The One Eyed Tiger

                          The audacious straight drive.

My first introduction to this game was when I was in the fourth standard at the convent. The neighborhood friend of mine who was doing his 6 th standard in the then famous school in the town revealed one evening a new game. A strange game in which you hold a stick with broad blade and was called bat (the makeshift bat was the coconut palm leaf stem). And another fellow throws a tennis ball from his hand held high and involves a bit of twist, turn and dancing motion. The fellow with the “bat” swings it violently and sends the ball to distant corners, more often to the compound of the neighbor. He does this to avoid the ball hitting three thin bamboo sticks behind him. He hits the ball and runs to the far end as if his life was depending on his reaching there as quick as he can. Then some arithmetic was involved and bingo, after exchanging swinging of bat and throwing the ball the winner is declared. Again based on some weird arithmetic calculations. A subject that was my bête noire.

I was not at all fascinated with the introduction to this new game. And was angry with my friend more because I could not figure out the strange acts and then math that is vital part of playing that game. I could not imagine and understand the raison d'être in involving math in fun and while at play. Ridiculous!

One year down the line I was sent to the very same school my friend was in. I was into the middle school and in the 5 th standard. New environs, bigger boys, no girls, strange angry words exchanged when boys fought, and menacing looking men as teachers. And most of all the strange game of three sticks a bat, ball, excited players and onlookers. The game was seen played in a many groups at the same time on all the play grounds, strips and corners. My first hand initiation into cricket. A fascination that stayed in me for the next many years as an avid player and follower of the game. Until belligerent opposition and disapproval from home muffled out that life from me.

Fascination metamorphosed into obsession and in a short while I began to play and listen to the running commentary on AIR, read avidly the Sports page in The Hindu. Often I cornered clandestinely a few paise from home to by sports magazines, Sport & Pastimes” and the “Sports Week’. My father used to buy the "Illustrated Weekly" regularly and those days it was “the news magazine”. And they brought out great articles on cricket and with beautiful colour photos of action. The little breaks in school and any available daylight time, I was playing the game.

And then India won the first ever test match and series overseas in New Zealand. Along with that I heard for the first time the name Pataudi. My father was an avid follower of the game and he had with him cricket books and coaching manuals written by Sir Len Hutton, Ted Dexter and so on. He used to listen to the commentary on AIR. And strange indeed, he did not frown upon me following the game.

Later that year sitting in the sidelines of the cricket matches to decide the best House before the annual Day celebrations, I heard of Pataudi who was the school captain. He was a senior in the final class. And strangely except for the darker complexion he was Nawab Pataudi’s look alike- be it appearance, hair-styling, gaze or swagger. And he was a good batsman. He was mobbed by the rest of the school. And because of him being the name sake of the Nawab, he was an icon.

My father in some rare moments of interaction that we ever had, used to tell me about how he and  a few of his colleagues ferried Pataudi from Hyderabad to Madras  once in the Air Force aircraft and then the Test matches that he witnessed Pataudi in action. He also told me why Pataudi was a Tiger. He was not named Tiger Pataudi, he said for his ferocity, (he in fact was a decent man), but for the tenacity and spirit of never say die. It was then I understood that Pataudi lost an eye in a road accident and was handicapped that way. My father told me that he had great difficulty in sighting and he always saw a ball being bowled as two. And because of his impaired vision he had to use his senses to know which was illusion and which was real. No ordinary man can adjust like he did and mock illusion and fate.

There were two means of conveying the period and time in films that had the plot taking place in the 1960’s. One was the signing on theme music of the AIR and the other was the running commentary on a cricket Test match on the AIR. And the commentator can be heard saying animatedly and in excitement that Pataudi has executed another glamorous stroke.

I met the prince at close quarters, that I could almost touch him. That was sometime in the early 1970’s during the three day Hyderabad-Kerala ,Ranji Trophy match at the University stadium in Trivandrum. M.L.Jaisimha was the captain. And there was besides Pataudi, another handsome player, his cousin Abas Ali Baig, Abid Ali and many others.

I must say that I have never met another handsome, charming and captivating person. He was absolutely gold like in pallor and had the elegance of the lineage, education and stature. Unfortunately he was bruised all over his elbows after some fascinating fielding. I do not remember taking his autograph, for I was bewitched and amazed at having got to see the man himself.

There were college girls in plenty shouting, shrieking and howling. They were kept at bay by the police, for they would have shred him. He was, at that time already married to Sharmila Tagore. The gossip went around that a boisterous college lass who was obsessed with him, gate crashed into the Mascot hotel where the team stayed. And she pleaded that she wanted to sleep with Pataudi. Pataudi was irritated by the lass and her tantrums that he closed himself in his room and got her evicted from the hotel. The grape vine has it that another player Mumtazr Hussain dated her during the duration of the match.

