Valour....21st Century style...

You must have met Mein Jhabavi, our JV partner in Jordan. a very suave but tricky guy! He was made a partner to sell and service our Automotive Dealership software application and he was genuinely trying to con the auto dealers in to buying our software. As part of sales promotion, he convinced us as well as Microsoft, Middle East that an event must be held in Amman and he successfully managed to put the tab on us and Microsoft to bear the cost!

" Zaghu! you need to be here, without fail". He always called me with an Z rather than an R!

Though my presence was purely unnecessary, I took the opportunity to go because of my desire to see  the Dead Sea!

Amman as a city was reddish in colour, the tone of its sand. The event was a flop with just 4 dealers being present to devour the delicious lunch and Mein had his own innovative reasons for the poor show, which almost bordered on stupidity.

That evening Mein hosted us a dinner in another fine restaurant where the group had its first taste of hookah in flavors like strawberry and vanilla. I am sure you would not believe if I were to promise that I did not smoke!

Next day we visited the Dead sea. The long ribbon-like highway was empty and on either side, there were a few lazy camels who looked up to notice our car and within a fraction, turned away with a condescending look of pure disgust!

From where we stopped the car, there were  long rows of steps that led to the waters. All along the way, the clay mud is being sold for an atrocious dollar price. You need to apply it on your body and float in the waters of Dead sea.The unusually high salt content in water lets you float without drowning and we could see a few bikini clad white skins floating lazily with a book in hand!

At a distance, the land which we could see was explained by Mein as Palestine and it wore quite a clam sight, in those days.

It happened as I went to the rest room and on my way back to the car. Somebody called me out and I could see a middle aged man in dirty working clothes with a shovel in hand. His face had too many wrinkles and there were bruises with fresh blood oozing.

"Are you from India" - The voice was broken and in tattered Tamil. 

"Yes"

" Please help me! I have been held in captivity and made to work for over 16 hours. They  feed me only once a day. I am dying, please"

 

I was nervous and a bit apprehensive.

"what can I do"

"Please take me in your car and drop me near the airport. I will manage"

"Are you Srilankan Tamil?"

"No Sinhalan. I can speak broken Tamil as I have Tamil friends"

I turned away and ran to my car and we sped away.

The question rocking my mind even today is whether I would have helped if he were a Srilankan Tamil.

I am unable to answer myself till this moment.

The writer in me....a distinct 3 decades ago...

"If anybody wearing a red shirt, stands atop his terrace on a house alongside the tracks, this bloody train would stop"

This was the regular exchange whenever we friends used to discuss about the Bokaro Steel City Express - I do not know if this train has changed its habit now.

I was crying all alone in this train on that mid afternoon in the June month of 1977!

I was on my way to Jamshedpur to join XLRI with a host of friends and relatives  back home praising me for my studious academic accolades! Had they known that I would rush back home after three months to join my dream course of Chartered Accountancy, they would not have wasted so many of the adjectives from their closet of vocabulary!

What happened at XLRI that made me leave - that's another story folks and I do not intend to spill it for it would come in handy for an exclusive post in my blog. 

At XLRI campus, life was enjoyable with lots of activities and the one that came close to my heart was the campus magazine that fed the creative thirst of students.

The magazine was edited by this girl, a year senior to me but she got closer to me - er, intellectually and not the way you rush to imagine..! I could narrate a few episodes of our interactions that belie my earlier statement but then, tell me, is it fair to offend her grand children now!

Well, let us put paid to the romantic escapades and focus on the instance I am referring to.

She cajoled me to write something for the then current issue and after some deep thought which included unintended sleep sessions, a couple of dosas and a tepid coffee (tell me, would you ever try coffee beyond the Vindhyas, I did and that was the last time!), I wrote an essay  and gave it her. she squealed with delight and said, Rags! Never knew you could write so well! Maja kiya hain, meri pyaar"

Two days later the issue was out and I was anxiously waiting for feedback.

It was the evening, I recall. The summer heat has waned and the season was windy. The campus had a large park-like arena where I was lazing in a bench and trying to work out a Calculus problem that Mike Vanjour had given, when I heard a ruffle close to me.

She was walking towards me with a bright smile.

A simple looking but a very lively face with instantly changing expressions. I had seen her in the office corridor a few times but never could go up to say Hello.

"Excuse me, Can I ....?"

" oh Please.." I moved aside leaving a substantial space on the bench.

" I have read your essays! Brilliant!"

" oh! Thank you!"

" How do  you write such interesting essays?"

"well, er.. it just happened!"

Too good! The words were apt, the expressions were realistic and the emotions that got evoked..oh! I have no words!"

"Oh thank you thank you!

"Could you please give me your autograph?"

Needless to say, I was traversing cloud nine and concealing my excitement, " well, I am not that famous yet.."

