Horn ok please!

Among unsolved mysteries, “Horn ok please”, will stay right at the top. This pithy message is painted behind every truck. We may have deciphered the hieroglyphic script in ancient Egypt. One day, the puzzle of the Mohenjo Daro script will be solved. But “horn ok please” shall continue to elude us.

We surmise “Horn ok please” must be some kind of “maha-vakya” like “tat twam asi”. We are sure the meaning is subtle and sublime. We try our best to understand the content, by re-arranging the words. Does it mean “All is ok with you? Then, please sound the horn!” Or “Is your horn ok? Then, please sound it!” Whichever way we look at it, we are dissatisfied with the outcome.

However, “horn ok please” has inspired us for generations. We’ve taken to sounding the horn, as naturally as...a fish takes to water. Sometimes, we get visitors from the US who complain, “Why is everyone honking?” We knit our eyebrows, all puzzled, and ask a counter question, “You said honking, did you? When? Where?”  “All around us! Can’t you hear?” is the retort. That’s when we align our ears to the noise and suddenly exclaim, “O yes! I hear it now! Never even realized anyone was honking!”

From the style of honking, you can gauge the mood of the person, behind the wheel. That is the beauty!  If the horn sounds with a short, crisp “beep” at each crossroad, it reflects a “cheery” person. All is good with himself and with the world around him. A person who is in a mad-rush to reach the railway station, conveys his impatience with a continuous round of “beep-beep-beep”. His intent is clear through the horn, “Get out of the way, you slobs! I have no time!”

The horn can convey “anger”. This is seen when the traffic-signal turns green and the vehicle in front, shows no urgency to start. The horn is sounded with a certain “continuum in the duration”- it is one long “beeeeep”. The horn taunts the person, “You sleepy head! Wake up! Wake up and move your car!”

The horn can indicate “frustration”. This mood is sensed when you are stuck in a traffic jam. For 45 minutes, you stay rooted to the same spot. You have no idea what the delay is due to. “When is this jam going to clear? God! I cannot take this anymore!” How do you express this intense frustration? By honking!  You honk without reason, without taking your fingers off, knowing fully well, there’s no one to hear you, or respond to your plea!

The entire gamut of human emotion, shringaara, raudra, bibhatsa…you name it, the nava-rasas can be conveyed through a simple horn.

Horns come in different flavors. In the good, old days, auto-rickshaws had a “suction-horn”. You pressed the bulbous, balloon-like object and it let out a low-pitch, strangulated yelp. Then came the inter-state buses fitted with the “electric horn”. Like “trigger-happy” goons, inter-state drivers are “honk-happy” folks. They cannot drive without sounding the horn- like taking a lick of pickle for every morsel of curd-rice. At the end of the journey, you are left with a strong headache. In some cases, the cars are fitted with a “jingle”, a popular tune that plays automatically, each time the vehicle backs up. The regularity with which the song plays, it is the perfect recipe…that soon, very soon, you will detest the song with your entire being!

All is quiet. It is 2 am. Pin drop silence. Peace and tranquility reigns. Like a blanket, the night has spread itself out, enveloping the entire world in its cozy ambit. And then, comes the anti-climax. Out of the blue, the burglar-alarm sounds from one of the parked cars. It scares the living daylights out of you. It is a high-pitched shriek, followed by a continuous “clank-clank-clank” and then, the sound goes back to the shriek. This pattern continues- “shriek-clank-clank-shriek-clank-clank”. Street dogs bark in anger. The entire neighborhood is wide-awake, some peering out of the balcony. Imagine if every car was fitted with this monstrous horn?

After 20 minutes of absolute mayhem, sanity returns. Maybe, the burglar walked away with the car. We cannot thank him enough. Maybe, the owner turned the alarm off. Maybe, a good samaritan came down with a cricket bat and broke the car down, along with its horn.

Whichever way, we are perfectly fine...and go back to sleep!

Hydrate yourself!