“No, don’t call me sir, call me tiger”. This was Pataudi himself when another player of later years tried to pick up a conversation with him.

In the 1960’s there were a few Indians who provoked ones imagination, they were Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Vikram Sarabhai and the other was Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi.

Crime & Punishment

Premeditating a crime outweighs by great extent the enacting of the crime itself. The actor is a mere instrument, a tool. While I ‘m an accomplice, a co-conspirator and culpable murder, because I have been part of many premeditated murders. Murder most foul!

Kalliappan  an old dying man in the former Central Travancore is one illustration of a man destroyed by remorse and guilt. He finds transient solace in alcohol. And hence he consumes more and more…! He is aged and emaciated. Bidding his time when he will cease to have any days remaining in this world. For he has killed many! And it now dawns more in him, how often there were innocents sent to the gallows by his very hands. This young man now standing at the gallows is innocent. The jailor told him so in no uncertain words and as another instance of egregious application of the law and evidence in court. But his son who accompanied him to the execution takes up the job when he stumbles, does it more out of revulsion and anger for what he feels is his father’s false piety.( the plot of Adoor Gopalakrishan Movie- Nizhal kuthu)

Now wake up, wake up from your blissful, nay forced slumber. It was I and you, the ones who premeditated and did murders most foul. And we continue to clamour for more. More blood that may even put to pale oblivion the insatiable thirst for blood of the merchant of death or even as old timers say of the Goddess Kali.

Mohammed Sadd- al Beshi is far younger and in his mid forties. When he came on television, he looked ordinary and I would pass him on the street without a second glance at his unassuming countenance. In fact the butcher who I remember from my childhood when I used to be sent to the local abattoir, had blood shot eyes, dark complexion massive chest, broad shoulders, prominent cheek bones and muscular biceps. He also sported frightening whiskers. And I can remember him vividly, though it was many years ago, on the whole he generated a fearsome visage.

“Despite the fact that I despise violence against women, I happily undertake my job as it is decreed by the one and only almighty God.” He expresses without batting an eyelid and in a calm voice. He continues, "I must say that women are strong kneed than men. Men cannot stand straight on the execution platform. I have not seen a weak kneed woman in my 400 plus beheadings willed by God.” He had a mocking tone in his voice, derision towards men and their infirmity before the sword he wields and send their head cart wheeling on the dusty sand, with the trunk shuddering spasmodically on the ground. Blood gushing out of the gaping hole in the trunk at the neck where the head was. He is the official executioner of the custodians of Islam, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

These are two faces of men who are by lineage and profession employed to murder, to kill, to enforce execution or capital punishment as called in jurisprudence. These are people from two distinct cultures and our contemporaries.

The first in a society that dares to call itself “democratic and civilised”! The second in a society that is teetering still in medieval barbaric practices. The former presumes that man has to be made aware to think of death penalty when he sets out to murder and hence must be operatively deterrent. The latter quotes the rash and archaic unveiling of eye for an eye from institutions found during a different age. Those laws may have been suitable for a clan of tribal barbarians wandering along the deserts of Arabia , Palestine and Egypt  and are absolutely ill for a generation that claim to be civilised and enlightened .

Now let us leave aside countries like Saudi Arabia and some other Islamic States who have refused to sign the United Nations Declarations of Human Rights, that calls for abolition of death penalty and that everyone has the right to protection from deprivation of life. Capital punishment is still given down in signatory countries like India and the USA for instance. Two nations who clamour for being more democratic and upholding human rights than the other! But are derisive and averse to the watch dog Amnesty.

Death penalty has proved that it is not an effective deterrent against crime. As long as premeditated killings are supported by money and political power crime in various forms and intensity will continue to be perpetrated. To assume that society should dispense with certain elements as they are considered unfit for life is another theory that keeps capital punishment on the statute. A flawed and bedeviled theory from the very society that is responsible for an evolution of a felon. The very society who shuns him like a pariah and incorrigible!  The only difference is that he or she is not banished to a remote island- a penal colony, but left in the lurch emotionally and socially, branded as a curse, a scourge to mankind and the very society in which he was born, born not by his volition! And in some cases exterminated!

If a felony is penalised by elimination of the felon, by what law and philosophy is the very murder what we call penalty not a more heinous crime? It is the whole society, the mob against a solitary individual who is branded as unfit to live. The rarest of rare cases as the Supreme Court of India observed   is a contradiction and a unenlightened observation. It means that in rare and strange cases the society can indulge in crime, in mobocracy.

The lust for blood is mans twin .A very dangerous trait that only man has and exercise against his own. I was a pro death penalty criminal all these years. But life has finally given me a realisation that smothering out a life in the name of penalty, as an individual perpetrator or as the silent acqusiser are both the same. And no law can redress or reverse both as the former is a crime and the later uncivilised and barbaric.

