On Rohan 'thatha' and Ria 'paati'!

It was as if Subramanian 'thatha' and Mangalam 'paati' were born grandpa and grandma! There were no photographs to show they were ever young and youthful. The only photographs we had, were from an age when they had already slipped into the role of a grandparent. We assumed they hatched out of an egg together....exactly the way they looked. Subramaniam thatha, with his bald pate, stooped gait and an infectious, toothless smile. And Mangalam paati in her 9-yards sari with silver-hair, diamond studs and a prominent vermilion dot on the forehead. Mangalam paati was 9 when she got married to Subramaniam thatha, who was 12. And in the long innings together, they complemented each other as the sea and the sand. Needless to say, they were the quintessential grandparents: grandfather meant Subramaniam thatha and grandmother had to be Mangalam paati.


India has changed in multi-fold ways over the years. One of the most noticeable changes is the way parents name their newborn. Gone are the conventional names- no Suresh, Mahesh, Ramesh. It's anathema to name children as Panchapakeshan or Tirupurasundari or Meenalochani. The name has to be elegant and short, secular and stylish. And necessarily unique. Today's classroom is filled with Tarun and Shreyas, Tina and Shreya. As a diversion, names which find a parallel in the West are chosen- prominent among them being Neel and Maya. We don't want the Western world to trip over our polysyllabic names. I have no problem with the recent naming convention. What's in a name after all? But there is a hitch. Let me elucidate. Let's say these children grow up to be grandfathers and grandmothers. I mean, some day, they will. How is the grandchild going to introduce them? "This is my grandfather. He is Rohan thatha! This is my grandmother. She is Ria paati!" You get it now? There is something terribly jarring in this introduction- as if you are scratching the blackboard with your nail! The name just doesn't fit the role. It's as if Rohan and Ria can never slip into the grandparent role as effortlessly as Subramaniam thatha and Mangalam paati did.


Subramaniam thatha regaled us with tales from an epic past. His eyes lit up when he talked about Gandhi and Nehru with a familiarity and fondness which was stretched to the point of disbelief. It's as if he had played a game of marbles with the Master himself! "You should have seen Nehru! He spoke English better than the English themselves. In fact, he looked more English than the Englishmen! No wonder they liked him...and so did we!" His bedtime stories covered a wide canvas....days of the British Raj, the Indian Freedom Movement and his magnum-opus- the Second World War, which supplied text for many nights in a row. It was not a narration in third-person. He lived those times- those were epic times!


Thatha had immense breadth. His interests spanned from Cricket to Carnatic music. "In those days, you should have seen 'Tiger' fielding in the covers (referring to 'Tiger' Pataudi). He pounced on the ball as only a tiger would! Imagine, he did all this with one eye! Had he not lost an eye in that unfortunate accident, we don't know how much more he would have accomplished!" And when asked for his opinion on present-day music, he was at his animated best. "Tsch! Tsch! Tcha! This is all noise, I say! You should hear 'Tiger' singing this piece (referring to the yesteryear musician 'Tiger' Varadachari). There was grandeur in the voice itself- like a tiger's roar. He didn't need a microphone. Compared to 'Tiger', the present day musicians squeak....squeak like a mouse! They have to swallow the microphone itself to get the voice out!" Evidently, thatha lived in colorful times- times when tigers prowled....in the jungles, on the Cricket field and in concert halls. We tried to imitate tigers, with blood-shot eyes and with uplifted paws... either fielding or singing! Thatha knew we were pulling his leg. His wrinkled face spread into that most infectious grin. He gave us a tight pinch and an epithet we liked to hear- "You little devils!"


Mangalam paati was not to be outdone by Subramanian Thatha. Deeply religious, she began her day with prayer and ended the day with prayer. There was an involuntary quiver in the lips, as if she was having a personal conversation with God all the time. Any worldly problem that anyone had....it looked as if Mangalam paati had a cure and a definite one. The person always walked away with confidence, knowing that he now had access to a secret potion. Her home-remedies and kitchen recipes were stuff of legend- someone or the other always consulted her on these matters. And there was precision in every act- whether it was folding clothes or tidying the home...or applying the vermilion mark on the forehead.


