On the MIDDLE stump!

A friend in need



IT IS my misfortune that I am very touchable. No,no, it is no misprint, I don't mean touchy, I mean touchable. One with whom making a touch is easy. English is a funny language. By making a touch I don't exactly mean making a touch, I mean bit¬ing the ear. But again, by biting the ear, I don't mean biting the ear, I mean getting in one’s ribs. By getting into one's ribs, I mean ~ and so it will go on. In a nutshell, I don't actually mean in a nutshell, I mean in two words, and what I mean is "bor¬rowing money”.

At the office my nick-name is Mr. Touchstone. As touching me is as easy as slicing butter with a sharp knife. Exactly opposite to me is a col¬league nicknamed Mr. Stonetouch. As touching him is as hard as the glint in the eyes of poet Keats when he saw a rainbow. One day Mr. Stonetouch scolded me roughly, or squarely, (as the English language will have it) just for being a touchstone for a borrower for fifty rupees.

Then out of a blue sky, actually the sky was grey and cloudy that day, the crisis hit me. I lost my job due to retrenchment. It was "minus four" budget, that is, the fourth -budget after the "zero budget”, and so the retrenchment. I sat down in my room and made a list of my "borrower” colleagues, with the amount borrowed by each. The grand total gave me great relief. I needed the money for hunting a new job, and the grand total was more than thrice the amount I needed. Then came the tricky business of getting the borrowed money back from my borrowers. People who can't pay try to make you feel guilty for asking the money back. At least that was my experience. So the total amount collected when the hat was circulated was less than one third the amount I needed.
Mr. Stonetouch, my colleague, watched my activities with in¬terest. I sounded almost apologe¬tic when I was demanding my own money back, without interest! Mr. Stonetouch patted me on the back and said, "Give me that list." He looked at the list. Saw what was the total amount collected, the remaining amount, opened his wallet, took a wad of notes, counted the amount and gave the counted notes to a surprised me. I counted the notes. It was the re¬maining amount I was so desper¬ately trying to collect. Mr. Stonetouch put his wallet back and said to me, "Don't worry, I will collect this amount from all your borrowers." With this, he turned to the colleague from whom I was trying to get my money back for the last half hour and said, with the already men¬tioned Keats-like hard glint his eyes, "When are you going to re¬turn my money? Remember now it is my money" The colleague wilted beneath Mr. Stonetouch's hard glinted stare and said,
"Er ... I will return it tomorrow, definitely."

I thanked Mr. Stonetouch pro¬fusely. He again patted my back, he is a confirmed back-patter, and said, "Now do you understand the disadvantages of being Mr. Touchstone? It is better to be a Mr. Stonetouch. I have seen many a monsoon more than you. Don't you believe that old saying about a friend in need being a friend indeed. Instead, take my advice and take this new saying from me - A friend in need is no friend of mine!"
Now, Mr. Stonetouch is a very good friend of mine!


Early to bed



IT IS said that you take the good from anything and leave the rest. So from the saying "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” - I have taken the title. It's true the early bird gets the worm, but what about the early worm? Has anyone thought about it? The early-to-rise birds I know are the paperboys, milkmen, and a friend of mine, ¬a physical fitness fiend who can't stand tile size of a nice, rounded belly on anybody. Anil, the phys¬ical fitness f(r)iend of mine, gets up in the wee hours, drives to the ground in his tracksuit and jogs for half an hour, when right-thinking people like me are lost in sweet slumber.
When I got married, after a month or so, my wife started experimenting with her culinary skills. So, one by one, we started inviting my friends to dinner. At such din¬ners, my pot-belly - or a nice heal¬thy paunch, as I would like to call it - came under heavy criticism. My wife, like a politician, would
change party and join the Oppos¬ition. The Opposition consisted of Anil, his wife, Ashwini and now, my wife Manju. They discussed the when and how of my round tummy. Bursting with my food, under my roof, Anil said: "You should cut down on food. I didn't like the way you lowered gulabja¬mun after gulabjamun." Anil is one of those one-track fellows who think that if all the world jog¬ged, it would be a better, slimmer world.
The next evening saw Manju and self shopping for shoes, track¬suit, elastic hairband and cotton socks. Also an alarm clock. I slept fitfully with a sense of impending doom.
The alarm clock woke us up. I brushed, dressed, took a cup of tea, as jogging on a completely empty stomach was not recom¬mended, and started on my scooter to the ground where I was scheduled to meet Anil for my first jogging lesson. There was a thick
fog and before I knew what was happening, I bumped into the dim form of a paperboy who was riding a bike and both of us came down like a ton of bricks.
When I righted myself and then him, we were surrounded by his buddies, a group of paperboys. And though I was on the main road, and he had emerged from a by-lane, the fact that I was on a scooter and he on a bicycle, the mistake, it was argued by his bud¬dies, was mine. I had to pay him fifty bucks for repairs and only then was I set free from the gherao of bicycles. Depressed, I turned my dented scooter, which represented a dent of another hundred in my wallet, and returned home. This made me skeptical about 'early to rise'. It surely made somebody wealthy, but that somebody was not me.
The next morning in deference to the large amount of money spent on jogging accessories, again saw me scootering rather cautiously through the mist. I took a short-cut through a lane and the telephone people got me. They had a trench excavated and left it without any red lights. Only some red flags and written cautions on tiny boards, invisible due to mist. If I were driving speedily, I would have crossed the ditch with two great thuds, but since I was driving slowly, I got ditched. There was not a soul in sight to help me. After lying prone for what seemed like ages, I mustered strength, and with great pain, raised my scooter and returned home with a throbbing ankle which had already started swelling. Thus came additional expense of medication, loss of four days casual leave and a painful sprained ankle. This shattered my faith that early rising makes one healthy.























