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.