“Hydrate yourself” is a popular mantra. We see it everywhere- on social media, in the newspapers, in the self-help books and even on the flight. “Be sure to drink 6-8 glasses of water each day!” is a uniform piece of advice. Sometimes, more details are added, “Warm water, on an empty stomach, first thing in the morning, is preferable”. And at times, “A pinch of jeera added to the water cleanses the entire system.”

When paparazzies send us pictures of our favorite actors and actresses going to the gym, an unmissable accessory, is the fancy water-bottle in their hands. It is an immediate reminder to hydrate ourselves.

The importance of this advice is undeniable. It is the implementation that faces challenges. Imagine if I drank a gallon of water and started for my office. Midway through the journey, stuck in traffic at Silk-Board junction, for over 45 minutes, what will I do? I may have to abandon the car forthwith...and run to the restroom!  

Back then, in the good, old, days…the train ride from Mumbai to Roorkee took 36 hours (on paper). Using the train-restroom was not for the faint-hearted. A bio-break had to wait till you reached the university. “Hydrate yourself” had to be tempered with more practical concerns.

Executives from the US, when they travel to India, are notorious in following “hydrate yourself” to an extreme. Maybe, they fear that the Indian heat will consume them. When this executive visits the office in India, he is armed with a plastic water-bottle. As he sits in the meeting, every few seconds, he takes a swig from the bottle.  In no time, he has finished off a bottle, and reached out for another. That done, he reaches out for the third.

You keep staring at him with a growing sense of alarm. You feel like telling him, “Dude! They say…Sage Agastya drank the entire ocean. At least, Agastya was considerate and drank only ocean water. If you consume fresh water like this, what will remain for the rest of us? In your country, you have the Great-Lakes. But, mister, remember, you are in India! We have 1.4 billion people here. All of us rely on the vagaries of the monsoon. At this rate, you will deplete the entire water table. Have some mercy on us!”

The office-boy steps into the meeting room with a fresh stock of water-bottles. You feel like lashing out at him, “As it is, this man is sucking the Kaveri River dry. And you are adding more bottles? Have some common sense please!”  This time, you pocket a bottle, even if you aren’t going to touch it. At least, one bottle can be saved from the other’s clutches!

The mind is filled with more creative strains of thought. You are suddenly reminded of the camel. You wonder, “Maybe, he thinks…he must drink all the water today, because he may not get water tomorrow!” You want to calm him down and assure him, “Mister! Don’t worry! You will get water tomorrow also to “hydrate yourself”. By God’s grace, there is still some punya left in this land. You need not drink all the water now and store it in your hump, like a camel!”

Imagination runs riot. By now, you can spot a hump growing on his back, as he empties another bottle. You wonder if he will have only one hump like the Indian camel, or 2 humps like the Central-Asian camel. Soon, you can no longer see the person in the meeting-room. His place is taken over by a camel. The more you look, more features seem to match.

The corners of your mouth curl up into an impish smile and a giggle almost escapes the mouth. By now…the meeting room…the meeting...the problem under discussion…the pros and cons of the proposed solution…everything has been wiped out...clean...from the mind’s canvas!

Suddenly, I hear my name. It is my manager’s voice. He asks a pointed question, “Shankar, what is your opinion on this? How long will it take to implement this solution?” The directness of the question breaks the reverie. When you are caught napping, it is tough to give a coherent answer immediately.

I take my time. I open the cap of the water-bottle slowly, hydrate myself, clear my throat, and wear a pensive look. “Well, the solution is good, but we need to deep-dive more...into the details,” is my non-committal reply, as I take another sip.

 

 

 

"Onion color sari"..and the world of colors!

We can understand if there is disagreement related to the recent Indian-budget or over the US presidential candidate. These are complicated topics and subject to interpretation. Surprisingly, even a topic as commonplace as the ‘world of colors’, there is such divergence- of both opinion and nomenclature.

“I like this white-color dress,” you mention at the clothes shop. “Actually, this is not white, this is off-white!” you hear back. The next time you go shopping, you are alert. “I like this off-white dress!” “You mean the cream-colored one?” asks the salesman. You get it now?  The vocabulary changes, with subtle variations in the same color. From “white”, you travel to “off-white”, from “off-white” to “cream”, from “cream” to “peach” and from “peach” …to grandma’s version called “biscuit-color”!  I like grandma’s version the best- it is clear, and we know exactly what color it is.

