Stubble Trouble

As I moved the shaver across my cheek, the humming noise filled my ear and tended to block out the rest of the world. It has been almost two years since I switched to the electric shaver. I paused to reflect on my decision to abandon the traditional razor. While I find the electric variety quite satisfactory, I kind of miss the whole warm water and lather experience. My electric razor can be used with water and soap, but it is not quite the same. It is also bulky and noisy.

Shaving is a chore that I can do without, but paradoxically, I generally enjoy shaving. There is something about the warm water, the lather, the sound of the razor against the stubble, the sting of the after-shave splash and so on that is purely masculine. Shaving also holds a unique place in a man's life. It is one of the markers of passage into manhood. Young boys watch their fathers shave and cannot wait for the day when they too will join the privileged club.

Like most in my generation, I first started shaving with a safety razor which remains the most important milestone in the world of men's shaving. Before its invention, shaving oneself with a straight razor was a dangerous affair with some serious risk of slicing one's neck and hence, a task best left to professionals. I think that beards were popular then more out of compulsion than choice. By the way, barbers who were experts at wielding the scalpel, or the razor, also doubled as surgeons in the not too distant past. Barber surgeons used to perform minor surgery apart from cutting hair and shaving.

When the safety razor made it possible for all men to shave on their own without risk of decapitation, shaving became a daily routine for many - assembling the razor, dipping the brush in warm water, swiping it on the soap and then applying the soap on the face to work up a lather, etc. But this tends to take some time, time that is usually in short supply in the morning when you are scrambling to get ready for class or work.

Enter the instant lathering cream/gel and the need for a brush was eliminated, thus saving time. This was followed soon by shavers that came with cartridge blades which did away with the assembling and dismantling of the razor and saved even more time. The most important innovation to me was the twin-blade cartridge. This really improved the quality of the shave over a single-blade cartridge razor. Two edges worked better than one. No surprise there, I suppose.

Then, the floodgates apparently opened. We started getting cartridges with more and more cutting edges added. I thought six blades (or is it five?) is about as far as you can go. Well, apparently not, if this is real (yes, that's a twelve blade cartridge). I get the impression that I can keep opening the thing like a bellows to reveal more and more blades. You can watch this MadTV video for a hilarious take on the proliferation of cutting edges.

But exactly what are we getting with these razors? Just the thought of six blades shearing my face one after the other makes my skin crawl. I wonder if you can even ensure that all the cutting edges actually make contact with the skin. I mean, look at the geometry of the thing, the angle of the blades, the gap between them and the terrain they have to cover. The thing defies science. More than likely, the space between blades will get clogged with stubble or worse, bits of skin. If a proper analysis is carried out, I am sure it will be very revealing. But assuming you did make the necessary contact, what value could more blades bring other than leaving your skin raw and smarting with razor burns?

Advertisements used to say that the second blade cuts the hair missed by the first one. What about the third and subsequent blades? How much do the first two miss and leave for them? Do they have any stubble left to shave or do they start scraping the skin? Some aficionados like to point out that shaving with a three-blade cartridge is equivalent of shaving thrice with a single blade, but in a third of the time taken. I don't know why anyone would shave thrice in a row let alone doing it six times at a go. I don't even bother shaving six times in a week.

With the old models of blade cartridges becoming scarce, one is forced to buy the newer ones at ever increasing prices. This, I am sure, is real the motivation behind all those fancy newer cartridges. Some even 'tell' you when to change cartridges (that is, when you need to do your share to replenish the manufacturer's profit, I suppose). I finally got frustrated enough to put aside my razor and purchase an electric shaver.

You may wonder why I cannot give up shaving altogether and grow a beard, putting an end to all this. Ogden Nash once said, 'God in his wisdom made the fly, And then forgot to tell us why'. I feel the same way about facial hair. There is a basic question that nags me. Why do we have facial hair? I mean, what purpose is served by it? I cannot really see the reason for it. No offence to those sporting a beard, but a beard is mostly a nuisance and rarely looks good. Besides, it still needs grooming. I have reached the conclusion that it exists only to be shaved. But still, I tried growing a beard once in a weak moment. The resulting look got mixed feedback. By mixed, I mean that it was divided evenly between 'hideous' and 'revolting' and I decided that I would not grow a beard again.

