Why don't you have a cup ice-cream?

“Why don’t you have a “cup ice-cream” instead?” When faced with this question from the parent, no 2-year-old has ever voted for the cup. There is something irresistible about a “cone ice-cream” that makes a child gravitate towards the cone naturally!

Soon, the child has the cone in hand, holding it like a trophy. It has two dollops of ice-cream, garnished with nuts, and topped with chocolate fudge! The child’s eyes light up as it raises the trophy to the lips.

It is not the tongue alone that licks the ice-cream. The nose craves for an equal share, and so do the cheeks and ears! While the child is busy licking, the parent buzzes over like a helicopter, scrutinizing keenly, to ensure there is maximum value for money and not a drop is wasted. “Be careful! The ice-cream is dripping from the other side!” The child makes the adjustment, but in doing so, tilts the cone. A few blobs trickle down and speckle the dress. “Why can’t you be a little attentive? The whole ice-cream is going to topple over very soon! That’s why I said, go for the cup ice-cream! Now, your dress is sticky, with ants and flies swarming all over!”

A cone ice-cream has some fundamental flaws in its design. The base of the cone is wrapped in paper for the fingers to get a better grip. In the ambient tropical heat, the cone gets soggy and soon, the paper and cone become indistinguishable. Each bite of ice-cream comes with an equal amount of paper!

These days, we have the “waffle cone”. It is not crafted as a single piece like the traditional cone. A waffle cone is a rectangular piece, folded in a triangle, with its edges sealed. As the ice-cream melts, it turns into a veritable Titanic in the ocean.  Slowly, but surely, ice-cream seeps through the edges, soaks the palm, and runs down the elbow! A leaking cone is deadly. There are too many holes to plug.

“Why can’t you put the whole thing in your mouth?” the parent frantically questions, unable to deal with the storm that is brewing. The child’s viewpoint is exactly the opposite. It wants to prolong the ice-cream experience. Who knows? The next ice-cream may be many moons away.

To deal with the leak, the child holds up the cone and licks off the base. It is a recipe for certain disaster. With the foundations weakened, the cone-ice-cream is like a dynamited skyscraper. It comes crashing down at the child’s face. It is a little too late!

All you can see are the beady eyes of the child, peering through the debris of cone-remnant and ice-cream. Oblivious to all this, child sticks the tongue out, licking off the last ice-cream droplets within its orbit!

The parent is all agitated as he clears the child’s face from the debris! “That’s why I say, always go for a “cup ice-cream”! Do you understand now?”

The child blinks back, the face caked with innocence, and the nose-tip capped with strawberry ice-cream!

 P.S: This essay is based on my uncle's description on this topic, earlier this week!

Group photographs!

Blunders in group photographs are many. My earliest recollection of a group photo goes back to my kindergarten days. After paying handsome money, I brought home the class photograph. My mother scoured the photograph multiple times and finally asked, “Where are you in this picture?” I coolly replied, “I was absent on that day!” My mother was aghast! “Why did you buy this photograph at all?” I responded, “Everyone in class bought one. At least my friends are there! No?” You cannot beat a child’s self-effacing view of the world!

When you decide to take a group-photograph, it starts with a fundamental question, “Who will take the photograph?” If the volunteer is a part of the group, he is missed in the picture. Now, to include him, you need a second volunteer. And to include the first and the second together, you need a third. This exercise has no end in sight. Eventually, the members get fed-up- unable to hold their smile anymore!

To break this loop, you give your mobile off to an absolute stranger. He distracts you, telling you to move this way and that. While you are busy posing and pouting and smiling, suddenly, our man is nowhere. “Where did he go? My phone! My phone! It is with him!” you are frantic. It is too late. You might as well say bye-bye- both to the man and to your mobile!

To solve this problem, you use the group version of a selfie called “groupie”. You extend your arm to its farthest limit and beyond, straining every bone and sinew. All the heads are bunched up like grapes, but there are still some more to cover. One more attempt at arm-extension, and you’ve dropped your mobile. It lies prostrate, like a swatted cockroach, the screen broken, and the interiors gouged out. “That’s why I said I will take the picture!” someone comments, rubbing further salt to an already festering wound.