A visit to the sari-shop is an excellent opportunity to learn your colors all over again. “Look at this new sari- It is kanchivaram silk and in ‘Rama’s-green’ (raamar-pachhai)!”  says the salesman. What is this “Rama’s-green”? For the uninitiated, while the rest of India thinks Lord Rama’s skin-tone is blue, in South-India, especially in Tamil Nadu, Rama’s skin-tone is green. When the dashaavataara dolls are brought out during Navaratri, Rama’s idol stands out. He is truly “aprameya”- his color defies easy classification. Some call it peacock-blue, others call it peacock-green, but women understand it perfectly. When they say “raamar-pachhai sari”, they know exactly what color it is!

When women refer to sari-colors, the colors are expressed in terms of well-known objects. This ensures all women are on the same page and there is absolutely no confusion. A dark-brown sari is called “coffee-color sari”. If the border of the sari is reddish-brown, it is called “arakku border sari” (color of ‘lac’). If the sari is "shocking-pink", you call it “mutai color” (“mithai color”) or alternately as “rose color”, if the shade is lighter. Colors with complicated names like “lavender” are a total no-no. A sari in lavender is easily described by the term “onion-color sari”. (Of course, when someone says onion-color sari, you often wonder if the sari will inherit the smell too!) If it is yellow, it becomes “chandana-color sari”, the color of sandalwood. And if it is orange, it becomes “saamanti color”, the color of marigold flowers. And if there are multiple colors, it is easy- it is simply called a “color-color sari”! If the sari is in today’s much touted “pastel shades”, in earlier times, you made a face and kept it aside, saying, “romba dull adikaradhu” (it is too dull and unsightly)!

For centuries, women have successfully communicated (among themselves), colors and their subtle differences with this easy classification model. Now, let’s take men (only men could have come up with these names), for their car colors. “Burgundy”, “Beige”, “Rust”, “Teal Metallic” and “Sand”- are some common car colors. What do these color-codes convey to the common man? Zilch! Also, compared to the rich hues in the world of saris, cars have got stuck to a tiny palette of nondescript colors. We await the day when we will have a “chandana color car” to break out of this monotony.

In India, you find reference to some colors that are unique to its cultural milieu. The matrimonial columns advertise prospective bride/grooms as “wheat colored”. It is amazing. We can visualize an entire person through a single grain of wheat! (Perhaps, this is what William Blake meant when he wrote, “to see the world in a grain of sand”). Later, when these families met, we surmise, they carried some wheat grains in the pocket, and carefully checked the person against the grain, to ensure the description was accurate, and they weren’t taken for a ride!

In South-India, after attending a wedding, you often had to describe the bride and the groom to family members who couldn’t attend the function. In today’s day and age, the topic would be construed as “lacking sensitivity”. However, in the past, conversation was easy and direct. For the groom, you borrowed the English word, “personality”. You typically said, “The boy has an impressive personality” (“paiyyan…nalla ‘personality’ aa irukaan” in Tamil). And for the bride, the expression was- “impressive color” (“ponnu…nalla color”)!  

You didn’t have to cross-question, “Which color? Did you mean red or green or yellow?” Everyone understood. “Personality” and “color”, with their contextual meanings here, said it all…clearly and unambiguously!

Multi-level parking!

Many moons ago, the one and only R.K. Laxman’s cartoon for the day, was a classic. It captured the scene of a person emerging from an array of parked cars. Relief was writ large on his face, as he announced to the “common man”, “Guess what! I solved the parking problem! You know how? I simply sold the car!”

Decades have passed, but the parking problem has stayed the same! R.K. Laxman will feel totally at home. Only, the style of the parking-lot has changed. These days, we see multi-level parking-lots, especially in the city malls.