The Packing Pickle

'That suitcase is not going to fit in that car', I thought to myself, as I waited for my ride outside the terminal. The woman who had arrived with it had been met by the man driving the car. She looked like she was his aunt or something. She got into the front seat and left him to deal with the bags which included a gargantuan suitcase. Jokes about how to get elephants into a car came to my mind. It was going to be interesting. I sat down on the bench and looked on with some excitement.

For the next five minutes, the man waged a keen and absorbing battle with the suitcases. I watched him rapidly try different combinations and sequences to load the bags into the trunk. Nothing seemed to work. It was like solving a jigsaw puzzle except that there was an extra piece which you could not leave out. The large case simply would not fit into the trunk whether straight in or sideways. Finally, in desperation, he pushed it into the backseat where it was a really tight squeeze. For a few tense seconds, it looked like it as going to get stuck midway, but miraculously, it slid in between the front and back seats. I was so intently watching the whole drama that when he closed the trunk and turned around he caught my eye and I had to do something. I gave him a thumbs up. Accepting it with good humour, he came over and gave me a fist bump. As he drove off, I was certain that he was going to have an even bigger challenge extricating that suitcase from the back seat.

Even though airlines have restrictions on the size, suitcases seem to have grown larger over the last several years. The wheels do make it easy to pull them along, but these suitcases are shaped in all sorts of odd ways making it difficult to load them into cars and unload. At the same time, cars are now trending smaller promising more and more scenes like the above.

At the airport, checking the bags is of course fairly easy. You just need to get them to the counter. But it is quite a task picking up a big suitcase from the baggage carousel at the destination. I often see people struggling to get hold of the handle which is always on the wrong side as the suitcase speeds along the belt. For some reason, perhaps as a cruel joke, the handlers load them on to the belt with the handles out of the reach of waiting passengers. I can almost picture a small framed passenger being pulled on to the belt while trying to get hold of a big suitcase.

It is not just loading and unloading that presents a challenge. Have you noticed how taxing it is to pack those huge molded suitcases that open like clam shells? First, you have to ask everyone else to leave the room before you can open one because it will occupy the better part of a room when opened all the way. Then, you have to pack the two sides separately. You walk back and forth across the room to get it filled. Once it is packed, you have to lift the heavy top side (or bottom as usually you cannot tell which is which) and close it over the other. In this process, some of the items always fall out. Some others will stick out just enough to prevent the sides from closing cleanly. Even if there is the slightest obstruction, the latch cannot be engaged. Sometimes, you have to sit on the suitcase to make it close. And if you have to reopen it to pack some more things, well, you get to perform this dance all over again.

My own preference is to travel as light as possible. So I select the smallest suitcase that can serve the needs of a trip. I also go with the soft bags. They are easier to lift, load and unload. It is also easy to pack a smaller bag really full so that the contents remain stable during the journey. They can be opened easily without requiring extra room. There is no confusion about which side is up. And, while I have no evidence to support this, I suspect that soft bags are handled less harshly by airlines staff since they don't look like tanks as the hard ones do. I could go on, but I guess it is ultimately a matter of personal choice. If you ask for my advice, pick a case you can pack without getting into a pickle.

Deepavali Flash(back)

This one is especially for all Indians living abroad. I wrote this several years ago when I wanted to explain what Deepavali was all about to children growing up here in the US. 

For children in India, Deepavali is a time of magic. As in everything else Indian, there are a number of regional flavors to it, but Deepavali is truly a national festival.

I grew up in Tamil Nadu and have wonderful memories of Deepavali. This is a day when we wanted to get up early – I mean really early, say 4 am or even before – despite the fact that we had to have a bath immediately and an oil bath at that (there is always a catch, isn't there?). No, we were not crazy, as you will soon see. For those of you who may not have seen the hour of 4 am, believe me it was anything but quiet on Deepavali at 4 am. If you were still sleeping, you would wake up to the deafening sounds of firecrackers.

Being the first on the block to light up the fireworks gave one bragging rights. So my brothers and I got up early and took our oil bath. My mother would have prepared the oil the previous day and she would apply it to our hair. She had strong hands, so we were quickly awake and alert. Then came the bath in warm water with “cheekkai” (a herbal shampoo powder) to wash off the oil. In our hurry to get ready and light the fireworks, we would get the bath over so quickly that half the oil did not get washed off. The leftover oil would slowly descend to our faces during the rest of the day. We then got to wear new clothes, which were arranged neatly in the pooja room. Once we got our clothes on, we would rush out and light a candle from which we could light the sparklers or light up the incense stick with which to set off the loud crackers.

