wanting to push our luck further, and much to the disappointment of the family, it was decided that we should head home.

Back safely in Bangalore I left the car at RNS Motors in Yeshwantpur for a couple of days to enable them find out what had gone wrong. It was quite surprising when nothing untoward was reported at the time of taking delivery of the car. Assuming that this was a one-off aberration…I let go of any stray thoughts, including the corny ones about God being unwilling or having helped us avert a major disaster/accident.

Fast forward into the future, fifteen years later, the same foursome team in a completely different car that was seemingly fit as a fiddle we encountered an identical problem, this time much beyond the ISRO city Hassan. My wife was in a way pretty convinced that providence had something to do with a second and identical incident. It appeared that the Goddess was indeed sending us a warning signal. The threesome team - both my boys and myself, were however willing to take some calculated chance. Also, I did not want my wife to carry on with a belief that some superior force was behind all this! We continued our journey and I kept a continuous and watchful eye on the temperature indicator. What helped was switching off the air conditioning system and running the car on neutral on a downward incline or flat stretches. In spite of the set-back we did reach the temple town of Sringeri only an hour behind schedule. We got the car checked for any problem, but like the last time, there was apparently nothing amiss. As a precaution we kept a liter of engine coolant handy and kept topping the can as we traveled from Sringeri to Hornadu to keep our date with Goddess Annapoorneshwari. On the return leg we took a detour and spent a night at Vihangama Holiday Resort in Tirthahalli.

Without air conditioning it was mightily warm and humid for the inmates; however the engine behaved very well and did not give us any more cause for worry. At best and on hindsight, I thought that the Omni-present superior power did have a role to play – quite clearly, it made its presence known to all of us and we are eternally grateful for the kindness and blessings showered on us.

New Year Greetings!!

If there is one thing I like…it is finding a common thread that binds diverse subjects together. I am sure most of you, if not all would have admired, perhaps liked or loved seeing the movie ‘Jurassic Park’ and hope that you know that it was Michael Crichton who wrote that thriller.

Michael Crichton was born on 23^rd October 1942, just under a year after US joined the war (World War II) on 7^th December 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Standing tall at 6’ 9” he indeed made a mark as a best-selling author, producer, director and screen writer. He is best known for his work in science fiction, medical fiction and thrillers. In 1994, he became the only creative artist ever to have been a No. 1 in Television (ER), Film (Jurassic Park) and Book sales (Disclosure).  A graduate of Harvard Medical school, he never obtained a license to practice medicine and preferred devoting himself to a writing career. Two novels brought him immense fame as a writer: The Andromeda Strain & The Great Train Robbery which were later adapted into film.

Just the other day, I was a bit early for a meeting in Café Coffee Day at Barton Center and instead of aimlessly walking around the MG road boulevard, I decided to spend some time browsing at ‘Bookworm’ – it is undoubtedly one of the best places to get your pick of a 2^nd hand book in Bengaluru. I picked up Michael Crichton’s ‘Five Patients’ and my all-time favorite author A J Cronin’s ‘The Citadel’. This novel of A J Cronin was adapted into a Hindi film in the year 1971 by Dev Anand and his elder sibling Vijay Anand – ‘Tere Mere Sapne.’ Literally translated from Hindi to English, it stands for ‘Our Dreams’. While the novel can be read innumerable times, the Hindi movie adaptation can but be seen just once; that kind-off summarizes the difference between a ‘best-seller’ and ‘an also-ran’.

Coming back to where I started…there is an interesting piece of information on Massachusetts General Hospital in Michael Crichton’s book ‘Five Patients.’ Mostly familiar as ‘Mass General’ or ‘MGH’, it is the teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. Named the No. 1 Hospital in the US in 2012 by US News & World Report, this hospital is the 3^rd oldest in the history of US having been established in 1811. Only Pennsylvania Hospital (1751) and New York – Presbyterian Hospital (1771) are older.

Altogether the hospital had 1,000 beds in 1967; this figure stands marginally higher at 1,057 today, but what stands out is the efficiency with which patients are treated:

1.      16,000 operations were performed by the surgical staff in 1967. Today, it stands at 34,000.

2.      27,000 patients were admitted in 1967; Today, it is 45,000.

3.      Research budget has gone up from 10.5 Million USD in 1967 to more than 500 Million USD now.

However, what probably stands out are the stats of our own AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences). It is a teaching and research hospital and came into existence only in 1956 through an Act of Parliament – it is nowhere near the 201 years of Mass General’s existence.