After the photograph is taken and shared, no one is happy. It may be a group picture, but each person looks only at himself. Grievances are many. The person’s head in the rightmost corner is chopped off. Someone finds only a bit of his collar. His head is eclipsed by the front-row head, that shifted at the opportune moment. “At least, they could have warned me before taking the picture. Now, my eyes are closed, and I look like a zombie!” Someone is unhappy that he is smiling too much, or too little. Or someone questions you, “Why are you staring like a deer frozen in fright, as though a torch-light was flashed at your face?”

No group photograph is complete without 2 photographers competing at the same time. Some eyes turn one way, some the other, and some faces are totally confused, one eye looking in each direction!

Arranging people in the order of heights is never easy. The short uncle in the back-row did not want to take any chances. He timed his high-jump perfectly! Now, in the released picture, he is all blurry, looking like a rocket taking off, floating high, over vales and hills! Everyone giggles, “Uncle! Why did you do this?”

We need this uncle who provides comic relief! He takes the focus away from our self-obsessed selves!

Injection and fear!

There are some words that have seeped into the subconscious and scarred us forever. The word “injection” is such! For a child, there was no greater fear than this.

A child’s evaluation of the world was simple- evil in its most morbid form, came in the shape of a doctor holding an injection in hand. As he squirted the first few drops from the needle-tip, the fear multiplied. The child was now out of hand. He ran helter-skelter, like a possessed spirit, around the room and beyond! It required an entire army- the doctor, nurses, attendants, compounders, and parents to pin him down. Even as he was caught, and held by two attendants, he struggled and kicked, shouting hysterically all the while! Soon, he had eluded the collective grasp, by biting the attendant, and was again on the loose!

After multiple tries and many more people pouncing on him, he was eventually subdued! And once the doctor managed to inject him, he let out a howl, enough to bring down the roof-top! The sobbing continued unabated, stifled with periodic gasps and sniffs. To complicate it, parents used the doctor in other ways, “If you do too much mischief, I will take you to ‘injection mama’!”

Sometimes, the doctor, also a family friend, came home. For the child, one look at the face was enough. It was as though he had seen a ghost. The doctor tried his best, “See! There is no injection in my hand!” The child screamed even more- as though through deceit, he will inject him once more!

Children classified doctors as “good” and “evil” depending on their eagerness to use the injection! They naturally gravitated towards doctors who didn’t use the injection. Instead, they prescribed some chewy tablet that tasted like a peppermint! When there was no chocolate at home, the child volunteered, “Let’s go to that peppermint doctor!”

Some doctors held a bait- “If you take this injection, I will give you a chocolate!” It didn’t lessen the trauma, but for the child, there was some light at the end of the tunnel! After the injection, the doctor scoured his desk-drawers, but found no chocolate! The child’s trust was broken. The incident made him street-smart.

Faced with a similar situation later, he bargained with the doctor, “First, give me the chocolate. Then, I will take the injection!” In the days of yore, a particular form of injection was the epitome of fear. If a dog bit you, you had to take 21 injections, that too, in the tummy! It was unclear if this was fact or fiction. But the fear of the needle was now extended to the dog! Why take a chance, isn’t it? You learnt to stay far away from both- dogs and injections!

As you grew older, you learnt to put up with the pinprick. Still, even now, as you wait with the sleeve folded up, that subconscious fear comes back. You want to shout and run for cover, but alas, your age does not permit this response!

Cannot technology with its touted promise for a better world, device a less painful method? We hope a day will come, when injections find their rightful place in the museum, as relics of a barbaric age!

Hail to the lordly buffalo!

As children, we studied under a constant threat. “If you do not study and get good marks, I will purchase a pair of buffaloes for you! You can take them out to graze!” Parents used this standard tagline to whip their child to show some urgency. As we look back, this taunt was incorrect for several reasons. For one, we grew up in a city. There were no grazing fields. At least, parents could have upgraded their pet example. Urban children need urban examples to relate to. This one was a non-starter.

Secondly, as adults now, we wonder if we could have chosen the alternative buffalo profession. That way, we could have been masters and exercised an element of power and control, at least on the buffalo. Now, it is too late. We realize that the IT job is a thankless job. It is a time-guzzler and from morning to night, you are at someone else’s bidding. In the process of avoiding a buffalo, we have in fact become someone else’s buffalo, who has taken over our life completely!