No no, you don't realize! Please sign and give me, na?"

She handed over an autograph note which had several signatures. I noticed those of Vengsarkar, Shakthi kapoor ....

Elated, I opened an empty page and scribbled my name.

She received it with reverence and lovingly read what I had written.

'Oh! You have signed as Raghu! Are you not RK Narayan?"

"For the next issue, What did I write?"

You must be joking.

Kumbakonam Venkatramana Hotel

As the train chugged into Kumbakonam station, it was already 2 PM and my stomach had begun its grumbling. After the usual mobile calls,I located the car driver who was, till the train arrived was there and at the spot-on time, had to go out for a cup of tea - he ended up further delaying my lunch.

" Saar! we go straight to Venkartramana hotel, you get super lunch! They give payasam everyday, saar!"

The taste buds started doing over time and after some 15-odd minutes we entered the dingy street where the famed hotel was located.

The congested road was further narrowed by a row of cycles and scooters parked in not-so-orderly manner and none seemed to bother. They were busy zig zagging and trooping into the hall where a fine aroma of sambar and rasam were emnating.

The hotel was an oblong shaped building with tables and chairs fully occupied by noisy eaters of lunch and hawkish waiting population, breathing down on their necks!

The servers were moving in a medley of noise and confusion.

" rice here!"
" I asked for vegetables!"
" baby! come here"
" way please"

The cacophony of sounds reminded me of a railway station with a train about to leave. 

Looking at my city attire, a server asked me to go to the AC room.

Except being a little cooler, the room was no different in its state of confusion, but yes, there were a couple of tables and chairs empty, beckoning me.

The first taste of the vegetable was heavenly as my stomach had long lost its ability to assess quality or cleanliness. As a bowl of rice was dropped on my plate and hot sambar poured on top, I could notice a long line of hair slithering on my plate. Had I been the Nala of Dhamyandhi, I could have used my imagery prowess and caricatured the face of the woman to whom this long strand of hair once belonged. 

Well, now I could only complain.

i must appreciate the server who redressed my complaint so effortlessly - he thrust his hand in my plate, deftly removed the strand and waved it away in another direction and beamingly said, " there you are"!

Suddenly there was a rush of people entering and occupying the empty chairs and in that melee, the cup in which curd was kept was wiped away from my table and the cup found its abode on my lap, spilling its white contents on my black trouser. The nearby middle aged lady, with a bucket and a long broom, rushed towards me. With a deep apologetic look, said "sorry sorry" and producing a dirty cloth from nowhere, she approached me with the object of wiping my trouser. As the area of the spill on trouser was close to being sensitive, I quickly withdrew and said" its alright"!

Had you been there on that moment, you could have seen a 50 plus old man blushing crimson red on a mid afternoon - not an easy sight to catch, you know!

I finished my lunch, got out and inside the car, on my way to Thiruvarur, the driver enthusiastically with the pride of having taken me to the best restaurant in town, said, " "You would never have experienced such a lunch, am I right sir?"

I had to agree.

Parvathy Stores aka The "kudumi" Kadai 

The funky pseudonym for the chaste-titled Parvathy Stores is near obvious - its owner was a half white dhoti-clad tuft wielding middle-aged person with a coconut shaped face with  receding headlines! A 12 by 12 shop, kudumi kadai had everything you imagined! Provisions, stationery, confectioneries, the famous A-1 bubble gum. In fact, I have even seen onions and potatoes tucked away in dirty jute sacks in a corner.

As you come out of my school gate, diagonally opposite is this shop with collapsible steel doors which have never closed during any day. At the strike of the bell in school. this shop will be filled with boys and girls who always wanted something. The kudumi owner had a smiling personality and a comment for everyone.

" What! you are buying another test note? only last week you bought one, so soon have you finished it ?"

" This is the third time today you are buying bubble gum! where did you get the money from?"

" Don't buy the wooden scale, get the plastic one! Brinda teacher will hit with scale and if it is plastic, you are better off!"

The independence day sweets would be sponsored by this owner and the colloquially titled " papparamuttu", it would throw a rash of pink on your lips!

"Are you in 9th standard? Then  why are you buying ruled note book? Kasinathan sir would want only unruled note book! Go check and come back!"

He knew the trade so well and we students were sure that he would give us the right stationery that is needed in the school.

The consolation prize for any sports event is sponsored by him. He would say, "I am not worried about the first and second prize winning children. It is the consolation prize winner who needs encouragement."

Even after I moved out of the school after my SSLC, some days I deliberately walked up to his shop some evenings while coming back from the college if I needed to buy some stationery.

" Come come! you have not forgotten this shop" !

His loquacious welcome would be loud and cheerful and instill a pleasant smile on your face.

A couple of years back, as he was crossing the road in front of his shop, he was hit by a speeding car and his end happened right in front of the kudumi shop that he loved and nurtured.