1.      150,000 operations are performed by the surgical staff yearly.

2.      160,000 patients are admitted in a year; no. of beds: 2,424.

3.      Research budget: Funding is mostly through grants and from collaboration with overseas institutions, and can never match the figures of Mass General, I suppose!

Every word and every institution has a story to tell; and so is the word ‘hospital.’ It is derived from the Latin hospes, meaning host or guest and the same root has given us “hotel” and “hostel.” In fact the evolution of hospital has been going on for more than two thousand years, beginning with the ‘Aesculapia’ of Greece around 350 BCE (Before Christian Era) taking the form of temples. The Aesculapian temples were not so much hospitals as religious institutions where patients came on pilgrimages, hoping to be cured by a visitation of the gods.

The hospital in the more modern sense began in late Roman times, and coincided with the spread of Christianity across Europe. Medicine was practiced by monks and priests. The Renaissance and Reformation loosened the Church’s stronghold on both the hospital and conduct of medical practice. St. Bartholomew’s hospital (also known as ‘Barts’), London’s first hospital was established in 1123, while its associated medical college was established in 1843. However, the first school to be granted official charter for medical teaching in 1785 was the London Medical College Hospital. Those of you who like trivia…here is one on Barts: Dr. Watson – Sherlock Holmes’s companion and biographer, first meet in the pathology laboratory at Barts and, Dr. Watson is its fictional alumni.

Well, so much about hospitals, Michael Crichton and his book ‘Five Patients’…if you get an opportunity, please read this book – it is a ‘must-read’ for anyone associated with the medical world or otherwise.

When I set out to write a few words to all my friends as a welcoming new year message, little did I imagine that it would get this big. I hope you make yourself some time to read this piece, either today or tomorrow, which incidentally, has the unique distinction of being a year apart!!

As we end the year today, I wish to quote from Sai Baba’s message to his devotees: “The second is the very basic unit of Time which we measure, in what we designate as a year. Sixty seconds, make a minute, sixty minutes make an hour, twenty four hours constitute a day and thirty days make a month; twelve months pass and we say a year has passed! When twelve months are over, we come back again to the first in the list of months, and call it the New Year Day. We go on a spree to celebrate the occasion.

Really speaking, nothing new has happened on the “New Year Day” - it is not the year, but every second that follows the present that is new. Hence, do not wait for the celebration of something new in Time, until minutes, hours, days, months and years add up! Celebrate the immediately succeeding second, and every one after it, through honest effort and attain everlasting joy. Do not waver in your determination to live in joy and peace.”

With warm regards and here's wishing you all Happiness, Success and Good Health in the year ahead!!

Govinda, Govinda, Govindaa

The very thought of traveling to the temple town of Tirumala on the Venkatadri hills brings along an unknown excitement and at the same time a wee bit of fear too. What if we do not get a chance to make it to his abode! While we are self-invited guests to his home, isn’t it strange that we see nothing wrong in expecting the best form of treatment and wait for those fleeting few seconds when we finally get to make an eye contact with him – the over powering sense of relief makes one feel weightless and as if we are floating freely in space!

Transcending all the known barriers, it feels that we are one with him. The sense of satisfaction that we have told him all that we wanted to and that he has patiently heard you out is a private dialogue that can happen only between you and him! But surprisingly, the long list of wants that you entered his home with now seems so trivial and soon forgotten. The sheer ecstasy drives away the agony of the long wait!

You are soon jolted out of the trance by the professional pushers who seem to be saying – okay, you had your chance and now let the next one get his! The Japanese Pushers, whose work is to push people into the railway cars during peak hour pale in comparison to the home grown pilgrim pushers in TTD.

Situated in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, Tirupathi is the most ancient pilgrimage center in India. The town owes its existence to the sacred temple of Lord Sri Venkateswara situated on the Tirumala Hill adjoining it. With a history of its present structure dating back to over twelve centuries, the temple is considered as the jewel in the crown of ancient places of worship in southern India.

The Tirumala Hill is 3200 ft above sea level, and is about 27 square KM’s in area. It comprises seven peaks, representing the seven hoods of Adisesha, thus earning the name, Seshachalam. The seven peaks are called Seshadri, Neeladri, Garudadri, Anjanadri, Vrishabhadri, Narayanadri and Venkatadri. The sacred temple of Sri Venkateswara is located on the seventh peak, Venkatadri, and lies on the southern banks of Sri Swami Pushkarini.

