On Sardars

Fallaciously quoted for their obtuse sense and onus of the jokes at them they undesire. Pages and pages of unwise craks about our very own sardars, on the magazines, word of mouth and now on the internet. sometimes it is injudicious to deride the community which has done no mistake. Infact we have few sardar greats like Vallabhai patel - the iron man of India or be it our beloved prime minister who we proudly call the 'thinking man', we might have many more to quote but the world still claims them to be exceptions. When we set in 'Sardars' in google search the first 10 results have the links of poor jokes on the great sardars. Nothing wrong. as long as it remains a joke and not hurt the sentiments of individuals. I am reminded to mention the 'Tamilian-Thayirsadham jokes' or the 'Malayalee's-chaaya shop on the moon' are also wise cracks on a particular community but are not as popular as those on sardars.

Ending this bit with an unpredictable joke on sardars that is being circulated on internet.
"Interviewer: Just imagine you are on the 3rd floor, it caught fire and how will you escape? Sardar: its simple. I will stop my imagination!!! "
May be in few decades, with more jokes of this kind spreading in the world, the sardars may be ascribed for their 'presence of mind' than their imprudent wit.
It makes me doubt if this is a calculated insertion by an inteligent Sardar to recover his societey. If so, Kudos to him, if not it is a wake up call for the rest.

Dare to think, create history

The beginning of certain wonderful creations in this world cannot be traced back. I am here talking about creative thoughts which struck someone at some point or a few at different environs.

Imagine. An epoch where pyjamas with strings attached are the only established attire for men. Say, pyjamas became the ethical dress code in the society. It seems perfectly fine, until one guy breaks into the party of pyjamas with his zipper attached to it for the first time ever and claims it to be his creativity to add some utility value. I am sure he would have ended up being a laughing stock among others. He would have taken all the humiliation for coming up with such an idea in a society that believes in Pyjamas as the dress code for men.
But fortunately, zipper pants are so common today. It has become the very part men’s attire. But how many people today really know the history of such a great invention? I would rather call it a creative thought. No more we laugh at zipper.
Zipper has a utility value, so do many creations. Most of the creative thoughts have survived the tests, embarrassments, degradation yet have created successful histories, while other creations die premature. A classic example of the creation that died early would be that of hmm.......ummmm....I thought for more than an hour. I could not hit upon any creation that failed.
Creation may face a drift, they might have been put under scanner and ridiculed, certain creative ideas might not have worked well in a particular environment or society or they might have quickly lost the race to scientific advancements, but this can never be attributed as failure to the any original creation that has come out of a man’s creative ability. So keep thinking, make new ideas. People around us may call it is funny and useless? So be it, could there be a funnier creation than a zipper on men’s pants?

Who’s this guy?

George – wishing one and all in the company with his pleasant and immensely heartwarming mail. His Diwali greeting was all about India. A ppt as an attachment where slides contained grand old people of first two worlds praising India as the only place for salvation of mankind and more. I found it truly amazing, something that I have never seen before. In all excitement to reply to his mail with few good words, Quickly, I mailed my colleague to know who had sent this mail with the body of the mail as “Whos this guy?”

And there I committed a mistake of my life.

What’s wrong in knowing about a guy who has written so well about India as a country of sensible people?

Nothing wrong in that for sure until I directed the mail to George himself.
And who’s this guy? None other than George Koukis - our Company’s Chairman from Switzerland.

What more, failed attempts to recall the mail electronically. Not once but several times like a mad man’s menace with gadgets. Followed it with a sincerely apologizing mail asking him to ignore my reply to his mail. Continued with a note of appreciation for his gratifying wishes. By now that would have sounded like ultimate flattery.

After almost three hours, with discomfiture mounting with every moment in anticipating reactions of the Chairman, a mail arrived in my Inbox. Mail successfully recalled at 6:04 PM, October 15, 2009.

A great sigh of relief

Colors or flowers?

For the first time attempted a flower design.