Eccentrics anonymous


When that impulse is upon you to perform an eccentric action next time don't get carried away by it - Join Eccentrics Anonymous.
Call upon a fellow eccentric.
Talk with him about your impulse. Let all spontaneity of your impulsive action be discussed and made look stale. Thus and thus only will you be spared the consequence of an irresponsible, momentary whim.
I don't know what got into me that day. As I was browsing through a file of various bills. I came upon an electricity bill that was vastly overcharged. About ten times the average bill.
Clearly a computer error. I had paid the• bill already and was thinking of asking for a refund.' At that moment the fan stopped. Here was the regular daily power failure. I became so hot both physically as well as psychologically that I forgot my prudent
Self, wrote a scathing letter full of sarcastic stuff and went in search of the office for refund.
The search proved to be a long one. First I went to the office where I paid my regular bills. They gave me the address of "Complaints Office"
The complaints office turned out to be about complaints about power failure. They directed me to a third office in the fourth comer of the city whence I was given the address of the next office. The name of this office gave me some hope as it was called "Re¬fund Division". This hope was strangled when a pan-chewing. visitor-spraying man sprayed me with pan juice, explained to me that it was the Deposit Refund Division and not the bill refund division.
Finally, I reached the new computerized "Bills Division”. Here, after standing in the queue for an hour or so the person behind the counter looked at my application for refund, refunded me that sarcastic prose I had written along with a printed form marked Refunds. I filled the form and sub¬mitted it.
After two months I got a letter stating that my application was being looked into and soon I will be receiving the corrected bill. And surely I did receive it, and it was a whopper. It was about a hundred times the average bill.
I had to pay it before asking for a refund again. I was flabbergasted.
If I asked for a refund again, I was sure to get a bill that was thousand times the average.
I paid that bill somehow, just in time to prevent my connection from being cut. Then I joined Eccentrics Anonymous.
Now; whenever I get an impulse to do a rash action. like reporting a theft at my house to the police, or reserving a plane ticket - over the phone, or traveling unre¬served during vacation period, I think twice, or even thrice.
And when the pressure to do something becomes too much, I go to one of my Fellow Eccen-trics, and we talk it over. He dissuades me from my thought and I am left undisturbed, inert but happy and sane in the chaotic, insane conditions around me.



Exercycling the muse



I DON'T remember whether I have told you about my gastro¬nomical career. Starting at an early age, I have taken love for food to new heights. I have honed eating into a fine art. Be it any kind of food, I like it all. The result - a body that will put the fattest politician to shame, and recently, a warning by the doctor. That's how the wheel less bicycle entered our house. I was required to shed some kilos and the exer¬cycle was suggested by the doctor in addition to the daily food cuts.
The first day I enjoyed the expe¬rience of cycling while staying in the same place. The continuous movement of the legs made a nice rhythm and helped me think unin¬terrupted thoughts about the uni¬verse, the life, and other deep matters.
The second day I thought up a complete short story with even the minutest details during the half hour of my exercise. It is another matter that I never put the story on paper. While bathing and toweling myself I totally forgot what it was. The only thing I remember about it is that it was a very good story. Great works of art are often lost to posterity because wives insist that hubbies take a bath before putting pen to paper.
Then came the poetic days. Everyday, I would give birth to 3¬-4 fine poems, not free-verse, mind you, but genuine poems with rhyme and meter and all the trimmings. Thus I am very creative when I am cycling to nowhere in my room. The only thing is no one knows about this creativity except me.
Today musing thus, I decided to put all this in words before it is washed away while taking bath, and the result, dear reader, is before you.
Wait, what do I hear? Oh, it's the wife shouting, and now I must go for my bath or there will be an earthquake.




