It is the 2nd richest temple after Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple at Tiruvanthapuram, but the most visited holy place in the world today.

Significantly, the temple was maintained and upgraded by various kingdoms namely The Pallavas of Kanchipuram (9th century AD), the Cholas of Tanjore (10th century), and Vijayanagara pradhans (14th and 15th centuries), who were committed devotees of Lord Venkateswara. The temple gained most of its current wealth and size with donations of diamond and gold by the Vijayanagar emperors. Gold for the inner shrine roofing to be gilded was provided by Sri Krishna Deva Raya the then ruler of Vijayanagar empire. Interestingly, it was Sri Ramanujacharya, the reformer and Vaishnavite saint  who in the 12th century laid down a comprehensive system of organization and management of worship. The principles and the method of worship to be followed have survived to this day in Tirumala.

We, as a family have always preferred APTDC’s package trip to the temple town as the service is prompt and each section or part of the journey happens like clockwork. This time though, we had some surprise in store! The start from home was pretty auspicious with nothing untoward happening and so was the bus journey from Bangalore APTDC’s Race Course pick-up point. The bus itself was a beauty – a swanky new Mercedes Benz rear engine air conditioned bus. With 15 seats going abegging, we hoped it would be similar at Tirumala’s notorious Q’s at the temple gates. The first hint about how things would shape up came our way just as the elevator doors shut to take us to the 4th floor in the Transit accommodation provided by TTD. The Lord may have taken pity and forgiven us poor souls, but not this elevator. With 2 persons too many, it groaned to an abrupt halt midway between the 2nd and 3rd floor causing some kind of panic. We had to remain locked in its confines for a good 15 minutes before help finally arrived. From his instructions that were faintly audible to us, we realized he was a novice – a green horn, to be more apt. Lucky for us, he had apparently worked on MS Windows and ended up doing what all of us do. Yes, re-Boot!! He switched off the power supply, gave it some time for the memory in the elevator control circuit to erase and then switched on. The elevator descended to the ground floor like a charm – we heaved a sigh of relief from the temporary set back, climbed all the way up to the 4th floor and hurried to our respective rooms to freshen up to embark on the next leg of the journey.

Being a Friday, we were told that a visit to Padmavathy temple would take place first at Tirupathi and later we would be transported to the hill-top town of Tirumala by TTD operated link bus, in time for the 8:30 AM darshan. We were assured that the entire duration would not last more than an hour. And so, off we went to Padmavathy temple in suburban Tirupathi – Alamelumangapuram. It was 4:30 AM and Aarthi had just then concluded post the morning panchamrutha seva. A couple of guys were shouting at the gate for us to hurry up, else the doors would be closed for the ‘Alankara’. Our guide, incidentally was also ‘Srinivasa’ – not a God send, but it was as if God had himself descended on earth to take care!! He got us special tickets which allowed us a fairly good amount of time in front of Goddess Padmavathy. With time to spare, we for the first time got some time to look around the temple complex and visit the sub-temples of Sri Krishna Swamy, Sri Sundararaja Swamy and Sri Suryanarayana Swamy.

The gateway to the 7-Hills is called Alipiri and somewhere close to this starting point we disembarked from our luxurious Mercedes Benz and jumped into a waiting Link Bus operated by TTD. Each time we visit Tirumala, I wonder why the TTD Board has not thought of getting a complete new fleet of buses. Most of the existing ones seem to have outlived their extended lives and I am sure if they send a word to the major engine & chassis manufacturers, they will fall all over each other to oblige; who knows they may even give the Board a discount with the hope that they pass on a message to the good Lord and earn a few brownie points for themselves. Well, jokes apart, the engine condition and the brakes are maintained immaculately and there is no reason for any doubt about safety of these buses shipping people up and then down, 24/7.

As we were steadily climbing our way through the 7-hills I tried recollecting what I had heard and read about this unique temple. There are innumerable ancient references to the deity and the purifying hill, in fact  even before the advent of the deity. They date back to the Rig-Veda period. Some described only the purifying hill, others mentioned the Lord who absolves sins and presides over the hill, but not any temple. The puranas refer to the Tirumala hill as Venkatadri or Venkatachala. The longest epic in the world, the Mahabharata describes the transformation of the departed spirit of Sri Krishna into a lifeless four armed image which was to descend to earth and be worshiped in Kaliyuga. This is believed to be the Tirumala deity – one of the eight Swayam Vyakta Sthala. In the hierarchy of structures, Swayam Vyakta Kshetras stands at the peak amongst the 5 categories. The other 4 in their descending order are: Deva, Arsha or Sidha, Pauranika and Manusha. The difference is based on who installed the deity in a given temple. The images installed by divinities like Brahma, Indra etc are known as Deva sthala. Similarly, images installed by great sages are known as arsha sthala and ones by sidhas are known as Sidha sthala. Images installed in the ancient days and as mentioned in the epics are known as Pauranika sthala. Images installed by devout human beings are known as Manusha sthala.