Multi-level parking-lots come in 2 flavors- in one, the stories are constructed above the ground- you ascend floor by floor to find a parking spot. In the other model, you tunnel your way to the levels constructed below the earth. Indian mythology talks about “6 upper lokas”- “bhuvah, suvah, mahah, janah, tapah and satya”.  It also talks about “7 lower lokas” - “atala, vitala, sutala, talaatala, rasaatala, mahaatala and paataala”. The multi-level parking-lot borrows the same idea as these lokas.  You either ascend or descend, to find the right fit for yourself and your car!

If ever you wanted to send someone on a wild goose chase, banish him to one of these multi-level parking-lots. Like the proverbial “hamster on a wheel”, he will keep spinning for the rest of his life. Once you enter the parking-lot, it is amply clear that the entire humanity owns a car and has already found a spot. Invariably, you are a late entrant, with the need to scrounge for a free spot.

Parking-lots are dark, dingy and devoid of ventilation. You drive the car inch by inch to find that one free spot. Behind you, is a procession of other cars. Like you, they are also predators on the prowl, fighting for the same spot. Alertness is crucial.  Sometimes, there is one free spot, but you missed it by a fraction and edged ahead. There is no possibility of backing up. The fellow behind you is quick- in a reflex, he bolts for the empty slot and thumbs his nose at you! It is a cat-and-mouse game everywhere.

Suddenly, out of the blue, you find a free spot and thank your stars. The euphoria is premature. A closer observation reveals that the car beside is parked badly. It has encroached into this spot too, leaving you with no room, to squeeze your car in. What a let-down!

They say, “patience is a virtue”. If you require a testing ground, to measure your progress in patience, it is here. Now that there are no free spots on this level, you turn to the next level. Turns in parking-lots are notoriously narrow, providing maximum scope for driving errors. The pillar at the turn registers the paint-imprint of many a car, that miscalculated the turning radius.

Finally, you find a free spot. Quickly, you park the car and head off to the mall. It takes only an hour in the mall, before window-shopping-fatigue sets in. You want to go home badly.

Where did you park the car? Where did you park the car? It is a complete haze- you recall going up and down several times, but the outcome isn’t clear. Was it B2 or in B3? You head out to B2. Basement-2 (B2) is a sea of cars. What’s worse, even the car number is doubtful! Was it KA03 or KA91? Like Karna, at the most opportune moment, even memory deserts.

You imagine all possibilities. if you search car by car, for sure, the security person will get suspicious. He will grab you by the scruff of the neck, mistaking you for a car-burglar. How will you explain your predicament? “Yes, I am looking for my car. I parked it somewhere. I don’t know where. I don’t remember my car number. It is KA something. But yes, I remember my car is red in color, it is a Honda, and it has 4 tires. Can you help me?”  How long will this exercise take? Maybe, past midnight, when the mall empties out?   

The ruminations are cut short as I stare at the car in front. It looks strangely familiar. It is red, it is a Honda. It has 4 tires. Plus, when I click the key, it unlocks! Yes, it is my car!

Some horror films have a happy ending!

 

Butter fingers!

“Butter fingers” is a term used in Cricket. It refers to a terrible fielder. The ball has landed in his palm. It is a “dolly catch”- he must only cup his fingers around the ball. Still, he makes a mess of it and drops the ball. It’s as if his fingers are greased with butter- so slippery, that the ball goes in and out!

By no means are butterfingers restricted to Cricket. You find butterfingers everywhere. Invariably, the most interesting items in the refrigerator are placed farthest away from your orbit. It is Murphy’s law. The delicacy could be anything- maybe, delicious “paayasam” or a jar with raw-mango pickle. The moment you open the fridge, the urge is irresistible.  Impatiently, you extend your arm to reach out for the distant delicacy. “Butterfingers” strikes at that opportune moment! As your fingers grip the paayasam, the forearm grazes the milk-tumbler sitting in front. The result is total disaster. The tumbler tumbles and milk flows down the refrigerator trays like a cascading waterfall! In an impulse, you try to save the milk, and now, butterfingers strikes a second time. You topple the paayasam too! The Butterfinger has only one response, “Who placed this silly, glass of milk in the fridge? That too, day before yesterday’s milk! Now, look what has happened!”