Jay Raghu's Musings - The aromatic coffee Store....

The aromatic coffee store....

As you turned to your right into the main road from the deserted Kasturbha nagar II Cross road, you would come face to face with a long thatched roof structure, about 25-odd feet long and perhaps 8 feet wide right on the platform that separated the main road from the I st Main road of Gandhi Nagar. This structure housed a long row of bamboo plates and containers that used to brim with green vegetables and green leaves of the daily palate. Hand-written on a black board in tamil would be "Nyaaya vilaikkadai" or the Fair price shop!

The place would be filled with activity in the mornings and evenings - house wives with children trudging along, the tufted uncles and moustached gentlemen of the 1960s Adyar. The affable Nadar manager would be all smiles at the customer and a high-decibel terror for those employees in the shop. Any child who walks up to him along with its parent for billing, would always end up with a tomato or a small banana, with his best compliments, of course!

A native format of the much-acclaimed but failed concept of Uzavar Sandhai, this fair price shop was a grand success as I recall from my memory.

If you walk, quite happily and carelessly on the same platform further East towards the Padmanabha swamy Temple- you can walk nonchalantly in the 60s for the main road used to get a bus or a car crossing only once in 15 minutes or so - you will hit upon a small booth that used to distribute milk in bottles. The earlier avatar of Avin! I recall those fatty-looking half a liter bottles with an aluminium foiled paper cap - in blue and red stripes - one for buffalo milk and the other, cow's milk!

You can easily cross the road as , I said earlier, there was hardly any traffic and you would come face to face with Besant Hotel in the now landmark multi-cuisine restaurant Coronet! The whiff of idly waves would permeate the air and the lip smacking sambhar would be no less inferior! Thanks to the poor eating-out habit of the vegetarian adyarites in the 60s that this Besant hotel gave way to Coronet Hotel which is flourishing till date.

As you walk back westwards, on this side of the Fair price shop, is a row of shops in low roof structure. They housed in the East to West order - Hongkong Tailors, Gentlemen laundry, Adyar bakery and Amrutha Coffee works.

You will always face the owner of Hongkong tailors in the evenings as he stands before the shop smiling at you. Adyar Bakery, a small shop then, used to sell out-of-the world cakes and bun butter jam! Coca cola in 100 ml bottles costing 25 paise used to be the incentive for me to walk back home instead of a cycle rickshaw ride - a clear half a kilometer distance to my house from the main road!

It is the owner of Amrutha Coffee Works that I was always afraid of. A short, dapper, dark man in white shirt and half white dhoti and a bulging pocket brimming with his leather purse and soiled notes I have never seen him smile. The store is a coffee seed roasting and grinding place and hence would be making excruciating noise all the time as the two machines  - one roasting and one grinding - keep pounding the customers' delivered coffee seeds. The owner with his deft hands would scoop the powder from the machine's tray, tug them into a butter paper cover, staple it and hand over - no smile even if the customer is a young boy like me! I always wait for my mother to empty the coffee powder into a tin and grab the butter paper cover. If you blow air into the cover, closing its mouth and when you smash the bulged cover, the noise as it tears would be that of a Lakshmi Vedi!

I have seen his son studying one class above me in the same school. He was a playful prank laughing away to glory all the time, a shrewd kabadi player and often could be seen standing outside the class room, a punishment meted out by teachers of those days.

I could never understand the complexities of life as this boy committed suicide for some unknown reason. 

in less than a year, Amrutha Coffee Works vanished and Adyar Bakery consumed its space for ever, till now!

Jay Raghu's Musings - “Collecting” from stamps to flags – has this hobby died…

“Collecting” from stamps to flags – has this hobby died…

“What is the capital of Peru?”

“Lima”

“And that of Bolivia?”

“La paz”

Children of my age were quicker to answer our teachers. The scene is a government school in the early 70s. Our recess time conversation used to hover around the capitals of cities, colour of flags and the habitat of Congo forests. And we were children in the 7^th and 8^th class in a non English-speaking government school, where even the teachers struggled to speak fluent English. But what they lacked in conversation, they more than made up in their dedication to turn us children into bright youngsters who could complete with comfort civil service, chartered accountancy, UPSC and any competitive examinations. They fervidly encouraged us to pursue the hobby of ‘collecting” something, from stamps, flags, animals and even match labels.

The concept of hobby was at its best in practice during our school days. I recall a company called Calcutta Confectionery Works that used to come out with these flag, animals and stamp enclosed- chewing gums for a paltry 10 paisa. One of the wrappers is a lucky wrapper as it would have an imprint “Send this coupon” which if sent to their address, would make you gape with wonder after 10 days when you receive a beautiful album. You start buying chewing gums and collecting flags and animals and learnt a lot in the process. The frenzied and animated conversations during the lunch breaks were unmatched to any thriller!