The main idol in Tirumala is believed to be of divine origin – Sri Krishna manifests himself by his own free will as the Archavatara or the image fit to be worshipped, in Tirumala, the Swayam Vyakta Sthala. The other 7 Sthalas are Srirangam, Srimushnam, Totaparvatam, Salagramam in Nepal, Pushkaram, Badrinath and Naimisham. It is believed that in Kaliyuga, one can attain mukti only by worshiping Sri Venkateswara. The benefits acquired by pilgrimage to Vankatachala are mentioned in the Rig Veda too. The following is an interesting connection between the astronomical, the physiological and the spiritual : Kaliyuga as told in our puranas is a period that will last 432,000 years, with the beginning of this era suggested as 3012 BC. According to Hindu tradition, the Rigvedic hymns were collected by Paila under the guidance of Vyasa who formed the Rigveda Samhita as we know it.  According to the Sataptha Brahmana the number of syllables in the Rigveda is 432,000, equaling the number of muhurtas (1 day = 30 muhurtas) in forty years. Is this a mere coincidence or was this by design – The Almighty God can surely throw some light!!

If I stretch my memory, I must have visited the Tirumala Sri Venkateswara temple just twice before my marriage. The first was for the twin celebrations: my thread ceremony followed by my eldest sister’s marriage in the February 1975. This was when we experienced the Lord indeed to be ‘The Supreme’. My father had decided for himself that he would get my ‘Thread Ceremony’ done  at Tirumala. With the muhurtham falling on 16th Feb’75 and my sisters marriage the following day, there was little or no scope for my parents to arrange one event in Tirumala and the next one at Bangalore. My father took the step of getting both the events organized at Tirumala and it meant a considerable hike in budget along with logistical woes. All plans were made for the entire family, friends and relatives to travel from Mysore on 14th Feb’75. With just 5 days to go, mysteriously, both my sister and me fell sick with high fever and delirium. No medicine, Allopathic or Ayuvedic was able to ascertain the problem, let alone cure us from this unknown malady.

It was my maternal grandfather – Sri S Vittala Shastrigal, who attained Sanyasatva as Sri Sri Gyanananendra Saraswati Swamigal, accidentally discovered the seemingly moot cause!! He called my mom aside and asked her a direct question: “Did you harbor a doubt or a negative feeling about the two events being done at Tirumala?” When my mother answered in the affirmative, he made her pray for forgiveness and request the lord for helping her and my father to conduct the two events without an impediment. It is believed that if the remorse is genuine, the Lord readily forgives. Miraculously, this paved the way for a dramatic recovery for both of us and we were able to successfully complete all the rituals unhindered. To this day we hold this shrine and Lord Venkateswara in awe and always remember that if we make a promise to him, we had better keep it.

In the last 27 years I have personally made three promises…the first was to pay my respects to him just before my marriage. In my own recorded history, this was perhaps the best visit. It had rained continuously for more than 36 hours before our scheduled arrival at Tirupathi and very few link buses were plying between Tirupathi and Tirumala. When we did get one and arrived at the main entrance, we found that the temple wore a deserted look with not many people around. Fearing the worst, we presumed that the temple gates would be shut down because of the heavy downpour. We hesitatingly approached the counter for special tickets and to our dismay found even that to be shut. Upon approaching a TTD official, we were told that the doors of the temple were wide open for any devotee willing to walk in. Could we have asked for anything better? Undoubtedly not!! We, my second brother-in-law and I jumped up with joy and went into the innermost Sanctum Sanctorum. We were shocked with a pleasant surprise when the purohits asked us to stay longer as we were turning to retrace our steps!!

The second promise was to get my elder son’s Tonsuring ceremony done at Tirumala. The most recent one was the third major promise when my second son had completed his final semester examinations. We had not made a special trip to Tirumala when my elder son graduated and I felt it would be nice to make a foursome trip as part of ‘Thanksgiving.’ In between of course we have made many trips and thanks to the promises of my better half, who is an ardent devotee of Sri Lakshmi Venkateswara.

