When cash was king!

India has gone digital. Today, cash transactions are few and far between. Even for those rare occasions when you need cash, you walk up to the nearest ATM.

What a sea change from the days when you went to a bank to withdraw cash! Back then, as child, a visit to the bank, was a momentous event.

It followed a fixed regimen. Once it was your turn at the counter, you scrutinized the cashier attentively. He counted the notes with such ease! Off and on, a dab on a wet sponge, and his fingers moved even faster.

Soon, he gave back a sheaf of rupee notes to mother. His counting was not enough. Sitting on the sofa opposite the cashier, mother recounted the same bunch. The purpose was unclear. Firstly, there was no precedent to an error on the cashier’s part. Secondly, even if he did, how were you going to prove his mistake?

Nevertheless, you sat on the sofa, and waited as mother counted. Your attention was drawn to the security guard by the door. He looked stern, in his stiff uniform, with a rifle slung over the shoulder. “Is his rifle real?” you asked. Mother did not answer. She only raised her voice, “Fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three...”

But curiosity could not be contained. “Is his rifle loaded or he has to fill it with bullets?” you enquired. This time, you had successfully derailed the counting. “Can’t you keep quiet for at least 5 minutes?” mother asked, all exasperated.  The counting had to start from scratch once more.

When you left the bank with the wad of notes, it felt as if, you were carrying an enormous booty on the head. You walked all alert, as though thieves lay in the waiting, just for you! You heaved a sigh of relief, only when you reached home!

Dealing with loose cash had its share of prickly situations. You had no idea about its origin, but one fine day, you were stuck with a torn rupee note. Anytime you handed the note to the shopkeeper, he returned it with a look of disdain! With the note cello-taped, you tried in several places, with no success. All devious ideas came to mind, to pass the note on the sly, to an unwary candidate, and wash your hands off!

May be, you could drop it in the temple “hundi”. After all, God in his infinite grace, should accept it. Sister came up with counterarguments, “If you give that note to God, he will give you back in kind. He will shower you with only torn notes!” Imagination ran riot- how the entire home would soon be filled with torn rupee notes as retribution for this act.

Sometimes, you got a rupee note with an intimate message from some Rajesh to some Neha.  The mind now had enough material for wool-gathering! You wondered why Rajesh had to write on a rupee note instead of telling Neha directly. The best option was to send the note off in the next transaction. That way, you maximized the chances of the note reaching Neha. May be, the note never reached. May be, the note reached, many decades later, by when, Neha had started wearing dentures! But you did your bit, and allowed a greater power, to chart its way, through the note.

Digitization is surely the way forward. But we will miss the days when cash was king, and the rupee note had such riveting stories to narrate!

The Chennai fan club!

The basic human need is food, clothing and shelter. But for a person from Chennai, there is another more urgent need. He does not care if there is no roof over his head. But a fan should surely be overhead! It may seem an overstatement. Not quite! A Chennai person will nod his head in total agreement.

In Chennai, the fan runs 24 hours a day, 7 days of the week and 12 months of the year. After an outing in the blazing sun, you reach home, crank up the fan to top speed, and sit beneath.  You close your eyes and experience the sensation. It is seventh heaven!

You hear the whirl of the fan punctuated with a rhythmic creak. In some fans, in addition to the arms rotating, the entire shaft wobbles from the base. Cool air runs through your hair and caresses your entire being. Newspapers on the center-table take wing, and scatter about the room. 

Your reverie is unceremoniously broken by a sudden power cut that leaves you high and dry. The fan loses its steam and with a series of successive groans, comes to a halt. Sometimes, your karma works through a fan! 

You are now up and about. You kick-start the generator, but tough luck, it has run out of diesel. You make frantic calls to the watchman, but he is missing. Literally, the wind is taken out from your sails. Heat and humidity gatecrash into the room. You are cooked, as though, in the burner of a steam engine! 

Time hangs still. A book with a stiff-cover doubles up as a hand-fan, but it is hard work. After what seems an entire yuga, the fan swings back into action. Relief and joy erupt in unison. The feeling cannot be expressed in words.

Sometimes, an overhead fan is inadequate. A table fan gives focused relief, unlike the aloofness of the overhead fan. However, table fans have a strange habit. As they rotate, they move their face from side to side, as though they’re watching a tennis-game from the side-lines. You rest your cheek against the fan-grill and gyrate with it! “Get away from the fan! If you go any closer, it will slice your nose off, or pull all your hair out!” you are warned.

As if these fans were not enough, yesteryear “foreign” cars carried a pocket-sized fan inside the car. A Chennai person sees his fans everywhere, even in a windmill. For him, a windmill is a giant fan, something, his city could put to better use!

At times, relatives land up in Chennai after spending years in the US. By the time they reach home from the airport, they cannot take the heat anymore. “How can people live in Chennai?” they question incredulously. You switch the fan on, and give a fitting rejoinder, “There are 11 million people living here, for your kind information! We develop character and tolerance this way!” 