Humor in T-Shirts



EARLY in the morning my favorite reading is T-shirt litera¬ture. To begin with we had clas¬sics, which being in Sanskrit, Latin or Greek, are all Greek to most of us. Have you ever tried to read Shakespeare? Do you mean to tell me that you can understand Shakespeare without referring to the notes? Here Shakespeare-lov¬ers may take issue with me, if taking issue is the correct phrase, but I want to make it clear that I have nothing against the bard. What I mean is the average Eng¬lish speaking person of the now generation won't understand the lucid prose, let alone appreciate it. Paul Simon for one was engrossed in reading the literature on the subway walls as we understand from the song 'the sound of sil¬ence'. Then there is the toilet literature at par with pornography, With T.V. and video nobody reads very much nowadays except sub¬titles and ads in the lower strip of the T.V. screen. The spoken lan¬guage seems better off these days than the written language. Long before the advent of T.V. and video, the printed word had invad¬ed the fabric of civilization. Thus coming back to my favorite reading, namely, T-shirt literature. ‘Normal is boring’ and ‘Let's pa—arty’ seem very tame. Before that I remember 'Caution on curves' stretched across the sumptuous belly of a middle-aged lady, was funny, but the same message stretched across the bootilicious booty of a booty-full girl took my breath away! But definitely the era of funny messag¬es is over. Previously we had an inkling to the wearer's personality from the messages they sported on their T-shirts like ‘Anything once', 'Eat, drink and be merry for - tomorrow you may diet,' 'Too hot to handle', 'If you can read this print then watch out for a slap' and the like. Now mostly we see some product or other advertised on the jogger’s chest. The place of funny messag¬es is taken by serious ones like 'Save the earth', 'Green Peace Warrior' and the like. As one humorist remarked, humor is becoming scarce in all 'walks' of life, so why should the 'jogs' of life be exceptions?

Musing thus, I was walking in the opposite direction of the joggers, reading their T-shirts, when a message flashed across the next T-shirt, 'Don't look for a joke here, the greatest joke is inside your own shirt!’

Now I have turned my attention to truck-literature!









Oh! Perfect peace!



LEO Tolstoy was a real genius –or was it Shakespeare? Anyway, what’s in a name?- Not because my thoughts coincide with his on the subject of relatives, but otherwise too!
I can almost imagine him when his mother-in-law must have left him after a prolonged visit. The great man must have been sitting in his armchair with his feet on the mantelpiece, lighting his pipe at two in the morning with con¬tentment after a night out on the tiles with his contemporary literary boys. At such a moment he must have uttered the famous line,
"Oh! Per¬fect peace, with the loved ones far away."
A week before, as I rang the door-bell after coming back from the office the door opened and there was the massive form of my mother-¬in-law blocking the door. It was rainy season. Without moving to let me in, she stood there staring at my shoes.
"Wipe your filthy, muddy shoes on the mat before coming in," she roared.
"I don't want any mud-stains on my drawing room carpet."
That was good. That. was rich. My drawmg room carpet, indeed! The carpet in question had set me back by the amount I had earmarked for a good stereo system, and now suddenly it was her carpet. Due to her stare my shoes and socks started emanating steam, and before her precious door¬mat would start burning, I wiped and wiped my shoes on it. When they were clean enough for her, she budged to let me enter the house.
From that day onwards I could not move a finger without starting her running commentary. My wife had already changed sides and after each commandment thundered at me as if I were deaf, started adding, "I always tell him so, mom, but he never listens." Et tu, my loved one, I said in my mind. Every morning the breakfast turned to ashes in my mouth. But even the longest road has a turning, and that day as I was taking the right turning from the bus-stop, with my head bowed down with the weight of woe, I bumped into Baldy, the shrink, or psychiatrist, as he prefers to• call himself. Baldy is my boyhood chum. Now he has become a psychiatrist and earns something sinful from the guilty rich who have amassed their riches by grinding the face of widow and orphan in the dust.
He was getting out of a bungalow and going towards his car parked on the opposite side of the road, and on the way I bumped into him.
"Oh! It is Banya!" he shouted in delight. "How nice to bump into you like this!"
Finding no corresponding response from me, he scrutinized my face. The haggard look, the black circles below the eyes, he saw it all.
"Come, come," he said, "Tell me all" So lea¬ning against his car bonnet, I told him all. He laughed lightly.
"I will tell you how to get rid of your mother-in-law," he said, and poured his scheme into my eager ears.
Next morning when my loved one put the plate of half-fried eggs and toast before me, before I even touched it, my mother-in-law boo¬med:
"Do not dip your toast in the yellow of the egg. I can't stand the spectacle. Eat like a gentleman. "
My wife added, "I always tell him so, mom, but he never listens. He even licks his fingers afterwar¬ds."
Then there was a loud crash. I had thrown the plate right on the wall, smashing a picture
of violet colored roses, which I never liked. My mother-in-law looked at me with her eyes protruding like a snail's. I hurled my chair back and towering over here, shouted:
"Don't look like that at me, or I will ..." and lift¬ing her tea cup scored a bull's eye on another picture frame.
Rest of the things happened as per Baldy's speculation. He was called. He examined me. He advised my mother-in-law and wife to leave. He said that I needed solitude for a few weeks. He promised to visit daily. Now my mother-in-law and wife have left. Baldy keeps his promise. Every evening he visits me and we remember the good old times over a drop of something.
Today, he has just left. It is nearing mid¬night. I sit here with my chair drawn near the window, put my feet on the sill, and heaving a continued sigh, say to myself,
"Oh! Perfect peace, with the loved ones far away!"