There is nothing human in the mode of killing or  be it by the individual or the State. Both are lust, lust for blood and vengeance of perverted and heinous minds.

Requiem

Some people are fortunate to read their own obituary. Well , is  there  something fortunate in getting to read that? It may also turn to  be a painful reminder, a late realization that you are or were a damn fool. How about being present at your memorial service? The white pallor of you, dressed in immaculate  white traditional uniform of the dead? You would come to know what the world- the friends who you loved , the relatives who you thought loved you, the acquaintances who nod while you pass them on the street ,all would subscribe to the requiem.

The eulogy they may read and it may blush your cheeks even though you are dead.

The ones who disparaged you and hounded you to the end of the world while you were alive, or even did the eerie black magic to summon Lucifer and numb your senses, all would in unionism orate in praise  of the magnificent  person you were. You will wonder why your mother , your wife or husband did not notice these  conspicuous qualities  while you were walking around in flesh and blood. And now once you were  interned in the inescapable underground vault the whole world conspire to  bring forth  grand orations about what you were. You may for a moment  pinch your cheek to  know if all is real. But then the dead cannot pinch, they pinch through!

This was what I felt whenever I  have been at the sidelines listening to a few memorial services . After you are gone, you will be eulogised for things that you did not do, and would not have done either. Hallo and saint hood is thrust upon you . And for that to happen, you need not have to be patient and bring forth three miracles like the Vatican insist. You  only just have to pass away. Scoundrel or saint when alive, you will be baptised after death and given a clean chit that you could not have dreamt when alive.

The mother of all jokes  would be a primate throwing tributes to the departed. The closest liaison he must have ever had with  the deceased would be at a  sumptuous meal complimented with exotic spirits, at the home of the departed. But the words and phrases that flow from him in tribute will flatter even Alcapone lying in his grave.

Eulogies have a queer sense. What they really mean one may not understand because it is neigh impossible to enter the mind of the speaker and decipher what he or she  really means  when he says, “I loved him”. By far that is the fact. Exceptions to the rule are not to be forgotten!

Here  are a few tributes to the departed-

-By a husband who excelled in  infidelity  towards  his wife had this to say at the memorial service.”If  tears could build a stairway and memories a lane, I’d walk right up to heaven and bring you home again.”

-By the Bishop who lead the memorial service to a young woman of the laity who was raped and killed. “If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, it comes from the hand of the same master.”

-A politician’s requiem  at the funeral of his bête noire. “say not in grief he is no more , but live in thankfulness that he was ( is no more).”

-A friend’s eulogy .”The mystery of his love is greater than the mystery of death.”

How  I wish I could speak at the memorial service of at least a few people I know. Remind them of their lives and more ,which that they thought people pretermitted

"In His Lost Childhood..."

In the lost childhood, his youth was lost

Cued by fuss and the cortège near.

Who brewed him, baked him and pampered him

And upon him riches like hail stones they lavished.

When the old must tell stories, of men and women of valour.

They nodded in glee his wallows and escapades galore.

 For they cherished it like stories of Camelot.

Wenches, wine and speeding cars – the spirits that enriched him!

 And riches like as for the Romans, but stealthily devoured him

Inheritance vile and the past wretch eclipsed

By riches of gold  those any man will envy.

And they brewed him, baked him and pampered him

In his spoiled childhood, his youth was lost.

Ozymandias

This morning while chatting on the NET with a  distant relative, we happened to discuss the hubris that envelopes man and woman when propelled by fate, design or by sheer intrigue on to a pedestal of aura, of wealth, of power. And it is  then the feeling of invincibility and infallibility engulf their psyche and persona, which leads to the belief of their omnipotence and immortality.

It could be the sum of wealth and the power wealth brings with it free; when lives of cognate and the ordinary beings that coexist is seen insignificant and of no consequence. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and irretrievably!

We both agreed about this queer nature that is found only in human beings, beginning from the dawn of man, whether one is a creationist or evolutionist.

Lives are trodden upon and the furtherance of material wealth and power irrevocably become the ambitions that drive them.The Kings of the past and the Neolithic ones of the present in different avatars are all perfect symbols.Even in today's world!

The sonnet crafted by Shelly in the 18 th century and later published as poetry is arguably the most evocative painting of verses about such men and women and what hold in store for them in the twilight of their imperious lives and the fate that will  befall their legacies.

In essence the poem refer to the Pharaoh, Ramsey-II . But it means sensible to all who are born.

This poem below is an outstanding and artistic lament of the end that he never saw and may have never thought of, where all his trappings were of no avail.Legacy in ruins!

OZYMANDIAS     

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said. Two vast and trunk less legs of stone

Stand in the desert.Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stampede on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias,king of kings

Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!”