The whole idea was to light up the entire neighborhood with sparklers and other types of fireworks. Obviously, you had to do this while it was still dark. There was a wide variety of fireworks available - the flowerpot, the ‘Tharai chakram’ or ground wheel, the ‘Vishnu chakram’ or spinning wheel, rockets and so on. Rockets lit up the skies soaring over homes and palm trees. Flowerpots would give off intense colourful displays of fireworks. These displays would be punctuated with the loud bursting of some cracker or the other – these had names too, like the sparrow, the electric, Shivaji, Lakshmi and Vishnu. These crackers looked like sticks of dynamite and had fuses made of string and paper extending out. It was quite a thrill to light the fuse, retreat to a safe distance and watch the explosion – the flash and the bang. There was also the atom bomb (relax, they had no nuclear content), which was the loudest. My favorites were the string crackers. These came in strings of 50, 100, etc. to one with 10,000! You set off one off these and the individual sticks go off in tandem and the effect was magical. The 10,000-cracker garland sounded like a couple of motorbikes accelerating real hard and went on and on!

After a couple of hours of fun outside, we would come back into the house for an early snack of delicious sweets and savories. Deepavali was an occasion for making some traditional dishes as well as for trying out novel recipes. After this feast, there was the traditional Ginger lehyam (halwa of sorts), which was consumed to prevent indigestion. How thoughtful of our forefathers to think of everything! Actually, this was quite tasty in itself.

Mid-morning was a slow period spent exchanging notes with friends. We would also compare the amount of debris in front of different houses left from the firecrackers – these were packed with paper, bits of which got strewn all over when the tightly packed charge inside exploded. We would have exhausted most of the crackers (some were saved for the night) and would start unstringing the string crackers so we could light them one by one. There were the inevitable duds among these, which fail to go off for some reason. We would open these and empty the charge inside into a paper. When you lit the paper, it went up in glorious smoke, but this could be a dangerous game. There were always reports of some kid getting his hand burnt doing this.

This was also the time for some pranks. Some kids would light a string of crackers and throw an old pot over it for some special effects. The pot danced around with muffled sounds coming from inside. Or they would light an atom bomb and put a coconut shell over it. The shell would fly an impressive distance when the bomb exploded. You could say this was the educational side to Deepavali on the streets, trying out Newton’s laws of motion. And so the day went on with eating, chatting, playing, bursting crackers, visiting friends, and did I say eating?  Everybody had a great time. 

Deepavali literally means ‘Row of lamps’. According to tradition (one of many, I should add), Deepavali was the day when Lord Krishna slew Narakasura, a powerful demon. Before dying, Narakasura felt remorse for all the oppression he had inflicted and begged for forgiveness. He also requested that the day of his death should be celebrated by the people with joy and pomp. Hence, we celebrate the day as the festival of lights and sound. As far as kids were concerned, we had a soft corner for Narakasura because he gave us Deepavali and no other festival captured our imagination like Deepavali.

Dark Elixir

As I surveyed the hot liquid in my cup, I felt contented. The coffee that I held in my hand had turned out really well. I had recently purchased some peaberry coffee that seemed to match the Coorg variety closely and had been roasted to the perfect shade of brown. I had then ground up a handful and made the brew in the traditional south Indian filter. Adding hot milk to this resulted in the highly satisfying collaboration that was as close to the classic Chennai filter coffee as I could get and sent me down memory lane.

When I was young, some days I would be up early and get to watch my mother make coffee. Brewing coffee demanded a careful and exacting process. She would first pass the top half of the filter a couple of times over the open flame to ensure that the pores were not clogged. After that, she would place the required measure of coffee powder into the filter and compact it lightly with her fingers. This will be covered by the loose plunger over the powder to hold it in place. Then she would boil water and add the boiling water to the filter ever so gently using a ladle. After that, you had to wait for the decoction to drip down to the bottom half of the filter. During this time, she would put the milk on the stove to boil and continue with her regular morning routine of singing bhajans or other songs. Coffee was strictly for the grown-ups then and I did not get to taste it till a few years later. But I used to be fascinated by the coffee-making process and was content to sit and watch. And I still recall some of the songs mother used to sing.

Getting the beans roasted and ground at the local coffee store was itself a thrilling experience. Which young boy will not be thrilled by the big commercial roasters and grinders at the store! The whir, the heat and the aroma in these places is simply enchanting. I can remember carrying freshly ground coffee, packed in non-porous wax paper bag and still warm, back home after purchasing it from one of these shops.