Only for men



AT the swimming tank we are the regulars. Myself and a few others. For years it has been a ritual, swimming in the same tank. The one with the curly hair got married last year. Only then I came to know that his name is Sandeep.
Otherwise we are the ‘strong and silent’ men. We take our showers, say hi-hello to each other, dive, surface, and resume our strokes earnestly.
That day Sandeep waited for all of us. When I finished swim¬ming and went to the shower cubicle, he was waiting for me with a forlorn expression. He waited patiently on a wooden bench while I hummed a popu¬lar tune amidst a shower. When I shook off the last swimming tank algae from my hair, he came for¬ward a little hesitantly and asked . my name.
When I replied, ‘Aniruddha’, he took an envelope from his bag, wrote ‘Aniruddha’ on it with-out even enquiring the surname and gave it to me.
“You see, I am getting mar¬ried”, he said sheepishly.
“Oh, it's all right,” I assured him, "Don't apologize. Me, I am al¬ready married."
"Oh", he seemed relieved, "Do come for the wedding. It is not during our swimming time."
Before the day of the marriage we 'strong and silent men' for the first time acknowledged each other's existence. We learnt each other's names.
We contributed generously for the wedding present. Thus, with Sandeep's marriage our friend-ship reached the second phase, i.e., we knew each other's names but not surnames.
It was a bit like Hindi films where people are known by their first names alone. At the marriage, Sandeep introduced us to his wife. "Raveena, these are my swimming tank friends, known to me for five years. Aniruddha, Mandar, Arun, Samar, Nikhil, Joseph, Mohammed and Hythem", he waved his hand In a broad gesture but I am quite sure that he knew not who was who.
After about a month, Sandeep again surfaced at the swimming tank. Everybody congratulated him but he was not to be cheered. He looked bowed down with the weight of woe, to borrow from Wodehouse. None of us thought it prudent to pry out his thorn. But after three tumultuous days, while washing himself in the shower cubicle next to mine, he came clean.
"Anlruddha", he said (he did remember my name), "My wife wants me to teach her swim¬ming. I asked her to learn from some female coach during lad¬ies hour, but no. She is jealous of this one hour alone at the tank I spend and she wants to inter¬fere with that, too. I love her, but will be the last not to admit that she's extremely possessive."
Being an experienced married man, I knew about these things. I rubbed myself with soap and bubbled with laughter.
“Oh! This is just a passing phase" I lectured. "There Is nothing to be afraid of. Bring her here. I guarantee you that she won't last more than a week. She will herself give up the idea."
"Do you really think so?" San¬deep groped for soap and asked me searchingly. "Of course", I said confidently.
For a week or so we somehow tolerated Sandeep giving swim¬ming lessons to his wife in the shallows. Then one day ,she ven¬tured into the deep end, sank, swallowed a liter or two of water and stopped coming from the next day. We heaved a combined sigh of relief and to this day we are a group of 'strong, silent men' who come to the tank regularly, nod to each other, dive, surface and start treading water ear¬nestly!












































Rules for a golden marriage


ON the occasion of the gold¬en jubilee of my marriage, I wish to share with you the secrets of our happy married life.