By 6:30 AM we were at the temple gates and a good 2 hours to go before the ‘Q’ would be opened up for the devotees on the package trip. As we patiently waited at the main entrance, we could see thousands of people rushing in with special passes and that was when in my mind, I began to panic…what if, we are denied an entry? The human brain is amazingly wired to think of ‘n’ number of ‘what if’ situations create a sense of panic and press the alarm button to make all other organs go on an overdrive! I tend to develop cold feet very easily when it comes to Lord Venkateswara; I guess it stems from the past experience.

As soon the ‘Q’ opened up and we all rushed in, we discovered to our dismay that we were led into an enclosed space known as the ‘cage’. We were all made to live the life of a convict, albeit for a short while. Luck did play a role and the waiting period was just 15 minutes – the gates were thrown open and we got into the labyrinth of passages that finally led us to the sanctum sanctorum. All the anxiety and panic our minds had conjured simply vanished the moment we got a glimpse of the awe inspiring and flower bedecked Lord of our world. The relief, the joy, the happiness at having finally made it was simply overwhelming. The power and sheer positive energy can only be experienced as one stands in front of the Lord with folded hands. Only later did I realize that the only two words that I could softly utter to the Lord was a ‘Thank You’…A Promise made and a Promise kept!!    

A day in the life of not-so-better-half..

Without doubt, managing to set-up a home and run it like a well-oiled machine is a mammoth task and the fact that women are much better at it than their male counterparts is a foregone conclusion. Not that I am not aware of this universal truth, just that it was re-emphasized on a day that I least expected.

I took over the reins of performing this role that my better-half does with élan, for a couple of days when my wife had to step out as a participant in a musical concert. Having managed the home front during my bachelor days and on a couple of occasions as a married bachelor, I presumed it would be pretty cool. In fact I hoped that it would bring back some nostalgic memories of the yester-years. Coming from a family of musicians and fine arts, singing comes naturally to my wife. And like all else, one needs a good coach and mentor to train and direct ones skills in the desired direction. She continues to train under the tutelage of an emerging Hindustani vocalist and Harmonium/Keyboard player. With a couple of years of training I can confidently announce that my wife is a pretty good amateur vocalist in the genre of Hindustani classical music.

When her teacher and coach decided to give an opportunity to perform to a select audience in a north Karnataka city known for having nurtured well known Hindustani classical musicians, we – my sons and I encouraged her to sign-on. That she performed well and was rewarded with a standing ovation isn’t the story that I wanted to relate. It so happened that while she performed well, I was goofing up in managing the home front.

Comical at times, it was also a revelation of sorts! I used to announce the dish I would prepare much in advance to my sons and create an expectation of sorts. Looking back in time, I should have heeded the warnings of a close friend of mine from Kolkata days, between 1983 and 92. He had an amazing sense of humor with his punch lines! Whenever he stayed back at my place for breakfast, lunch or dinner he would insist that I make the dish first and give it a name later. Quite aptly put, if I may take a dig at myself! The Upma I had prepared for breakfast turned out to be soggy with excess water and tasted more like Ganjji – a diet normally reserved for the very sick.

Not learning from past mistakes is a pretty common trait and quite contrary to what is explicitly told even in an organization. I would however, like to be a bit kind to myself and just say that ‘history has an uncanny habit of repeating’. As part of her preparations, my wife had given me clear instruction on which cooking powder was kept where and the ‘know-all’ guy that I thought myself to be, I did not pay much attention hoping that my sensitive olfactory system would guide me correctly if the need arose. And so, from the kitchen in ground floor I shouted about the proposed menu so that my sons could hear me at the first floor. I said that I would make mixed vegetable curry-rice not realizing the trap that I was laying for myself. However, to my good luck, both the boys were immersed in whatever they were doing on their respective laptops with Bose headphones covering their ears. Presumably, they wouldn’t have heard me at all.

Till the time the chopped and assorted vegetables were cooked, I was on the dot. I was making my first attempt at parallel processing. It is truly amazing how our wives can really juggle around with a cellphone held between the ear and a raised shoulder, one hand stirring , the other searching for a missing ingredient and all the while listening to music blaring from a favorite FM channel. The list of things they can handle simultaneously can go on and on. Granted that we can nowhere match this skill, I made a brave effort to see how close I could get. While the vegetables were cooking, I made arrangements to soak, wash, rinse rice and place it in the rice cooker. I was attempting to use the Just-in-Time concept by coordinating all the independent activities so that output from these would be ready ingredients for the final act!