There was a time when we lived in the foothills of the Western Ghats where we could buy the beans pretty much off the plantation. We used to roast them at home using a drum-shaped roaster that had to be turned by hand over a coal fire. The whole house smelled like a coffee shop then. We also had a hand mill to grind the roast. When you combined the brew from this process with fresh milk heated to the right temperature, you could count on a heavenly cup of coffee.

Coffee does not have the long history of tea, but it has certainly captured the world market despite its relatively recent entrance. It seems that we owe the discovery of coffee to some enterprising goatherds in Ethiopia several centuries ago. Upon noticing an unusual perkiness in their goats, they deduced that it arose from ingesting the berries of a certain bush. This itself is an amazing feat, considering that goats will eat almost anything. They then decided that what was good for the goats was good for the (adventurous) goatherds. To cut a long story short, it was a small bite for a goat but a giant gulp for mankind.

Tea was introduced into India by the British, but coffee came before that. The story of its arrival in India and subsequent cultivation sounds like 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. It is said that a pilgrim named Baba Budan smuggled seven coffee beans out of Yemen after falling for the coffee he tasted there. Yes, he had to smuggle the seeds because the Arabs, who controlled the coffee market then, did not allow the export of seeds. It was perhaps a strange thing to do after a pilgrimage, but I think he had the right idea. Anyway, he planted the seeds in the hills of Karnataka and the rest is history.

When I first came to America, I was in for a rude shock. I just was not ready for drip coffee. The only kind of coffee I drank then was good, South Indian, well, I should just say Indian filter coffee, since there is no North Indian filter coffee. The drip coffee was served with a white powder (non-dairy creamer) which never seemed to dissolve well. Back then, you did not have the now ubiquitous Starbucks and other coffee shops. Drip coffee was pretty much all you got. I used to marvel at those who drank it black. And even more at those who drank decaffeinated coffee with non-dairy creamer and artificial sweetener. I mean, at that point, could you even call it coffee?

Anyway, my first taste of drip coffee was pretty bad. I might have given up on it altogether but then I tried tea the next time. It was far worse and could only be placed, I imagine, slightly above dish water. Teabags that have been sitting open to the elements, with tepid water to steep them in, are an insult to serious tea drinkers. So I gave up on drinking tea in restaurants entirely and decided to give the local coffee brew another try. I must admit that I was able to get used to it slowly, especially with actual milk or half-and-half. It took some time before I was able to appreciate coffee in different formats.

Fortunately, America has had a coffee explosion in the last twenty or so years. Myriads of hot and cold coffees of various gourmet varieties are now available practically at every corner. One can get one's coffee made to specifications, whether 'one-shot, low-fat, non-foam latte' or 'non-fat, double-shot, low-foam mocha'. But my favorite still remains the filter coffee of my erstwhile home. I end with this link to an article, Meter Long Coffee, which I think is a fine tribute to that dark elixir that I miss very much.

(Photo courtesy: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Filter_kaapi.JPG)

The Arrow of Time

But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool;
And time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop.                        - Shakespeare, Henry IV

Statements like 'Time flies' and 'Time and tide wait for no man' indicate the inevitable passing of time. But it is actually quite difficult to define what time is. Whether it is part of the basic structure of the universe or an artificial construct of the mind is a matter of debate among philosophers and scientists. Time is not a thing perceivable by our senses though we do recognize the passage of time. It is true that time passes automatically, but we have to be made aware of its passing. If not, what does it matter how it passes? How could the idea of time come about without our being aware of it? Wouldn't we just have 'now' and no yesterdays or tomorrows?

Leaving philosophical questions aside, our experience of time is a curious thing. For instance, when I wake up from a deep sleep, I have no idea of how much time has passed. I have to look at the clock to find out how long I have slept. Strangely, even when I am totally engrossed in something very interesting, I lose track of time. Until my attention moves away from whatever I am doing, whether sleeping or fully focused on something, I do not note the passage of time. Conversely, if I am not doing anything of interest, I am constantly checking the clock to see how much time has passed. When I am thus conscious of the passage of time (which really means I am not doing anything), it seems to be passing very slowly indeed. Time seems to hang in my hands. In fact, I am passing time by watching it pass! Or to use a common phrase, I am just killing time. But can we really kill time? Isn't it just the other way around?