These secrets I have formulat¬ed in a series of rules. These rules may seem to be the usual trash, for the simple reason that they are the usual trash. Never¬theless, they are effective.
Rules for Husbands
Rule 1: Rule of relativity:
Always remember that relatives are relative. Her relatives are always better in relation to your relatives, but still, both are rela¬tives. To state simply, always praise whatever relatives she has, and who happen to come up during a conversation. Even if she praises some of your rela¬tives, suspect a trap and be sure to run them down. After all, you are married to her and not to your relatives!
Rule 2: Rule of Lying Low:
Whenever the occasion de¬mands, lie in a low voice. Never tell the truth in a high voice as it can hurt your marriage.
Rule 3: Beauty Is Beastly:
If some woman is beautiful, while discussing her with your wife, always harp on her other beastly qualities, real or imaginary. Nev¬er say a word about her beauty, but discuss all other traits of her personality like meanness, snob¬bishness, her neglect of her hus¬band etc. This rule applies also to your wife's beautiful and young female relatives. Remem¬ber this exception to Rule 1 well. Otherwise you may make a bloomer.
Rule 4: The Law of Volume¬control:
However strongly you feel about a subject, always use your wife's voice as a standard for the pitch of your voice. Al¬ways keep your voice lower by 5 decibels than your wife's voice. By this, your wife will think you are damn serious in whatever you say.
Secondly, she will lower her voice, and you will have to talk in a still lower voice, and gradu¬ally, both of you will develop a habit of talking in hushed voic¬es. To hear you properly, the neighbors will also talk in whis¬pers. Thus, there will be an over¬all reduction in noise pollution and life will be quieter and bet¬ter.
Rule 5: Evolution ofthe Spe¬cies:
From the beginning, just accept the fact that your wife is the superior species and boss in the home. This will make her smug and arrest her further evo¬lution, while you can slowly find ways and means to evolve and become the real boss.
Rules for Wives
Rule 1: Boost Is the Secret:
Always count your husband's successes but never count his failures. Boost his ego constant¬ly. You will find that his ego ¬boosting requirement goes on reducing in inverse square of the boost you give.
Rule 2: Phrases are Poison:
Never use any phrases, especial¬ly during emotional scenes, talk simply. Deliberately avoid us¬ing phrases like: "Don't count your chickens---“ and the similar. Phras¬es only irritate people and achieve nothing.

Rule 3:
Indiscriminate Feed¬ing: Feed your hubby well all the times. Give him breakfast, snacks, cook the food he likes all the time, so that when you make some demand, it will ap¬pear natural to him. A husband resents very much being given a good meal only when the wife has her eye on his purse. Do not dis¬criminate in your hubby's feed¬ing, using good quality food only as a prelude to some demand.

With these rules you can't go wrong. I'll share with you some more secrets at the time of the diamond jubilee of our marriage, till then, practice these.




































Storming the supermarket



On the broad general principle, I am against civilization. I feel nostalgia about the cave days when men were men, and, to keep the women-libbers at bay, let me add, women were women. During those happy days, there were no cars, no one-way streets, no park¬ing problems and most of all, there were no supermarkets.
It happened like this: The missus had heard about a new shopping place some eight kilometers from our home. I protested strongly. But you cannot argue with autho¬rity . You just have to submit. The missus not being able to drive, I had to take out the car and drive with her in the side-seat and 4 big¬shopper bags, which were pur¬chased in Tulsibaug, in the back seat. After two traffic jams, eight red signals, two wrong turns and one hour, we arrived at the supermar-ket. Mrs Banhatti had ~plained the system to me, and I was supposed not to behave like an idiot in the supermarket.
As I locked the car, I noticed that the missus had forgotten her money-purse on the dashboard. I took her purse, locked the car and entered the supermarket. The conditioned-air made me feel better immediately.
There were miles and miles of shelves stretched up to the horizon and scantily dressed ladies and well clad gentlemen pushed spar¬kling. chromium carts nimbly through the corridors. I looked for my better half but she was lost in the maze. I also took a chromium cart and drove it with quite a good speed through the narrow corridors, trying to locate my wife. I was not picking up anything from the shelves and everybody started looking at me oddly. At last I came to the end of the su¬permarket and still no sign of my lost wife.
She will be needing her purse, I thought, and scrutinized the long line of cart-pushers at the exit who were being let out by two supercil¬ious Paris Fashion models one by one., Every one in the line was awaiting her/his turn at the guillotine with baited breath. But my wife was not among them.
Everyone was looking askance at my empty cart. I took my cart ahead after being held up at one traffic¬ jam, or rather cart-jam, and after one accident, reached the entrance. Here I dissociated from the empty cart. The two bimbos at the en¬trance looked at me suspiciously. I wiped a bead of perspiration from my brow and got out from the entrance.
Everyone was looking at me as if I was some ignorant transvestite when I emerged through the wrong door clutching a ladies purse. Then I went to the exit door from outside. There she was!
She was arguing with the Miss World at one of the counters, when she sightedt me, she called me happily, at the lop of her voice. When she saw me coming to her, with her purse in my hand, tears of joy stood in her eyes.But the Miss World objected, ¬"Not thru’ this do-ah, Mistah, Come in thru' the en-trah-us" she said. Again I traversed through the whole supermarrket, provoking such remarks as "Anyone now comes in here". "There goes the neighborhood", "This is not a Jogging track" etc. as I ran through the corridors and just as I was reaching my wife, I slipped on the floor and crashed to the accompaniment of the coarsest laughter I have ever heard. I broke my collar-bone. How we took a taxi to the hospi¬tal, how our car was brought home, all these details I can tell, but I prefer to keep mum. No use remembering painful things, isn’t it?


