“Hey, Ram has got two “sendis coopen” (our pronunciation of the lucky wrapper!)

“Did you know that Sekar has got Nicaragua” – this meant that Sekar was lucky to get this country’s flag which is a rare item!

“I got 52 in exchange for 35 from Raghu” – this means that Raghu has been naïve to handover the rare 52 (antelope) for the often found 35 (Elephant)

The households used to be quite controlled too. We would be given a 10 paisa only once a week which not only restricted our chewing gum habit but also elongated our hobby to almost a year, keeping the entire academic duration with this sweet intellectual pursuit.

I recall our math teacher, a Ms Brinda, occasionally taking the flag album from one of us (Invariably, the albums would be carried to the class everyday!) and conducting a playful quiz on the countries and their capital cities. The winning team would get 50 paisa from her which would promptly be spent in “Kudumi kadai”(named after the owner’s appearance!) in the purchase of bubble gums and it is not easy to explain the mayhem that the winning team would create.

Then there was this Ms. Padma, social science teacher who would allocate one period each week to read out to the students Tamil classics of DEVAN, the most voted novel was CID Chandru. In the next week’s class, she would conduct her quiz on the story and again the winner gets 50 paisa. The story goes the same way..Kudumi kadai, chewing gum and mayhem!

Today, having watched both my sons pass out from a very leading private school, known for its excellent teaching and results along with extra-curricular activities, I never noticed them pursue a hobby of “collecting” anything. Their leisure time, whatever was left amid the high octane classes like IITJEE, etc., was spent on TV, reading but not in this amazing hobby.

Is this collecting hobby not a great method of engaging the students in a delightful manner?

And by the way, does anybody know as to the current state of this dream of a company called Calcutta Confectionery Works which brought out chewing gums under the brand called A-1?

Jay Raghu's Musings - July 2014: Who is the loser…?

Hi Friends!

At last, I have taken to blogging too!

I shall try and imprint my musings for your reading and feedback.

Feel free to post your feedback - however sever it may be!

Good Reading..

Affectionately
Raghu
www.kcig.in

Jay Raghu's Musings - July 2014

Who is the loser…?

“That my morning walk today was not going to be usual dawned on me as I turned the corner of the I cross and the II main road. A monster of an earth mover was cruising to demolish the half torn building that till date housed Ranga Technical Institute for over 4 decades. My heart was bleeding at this sight as Ranga Technical institute had its own charm and value to the 70s residents of this part of the city. Here was a renowned typewriting and short hand institute that has groomed innumerable dreamy youngsters – boys and girls – who have gone on to various walks of life, some with success and others like any average Indian citizen. But this institute held an excellent aura of freshness, romantic adventures and ambitions and dreams of a horde of youngsters.

As I walked past this building to go to my school, the place used to buzz with a bevy of girls in half saris and boys in full, half trousers and dhotis. 70s were a period of time when every household expected their school final sons and daughters to learn typing and short hand as those skills were an easy passport to employment. On our way to school we had always stealthily held our heads a little high to catch a glimpse of the girls standing on the balcony waiting to occupy their seats on vacation by the preceding batch. Some of the boys in my class used to curse Ranganathan, the maverick owner, for not giving them the 8 o’clock slot as that slot is preceded by a girls batch!

Ranga Technical institute is only one of the many such emotionally connected structures that have all given way to commercialization and development.  The junction at Ambika Departmental store used to have artistically designed pillars which were the source of information on the weekly Friday movies in Eros theatre. And to think of Eros cinema, there could not have been a more relaxed and enjoyable way of watching movies than a Saturday evening show at Eros. In my 20 years, I have never seen the theatre full except on two occasions – one for Rajkapoor’s Mera Naam Joker and the other time, it was Cecil b Demelli’s Ten Commandments! Today Eros has given way to a marriage hall which in turn has now become a car show room!

The low-roofed shops housed in one building on the main road used to boast of Adyar bakery, a small pastries outlet from where eternally a whiff of sweet fragrance greeted you whenever you passed by. Today, Adyar Bakery is an institution housed in its own multi storied complex. Amruta Coffee Shop was a place of constant noise emanating from the coffee roasting and grinding machines. It is not there anymore. The young smart looking owner of the Hongkong Taylors has now become a wrinkled old but prosperous man, driving a team of his bright sales guys and girls in his now a posh designer show room. He no longer stands in front of his shop with a pleasant smile, greeting the passersby, known or unknown. All these small shops have now become part of a large mall-like structure with the old charm no longer visible.

Often one faces this question of why growth at the cost of a personal, affable local flavour to a distant, unfriendly westernization and the romantic emotional structures giving way to giant but impersonal stonewalls.

Is this a question only in the nostalgic minds of the 50-plus like me, who has not learnt to accept the fruits of technology and growth economy?

Who has lost?