Both boys love all kinds of curry rice and hence my wife prepares and stocks curry powder mix in a big Tupperware jar that normally lasts for a month. With the rice done in the rice-cooker, the final act was to sprinkle generous portions of curry powder on the cooked vegetables, add the cooked rice to it and after a thorough mix and a pinch of salt to taste…yahoo! The curry rice would be ready!! Both my boys like cucumber, tomato, onion raita along with curry rice. I pride myself in cutting vegetables to geometrically exact shapes - rectangular or square with a high degree of precision and good repeatability!! The job was to cut/chop/slice these vegetables to fine bits add freshly purchased Nandini curds to it and with a pinch of salt to taste the raita would be ready.

Like the proverb – ‘proof of the pudding is in eating,’ a couple of morsels later, I felt something was odd with the curry rice and I wasn’t able to put a finger on the flaw. I asked both boys and they put up an extremely brave face and said there was nothing wrong. Come to think of it, they were probably trying to be nice to their dad but the writing was on the wall. A substantial portion of the curry rice was untouched, it generally isn’t so and in fact it gets polished pretty soon the dish is placed on the table when my wife prepares. I kept racking my dumb brains to think what had gone wrong but wasn’t able to get a clue. While eating it myself, my taste buds sensed something strange…the lingering smell and taste of dalchini (cinnamon, in English) – I was dead sure that this ingredient does not form a part of south Indian curry powder! A perfectly measured quantity of dalchini gives it the typical north Indian garam-masala flavor, a bit in excess gives it a Pakistani touch and I know this from my short stint at Dubai. I however banished these stray thoughts from my mind hoping that these were figments of my wild imagination.

I was only able to crack the defect soon after my wife returned home! The powder that I had used so generously for making the typical south Indian variety of mixed vegetable curry rice was in fact pav-bhaji masala…my nose was honestly giving the right signals but I had ignored it and the result was indeed a disaster. As is typical, I got into an endless debate with my wife on the positioning of the Tupperware box with pav-bhaji masala…I kept insisting that she should not have mixed ingredients from North with South in the same cupboard…I had to finally let go, after all it is her territory and I was just a guest for a few days. Going back to what my Kolkata friend had told me years back was like a prophecy come true! I should have named it rice-bhaji, post cooking!! Honestly folks, don’t ever try it…rice and mixed vegetable with pav-bhaji masala substituted as curry powder is an awful combination. When my elder son softly suggested that we order for pizzas the following night, I sheepishly grinned and agreed. We had a very good meal the 2nd night and could sleep peacefully and well.

I now realize why the wife is usually referred to, as the ‘better-half’!!

How Corrupt is our Corrupt Society?

Born in 1940 before India attained independence from the British Raj and a former Indian Army soldier, Anna Hazare is known as a social activist who was instrumental in upgrading the ecology and economy of the village of Ralegan Siddhi located in the drought prone district of Ahmednagar in the state of Maharashtra. Now widely and wildly popular for having stirred the common man’s interest in his crusade against corruption and corrupt politicians, public figures occupying various government positions et al, Anna has become a household name.

Riding on this crest is 1965 born Baba Ramdev (nee Swami Ramdev) who has earlier gained popularity through his practice and teaching of yoga and pranayama not just in India but abroad as well. Associated with the 2011 anti-corruption movement and involved in the Jan Lokpal agitation, Baba Ramdev is going on an indefinite fast from today June 4th, 2011 to force the government to take effective steps to curb corruption.

Both these gentlemen have a large following from all walks of life. While their intentions are noble, one needs to understand how much the common man understands the implications of being clean and above board. It’s like an ‘I am Okay, you are not okay’ syndrome, but how much truth is there in it? It remains to be seen and felt. Thousands of mini scams go unnoticed every day involving officials and common persons. This country can call itself corruption free only when a customer does not ingratiate with the system to get a positive response to his requirements. One example that comes to mind where the common man ends up paying additional money is at the RTO when he or she goes through the rigmarole of obtaining a driving license. Even the most clean with all the data and documents in place have to pay up this convenience fee to sail through at the counter.

A point to dwell upon is the age at which we get an exposure to such dubious double standards! Parents now-a-days are willing to shell down huge sums of money to get their children into a private institution, all because the government run public schools perennially are in short supply of good educators, instructors and teachers besides the woefully pathetic infrastructure. During the late 50’s and early 60’s the difference between a government run school or college was not much when compared to a privately run institution, but not anymore.