Sussegaad!




THE word may not be in the dictionary, but it is the condensed philosophy• of entire Goa. I am told that it is a Portuguese word, or rather derived from a Portu¬guese word.

“Sussegaad" has no parallel word English.

"Very relaxed" is the nearest one can approach. It is not just a word, it is a way of life. It is being unconcerned about any happiness or tragedy.
"What's the hurry?" can be on other close but not exact translation.
In Goa, some sights are rare in Goa, almost nonexistent, the first being beggars. There are so few beggars in Goa that we almost get to yearn for them. The second rare sight is a dog and cat fight. We find dogs and cats cohabiting peacefully on the fishy leftovers.
The rare third sight is a person running after a moving bus. Miss¬ing the bus is not a phobia with the Goans. Their inertia is inbuilt and they will wait for the next bus rather than run after one. They are a dignified people and running after a mere moving machine will be an undignified act.
Take a look at the Goan shop¬keeper. See how comfortable he has made himself behind his coun¬ter. See the three bored looking assistants sitting on the stools. You enter the shop. The owner looks displeased. The assistants frown.
"Do you have any sarees?"
"What type do you want?" asks an assistant, not getting up from his stool
"Organza"
"Which colour?" the assistant asks, still sticking to his stool.
"Hmmm ... rather greenish-gol¬den".

"What range?"
"Say up to 500 rupees" .
Now the assistant reluctantly rises, selects three sarees and bangs them on the counter.

This is the inherent inertia of the Goans which they have proudly preserved, in these rat-race days. The entire Goan philosophy and lifestyle can be expressed in the magic word "Sussegaad"










The back lane musical show



Our locality is a lucky one. The housing society has a wide, busy road in the front, and a small by ¬lane at the back. Every morning we hear the piercing battle-cry, or rather, hawker-cry from one of the many frequenters of the back-lane. The cry is in a rasping voice, sounding not unlike a popular rock singer. The tune is different every day, giving you some exciting varia¬tions in the pronunciation of different vegetables. As the cry sounds, there is a stampede on the stairs and the small back-gate clangs open. This first bhajiwala is Hari - the "Cheap Stale”. His vegetables are one or two days stale, but his rates are very cheap. Most of the housewives and a few househusbands buy tomatoes and green vegetables from Hari. After he has finished business and left, hardly ten minutes pass when a resounding bass issues from the back lane, and everybody recognizes that it is the hour of the Madrasi.
The Madrasi is the "good quality-high price" chap, and those who have invited somebody over for dinner, or those who are hav¬ing guests staying with them stock-up from him. He has a choice of fresh vegetables brought from the market yard early in the morning. Housewives swear by the• Mad¬rasi's quality. Nobody yet knows whether,he is really a Tamilian, but everyone calls him Madrasi, because he looks exactly like Rajanikant, in fact he looks more like Rajanikant than Rajanikant himself does. Of course it is another matter that Rajanikant is really Maharashtrian and not Madrasi! After the territory is vacated by the Madrasi, the garlic-fellow clocks in. His cry is always the same. He shouts 'Kanadaaaaa-lasssssooonnn ' in a caressing falsetto and his shouting style reminds one of rapping. He sells onions, garlic and nothing else. He is the favorite with the non-vegetarians. Throughout the day these mar¬kets on wheels visit the back lane. Our railways can learn punctuality from them. Sometimes, especially on Sun¬days, fish vendors on bicycles appear as guest stars on the back ¬lane musical show. After so many years of listening, the wives from our society, I hear, are planning a back-lane awards night; or rather a back-lane awards morning for the best shouting star.

The award is very prestigious. It is decided that there will be no bargaining, with the winner for a complete month!







The cream of society


IT HAPPENED quite acciden¬tally. My friend Ravi gave me an invitation card for a party as he was not going to be in town that day. The party was hosted by a prominent industrialist.
"You will get to know the cream of society at the party," Ravi told me,
"And it will be a good experience for a down-to-earth, struggling author like you. The only thing is don't get intimidated. Just be yourself: You are a swell guy."
After such rare praise, I glanced at the glossy invitation, looked at my clothes and turned to Rayi. He read my thoughts. "Don't worry. Kurta and Pajama, especially soiled, is the in-thing nowadays. Either that or torn jeans and a printed T-shirt. Go as you are. Add a shabnam and nobody will be able to tell you from the jour¬nalists."
With this part(y)ing advice, he left me.
So I went.
A doorman, majestic in proportions and get-up, tried to scare me from the start. The light inside was so dim that one couldn't recognize the female from the male of the species.