The Paramathma

Ku chela – means torn or tarnished cloth. His state was no different from his name. People stopped calling him by his original name – Sudhama. Krishna with Rukmini was at the door to receive his old childhood friend. Krishna was eight feet tall and healthy while his friend hardly had any skin to cover his skeleton. He welcomed his guest as per the protocol, cleansed his friends feet with water and offered him his pitamber as carpet. For someone who did not have food for weeks together, it should have been difficult to apprehend that it was Parmathma himself who bowed down to touch the feet. All the more Kuchela was fatigued walking through the huge palace of Mathura and through the seven corridors. Krishna offered kuchela his seat in the courtyard which was so huge.  He got relieved.

As both started sharing stories of their childhood Krishna started narrating a story of their student days at ashram of Sandhipa.

Once, the teacher sent Krishna and Kuchela to bring fruits from the forest for a ceremony. As they went to the forest, thick clouds formed over the sky and the whole place became dark. It started pouring. Both took shelter in a cave and preserved the fruits they collected. They took the fruits to the Guru only the next day. The worried teacher was happy to see the kids back. He praised their sincerity and blessed them happy life. When they were smiling at these good old memories, Krishna commented “Sudhama - our Guru’s wishes came true, here, both of us are very happy in life”.

Kuchela agreed to Krishna and smiled. Krishna was surprised. He expected Kuchela to talk of his poor state of life.

Later Krishna asked his dear friend what he got for him. While kuchela in shame tried to hide the rice flakes that he carried in a torn cloth from home, Krishna finds it out and snatches it away from him and consumes a fistful in glee. Kuchela was more than happy about sudarshana of Paramathma and was ecstatic about the way he was treated at the royal court of Krishna. He decided not to ask Krishna for any acquisitive help for his family.  Kuchela left home empty handed. He knew that he had to answer his wife and kids back home. As he reaches his village he could not believe his eyes. His hut now turned into a majestic palace, his wife is decked up in attire of a queen, and kids looked like wards of royals. There was gold and silver everywhere and all other wealth in the world at sight in his home.

This is an old popular story of Kuchela and Krishna but the highpoint in the story which is seldom told is ‘Acharya Kataksham’ (blessing of Gurus). God ensures that words uttered by Gurus are never falsified.  

Happiness is not constant

A month of despair. I already termed it. My education loan payment, Chit fund installment, insurance due, to add on to the existing woes my new car’s installment, petrol charges, another big spend at the gym for fees and on nutrition supplements. That was not all for the month, Geetha’s wedding at Hyderabad, travel costs and wedding gift. Already the list was long enough to dig a hole in my pocket and flow through my pant. I knew well that salary credit was well short by at least a 10% of my budget planning. I thought of squeezing in money from somewhere to manage. With unexpected expenses like fifty bucks for a car wash and twenty bucks tip to the waiter for a two hundred bucks billing at a restaurant for treating friends it was going beyond control. What should I say? I also signaled my mother early about my precarious situation seeking her help from her saving incase I fall short, which was sure to happen.
While I was browsing through some web pages, I saw a HSBC banner flashing at me. I started to daydream my days at HSBC and drawn into nostalgia. Suddenly it struck me that I had some un-withdrawn Three Thousand bucks in my HSBC account. I was elated. My mind immediately started re-calculating the budget for the month. That also increased my confidence level to push through the month without the help of my mother’s bucks. I quickly stepped down to the ATM at my office to withdraw the amount even before HSBC could levy some charges on my Balance maintenance and block the funds. Within a jiffy I was at the ATM with my friend and inserted the card. My mind suggested me to press the ‘Withdrawal’ key while my heart stopped and forced my mind to check for the exact ‘Balance’. I followed my heart and then what I saw on the screen was amazing. A whopping twenty three thousand rupees flashed on the screen. I felt Vegas in India, ‘How can this be?’ asked my friend in surprise. He knew my affairs of the month well. It was quiet common for me. With HSBC around one can expect the unexpected. I once got cash credited of seventeen thousand with a narration ‘incentives earned for the month’ that I had no clue about. I also received a bonus of sixteen thousand six hundred and sixteen in yet another tough month. Not to mention about my final settlement that came about in the most difficult tax months. For a moment I wondered, God answered my call, yet again in HSBC’c avatar.