These days, the air-conditioner has made inroads into most homes. It comes for a price, more than the obvious monetary reasons.  The Chennai-ite tries to recreate an Antarctica at home, while it is Sahara-like outside! Air conditioners accentuate the temperature contrast, so much so, you are incapable of facing the heat anymore.

The fan stays as your faithful friend round the year- never in the face, but always cool and soothing. 

The great tomato robbery!

The price of tomatoes has gone through the roof. This week, newspapers carried multiple incidents- how lakhs worth of tomatoes were stolen. Bank heists and great train robberies are old fashioned. Burglars have set their wicked eyes only on tomatoes! May the reader not dismiss this as sarcasm or dark humor. It is factual.

Every dog has his day, and today happens to be tomato’s day. We explore the wide ramifications of this steep price rise. It is set to impact our lives in more ways than just our culinary choice.

Tomatoes will force a radical change in Bollywood movie plots. Those riveting stories revolving around smuggled “heera” are destined to get a makeover. Now, when the villain wants to extort ransom money, he kidnaps the heroine and calls up the hero with an open threat. “If you want to see her alive, come to Mud-Island tonight, alone, at 2:00 am sharp, with 10kgs of tomatoes!” He ends with the customary warning, “And if you try to act over-smart, and get counterfeit tomatoes, you know what will happen!” and hangs up the phone with an evil laugh.

The hero lands up at the dead of night with a suitcase. The villain orders, “First, give me the tomato. Then, I will hand over the girl!” The contents of the suitcase need to be verified. The hero reveals the  tomatoes- all bright-red, shiny and juicy! The reader will be familiar how the plot unravels thereafter. There is sudden confusion as the suitcase is thrown in the air. The tomato suitcase goes from hand to hand. In the inevitable skirmish, you don’t know who is beating up whom! When all is lost, and the suitcase is left floating in the ocean, the hero’s dog suddenly materializes out of thin air. He bites the villain in the rear, saves the heroine, and retrieves the tomato from the depths of the ocean! The movie ends with a duet centered on tomato- “Tomaato…aami je tomaar…tomaato, I am truly yours!”

The tomato has given a new lease of life to bad stage-performers! They are suddenly in great demand. Earlier, for their lousy show, they were pelted with rotten tomatoes from the audience. But now, times have changed. It does not matter that the tomatoes are rotten! They are still tomatoes! After the show, the program’s producers and stage-actors hastily retrieve all the thrown tomatoes! They will literally build a castle with the tomatoes thrown at them!

Spain is known for its annual “Tomatina” festival with its Holi-like celebration, except that the Spanish Holi is played with tomatoes. Earlier, we looked at the event with disgust. “How can they tolerate tomato juice squirted all over them? So wasteful!” If the price rise in tomato continues, it will outpace gold. We will soon have an Indian version of “Tomatina”. Dousing someone with tomato juice, will be considered the ultimate mark of honor and respect, as though a veritable “kanaka-abhisheka” is being performed!

 

 

 

What's your problem?

We are bitten by the problem bug. Wherever you turn, a problem is lurking. When you go to a doctor, he asks, “What problem do you have?” Ditto with a dentist visit. He starts with, “Which tooth has a problem?” When you walk into an educational institution, the research scholar starts with- “The problem that we want to solve is…” Ditto with a “start-up company pitch” that begins with “This is a niche area. The problem we are addressing is…”

The new-born has a teething problem, the teenager has an adolescent problem, the adult has a parental problem and the aged has a geriatric problem. The daughter-in-law of course has a mother-in-law problem and when you switch on the TV, you hear about more problems. Cities have traffic problems, states have water-sharing problems, countries have border problems, and the earth has an environmental problem!

As if this were not enough, we are creative enough to invent “fun-problems”. Mathematical puzzles, crosswords, Sudoku and the like are “brain teasers”, meant to keep the mind sharp and spritely. We love problems, and hug them, as we would, a porcupine!

When you interview a candidate at the workplace, the main question among peers is, “Did you check his problem-solving ability? If he cannot solve problems quickly, he is no good!” When you get into a crowded bus, in the melee, you inadvertently stumble over another person. Immediately, the lady shoots back, “What’s your problem in life ya?”

The more you tune your ears, you hear nothing except “problem”. It’s like sitting in school, with a teacher who has some oddity, like repeating the word “basically”.  You maintain a count, and soon, you hear nothing but the word, and the entire class is lost in a blur!

You wonder, “When are the problems going to end?” You get pompous answers - “Problem is the insignia of life. If there are no problems, there is no life!” You feel like asking, “For millennia, you have been solving problems. Didn’t you solve them?” Pat comes the answer, “We did! But in solving one problem, we created 10 more!”  

Can’t we have a life free from problems? What about poets who wrote, “What is this life, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare? No time to stand beneath the boughs and stare as long as sheep and cows? Can’t we lead a peaceful life like this?” You get a prompt response, “That would be too boring! It is likely this poem was written for sheep and cows! Humans need problems! That way, we stay busy and out of trouble. If there were no problems, that would be a bigger problem!”

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!