After seeing my card, the door¬man had let me in and a chamcha (to stir the cream of society) caught me by the elbow and steered me to the inner parts. There, behind a bar, a worthy fixed me with a stony eye and asked in a gruff voice, "What will you have, Sir?"
I deduced that he was not a big shot or anybody like that, but only the barman.
"Scotch," I kept my head and answered.
"Which one, Sir?"
Here he had me floored. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"Sorry, Sir, we don't have the brand you mentioned."
"Give me any brand."
He looked at me with uncon¬cealed scorn and poured about two centimeters of liquid in a glass and asked, "How do you want it, Sir?"
"On the rocks," I said meekly and was handed the glass with two ice cubes.
As I moved away, I saw that the people there were divided into groups of five or so and talking in hushed voices. I joined one group and sipped scotch for the first time in my life -- and didn't like it. Somebody was saying, "- and what acting! Especially in the dying scene."
"Which serial are you talking about? The Sambandh episode telecast yesterday?" I butted in, emboldened by the intake of scotch. All were startled and turned scornful eyes on me. By now I had got used to the dim light and could tell the women from the men .
"We were talking about a Yugoslavian film telecast yester¬day on the ABC," one of the girls said in an icy tone. I was on the verge of asking how one could watch ABC in India but recalled seeing a dish antenna just in time and scrambled away.
After mingling with all the scat¬tered groups, I found that anything Indian was considered to be 'bad taste', including Osho and Zakir Hussain to my intense surprise. Only some obscure films, fads, fashions, music, paintings from some unheard of nations were considered culture. Even Pink Floyd and the Beatles were considered pre-historic.
By this time, three refills had made me very hungry. Fortu¬nately, the prominent host, dressed in gleaming silk kurta with gold buttons and silk salwar, clapped his hands and announced that din-ner will be served.

Uniformed waiters started cir¬culating. First they gave us empty plates. Then came the appetizers. When I picked up five or six pieces of what looked like chicken tikka, there was a sharp intake of breath. But learning from others, I also helped myself to minute quantities of food from each course. That left me hungry. So when a course of rice appeared but every¬body took about half a tablespoon of the delicious stuff, I simply lifted the entire dish off the wai¬ter's tray, replaced it with my empty plate and started eating with the table spoon. After the first few tablespoons, I looked up and saw that I had been deserted and left to eat all alone. I didn't mind. I finished the rice, followed the waiter to the food counter, had three glasses of water, burped noisily and left for the great open spaces. When I met Ravi the next time he enquired,
"By the way, how was the cream of society?"
"Rotten," said I.
"I thought as much." Ravi said with a hearty laugh.

The crossword addict



The dawn is black and white squares on a paper. If the black and white checkered board is not seen, it results in restlessness. If stuck for any word the result is hatred for all human beings and this entire universe. If all the white squares are branded with a letter each and the crossword completely solved, the result is euphoria. These, broadly, are the symptoms of a crossword addict. And I have gleaned, if 'gleaned' does mean what I think it means, the above symptoms from the behavior of my better half who is a crossword addict.
One day. I went home and my better half was looking extraordi¬narily pleased.
"What's the matter? You look unusually happy. "
"Yes", she replied, "I am euphoric, elated, happy, have got it up my nose and two or three other words that I can't remember because I am walking on air".
I said, "So what prospects do I have for a cup of oolong, bohea or to put it in milder terms, tea?"
"Oh! your refresher is ready, and I have made something special today"
"What's the occasion?" I asked, getting outside my favorite snack.
"Today I am satisfied, contented, cheerful, and serene because I could solve the crossword comple¬tely".
"Ah, that explains it".
The next day which was a holi¬day, in the morning I was woken by a fierce cry, Opening my eyes I found my better half looking aghast at the newspaper.
"They have not printed the crossword today", she shouted with utter wonderment looking at the news sheet as if it was not real. The whole holiday was spoiled for me, my better half being edgy, restive, restless, quick tempered and apt to take worst offence at the slightest chance. Now I know all the symptoms of the crossword addicts. But I didn’t realize that I had become an addict, too. I knew once how far the disease had spread only when without my knowledge, unknowingly, unintentionay, as if in a dream, in a trance, I found my way in a book shop and heard myself ordering a copy of the thesaurus!