Nothing beside remains Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and the level sands stretch far away.

Mr.S

Should we take birth signs in the Zodiac at its prescribed value, or its alleged influence over our life- capable to propel us and to knock us out? Some say yes and some a stern no and nonsense. Personally I do not care much as the veracity is humbug and the whole matter a mambo jumbo. But I have had a fair experience and knowledge of what some people can do to an unpretentious zodiac sign. There are a few in the particular birth sign who have given me much discomfort and trouble. However one fellow stands out as the enfant terrible of the constellation. And this guy is a Sagittarian. Mercifully I last met him in 1995.

That takes me way back in time to 1982, when I was posted to Cochin after a six months stint in New Delhi. I was raw and just out of college and a push over of sorts in an organisation, irrespective of the position .After all I was a trainee and being inducted over a period of two years. And this guy began all he could from the moment I reached Cochin to   mellow me to his whims. Since this guy, let us call him Mr.S , as S being the first alphabet in his name that denoted holiness. In fact he was the name sake of the Hindu God and his consort in the mythical Ramayana. But in real life an antithesis!

It was after putting up with him that I learned that he had an attitude and that was not his fault, but the result of his limitations and the awareness he has of his limitations and drawback. And such people need a fig leaf to cover that. And he had to have many fig- leaves, but yet there was no limit to my annoyance with his idiosyncrasies. Being my co worker, I had to put up with him.

He was short about 5 feet 3’and that compounded his inferior complex. He was a veteran and came up to an extent from a very low level in the organisation. And his years in the Company saved him continuity on the roll. That tells everything.

Besides the annoyance he was adept in creating, the innuendos and dual games he played on ones back and at work place used to simmer in me and anger was always waiting to erupt .The quality that I detested the most was his servility to senior managers. He stooped miserably low and crawled when he had to bend. It was nauseating.

When we had the review meetings and conferences, which were held in five star hotels in various metropolises, he was at his most ridiculous self. I have seen hotel staffs who man banquets, lunch and other breaks during our meetings laughing and smiling mockingly with amusement at his conduct. The worst was always reserved for the evening cocktails and dinner, when he went clownish over spirits and is a derisive figure of his own self.

I could live with all this personality of his. But the worst of his attributes I loathe was his act of shoe string tying and the sudden vanishing act to the loo. He was not exactly a miser but was artful in living upon others while he ensured safety of his wallet. He used to drink like a fish and eat like a famished Rip Van Winkle. Once during a dinner session when kebabs were served, referring to his clownish conduct someone observed loudly,"arey kebab mein haddi kaissey” (How could there be bone in the kebab)?

The shoe string act was always reserved for the end of evening get together to which he always tagged on like a limpet, even uninvited. But when the check comes for payment, Mr.S’s midget figure does not show above the table. Either he is fumbling with his shoes strings or has vanished in to the wash room, only to resurface after we paid the bill. He then enquires in earnest tone about the damages for the evening and slides like an eel towards his vehicle in the parking lot.

Why do I write this memoir on Mr.’S ? It is because I had a dream and he was having Kebab all by himself, caring not a hoot for me standing near, smacking my lips and drooling uncontrollably.

I felt the pillow damp when I woke up to my senses and could even smell the kebabs.

Escape to Dreamland

Raman Menon hailed from a well respected family of upper caste Nairs’ in the erstwhile princely state of Cochin. The aristocracy that  Menon clans among Nairs’ claim is more self acclaimed than bestowed by extra terrestrial largesse or by  former princes. They generally are like the British aristocracy of India with the stiff upper lip and the “Gaulish”, or even flattened nose up in the air. They seem to believe and convey the spirit of pristine Nair heritage and culture.

But Raman Menon seldom cared much for the trappings of the surname .He was an ambitious and fun loving person. He held a respected position in the State bureaucracy, added to his family lineage and its social standing the ground was set to propel him into a much higher orbit. He was young, handsome and with masculine charm.

He married into a family of Menons’ from Plaghat which was in the erstwhile Madras Presidency. The bride was a well educated, sophisticated lass an ‘haute couture’ and alumni of Yale in the USA. But the alliance was perhaps a serious flaw in the course of Raman Menon’s life. The incompatibility of the relationship saw Mr.Menon file for divorce after much acrimony.  And the marriage ended with the bang it made when it began. Mr. Menon was stressed out on the course to the divorce and after. The marriage lasted about a year and it was a year of utmost turmoil.

Not to be lurched out in search of a compatible partner, the Menons’ arranged another bride for the young man – a distant cousin. Raman Menon was married again .But the ghoulish ill luck serenaded with Mr Menon as tragedy as nothing else  can be, the bride died less than six months into the marriage. She died of lymphoma. It was again darkness at noon. Raman Menon was in tatters his life devastated. A rising professional graph twisted like a mangled ladder and Mr.Menon was at loss to pick up the threads yet again. Innuendos did the round, cruel ones too about Mr Menon’s ill-luck and why fate will never give comfort or longevity to the woman who is his consort.