Thirdly, the example is a grave injustice to buffaloes. It portrays them in poor light, when in fact, they run the country’s economy. From milk production to pulling carts in the rural areas, you cannot beat the buffalo’s contribution. And when it comes to nail-biting finishes, who can beat the “Kambala” race where buffaloes and owners vie with each other for the coveted medal?

Still, from time to time, when you do not react to a situation, someone gives you a piece of mind, saying, “How can you be so thick skinned like a buffalo?” The comment is totally unfair. On one hand, we glorify people who are unflappable and cool in the most challenging circumstances. We honor them with titles like “Captain Cool” and what not. But when we do the same and remain equanimous, the buffalo is brought into comparison, that too, in negative light.

A buffalo standing on the middle of the main road in our teeming metropolis is a sight for sore eyes! Cars may honk, buses may brush past them, but they stay put. The buffalo looks at the vehicle owner in the eye. It is a cold and defiant stare. It does not give an inch, till the vehicle owner, sheepishly acknowledges defeat, and goes around it.

Sometimes, we wish our Test Cricketers can take a leaf from the buffalo’s book! In the face of the most hostile fast bowling, we want them to be like the lordly buffalo. They must hold their ground, dig in the heels, and stay put. Then, we can truly acknowledge them as world beaters. It would be appropriate if they can have their net practice sessions with a buffalo tied to the post. It will serve as a fitting reminder and inspire them to greater heights in the art of batsmanship.

Hail to the lordly buffalo!

Watching from the skies

Peering out of the window and enjoying the passing scenery, is typically associated with a train-ride. However, a different scenery presents itself when you look out of an airplane.

Some of the most arresting visuals are undoubtedly associated with the takeoff and the landing. As the plane takes off, you see the entire city in a single sweep.  Buildings and villas, highways and bridges are like school projects- cardboard models arranged on a thermocol base! And when it is time for landing, the metropolis slowly comes into view- initially blurry, and then in greater detail, till the plane finally touches the runway.

While the above visuals are dramatic, most travelers completely switch off, once the plane is in mid-air. Either they are fast asleep or don their earphones to enjoy the in-flight entertainment. In the process, they lose out on some of the most eye-catching landscapes, that changes like a kaleidoscope!

The plane has reached the cruising altitude of 30,000 feet. The seat-belt signs are off. You look out of the window. The sky is colored a bright turquoise blue. As you look down, you observe a unique cloudscape. Lit by the afternoon sun, the clouds are like fluffy cotton-balls. They are packed, one against the other, and extend like a carpet, stretched across the sky. Sometimes, they resemble waves, over an ocean of milky-white cotton-wads! Or they shine like glassy ice, as though you are flying over a glacier.

Very soon, the topography changes. It is now completely cloudless. You get a bird’s eye view of the earth filled with lakes and rivers, villages and hamlets. Ribbon-like roads emerge from the hamlets and disappear into the distant haze. A lonesome car crawls like a miniscule ant! At times, stray, patchy clouds cast their shadows upon the sun-drenched earth. It is an interesting pastime- to map the cloud’s shape to the contours of the shadow spread over the verdant vales and hills.

You notice the coastline- the gentle curves of the land, hemmed in by the ocean. As you fly over the ocean, it is a canvas of blue. The eyes pick the dot of a ship- down in the water. Imagination is stirred. You wonder, “Where did the ship come from? Where is it headed?”

As sunset nears, the bright blue of the sky turns a shimmering-gold. And soon, the gold melts into violet and finally to deep black. The airplane darts across the night sky. The flashing lights from the plane’s wings, hold your attention. The half-moon stares at you curiously. The sky is pocked with a riot of stars. Now, you fly over a human settlement- a sprawling city dotted with twinkling city-lights. The starry sky and the city- both glisten like competing diamond necklaces!

What untold story lies beneath this city? Cities, hamlets, men, women- their peals of laughter, their brooding sadness, their relentless struggles- everything reduced to tiny diamond studs. From the vantage point of the night sky, it is picture-perfect.

As you press your nose against the plane’s window, a thought comes to mind. “Maybe, we get too close for comfort-too close to people, too close to the profession, too close to all else.  In the process, our struggles get magnified, and we suffer needlessly. All we need to do, is to take one step back and admire the painting. It is like watching from the skies.  Our life with its seeming jagged edges, suddenly gets smoothened, and unfolds like a tapestry- at once beautiful and studded with diamonds!”