This may sound comical: take a step back and look at the profit and loss arithmetic sum we all must have done in our early childhood: How much profit does a milkman make if a liter of pure milk costs Rs. 10 and he adds a liter of free water from the tap to every 9 liters of pure milk before selling to his unsuspecting customers? If there is a gain from being corrupt and this gets taught in the schools at a tender formative age, whom are we blaming? Rest is just an extension and the degree and decimal point varies.

With no resources at its disposal, the young government at the time of independence faced an ever yawning gap between demand and supply. Creating a socialist democratic republic by removing healthy competition (Nationalization of privately owned Industries and Establishments) and by controlling the daily needs of the common person, the then government thought they had everything under wraps and in control. It took the government a good 35 years to realize the harm their excessive control had brought in. By opening the market through free market economy the floodgates did eventually open up for investments and so did the income. Unfortunately the economy further polarized the population between the haves and the have nots. With the pay scales of the government employees being directly proportional to the tax collection, one can imagine the pressure on the government with just 35 million miniscule tax payers in a country of a billion. The law enforcers came under the less privileged class and thus for them to make two ends meet, they accepted convenience money. The section of people who earn sufficiently to make two ends meet comfortably, were also the persons who were evading taxes but quick to blame the government for corruption. It was like the pot calling the kettle black!

We have refused to stand in the ‘Q’ for a popular movie just released on a Friday and instead buy the tickets in black. We prefer to bribe the linesman to declare the energy consumption meter faulty and pay lesser amount to the Electricity Board. We tap raw power from transmission poles during festivals and deny income to the state run utility companies. Our hospitals demand extra money for providing sub-standard services to inpatients! Office of the registrar of births and deaths demand a huge ransom to issue an appropriate certificate, in spite of the documents being in order. It is as if they are doing us a favor by issuing a certificate!! The list is endless and this parasite called ‘corruption’ has spread its tentacles far too widely for it to be reined in. Where will these two gentlemen Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev commence? While the rich and the famous besides the politicians and the Government officers and offices are rightfully to be blamed, who will bring in the necessary controls amongst the larger public who are equally to be blamed, if not more?

It was a shock when we visited a temple in a famous south Indian city near Chennai where, we were first invited by the temple priest into the sanctum sanctorum and later forced to pay a tidy sum in order to exit. The creators of the idols are long dead and gone, their names not even carved on stone as a recognition of the years of efforts they put in to erect such ageless magnificent structures – the fruit of their labor is being enjoyed by a set of unscrupulous temple priests who in the name of God extort money from gullible public like you and me and we, willingly pay thinking that the Gods will be immensely pleased and bless us with gay abandon.

While it is nice and easy to point a finger at the others, it is time to realize that by doing so, three fingers point back at us. Are we listening to our inner conscience? It knows what is right from the wrong, one just needs the courage to travel on the right path. As Gandhiji said: Speak the truth! It is an immensely easy thing to do yet, it is a very tough task!

Anna and Baba: I hope you are listening…please ask each of your ardent followers to practice in their personal capacity to make India corruption free as well…only then will this campaign bear fruit and not otherwise!!

One for Sorrow, Two for Joy!!

While giving my car a nice early morning cold shower on Sunday, I heard the not-so-familiar sound of a ‘myna.’ It had perched itself firmly on my rooftop railing and was chortling with an apparent gay abandonment; something that is a rarity amongst us homosapiens living in a busy metropolis. It took me back in time – four decades and five years…us kids playing in the huge tracts of empty space between two housing rows left by the then British and Indian town planners in Durgapur. It was thankfully created for us kids, the birds and the trees. Lung space, as one would call them now in the concrete jungles of today. Amongst birds, the common sparrow, pigeon, myna, the occasional koel, parrot and the common Indian crow were a familiar sight those days. We would compete with the parrots and mynas to pluck the ripened guavas directly from the trees around for a snack between meals. The excitement would heighten if we had to steal ourselves into the neighbor’s fenced compound, climb the tree, pluck guavas and later scram for safety.