He vanished from the society and from the country. He settled in a foreign land and never came back to the country or the town of his birth and life. He, an agnostic became a theist and joined a Hindu religious outfit.  He spent all his leisure and time outside work at the ashram. He changed his name to Sudhama. He lived frugal and walked about like an ascetic. Unlike the fellow members of the society who saw their liaison with the congregation as a luxury never to be parted with, Raman Menon was hermitic. He ate the insipid food that devotees brought. While he travelled outside, he walked much distance like a nomad, living on the tit bits from compassionate beings. He reminded of the Jain monks on the long road to what they believe is nirvana and salvation. Very rarely did he open up, but that was only to confide that this life at the ashram was his dream and a Calling.

A person who claimed agnostic beliefs, now when tragedy struck him in succession turns into a hermit and ascetic! A person who harboured utopian fantasies and dreams about living! Though the story is real, here the tragic happenings in the man’s life are only a metaphor which we all have to face at different times in our lives. And to less fortunate souls the tempest stays longer. Tragedy need not be per se, but may be dejection, disgust, frustrations, devastations or anything that is good enough to stress us out, persistently. And then it can be the time for woolgathering and hope for bliss and mirth in things we would have loved to indulge! For some it will begin the frantic groping for an escape route. 

There is indeed a life out there, like I mentioned in the post “The Road Not Taken” that beckons but is not mine anymore. When it did matter, when I could have trodden the “road not taken”, I did not. In fact it was more out of conditioning and also unawareness of its pathos. I feel awed and envious about some friends and ordinary men who despite the constraints they face could manage much extraordinary. That they have not taken a cowardly path of an ill clad, unwashed, smelly  absconder who claims abstinence ,but in fact are great escape artists who can put Houdini to his pale shadowy self. .But have within the limitations of  social living, has managed to  visit  a life of the liberated  and  wanderer,  like  birds that  transcend land and sea to migrate, occasional journeys of bliss and mirth! To the dream that is Zion, a travellers Zion.

But alas, man will not see the paradise in hand ,that will aid him with wings to fly towards the fantastic that are his dreams and only if he knows what it is for a paradise to be  lost, shall he see the beacon that always was alight. 

Morality- my foot.

I have read the book of Bertrand Russell one of my favourite writers, “Marriage & Morals”. It was when I was into the second year in college and now since much immorally moral living has taken place and the reading was a little over three decades ago, I fail to remember in detail.  But I can tell, Russell in that book confronted and scathed the hypocrisy of Victorian Britain of his time. The subject and his opinions on social living, morality and marriage, I felt were valid generally to men and women everywhere. I was quite fascinated and influenced  my outlook and thought. To the ones who see repugnancy in the ideas and outlook I bear now, can perhaps see that as a worthwhile distortion such a great book of thought did to me. And I love that.

It was Thomas Jefferson who said that what matters more is if  one will be honest to do in public what one will be willing to do in private. I wonder if Thomas Jefferson had catholic leanings or he saw through the hypocrisy of moralists.

But looking around all these years I feel that morality is a blunt edged weapon that the immoral wield to camouflage their illicit self.  Morality per se has become the tool  for  the ones who were not lucky to enjoy the oft branded immoral pleasures the other indulges in. And hence he/she is adversary and immoral.

It is crying wolf and calling the grapes sour.

“We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one that we preach but do not practice and another we practice but seldom preach”, said Russell. I go with the later because then one need not have to stoop to claim infallibility, or flaunt hypocrisy coated with sugar. Is it not that everyone has an enigma, a secret garden? Social living is more about not being dishonest to not admit so, but not to swear that it is not so.

Now what is morality? I keep asking to myself. Is it not out from the mind and the conditioning of a person that moral and immoral is born or engrained? The foremost matter that comes to mind when one speaks about morals is unrestrained sexual orgy. Even religion speaks only about carnal pleasure and its engagement that is forbidden by the creator. Moral teachings that insist love has to be the harbinger of creation and should not be lustful. But man cannot be equated with beasts that are biologically disposed to copulation only when the genetic motor senses that the ground is fertile to sow. And that is the way Nature maintains her creative balance. Man is biologically disposed to exercise sexual indulgence even outside the intent of procreation. Because man has found morally banished lust a vital factor of his genetic engineering. It is ideal that man, like pigeons or mynas for instance are confined to a single partner for life. But is it the case in real time? Russell was true when he opined that lust is what comes first and love maintains it. I hope I do not sound applauding promiscuity.