We measure many things against time. This means that we also need to measure time. We rely on man-made instruments to measure time precisely since we cannot keep track of it otherwise. We have all seen spy movies where people synchronize their watches while engaging in a mission because the timing of various actions is critical. For example, in 'A Shot in the Dark', Inspector Clouseau tells his assistant to turn off the main switch in exactly five minutes in one scene. When they try to synchronize their watches they discover that the assistant's watch has stopped working. The poor fellow is then left to count three hundred seconds before throwing the switch.

We often talk of the arrow of time, but the arrow of time does not seem to travel in a straight line most of the time. When I am listening to a terribly boring lecture, it moves slowly in a wave-like fashion. Anyway, that is how I see it.

When I am fully absorbed in some activity, it seems to be jumping from point to point (maybe in a straight line, who knows). I am only aware of the start and end times.

Then there are times when I think time takes a short cut and goes through a sort of wormhole. For example, in the mornings, reluctant to get up, I barely shut my eyes for a minute, but some forty-five minutes have passed when I open them again. From all this, you can see that the mind has its own concept of how fast or slow time should pass! Time does seem to be a construct of the human mind after all.

When we dream, something strange happens to time. The dream time moves much faster relative to time in the waking state. We can go though years of dream time in a matter of minutes. We can readily see from this that time is not absolute. How does time flow in a dream? Who makes it all happen? It is awe-inspiring to think that my mind can create the whole dream universe - space, time and all. I wonder if, in our waking state too, time is created by the mind, perhaps a super-mind.

Since the passage of time is not experienced uniformly by everyone, we need clocks to synchronize time. We have become slaves to time and we dance to the schedule dictated by the clock. We get up at a certain time and go to work or to any appointment based on the agreed clock. The more organized we are, the more the level of slavery. I have seen folks waiting for a bus on a country road for an hour or more without a trace of impatience. If I asked them when the next bus was coming and they would just say 'In a little while', which could be anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and a half! But in big towns the story is very different. There is a mad rush for everything and waiting is unacceptable.

Everyone wants to save time, but few seem to know how to utilize it wisely. Here’s a story I read long back that may illustrate my point. A man started to get into a local subway train in New York, when his companion pointed out that they could save twenty minutes by taking an express and so they took the express. When they got off at Central Park, upon coming out of the station, he proceeded to sit on a park bench. When asked what he was doing, he replied, “Since we have saved twenty minutes, I think we can enjoy that time here in the park”.

The Washerman's Visit

Ironing clothes is one of the chores I detest. I miss the convenience of the 'Isthriwallah' coming to the door, collecting my shirts, pants and such and then bringing them back neatly pressed. It looks like these iron men may be a vanishing tribe even in India from what I saw on my last visit. The little carts with the charcoal-filled iron box and piles of clothes seemed few and far in between. The few that were around seemed too busy and it took days to get the clothes back.

I remember the time when the washerman used to come by the house to collect dirty clothes. Back then, my father (and men in general) wore only whites - white shirts and white trousers to work, white dhotis and white shirts for social occasions and white dhoti and white angavastram (a matching piece worn over the upper body) at home. Colour was seen only on the narrow border of the dhoti. Obviously, it was very important to maintain the clothes clean and sparkling white. The very process of professionally cleaning clothes is called 'வெளுத்தல்' (veLutthal) in Tamil meaning, 'whitening'. While everyday clothes were washed at home, others had to be sent out to the cleaner except it was the cleaner who came by and collected them.

The washerman's periodic visits were something of a ritual. He would first sort the pile of clothes and then count them. 'Four shirts', he would call out and my father would note down 'Shirts - 4' in the notebook that was dedicated to the purpose of laundry accounting. Then, 'Five dhotis', and so on went the washerman as the rest of the clothes were sorted and counted. Finally, he would count them all together once again and announce the total number of items. This batch total would be cross-checked by adding the individual item counts in the list. Once the totals matched, he would tie all the clothes up in one of the dhotis and take them away (he usually had a donkey-drawn cart for this purpose). Curiously, as far as I can remember, he did not make a copy of the list for his reference.

When I was old enough, I would sometimes have the responsibility to take down the list and I used to feel important doing it. At first, I wondered how the cleaner kept the clothes from different houses from getting mixed up. Then I discovered that he marked, using indelible ink, each item of clothing (in an unobtrusive location like the inside of the collar) with the initials of the head of the house. But still it was quite a task to wash a mountain of clothes, sort them and bring them back to the right houses. The cleaner got it right most of the time, though occasionally there were mix-ups. When the clothes were delivered, they were checked against the list in the notebook and the charges tallied. The cleaner then got paid for his work. The clothes would take their appointed place in the cupboard where they were neatly stacked.