Shiva gave a hi-fi in excitement and I receipted it with a smile flashing my steel braces and its reflections all over. My first agenda was to cancel the train ticket to the wedding at Hyderabad and book fly. I also thought of adding an exaggerated party shirt to my Hyderabad bag and leave back the old clothes. I thought I will surprise Reema by paying off a very old debt which she almost considered written off.’ Oh! Shit, am still left with a twelve k buddy’. I thought to myself. All these were planned in not more than five seconds while our big daddy cool friend – Shiva, shattered my dream style spending plans. He said, Bajji ‘put this money into fixed deposit in your bank. HSBC may claim it at anytime if they get to know if it was a wrong credit” talked as if he was a liberated soul. I felt like stubbing a five hundred rupee note into his mouth to end his flow of uninteresting ideas. The next move was to withdraw all the funds so that HSBC does not further create a hold in the account. Before they could find their fault there would be no money in the account. Good, we withdrew cash at mad’s pace as if we found a card on the road with the PIN attached to it and moved out of the ATM like burglars.
My wallet was now heavy of course with forty- five hundred Rupee notes and 10 notes of Hundreds. Mahatma Gandhi and I shared few….no….lots of smiles. I was back at the work desk and sat on the chair. I was feeling uncomfortable with a bulge on my butt; I put my wallet in my pant’s back pocket. All the more I was uncomfortable of the thought that I had so much of money to expend.

I first called up my dentist. I had a long check pending. Every time the receptionist called me to inform about an appointment I act to be busy only to avoid paying the last installment which was a solid ten thousand rupees. Now I thought I was rich enough to face it. I called the dentist on a high tone and said, ‘do you guys remember me at all, and am Badri your customer. It has been ages since you called me’, the sad girl was stammering in fear and said a sorry, I will definitely arrange for a visit with doctor today. She said at 6Pm and I hung up in all pride.

I also messaged Geetha, ‘ buddy if you are falling short of money for your wedding do let me know, I can send you some quick buck, will a 10 k do for you?’. Yea, now that sounded like an eligible bachelor wasn’t it?
I rushed to my bank to deposit the money into my account and my dad called me on my mobile. ‘Badri, where are you?’, ‘am at HDFC pa – I said’. Dad: ‘Very good’ he doesn’t appreciate unnecessarily. why should he do it this time, I was wondering for a moment. He said ‘I forgot to call you as soon as I deposited the money, good that you exactly knew what to do with the money. Deposit into your account the 20000 that I have sent you and send my friend Rajagopal a cheque of 20850’ and hung the phone.

Tears rolled down my cheeks, what the hell? My flight tickets, my party shirt idea, swathi’s pay back all gone for a toss. Worst was my hyperbolic reaction at the dentist, how shall I pay him now, with appointment at 6PM? Worst of worst is I have an additional burden of eight fifty rupees on my restricted budget. Thanks pa.