Ghee has caused more havoc than any other kitchen commodity. The butter-finger human and the ghee-container are companions who are made for each other. Let’s face it, the ghee container is invariably sticky and slippery on the outside. Even the safest pair of hands can fumble. The Butterfinger has no hope. He yanks the container from the shelf, only to watch it slip and slide past the fingers helplessly. The aftermath cannot be spelt out in words. The floor stays sticky for days on end, with ghee’s aroma wafting in the air, despite several bouts of cleaning. It serves as a stark reminder to one and all- the extent of damage, the Butterfinger is capable of!

When you visit a south-indian home in the late afternoon, you are sure to be served hot, filter coffee. More traditional the home, more likely that the coffee will arrive in an ever-silver “tumbler” (with no handle), and a matching bowl. Looking at my butterfingers, the host gets nervous, “Can I get a mug for the coffee?” “No! No! I am used to drinking coffee like this! I drink coffee all the time!” I lie through my teeth. My fingers are normally steady. But when so many prying eyes are scrutinizing my move, the pressure is intense. “Butterfinger” strikes. The tumbler is too hot to handle. In my attempt to pour the coffee into the saucer, it completely flies off the trajectory. And now, the trousers are stained and so is the gleaming, new sofa! The host is bubbling with anger, but blurts out a cosmetic, “No! No!  Don’t worry! It’s ok!” and rushes for the cleaning-cloth. The Butterfinger makes a hasty exit! His defence is genuine, “Does someone serve coffee right out of a furnace, I say? Thank God, I did not drink that coffee! It would have burnt my tongue, my throat, my esophagus and all else!”   

For the Butterfinger, “buffet meals” are a total no-no. The plate is filled to the brim- with butter-naan, paneer-dish, colored-rice, pachidi, puran-poli, gulab-jamun and of course curd-rice. All he needs is a spoon to start the proceedings. He cannot wait! The left hand holds the plate. The right hand reaches for the spoon arranged on the side-table. “Butterfinger” strikes. The left-hand with the plate tilts just that wee bit. The tremor is enough to trigger an entire avalanche. What can he do? The naan and paneer, the rice and sweet hurtle down, in one enormous sweep, and before he knows, the landslide has splattered food everywhere, including dousing curd-rice on the dress of the unwary guest, standing next in line. The Butterfinger makes a hasty exit, of course.

Surprisingly, butter-fingers follow you into the restroom too! Soaps are slippery fellows and for a butter-finger, even more so. Just when you are taking a bath, and have soaped half your way, the soap flies out of hand. You try to catch it once, twice, thrice. It toys with you each time, eludes your grasp, and manages to fall right into the toilet! It is a strange situation- you cannot fish it out, you cannot flush it down, you cannot ask for external help (given your delicate condition). This is "trishanku-avasthaa". The Butterfinger, peering through the soap, is naturally miffed, “Who designs these restrooms, with absolutely no thought, placing the bathing zone and the toilet, co-located, I say?”

The last I heard, Butterfingers was practicing with a new soap in the restroom- to take soap catches, like Suryakumar Yadav, even when the soap flies right over the boundary line!

 

Those chain letters!

The postman delivered a strange postcard. It was neither addressed to anybody, nor was it signed by someone. It had just the content scrawled in an unknown handwriting. As a 10-year-old, I read the postcard haltingly.

It said- “You are lucky to have received this postcard. It brings you fame, fortune and a lot more. It has travelled around the world 18 times, and now, it is in your hands!” I could not believe the stroke of good luck. It was as though the entire cosmos had fortuitously chosen me as a special beneficiary. I ran to my elder sister, “Sister! Look! What postcard I got!” Together, we read the message. Many a horror film started on a pleasant note. It was only past intermission- the plot changed and left you quaking with fear.