Subramanian thatha lived in quaint times, associated with a vocabulary, equally foreign. His stories were filled with references to distances in 'furlongs' and currency in 'annas'. With each bedtime narration, he was seen walking more 'furlongs' to his school all alone or filling more  sacks with Deepavali crackers, that too for fewer 'annas'! At the end of each academic year, he moved from one 'form' to another and at some point, made the transition from the village school to the big Town High School. And true to form, in the absence of electricity, thatha was forever studying under the arc of a 'hurricane lamp'. When he travelled, it was in a 'jutka' or a bullock cart fitted with little bells which went jhil-jhil-jhil through the night. On his most exotic vacation, he took the prestigious 'Boat-Mail' powered by a YB Steam Engine which puffed its way to Rameshwaram. "Of course, thatha is right!" we giggled secretly, "Surely, the Boat-Mail then.....was faster than the present Rajdhani!"


Rohan thatha and Ria paati have an unenviable task at hand. They have to battle with more than the appropriateness of their name in assuming the role of grandparents. It would be unfair to compare across generations, but the boots they have to fill are big.
I hope Rohan thatha will still carry his little grandchild, with its legs across his shoulders. I hope he will allow the child to tousle his patchy hair or play 'ghatam' on his shining-head without a need to fix his hair or get a new coat of dye! I know Ria paati won't wear 9-yards. I hope she will still look just as stately and endearing without worrying about "looking 40 when she is 60". I hope Rohan thatha's bed-time stories are engrossing. I hope they are about magical times...that he was a part of. I hope Ria paati oozes with unbridled affection. I hope Rohan thatha's face is creased with that infectious, toothless smile when he fetches his grandchild from the school-bus and like Subbu thatha, will volunteer to carry the 'heavy' school-bag home. I hope Rohan thatha will not need to make an update on social media each time- "Fetching grandkid from school-bus. Cheerio!" I hope Rohan and Ria grow up with grace and embody the value of "simple living and high thinking".
Above all, I hope Rohan thatha and Ria paati will be there for each other at all times -"like the eyelid for the eye".

An ode to boredom!

"Don't laugh too much! You will cry later!" - an oft-heard advice from elders and the surest way to rein in the party and flatten it to a damp-squib! How supremely optimistic....we mutter under our breath!
On closer scrutiny, we actually find some correlation in this spoilsport maxim. We don't know if laughter is followed by a bout of crying, but a cathartic emotional spike...invariably peters out into a lull, a plateau of sorts.....into boredom!
Think about the most momentous events when the mind went into a tizzy- the end of the final exams and the onset of vacation....two months of absolute freedom! The euphoria of holidays lasts exactly one week. And then, it sets in......the blanket of boredom...and holds the mind hostage.


How familiar is this conversation-
"I am bored!"
"Why don't you go down and play with your friends?"
"There's no one to play with- Anil is out of town and Sachin...well, he bores me!"
"Why don't you draw for some time?"
"There is nothing to draw. Who wants to draw all the time? It's so boring!"
"Why don't you practice the violin for some time?"
"All the time, practice, practice, practice....I am bored!"
"You joined the library and got some books right? Why don't read them?"
"I already finished the books. There is nothing to read. I am bored."
"Ok. Come and have lunch first".
"What's for lunch? What! Rasam again? 365 days....how can I eat the same boring rasam?"
"You can have lunch and take the cycle out. When the exams were going on, you were so keen to cycle!"
"Yes, that was different. Now, I don't feel like cycling. It's boring! Plus, there is no air in the tire. In this heat, who wants to go out? The cycle shop is anyway closed at this time."
"I think the boredom bug has bitten you! You should bite it back! Why don't they employ you in the construction of the namma metro. You can instantly bore your way through the whole city!"
"Enough of your silly jokes and wisecracks! I am telling you I am bored!"