It beats me still, how the commonly used term ‘One for sorrow, two for joy, three for letter and so on’ came to be associated with mynas, but then it did leave an indelible impression deep down, somewhere in a few of the 100 billion brain cells. The instant recall upon suddenly spotting the myna on Sunday morning speaks volumes of the way the brain cells are interconnected between the left side (logical & analytical) to the right side (feeling & meaning maker). It brought pleasant memories, when spotting twin mynas was considered to be a good omen but spotting a single one was considered bad or sorrowful. At that young and formative age one does not know what sorrow in its true form meant, but the occasional whack from dad or getting chided by the school teacher for not completing homework or getting singled out for scoring poorly in a ‘surprise’ test was perhaps the limit to which one could stretch our imagination. I strongly feel that the third one got added as we grew older and when a sibling had to move to a different city in pursuit of higher education. Spotting Myna’s in groups beyond three was considered a blessing for material gain and is probably not worth mentioning here. It had very little significance then and virtually none now!

It was such a nice sight to spot this beautiful dark brown myna with a yellow beak and head gear of the same hue. How spotting a single bird can bring in a sad thought of ‘sorrow’ is difficult to imagine; but if you look at this variety in the avian family, they are very social and gregarious and found mostly in southern and eastern Asia. A myna perched on a tree branch would probably look like a two-color dolphin and the similarity ends there. Three to four times the size of a sparrow, these dark and often brown winged birds have strong feet and flight. They thrive on fruits and insects and generally nest in holes. Some species are pretty well known for their imitative skills. A relatively unknown fact about mynas is their contribution towards pollination. They are known to be dispersers of seeds, especially the sandalwood and banyan. This may sound stranger than fiction; their stomach enzymes have the ability to quickly break alcohol when these birds consume over-ripened and fermented fruits. No wonder these birds do not get intoxicated as in their history of existence none seem to have crash landed and their 3-axis flight coordination remains intact with their tiny brain combining the interdependent motion between eyes, feet and wings with precision control.

Unbelievably, it was the twin leg winged dinosaur almost 150 million years ago that turned into an aerodynamic winged creature and birds were thus born. A huge variety of these winged creatures turned birds, came and went before evolving into some 9,000 present day variety of birds. While dinosaurs became extinct some 65 million years ago during the ‘big bang’ when supposedly a meteor crashed onto earth and wiped out the entire family of dinosaurs, the family of smaller birds that evolved post this era have adapted themselves admirably well. The power of flight gave these an edge over other creatures and Sir Richard Attenborough believes that birds may be the most successful creatures on earth, more successful than even insects to have adapted and evolved. From the extremely cold sub-zero temperature in South Pole where emperor penguins have thrived to the extremely hot and dry climate in the South American deserts where grey gulls have survived, the sheer variety is absolutely amazing.

One noteworthy trait of the homing pigeon is its innate ability to return to its nest and to its own mate over long distances up to 1,800 kilometers. These birds cover distances at an average speed of 80 kilometers an hour. The Egyptians and Persians were the first to use these homing or carrier pigeons. Closer home, Tipu Sultan had a fleet of carrier pigeons at his headquarters in Srirangapatna, near Mysore. Closer to its nests, the homing pigeon depends on visual landmarks much like the way humans do while finding their bearings, but when released from distant lands, the pigeons trace back their path using spatial distribution of atmospheric odors also called olfactory navigation.

Birds are not known to attack human beings but the 1963 film by Alfred Hitchcock, ‘The Birds’ struck terror in the minds of people who ventured to see this horror film. This film portrayed ‘fear’ in its raw form and with no explanation of why the ordinary crow attacked anyone venturing out of their homes; the movie left people petrified. Such was an impression Hitchcock could create in his movies! Compare this negative portrayal to Richard Bach’s best selling fable, ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull.’ This is a story of a seagull; tired of the daily squabbles decides to push himself to improve on flying skills and to eventually attain perfection.

It is indeed a pity that the city bred generation ‘Y’ does not get to see these small wonders of God’s creations. I am told that the proliferating cell phones have driven the sparrows away. The explosion of electromagnetic waves in cities is causing the common house sparrows to quickly disappear. These waves are concentrated in the tower masts and with hundreds of them spread across the cities to cater to the ever increasing demand for cell phones; the day is not far when these winged friends will become extinct. How true are Ken Robinson’s words when he says in his book ‘The Element’, a NY Times best-seller and I quote: “The crises in the worlds of nature and of human resources are connected. Jonas Salk, the pioneering scientist who developed the Salk polio vaccine made a provocative observation. It’s interesting to reflect that if all insects were to disappear from the earth, within fifty years all other forms of life would end. But if all human beings were to disappear from the earth, within fifty years all other forms of life would flourish.”

We need to deeply introspect and remember that; ‘This planet does not rightfully belong to us! We have merely borrowed it from our children and other living beings. We need to take care and be a part of the eco-system, not plunder it!!