To refer a real example of being morally offended and outraged-  A few years ago where I lived, the ground floor of the apartment was occupied by a firm to run their office. This young guy an ex Army captain moved in to work there. And he began using the place as his place of stay as well. He was smart and well educated. And apparently he could easily have girls for friend. And week ends he used to have a few  girl friends of his ( boys as well), descending there after work hours and have a ball late into the night. I was envious but enjoyed his good time. This guy next door a burly giant who sits all day at his verandah trying to observe and hear about the happenings elsewhere  could not tolerate this activity of the Captain. He confronted me and accused me  for being silent about this. He was  aghast  and outraged that girls were staying overnight in the house.  I suggested that that is in no way affecting me and the Captain has his guests in his house. The man said the whole thing was immoral and I must report the matter because  it happens in the floor below my house. I told him I had more serious matters to bother about . And left it there. He went to the owner of the apartment with the matter. I was referred back and I told the owner that it is none of our business. And there is nothing criminal and nefarious going on. The matter rested and our giant must still be sulking about long ago.

Man has certainly journeyed a long way from the Garden of Eden when even nudity was not a subject that fell in the category of immoral or the reprehensible. Now nudity is confined to night clubs and strip dancing in indulgent social gatherings.And we even have self acclaimed moral police who decides what is nudity and scanty in attire. Besides coveting a woman or woman coveting a man outside marriage, or over indulgence of sex, morality as decreed by the establishment does not speak much about unethical conducts like murder, rape, and robbery. Commandments sent forth through men who claimed being the chosen couriers of God have prohibited these acts as sinful but not immoral. That is a weird concept of morality indeed.  

Morality per se is generally preached. In fact, the correct usage is –“flaunted “, by the ones who also pedal spiritualism and devotion to God. It is a contradiction, but a discomforting truth.

So, I infer morality is superimposed by the threat of sin and the long shadow of sin, rather than the good or bad of the act of the protagonist on himself or the society he thrives in.

There is always an alibi an excuse waiting to be used for absolution.

Himalayas

                                        Nandadevi in the setting sun from Auli

Many of us may have wished that our childhood and growing-up years were different. Get into a time warp and relive it all, eliminating the bitter parts. But then how do we get back when we know time travel is still a scientific fantasy? We may then want to enjoy the childhood of our kids. See the beauty and fun in their growing up. Their exultation in all that we could provide them, all that we may not have had the fortune to know as children.

Let me be more candid. I mentioned in a few blog posts the not-so-pleasant relationship with my father. I remember having not felt or cared—I missed out on him when he was alive, when even we had those showdowns, and the autocracy he wielded only added to the distance; the chasm between the two of us grew. But the depth of the loss of having missed out on a vital aspect of human relationship began haunting me, more so when well into my later forties (I suppose it was also the case for him later in his life as well). Many of us who have been through that experience would resolve to be different with our kids, trying to give them an unforgettable and memorable childhood and growing up.

So I always wanted to provide my children, especially my son, with things and moments that eluded me while I grew up. Most of all, the father-son relationship. He, Aravind, was quite a temperamental fellow, even while he was little and also in his early teens. And taciturn too, like me. I decided to go on a trip with him. And it was the summer vacation in May five years ago. He was 15 then and had just finished his ICSE 10th exams. He was back home from boarding, and I planned the journey to the Himalayas—Kedarnath and Bhadari (inspired by stories of wilderness and mountains by a mountain-loving wild friend). I felt a trip with Aravind to a new part of India would be a learning experience for the boy and a source of gratification for me—experiencing the pleasure in a reverse way. I mean in giving something I could not get. The journey was only for the curiosity and pleasure of travel, togetherness, the mountains beckoning, and not an iota of spiritual bullshit. In any case, an agnostic like me and a boy whose mind was zealously left unblemished and unstained by religious mumbo jumbo.

He was initially a bit reluctant. But once we boarded the flight from Coimbatore to New Delhi, he became quite at ease. We stayed in New Delhi overnight and took the early morning Shatabdi to Haridwar. It was the second time he was in New Delhi. A few years prior, four of us (I, Christy, Aravind, & Radhika) together made a triangle tour of Agra, Jaipur, and New Delhi in winter. It was a good experience for the kids.

Haridwar was quite warm and sweltering in the May heat. For the boy it was the beginning of a dawn of realisation, something he could not have imagined or knew existed. A kind of cultural shock, a bolt. The dirt, the human excreta by the sides of the road, the muck, the disease, the penury, and the dust all around when we got off the train and walked to the bus station nearby to go to Rishikesh! He became silent and gloomy, quite confused! We checked in at the Rishikesh tourist lodge and went out in the late afternoon for a stroll down the Ganga and the joolas. There were lepers and ailing people waiting all around, begging for alms. All that, I suppose, made the little fellow very distressed that he refused to walk further and wanted to go back. I cajoled him to the ghat by the mighty river Ganga. He always trailed behind, very irritated, and kept saying we should go back home. Then, the argument began by the Ganga. He just walked away from me. I could not leave him. He frowned and fumed and wanted to know why I was following him. I felt miserable—very miserable! I sat by the ghat on the steps, and I could still remember me weeping; it ached within me. A dream was turning sour! Was it? Then I noticed suddenly that he was missing. In panic I ran around frantically and utterly distressed and at last found him sitting elsewhere further down by the ghats.