The detergent opera


SOAP operas are now out of date. What we see on the idiot-box is the detergent opera. With extra power. With the brain-washing power of lime. You may well ask what the difference is. The difference is exactly the same as the differ¬ence between a cake of soap and a cake of detergent. The cake of soap is no more available. One fine morning, I felt a great nostalgia for wash¬ing my (clean) under linen with a cake of the old yellow Sunbrite soap. The aroma of Sunbrite was in my nostrils. I ransacked the market for a cake of Sunbrite. But to no avail. Finally, I had to settle for a cake of yellow detergent bar that looked like imitation soap. ¬I rubbed and rubbed it on the clothes, but could not get the rich creamy lather one used to get with soap.
That is the exact difference. The soap operas of yesteryear when the Doordarshan started tele-casting had a rich creamy theme woven in an everyday life aroma.
The detergent opera of today, in sharp con¬trast, is superficial and watery. It may have extra power but it has less extras. The mob sce¬nes are missing. The art of making tears out of the mundane as in Tum Log or the ubiquitousness of Fakkad is lacking.
Every detergent opera seems to be a costu¬me drama-based production where the costumes won't stand the rough, caustic treat¬ment of soap.
Now the detergent companies are marketing two new brands of detergents per week. Maybe they only change the wrappers. With the advan¬ces made in color printing this must be a lot more profitable. Also cheaper. Brand names, which meant a lot in the past, do not mean anything today. Nowadays everybo¬dy wants something new, including brand names. Even the British, with their well¬ known tendency for sticking to the old like lim¬pets, opted for a change. So change is the name of the game. You may retain the inner cake of the detergent as it is, but you have to change the wrapper twice a week.
The same applies to the detergent opera. Every week the audience wants to see new faces. The result is the detergent opera as we see every week.
Some detergent companies are still sticking to the rural scenarios and tribal enlightenment, some are still wielding their historical swords. But this is just the flicker of the flame before it dies.
With the detergents, your clothes may not shrink, but it is highly possible that the deterg¬ent operas will shrink from the usual thirteen episodes to say, six and half, or seven episodes!!








The French connection




This is an account of my life which was shrouded in the mys¬tery of an unknown language. I was as unknown to the French language as the French language was unknown to me, which made things equal. On the first day when I entered the class, the Madame cried enthusiastically, "Bonjoo, Mosiye Bonjoo" and a circle of expectant faces looked at me from their chairs in anticipation of another round of great fun.
"Rhapetey, Bonjoo Madame", said the Madame, and there was a burst of laughter from the already gathered students who looked at the madame holding onto my limp hand and a bewildered and terri¬fied me.
“Rhapetey, Bonjoo madame,” madame again said, now m a tone of explanation,
“Bonzoo, mosiye, rhapetey, bonzoo madame".
"Is this the beginner's class?"
"Oooooooo la la, no aangley"
"No, The French language begi¬nner'sclass?
"Wheee. Bonju mosiye, rhap¬etey, bonju madame.”
Again a burst of laughter from the merry spectators, and the Madame now clutching my now perspiring hand. At last I gathered the import of the "Wheee" and "Rhapetey” and to her great relief, said, "Bonzoo, Madame.”
She then deposited me in a chair like a wet sock. I draped the chair in relief. But the relief proved to be short lived. It turned into cha¬grin and irritation, not to say intense concentration as I listened to her asking again and again, "Come on,Whose apple whose" or some¬thing similar to it. My Adam's apple jumped up and down. I must have looked extraordinarily dumb, for the many-headed monster roared again and again in joy every time I could not know and wondered intensely what she kept asking me. At last she made it clear to the meanest intelligence, I am alluding to mine, of course, by asking,
"Jom-apple-ye Sonya, Whose apple-ye whose?"
"Oh", I breathed a sign of relief. "Jom-appleye Aniruddha", I answered.
"Oo-la-la, Anihuddha". she said
"No, No, Aniruddha".
"That's what I am saying," she seemed to say angrily in French, "Ani-Huddha". I let it go at that. Anyway, I was not paid to improve her Marathi pronunciation. One thing I have noted is that we Indians are such polite people that we will take pains to twist our tongues to the pronunciations of foreign tongues, while all the invaders are such rude people that while leaving the shelter of our hospitality, they have left twisted monuments to their perversity such as Delhi for Dillee, Bombay for Mumbaee, and many others.
I thank God, whose existence I doubt with a religious intensity, that Poona has thrown off the shackles and has become Pune at last.
Be that as it may, the next mo¬ment there was a knock on the door and we, for now I was one of the gang, looked at the new customer as she, for it was a she, walked in unsuspecting through the door opened for her by madame.
The next week I was bombarded by a torrent of French, which was all Greek and Latin to me and whose meaning I had to know only through conjecture. I was familiar with the stories of the fervor with which the secrets of this sweet sounding language were guarded during the occupation. So I could understand the method of teaching.Then on the fifth day, the miracle happened. As Madame Sonya was describing Paris, which she called "Paakhee" in French, its avenues, a particular avenue, a particular shop situated there, and the fine, very fine, texture of the silk clothes available there, as if a curtain parted, and without under¬standing a word of what she was saying, I understood exactly what she was saying. I think the same thing happened with many of us in the class. From then onwards, French was not difficult for me at all. I for¬gave Madame' all the fun she had at my expense because I knew not the language. Now the connec-tion was established and French became as easy as Marathi for me, if not easier!