This postcard was such. The moment you flipped the postcard to the other side, the tone changed completely. It read, “Do not take this message lightly. It must not be with you for more than 3 days. You must send this message to 14 others forthwith. Do not break this chain. Failure to do so, will be at your peril. The choice is yours.”

The messaging was confusing. “What does ‘peril’ mean, sister?” “It means danger, silly!” sister answered. “What danger will come, sister?” I tried to clarify. “It can be anything!” sister gave an open-ended answer, lending full scope for my imagination to run wild, thinking of all kinds of macabre possibilities!

“Anyway, you found the postcard. It is your headache!” sister tried to wash her hands off. “But, but…we read the postcard together, didn’t we? Now, that you have also read it, it is your problem too!” I reasoned.

Opinions were divided at home. Parental advice was direct- “We have seen many such letters. Just tear it to bits and cast it in the wastepaper basket!” For a 10-year-old, it was not so simple, especially the word ‘peril’. There was a sinister ring to it, that sent you on a ruminating trail. Who could have sent this postcard?  Why did he write? How did he know you? How did he decipher that the postcard had traveled around the world 18 times? Did he travel with the postcard? Or did the postcard come back to him, after touching everyone on this planet? You imagined how this postcard would proliferate. The sender sends to 14 people. Each of those 14, send to 14 others, and those 14 send to 14 more and so on. The compounding effect was simply bewildering.

Eventually, you took the decision. This message should not be taken lightly. You must now write 14 postcards. Much to her displeasure, sister would write 7 and I will write the other 7. A blue-color stained, carbon-copy paper was dug out from the shelf. That way, 2 postcards could be written out in one shot.

Now came the million-dollar question- Who will be those 14 targets? All people came to mind in one sweep- grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, extended family relatives and friends. In each case, you imagined how their face would turn pale and worried, when they read your postcard. It was such a nasty thing to do.  I had a bright idea, “Sister! Let’s send it to all your friends- Prabha, Padmini, Sunita and “baby Lakshmi”! I am certain you have more than 14 friends!” Sister was not at all pleased. “Why my friends only? Why not your friends?” she asked.  “But I don’t have any! I had Sridhar, but he is not my friend anymore! We fought day before yesterday!”  I resisted.

It was tough to find those 14 guinea-pigs. If you selected sister’s friends, one problem was certain- each of them will send this postcard back to sister (of course, without knowing, she sent it). And now, you will have a clutch of postcards at home, and stuck in an eternal loop- writing and rewriting this content over and over again, for the rest of life. Also, the next time, you met Prabha or Sunita, you will certainly sport a sly grin on the face. You wouldn’t be able to resist that curious question, “Did you, did you…get…that…that…postcard?” That will expose your identity and you risked the possibility of getting beaten up.

Eventually, sister had a brilliant idea. She took out the telephone directory, “Just search for some random 14 names, along with their addresses and send the postcards off!”  That was a clincher. I hunted down all kinds of people- Mr. Wadekar, Mr. Bhatavdekar, Mr. Desai, Mr. Sardesai, Mr. Pandey and Mr. Deshpande- in far-flung places, one at Charni Road, another at Chinchpokli and yet another at Tardeo. Yes, I owe all these poor souls, a round of apology, for this evil deed committed over 40 years ago.

I made sure to post the letters not from the local Koliwada post-office, but from the distant post-office at Sion Circle. That way, the postmark will not reveal my neighborhood, and none will track me down. My hands were totally clean.

 

 

 

Cricket and superstition

It is a relief that India won the Cricket World Cup. Had India lost, the die-hard Cricket fan would have lost all meaning in life. How many times in the past, has he come so close to winning the cup, only to see it slip away? It would have been difficult to stomach another loss.  Like Guru Dutt in the movies of yore, he would have wrapped a black shawl around himself, and leaving hearth and home, like a vagabond, wandered about aimlessly, with tousled hair, grimy face, and an ugly stubble. Disillusioned and dejected, his theme song would have likely been- “Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye…to kya hai…even if this whole world is gained…so what?”