I felt that I might have to cancel the trip and get back to Delhi. I telephoned Christy that evening to tell her Aravind was upset about the whole thing. She suggested I change plans and travel elsewhere with him, where he wanted, or even get back home. I asked him what he wanted. He refused to answer. That night he slept without eating. The next morning, we had to take the bus well before dawn to Gowrikund. At three in the morning I coaxed him out of bed. He would not walk by my side and strayed behind. I was running out of patience, but yet I had to be patient and not be worn down by a very uncooperative, petulant, and obstinate young fellow. He was still moody, and till almost half of the nine-hour journey, he was not in his element. Then, just as the fickle weather in the Himalayan heights, he changed, became different, and a pleasant, gay boy. He was enjoying the journey.

                                       En route to Kedhar

En route to Kedhar

We had very good moments that evening in Gowrikund, a tiny mountain hamlet. To make matters rather unpredictable again, I suddenly began to feel chill and feverish. It seemed I was going to be bedeviled by fever. Fortunately, the next morning I was feeling fine. He was the first to wake and arise the next morning at 4 ’o'clock, and we set off on the long climb of 17 km to Kedarnath. It was a fascinating journey. Of course both of us were not at ease with the undisciplined pilgrims and their cacophony. They were missing the mountains and their gods! We drank from the mountain streams, ate chocolates for energy, and had a few encounters with Sadhus smoking bhang and marijuana in their rock lair by the wayside. I wished I could borrow their smoking chillums! It took us almost 9 hours to walk the serpentine, rocky mountain path.

When Kedhar welcomed us with its snow-clad, silvery, shining peaks resplendent in the rays of the sun, he was thrilled. I enjoyed his happiness. We went around the town. The temple where they have faithfully incarcerated Lord Kedhanath was too crowded. I wondered how God can be comfortable in that melee and the relentless petitions and lobbying from pilgrims and devotees. We empathised with God in his misery! I suppose he vanished from the shrine long ago and moved further up into the inaccessible, icy, wind-beaten mountains. Far from his maddening devotees.

                                            The peak at Kedhar

It was six in the evening and was fast getting dark. We devoured a good meal of roti, dal fry, and sabji. Now either we hang around the night and try our luck at getting space to sleep, or we must descend. But it was not so wise either way, and a storm was gathering. It was going to be risky walking back in the dark. We fixed a deal with two ghardwali men, and for Rs 500 per head, they agreed to give us two mules for the downhill journey. Aravind enjoyed the precarious ride on the mule in the heavy rain and over the tricky terrain. I was hollering the hell out in panic. And Aravind was smiling and laughing, all the while enjoying the ride on the mule. Even in my utter horrible fear, I could see his happiness. Then, I looked down into the deep valley below; I feared the awful thing to happen—the mules losing their footing and taking us down into the abyss below. The muleteers were irritated with my moaning and were laughing amongst themselves at my precarious perch on the mule. One said to the other, “Ye ladka teek hai. Wow, admi pagal hai." The other said to me, certainly not thoughtful of my knowledge of Hindi, “Arey, chillana math.”.

We reached back at Gowrikund by eight at night. Aravind asked me why I was throwing tantrums all the way down and shouting like a kid. He was laughing at the comic character I was perched on the mule and wailing.

I felt immensely happy that he was enjoying the travel, the togetherness at last!

                                              At Auli a moment

At Auli

The next morning we traveled by bus and broke our journey at the ski resort of Auli, where we stayed for a couple of days. Being the height of summer, the absence of snow was indeed disappointing for Aravind. On the journey to Auli we crossed a valley that came into view from nowhere—a mighty Himalayan peak suddenly coming into view as the bus negotiated a sharp bend in the road. God at his closest. Most of the passengers were either fast asleep or chanting gibberish, eyes closed. Only we both saw God. To me, an agnostic God presented himself as the massive, humbling might of the snow-clad mountain range. It was an awesome experience and mightily humbling, one's insignificance unequivocally felt, the beauty beyond explanation.

At Auli, late in the evening, we watched Nanda Devi at her golden best, vividly bathed in the rays of the setting sun, its peak resplendent and majestic - solid peak of gold from a far away star! Lucky are those who found God and bliss in the beauty and humbling majesty of the mountains. I thought of Spinoza's God and the depth of truth in that concept of God. The same idea that Einstein endorsed, that he found more tempting and wise than those gods humans created in their own form, ways, and manners.