The moment of Pain

Few days back I was at Thirunarayanapuram to witness a mega event, Vairamudi – the festive of adorning the deity with all precious diamonds studded crown. Lakh of people churn out on that particular day every year. I was part of the center of gravity as I was lifting the palanquin of the deity. Crowd was thronging on us. There was a metal barricade attached with iron wheels moving around the deity, to ward of the crowd and disallowing them to near the deity. Since there were crowd standing at both the sides of the streets, the practice was to sway the palanquin on all the sides so that people had a closer look at the crowned deity. Suddenly the crowed squeezed in at us at and lessened the gaps of the barricade. As I was at the edge of the palanquin, one of the wheels of the barricade ran over my left foot and split the skin. While the wheel was still on my foot for few seconds, I could not remove it. I also feared that it would damage my foot if I try to pull it out. The barricade was at least ten times heavier than me. My cry went unnoticed as the place was earsplitting. After few seconds the barricade moved ahead and I had my leg released. For a moment I felt giddy and cried for help. My cousin on the other side felt something wrong with me and steered through the crowed to come up to me. All that I knew was I couldn’t walk. But it was impossible to stay back at that place with increasing pain and fear of people stamping on the same foot again. Holding my cousins shoulder we somehow made it away from the crowd to see my skin on the foot cut into two halves and blood oozing everywhere from my foot. The pain was horrible. Leg swollen and made it impossible for me to move. After a first aid we moved back into the hotel room and I took rest until next day we got back to Chennai. The wound was badly infected as I had to walk back long way to the hotel room with the open cut. It took almost 20 days for the new skin to patch up and for me to move my leg freely. Now my foot had a permanent mark of the cut and looks like marks of stitches post operation. All this was not all that painful.
Someone whom I consider loves me the most, did not even bother at this mercy sight while I expected the person to caringly caress it and say an ‘achocho’. That was horribly painful.

To bang a beefcake

Saturday night, 8:30 PM, plans chalked out for Sunday morning. All excited about traveling in my new car. My mom was in Chennai. She stays away from the city otherwise. We were put up at relative’s house.My relatives had moved into this apartment only two days back. Route map prepared. Scheduled to depart at 8:00 Am. To Stock my mom’s luggage. Pick up vegetables from the market. To go via TTD temple at T.nagra and on the move have darshan of Venky. To pick up my dad, was in Chennai for week long official training. He stayed back at office provided accommodation, so we did not meet him during that week. The Sunday was not an ordinary day. The first Sunday of the Tamil month ‘Aadi’. The goddess’s temple will be fully decorated. As part of the annual festival they adorn a pot of water and turmeric and take it on a procession. As per schedule it was to happen at 12:00 Noon. We had to reach Aminjikarai, where my grandma’s house is located. Right opposite their house is this temple. There is a practice of certain ladies invoking goddess into themselves and dance in exhilaration during the procession. When I was very young I used to fear going near them. I have seen them squeeze a live hen’s neck and drink the blood. They sometimes place their hands firmly on devotees head and bless them. All this will get over by 1:00 PM. My mom handed over a glass of milk and reiterated me with the plans for the Grand Sunday. I said an ‘Hmmm’ while drinking the milk. That was supposed to convey to my mom that it was after all a simple agenda for me. Especially, with my super new i10 that can stack the entire luggage at one go and can vroom at 60km/hr to reach Aminjikarai, flaunting my new car to Venky. ‘What an Idea Sirji’, I sd to myself and slept.

Sunday morning 6:00 AM, refreshed my To-Do-List once and off to get ready. My mom was busy in the kitchen to finish her petty works. 8:00 AM, everything on track. I picked my car keys. Rolled the key rings with my little finger, the typical way the heroes do in the movies. Made a ‘qweek-qweek’ sound with my electronic locking system and announced my departure to the localities in the apartment. Stocked the luggage into dickey. The music system started screaming Michel Jacson’s ‘Beat It’. While my mom was away to market, I carefully reversed my car avoiding the bikes parked on both the sides. After successfully positioning the car for its take off, I thought of giving it a final touch as I was waiting for my mom. Picked my ray-ban from the dash board, blew the dust of the lenses and stylishly put it on. ‘You wanna be tough, better do what you can, lala… so…lala’. The car move ahead about 15feet. BANG.