The clothes were washed at some public tank or in the river. I think there were places dedicated for this purpose. Even today, names like 'dhobi ghat', 'dhobi talao' and 'vannarpettai' stand testament to this. (I understand that many are still active - the one in Mumbai holds a world record for 'World's Largest Outdoor Laundry'). You could see whole lot of clothes being line dried in these locations, like wisps of white cloud, fluttering in the breeze. I have no idea what soaps were used or how the clothes were whitened. But they came back looking very crisp and sparkling with just the right amount of starch where needed. It was very hard work of course, as no washing machines were used.

By the late sixties, the cleaners were becoming hard to find. You now had 'Dry Cleaners' here and there but the traditional ones were disappearing. I guess the income was too meagre and the next generation was seeking and finding more lucrative professions. It became increasingly hard to maintain the cotton shirts and trousers that my father wore to work and so, reluctantly, he made the switch to polyester ones which could be washed at home quite easily and required no pressing. But dhotis still presented a problem.

It seems that washing the cotton hand loom dhotis properly is an art form that the modern launderers were not trained in. The dhotis often come back starched stiff and worse, looking bluish instead of white. Polyester dhotis (ugh!) made an entry into the market, perhaps, as a response to this problem. Luckily, they have not succeeded in edging out the traditional hand loom ones. On the contrary, much to my delight, I still see huge showrooms dedicated to the comfortable soft white cotton dhotis of which I pick up a few on my visits to India. I am quite content to wash them in the machine, but I avoid using the dryer. The twisted and wrinkled mess resulting from a turn in the dryer will be an impossible challenge for the most advanced 'Iron Man'. And, as I already told you, I hate ironing.

Welcome to America

It was a little late at night by the time I got dressed. The restaurant in the hotel had already closed. My friends and I were hungry and wanted to get something to eat. Being new to the place, we asked the clerk at the front desk for suggestions.

America can be quite intimidating to the newcomer. After a long and tiring flight from Bombay, I had checked into the hotel.  The jet lag was enough to disorient me, but the hotel room did not help matters. Everything seemed topsy-turvy. The key had to be turned the wrong way for starters. The switches on the lamps could be turned in one direction only. Trying to turn the lamp off by turning the knob backwards did not seem to work and I had to unplug the thing from the wall ultimately so that I could take a nap. Then came the shower. Adjusting the single circular control to get the water to the right temperature proved to be a surprisingly challenging task. Let me just say that I ultimately came out about even in my battle with the shower faucet, meaning I barely escaped being scalded. Somewhat humbled by all this, I was a bit nervous by the time I came down to the lobby.

The clerk told us 'to take Lancaster and go past a couple of lights' where we would find places to eat. We looked at each other puzzled. She seemed to be using English words, but they did not make sense to us and so we sought clarifications. She said, 'Lancaster Pike', by way of explaining. When this too failed to register in our foggy state, with a hint of impatience, she pointed to the road outside which happened to be the said Lancaster. Thus enlightened, we asked her if the restaurants were within walking distance since we did not have a car. 'I guess you can go walking', she replied and seemed more than a little puzzled that we did not have a car. Well, we did not even have a driving license then but we did not tell her that. It might have caused her to faint.

Thinking that 'Couple of lights' must mean 'pretty close by', we set off on foot. The road was deserted. We felt pretty self-conscious to be the only people walking. There was no sign that we were close to any place of business. After a few minutes and several lights, it dawned on us that the clerk must have meant traffic lights and not street lamps. It took us a good twenty minutes of walking before a pizzeria came within our view. We decided to get pizzas for dinner there. I must mention here that none of us had actually seen a pizza before. We had only heard about it. This was more than thirty years ago and pizza had not yet arrived in India.

After our encounter with the desk clerk, I knew that it would not be easy but it turned out to be exhausting to get through the whole ordering process because the man at the counter had to explain many things to us and we had to repeat ourselves several times before we were understood. There were many agonizing decisions that we had to make regarding the crust and the toppings without having the slightest idea of what we were choosing. Our multiple Indian accents certainly did not help matters.

After we finished ordering, the man asked, 'For here, or to go?'. It took us a couple of iterations to get this riddle unscrambled. When we thought we had understood the question, we said somewhat triumphantly, 'We would like to eat here and then go' and waited for our pizzas.