Thankfully, such a predicament did not arise, and India won the World Cup. There is now a newfound spring in the steps and a peppy song on the lips! Such is the Cricket crazy fan- for him, India should win at all costs- even if it means following superstitions, that too, to the extreme.

A noteworthy superstitious Cricket fan is like Bheeshma- he takes a solemn vow not to watch the match! He sincerely believes- every time he watches the game, India loses! And to let India win, he will inflict self-pain and self-mortification, and deny himself the pleasure of watching the game, he loves most. Others reinforce the superstition. After India lost the ODI World Cup final last year, I got a sudden call from my friend. He had a pointed question, “Did you, by any chance, watch the finals?” Unwittingly, I said “yes”. Immediately, he flared up. “Who asked you to watch the match? Now, I know…why India lost!” My friend was so sure, that a particular individual watching the game, could influence the result, albeit negatively, overriding the prayers of 1.4 billion people in this cricket crazy nation!

Cricket and superstition go hand in hand. One type of superstition is called a “commentator’s curse”. The commentator has just praised the batsman to the skies. “A wonderful 50 from Virat! He is now batting ‘in the zone’; leave alone scoring a 100, this time, even a double hundred, is well within his sight!” Before he can complete the sentence, the next ball, Virat hits the ball in the air, and is out unceremoniously! The commentator is lucky not to be anywhere close to the cricket fan. He would have likely wrung his neck.

When a rival cricketing nation’s commentator praises our team, the cricket fan gets all suspicious and protective. The rival nation’s commentator is effusive in his praise, “Rohit is simply toying with the bowling here. India is coasting to a win!” The Indian fan is not at all pleased. He clicks his fists on the sides of his head and applies a black collyrium mark on the TV screen, to ward off the evil-eye! “I know this commentator very well. In his heart of hearts, he wants only his country to win. Never believe him! He is as though…praising India. It is with malicious intent, just to spook us, and snatch the victory from us. Never believe him! Never!”

In the days of yore, we watched cricket matches on the old vacuum tube TV. As the match progressed, the TV visuals had a bad habit of “shaking” from time to time. Someone at home was roped in, to slap the TV-top. Each time, you slapped the top of the TV, the shaking stopped. To our delight, two things happened in unison with the slap- the visuals were restored and to top it, the rival team lost a wicket. It was a perfect case of “kaaka-taaliyan nyaaya”- a crow sitting on a palm-tree and a fruit falling off at that exact instant! From then on, till the rival innings progressed, the slapper had only one job at hand. He must induce a wicket by pounding the TV from time to time, even if it meant breaking the TV, all with noble intent, of course!

Back then, grandma had to sit in the balcony for the entire day. Each time she stepped into the drawing-room, India lost a wicket. There was little choice, but to banish grandma. When Gavaskar was batting, you had to maintain the same pose sitting at the edge of the sofa. You denied yourself a restroom/bio-break too. You were certain, even if you, as much as stood up, Gavaskar would get out, and leave you totally high and dry.

Way back in the 1980s, I watched the “The Tied Test Match” on TV- India versus Australia, at Chepauk, Chennai, seated next to my grandfather. India should have won the game handsomely.  Suddenly, India lost wickets in a heap. India clawed back and the scores were now level. India needed just one run to win. Australia needed one wicket for a tie. Maninder Singh was the batsman. Will Maninder score that one run? I was sitting at the edge of the sofa. My grandfather, an earnest follower of the game, had a bad habit of calling cricketers with his own, unique, original pronunciation. "Manjrekar" became “manchurikaar” and "Maninder" became “Manendar”. “This Manendar fellow, I tell you, he will always score a blub (zero)!” grandfather commented. Lo and behold, the next ball, Maninder was out LBW. Australia rejoiced that they tied the match. For India, the tie looked like a heavy loss-it was a game India should have won.

I was angry with grandfather for a long time. I couldn’t tell him in so many words. India lost because of grandpa. If only, if only, he could have corrected his pronunciation. “It is Maninder Singh grandpa…Maninder Singh. Not Manendar...not Manender! Why did you have to say, Maninder will get out for a blub, grandpa?”