8:07 AM, people all around me, voicing out their suggestions. One Aunty,’ this septic tank has to be removed from here’, another uncle ‘yes you are right madam, this has always been a nuisance’. The watch man ‘yesterday night itself I wanted to inform sir about this septic tank, I forgot’, two young guys giggling from behind. I bent down to see the fate of my car that just hit the Septic Tank that was built rising a feet above the ground level, which was not visible from inside the car. Tyres flattened, a dent in the chassis railing, the wheel rim twisted and in pity state my brand new car. If only Michale Jackson was alive, I would have killed him to have continued singing even after such an embarrassing situation. My mom was back with fury on her face, yelled, ‘I Knew this was to happen’. By then I had called the Hyundai Helpline, who are known to reach their struggling customers in no time. I assured my mom 15 minutes to set things right. In all probability we could reach Aminjikarai before 12:55 PM

1:30 PM, ‘nenjuukkul peidhidum vaa’, my mobile buzzed, I picked the call and heard, ‘Sir, very sorry, should I take a left or right from Duraiswamy subway?’

Centuries of fervent love

A girl lying on a bed with hands on cheeks swinging her legs and thinking about a beautiful moment with her lover, a guy looking into his reflection on his plate and imagining his girl to be smiling, mistaking his friend for his lover and pecking his cheek, to consider a bee as messenger who delivers her sweetheart’s love letter, swarming on the floor, hollow out the ground by toe, biting the nail forgetting people around, humming a song throughout the day in her reminiscence, covering the face in shyness are very common in love. If you think, people od the olden days where not so afflicted by love, you are wrong. Let us have a glimpse of Thiruvaimozhi (Centum 5.2.1/1102) – Work of Parangusan (Swamy Nammalwar), a poetic saint who committed his life for the bhakti and love at Sriman Narayana’s feet.

kangulum pagalum kaN thuyilaRiyaaL* kaNNanNeer kaikaLaal iRaikkum,*
shanngu chakkarangaLenRu kai kooppum* thaamaraik kaN enRE thaLarum,*
eNGNGanE tharikkENn unnaivittu ennum* irunNilam kai thuzaavirukkum,*
chengayal paaynNeerth thiruvaraNGkaththaay!* ivaLthiRaththu en cheykinRaayE?

Namalwar construes himself to be Devi (girl devoted to Lord), acclaimed herself as the lover and gave up her soul to him. She becomes fanatic in love and forgets her original state. The girl’s mother is anguished looking at her girl beset by love and pleads to the one who has held her in his possession.

Mother’s woe: “She doesn’t realize her sleep rather she forgot there’s a stuff called sleep. She cries ceaselessly night and day, until the floor becomes sodden; she claims to have seen your lotus like eyes and laughs. She prostrates on the floor claiming the sight of your stunning Shank and Mace. Soon she realizes it was only a hallucination and starts digging the floor to find you. She has lost her self-conscience. What have you done to my darling girl?
She gazes at the sky, she melts in your thoughts, she shouts and calls ‘end of evil’ and that her hero, you, have killed them all. She faces the direction of your temple and instantly tears flow from her eyes. She lies motionless, suddenly she wanders aimlessly and pays obeisance to you and she goes into trance, her eyes doesn’t flicker sometimes and she keeps staring at the wall, maybe she has found you there and faints as you are not there. She acts as dumb and keeps murmuring your name. Suddenly becomes intelligent and with grace in her eyes talks about you.
She is so fond of you and is so madly in love with you unlike other worldly people who are behind materialistic pursuits and not bothered to even look at you, the only thing that you can do to her now is to show mercy on her.”

Upayam – the objective is the only difference of Alwar’s love to that of the typical lovers today. If one feels his love will enable him to attain the objective collectively with his lover, go ahead and love the person Alwars way.