It would be nice if pizzas came with a warning, but I think there is a sort of initiation rite to pizzas that everyone must go through. The cheese and the sauce are at insanely high temperatures thus ensuring that the first bite invariably burns your mouth. After we peeled the hot cheese off the roof of our mouths, we ate what we could (it looked like we had ordered enough food to last us a couple of days - another rookie mistake) and got up to leave when we were startled by the waiter asking us if we wanted him to pack up the remaining food for us. We had never heard of this in India. The idea struck us as bizarre and we declined his offer.

Thus ended our first outing in America. We thought we spoke perfectly decent English, but that was obviously not going to be enough. We would need some serious schooling in American.

The Auto Standoff

One of the most harrowing experiences that a visitor to Chennai must face is the encounter with the auto rickshaw or more precisely the driver of that three-wheeled taxi. Come to think of it, I think even residents of the city dread this. The normal protocol for hiring a cab in most places is to hail the cab, get into the vehicle and then tell the driver where to go. But this is not the procedure in Chennai.

You will hail the auto-rickshaw. If the driver decides to stop, he will stick his head out and want to know where you want to go. He may sometimes merely raise a quizzical eyebrow instead of asking. If your destination is not among the places in his approved list, then he will quickly pull his head in much like a tortoise that senses danger and then speed away quite unlike the tortoise (more like the hare), but not before registering his irritation for having wasted his time over you by uttering 'tcha'. You will have seen both the tortoise and the hare imitated in the space of a few seconds by a sourpuss.

Even if he is willing to take you, it is foolhardy to board the vehicle before a verbal contract is concluded with the driver on the fare. You will have to ask what the fare will be. You may get a simple answer or face a few questions about your destination perhaps to determine how familiar you are with the city. The important thing to remember is not to get into the rickshaw until a fare is agreed upon. The driver may urge you to get in and keep pretending that the fare is no issue. This may go on for a while. He may even say, 'Pay what is fair'. I am not sure how you will know what the fair amount should be. In any case, after all these preliminaries, the fare demanded will be astronomical. You will have to negotiate it down to earth. The whole  process generally leaves you with a bad taste in the mouth.

The alternate way to engage an auto is to go to the neighbourhood auto stand. This may seem like a better bet since the auto is already parked and clearly waiting for a customer. You will actually be received warmly there. But the problem here is that the driver of the auto at the head of the queue is often away having tea or lunch or something. You have to wait for him. The other drivers will cluster around you asking where you are bound and all that and someone will eventually get the missing driver. Then the negotiations take a different tack since you are now effectively dealing with the whole group.  They will even argue among themselves about the fairness of the fare demanded. You usually end up feeling finessed by a sort of good cop, bad cop routine.

About the worst place to hire an auto in the city is at the Central Station. I used to dread getting off the train in Chennai. The way you can tell natives of the city from visitors as they get off the train is to see who looks tense or apprehensive. The visitor has no idea of the auto standoff and so will be relaxed while the residents will be girding up for the inevitable duel with the driver with tension written all over their faces. Even as people get off the train, while possibly trying to keep up with the quick-footed porter who is carrying their luggage, drivers start accosting them. The hapless passengers are at the mercy of the drivers. The chaos outside the station is unbelievable. I am told that there is a prepaid scheme in place now and so the situation may have improved.

What is the worst that the auto driver can demand? To be paid by the meter! Seriously, if he offers to ferry you to your destination and get paid per the meter, I am told that you should just run in the other direction. Apparently, the meter is always tampered with and will end up costing you enormously. It might as well display 'ha, ha' or 'gotcha'!

The only way to avoid the problem is to use taxis instead. Taxis are not available for hailing on the street, but must be called for. This may not be possible at all times, but they certainly offer a hassle-free transport when available. And, by all accounts, their business is booming. Ironic, considering that taxis were more or less put out of business by the growth of autos in the first place.

Update: I have been informed that there is a new initiative by 'Namma Auto' which will ply autos with digital meters and strict adherence to it (what a concept) among other improvements in service. It sounds really good and hard negotiations may become history if this succeeds and forces all auto owners to adopt the model. 

Summer Tempest

As we waited for the bus, I contemplated the long walk back to my house in the village with some anxiety. Rain was in the forecast and I hoped that it was not imminent but I could already hear the rumble of the approaching storm. When the bus finally arrived and my friend got in, I waved him goodbye and quickly set off  toward my home.