The foundation of human emotion is boredom. Happiness is a flirt- here today, gone tomorrow. So too with extreme sorrow- it's just a squirt... here and there. But boredom? If all those spikes and troughs of human emotion were to be connected, those connecting dots would be boredom dots! It is surprising that boredom doesn't find a place in the list of rasas. There are 9 of them- shringara (love), raudra (anger), haasya (laughter), veera (courage), bibhatsa (disgust), shaanta (peace), adbhuta (wonder), bhayaanaka (fear) and karuna (compassion). How did someone miss boredom? It is such a glaring omission! A plausible reason is that a bored person is too bored to even document. And, as far as a non-bored person  goes, he suffers from selective amnesia- just doesn't recall how bored he was.... a minute ago. Another possibility is that unlike the more dramatic rasas like love and anger, boredom does not have a face (or a trendy name in Sanskrit). How does a dancer convey boredom to the audience? Think about it. She simply has to walk off the stage. Undoubtedly, such practical limitations exist in its portrayal. However, it would be gross injustice...if in the grand gallery of human emotion, boredom doesn't find a place! It's like forgetting to pencil Tendulkar's name in an All-Time India-Eleven!


The expression of boredom is uniform- a distaste for anything and everything. But the trigger is varied. Boredom strikes in different ways- when you need to plough through the Zilla-Parishad chapter in Civics, or a never-ending technical document filled with unknowns, or an over-enthusiastic talk on the benefits of Mutual Funds. Or stuck in a home, with a Cricket-nut and a Test Match on TV. The same action - ball after ball, over after over, from morning till evening and no access to the TV remote or another channel for 5 full days in a row! Or stuck right in the middle, with music aficionados on either seat, in a classical music concert, you can't make head or tail of. Or a religious sermon you agreed to be a part of, because your friend dragged you into it. It's as if nature has conspired to get back at you with vengeance!
As time hangs still and an exit-strategy non-existent, the emotion swings between extreme boredom and seething anger.


Boredom is a contagious disease. A bored patient has to be avoided like plague. Hug him....counsel him, and before you know, you've contracted the ailment! It just doesn't work. Leave him alone, and he will surely wriggle his way out of boredom. One technique that a bore uses is... to irritate others. It's a ploy- get the other person all worked up and angry....and in the process, shed the boredom-slough. Typically, the bore breaks into a song, sings it badly and repeatedly. It could be "jingle-bells jingle-bells jingle all the way...." through an entire summer afternoon. You tolerate it for ten minutes, for half-hour....may be, a maximum of forty-five minutes. You can't take the jingle anymore- the endless rant which shows no stoppage or progress! "Can you stop singing?" The bore is looking for just this confrontation. The ploy is working. He continues to sing under his breath....with the voice raised to the audible zone in patches. It provokes you more.  "I said....stop singing! It's irritating!" The consequent showdown has ugly scenes all right, but in the process, the boredom disease has been successfully conquered.


Sometimes, you can eat your way out of boredom. You rummage through the store-room looking for something interesting to munch on. The biscuits are boring- the usual Marie and Good-Day and Nice. You move on and explore the Ever-silver vessels. The lid is jammed tight and you open each one expectantly. Of course, none of them is labeled. It's such a dampener- all you find is "dal" and lots of them- "tur", "moong" and what not, or some tamarind or maximum rock-salt. You recall that one of the containers should have some tasty tidbits, some chakli, but can't spot it. After half a dozen tries, you feel your way to a vessel which has been pushed to the back row. This has to be the one...till you find it's the same "tur" dal you laid your hands on...the last round too. It's terribly frustrating. Now, there's just one unexplored vessel. The lid is too tight. In savage anger, you try to scoop the lid out...till the lid, the vessel and the contents fly off in three different directions. You just toppled a kilo of rice flour..... The whole house wakes up from the afternoon slumber and surveys the damage! The bore has succeeded in his mission....there's every emotion except boredom!


End of the day, boredom is natural and healthy. It's the mind's way of rejuvenating itself after an emotional upsurge. It needs that time off, to stay defocused and bored to act as a buffer for life's highs and lows. They say "normal is boring", but a more appropriate statement would be "boring is most normal"!! I am bored now.... Signing off......