Picture From : www.vrindavan.de

Understand

We were among a spiritual crowd who had assembled to witness a discourse by an eminent Vaishnavite personality. I have listened to him several times before. His voice is mystical. One tends to surrender all the senses when he starts speaking about God. This time he was discussing about devout disciples of Vaishnavism. My friend - an extremely spiritual guy and I, did not get a place to sit as we were late to the discourse. Somehow we could make it up to the passage and held the bars on the gate and got a view of the speaker in the temple hall. As usual I was flounced by his flooding speech. But hanging on the bars tested our physical ability and was making it uncomfortable to stay on. So I decided to move my body once in a while to get adjusted and made sure I do not show the discomfort on my face. While turning my head I spotted a tiny girl sitting next to an old lady. It was very brief and I could only register the color of her dress in my mind, shades of green and red. The next time I turned towards her was not my effort. This time I fixed my eyes on her. I did not bother about people observing me looking at her. Even if they did, I was sure that they would have seen my struggle to listen to the discourse and thought they would spare me, irrespective of where I was looking at. All the more I thought they were amidst the storm of the discourse and could not have noticed me doing this.
Her eyes, if I describe in my tattered words, would not be reasonable. Half open and outlined in black. May be she was also a victim of Krishna Kama (immersed in love with God), the flow of the discourse suggested. Only my ears were lent to the discourse and my eyes and thoughts fixed at her. Like a spiritual cherub, she had a straight long teeka on her forehead, neatly divided hairstyle, her slender neck, pink lips and as an obedient kid sitting next to her grandma. My mind’s eye went beyond this. I imagined her to be the Krishna with peacock feathers on her head. Whenever she smiled she looked like the actress Sridevi of the movie Krishna Leela. Her eyes I imagined to be that of Meera, as depicted on the posters. I felt like splitting the crowd to reach her and sit next to her and enjoy the discourse, for this I thought I had to impress her grandma first. I also waited for her to look at me once and understand that I was ogling at her. An hour passed by, I could not do anything beyond being in awe. Everything there was still and so were my eyes and ears.
The discourse was over and the crowed disbursed. She also disappeared without leaving any trace behind.
Her eyes and smile constantly reminded me of her and I was feeling restless. I was also feeling the guilt of emancipating my senses to samanya Kama (unwarranted lust). I felt the very purpose of attending the discourse was to elevate ourselves, to control our senses that disturb us, but in vain. I felt ashamed of myself. I recalled, when we started for the discourse, I shared my thoughts with my friend about the greatness of the speaker. I had then told him how his discourses cease our senses to spirituality and doesn’t let it go beyond God. Now my mind started asking questions. What will my friend think of me if I talk to him about this girl? He would be thinking so shoddy of my self-control. He is so spiritual. All said and done my mind could not forget that beautiful sight. I made up my mind to tell him. In a very low voice I uttered, ‘did u see,mmmm…..there was a girl sitting there among the crowd’, he without more ado said ‘ya, the girl in green skirt and red half sari?’

And that’s the world for you folks

Inspiration by the beach side

While we were taking puckish pleasure watching young lovers coddling each other on one side of the beach, there was this 85 years old lady in her pink gown, walking enthusiastically holding her daughter's hand. Her appearance displayed a message to all the youngsters at the beach. Head decorated with jasmine, her Hawaii slippers and the number of gold chains around her neck said the story. While we were walking, the lady's daughter stuffed a digital camera into my friend's hand and ordered him to click. My friend had no other option but to do the honors.

The story was complete when the old lady cheerfully smiled for the shoot. She was there to enjoy her last days in this world I thought. I wanted to know more about the lady and approached her daughter. she was more than happy to share with us few inspirations that she had inherited from her 85 years old mother. While my friend was just then talking about her wish to die off instantly rather than taking the pains of life, we learnt that the old lady had travelled all the way to Chennai from Bangalore for her liking to wash her feet by the waves. More shocking was when she said it was the same waters that swallowed her husband during Tsunami at Chennai. Her pluckiness was simply commendable. When most of us, youngsters, consider small problems in life as a major hurdle for to live life, we must get inspired by such living souls. We spent our evening with the lady until she walked back into her car by herslef.

My Mess

When everybody left me alone, Mess was my best-friend.My dirty little friend filled my room in my lonliness, she revealed the real person in me. In her company I forgot my hunger, my people around, my time and finally my life. Others felt I was confused, but as long as I was with her, I knew she took very good care of me. She defended me and offered a reason to others of my confused state. They gladly said "let go - he and his Mess". It is so many years with her now, I definetely cannot think of a life beyond her.

My dear Mess