We went to Bhadarinath from Auli before coming back to Joshi Math and then travelling back to New Delhi.The Alakananda was in full flow—its icy waters relentlessly gushing forth over rocky boulders—water colder than ice! Seldom did the river know that downhill by the plains she would be violated—raped and polluted beyond even the wildest imaginations of the evil demons Lord of Kedar and Badari guard us mortals from.

Something again began bothering him the little fellow at Badarinath, where, to my utter consternation, he again went missing in the crowd. He became moody and irritated. But there were quite a few moments to cherish for both, ordeals as well!

 

He now wants to redo the tour with me. I jestfully tell him, “Not me anymore with you.” Now he has grown out of his teens; he is twenty and went with a couple of friends of his to a remote mountainside in Uttarakhand. They even went to Rishikesh and set off on white-water river rafting. And elsewhere near Kasol, they were even caught unawares in a hailstorm in the forest. They lost their way and spent the night in the forest. He travelled second class “two way’’ from Thpuram. A fifty-two-hour journey one way, and he wanted it so. Journeying in second class (cattle class) on Indian Rail is the surest way of understanding and knowing the throb of India. He understood quite a bit of what life in India is all about, and he has many more miles to go to understand much. Perhaps I was a bit hasty in trying to show him outside the comparative safety of the cocoon he lived in as a little boy. Perhaps the real world was shell-shocking, incomprehensible, and cruelly disturbing, and I, his father, being the catalyst to peeling off without warning the protective armour around him, may have provoked him, made him feel let down, insecure, and he expressed rebellion.

He wants to plan another trip up north soon. He has begun to enjoy moments that eluded me while I was his age! I guess, at long last, I could also give something I could not experience, feel, or enjoy!

Koffe ,Tea or Me?

  

“Koffee with Karan”, a highly rated programme on international affairs, one would guess hearing the name and the viewership ratings. I happened to watch it by default once and a couple of times later. And I do not know why after those few watching I developed an allergy to coffee, a kind of anaphylactic shock if even I smell coffee. I presume that is being not in sync.

Nevertheless the damn programme is comical, an insipid one at that. The questions this man Karan Johar asks the giggling lass from Bollywood with high hem line and fascinating cleavage, who sits with one leg over the other adding to the attraction of the questions and the programme and sometimes the bloke who joins her, her boy friend or ex friend are apt for an orgy party. But goodness, a better selection of subjects and questions that are humorous and tasteful will be handled by a primary school kid. But then the guy is a gargantuan director of box office hits. And it is slated to be a programme in genre of “Breakfast with Frost”.

Questions generally asked tongue in cheek and with muted anticipation, for instance, “Tell me Amisha when and how you got over the crush for the little Kapoor?". Or,"Malika which part of Saif’s anatomy would you recommend”? Or still, “Abhishek do you think Salman was screwed up for life by his ex girlfriend”? And while the question is asked we have the beaming Aiswarya holding the still dyslexic Abhishek who grins agape, fumbles and then laughs, before heedfully autographing the coffee mug.

People love it, so people produce it and the Channel airs it. Fair democracy! If one watches it, it is because one likes it. And if I do not like it I should not watch it.

But what do you say about the most populated virtual realm in the world, the Face book?

 I’m a Face booker too. I realised a few months ago that the woman with whom I've been living with has suddenly decided to be my friend. I was aghast, wondered was it a kind of “one night stand”, that I was having for the past every night of the last twenty three years? That she was unfriendly and stranger to me, that she now is disillusioned with her vileness self and asked to be my friend. It was depressing and nauseating, a few Valium tablets would have alleviated the stress! But then it was funny to think of. "Face book" has revolutionised and recast the very definition of the word "friend”!

And today I found a post on my wall in the fb, “XYZ has answered the questions about Anilkumar”, i.e. me. Interesting I thought for a moment. It is always good to anticipate that someone has only good answers to questions about you. I patted my back before I began reading the questions and the answers.

And here are the questions and the answers about me. Mercifully some are rightly”Yes” and some are rightly “No”. I give the special ones that came close to making my life miserable ha!

1-              1-Do you think that Anilkumar will sleep with a teddy bear?

2-             2-  Do you think that Anilkumar has ever had a one night stand?

3-            3-  Do -  you think that Anilkumar can run a mile without stopping?

4-            4- Does Anilkumar sing in the shower?

5-            5-   Have you ever had a crush on Anilkumar?

6-            6-  Do you think Anilkumar has crush on you? The questions 5 & 6 are the most lewd questions if that                        

       is to be answered by a guy who is Gay. Ouch doomed I'm!

   7- Do you think Anilkumar is showered today?