The village was set back about a mile from the main road. To reach it, I had to take the dirt road that cut a meandering path through the paddy fields. I usually enjoyed the walk between the main road and the village using this road. But it was different today. The sky was getting darker by the minute and the sound of thunder closer. I increased my pace and hoped that I would beat the rain. But the wind had picked up now and I seemed to be losing ground steadily. I looked across the fields to the village. I debated if instead of taking the dirt road, I should trot across the field which would be shorter.

Normally, a walk across paddy fields would not be easy for a city-bred person like me. The fields would be water-logged and you would have to walk on the narrow bunds that crisscrossed the fields. You shared this path with other people and the occasional goats. Any misstep would land your feet squarely in the slush. But it was the middle of summer and planting season was still weeks away. The field was completely dry and I decided to cut across through the open fields.

The sky now looked ominous and a blinding streak of lightning flashed close by. My hopes of outrunning the storm were dashed in spectacular fashion as it overtook me within about two minutes. It started with a bang. The rain came down not in a gentle sort of way, but in sheets. Each drop, if you could isolate it, would have filled a cup. I suddenly wished I was in the city. In the city, you could crowd under the shelter at the bus stand or dive into a cafe easily and wait it out. But out in the country, in the middle of these fields, there was no escape.

I was totally enveloped in the storm now. It was too dangerous to hold an umbrella given all the lightning. The umbrella had a steel shaft and would have formed a perfect lightning rod. I threw the umbrella to the ground. I could not even see where I was headed. If I lost my way, I could miss the village and end up in the river. So I just stood my ground. Just then, the rain seemed to get even heavier which I did not think was possible. By now, I was in a panic. I crouched low trying to keep myself close to the ground so that I would not be hit by lightning. I was soaked to the bones. The field was turning into a pond and my clothes were becoming muddy. The frequent flashes of lightning were followed by the sound of thunderclaps that rose above the already deafening roar of the rain. I was petrified and earnestly wished for the rain to stop.

Then it stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The bank of clouds started to move away along with the sound of thunder. I heaved a huge sigh of relief and resumed my now weary walk to the village. When I reached home, I was exhausted and a nervous wreck. I was feeling cold and sick and wanted to throw up. I had always been thrilled by the sound of summer storms. But being out in the open field in an electric storm was one scary experience.

As I looked outside, the sun was already coming out again. Everything looked fresh and cheerful. Little birds were perched on the electric wires overhead flapping their wings to get dry. The sound of thunder was a distant echo now and no longer invoked fear.

Who Picked My Pocket?

The arrival of mass-produced ready-made clothing changed everything and cast us into well-defined sizes. If the neck size is A, the waist shall be less than B and so on. If you do not conform to these standards, your clothes are not going to fit very well unless you can afford 'bespoke' clothing. A shirt that fits you very well is, therefore, to be cherished. Ask any man and he will agree.

So, the other day, when I bought a couple of dress shirts that fit me very well, I was naturally happy. I liked the colours, the cut and the styling. However, when I put one of them on a few days later, I was surprised and dismayed to find that the shirt had no pocket. I thought that the tailor must have forgotten it but I found that the other shirt too lacked a pocket. This sent a chill down my spine. Are they eliminating the pocket from men's dress shirts now? After all, it has been eliminated from most of the tee-shirts and polo shirts.

If I thought there was one thing that was safe from designers, it was the pocket in a man's dress shirt. They could do what they liked with collars, pleats on the sleeve or the back, the buttons on the collar (or lack of them), but the pocket was expected to be there on the left chest. These shirts would not be considered very formal and the absence of a pocket was completely baffling. Few men wear suits or sport coats to work these days and the shirt pocket is indispensable.

I need the pocket to hold my reading glasses and optionally a pen. Without my glasses, I cannot read anything except perhaps large traffic signs. I have already dropped my glasses on the floor a few times trying to put them in the non-existent pocket. Carrying them in a case, I find, is impractical. How do I carry the case itself? I will likely misplace it somewhere. If you want to suggest the pant pocket for keeping the glasses, well, they are going to get damaged before long. That's a gamble that I am not willing to take. A hard case will protect the glasses but, unfortunately, it is too bulky fit in the pocket. Besides, the pant pockets are already occupied by my wallet and my cell phone. As you can see, I have got a 'Yes, but' to counter every 'Why don't you' you can throw at me.

I am usually careful in selecting clothes at the shop and wondered how I missed seeing that the shirts lacked pockets. Then I remembered. You see, there was this whole bank of other shirts on display in the most startling colours - the loudest red, magenta, neon green and so on - that had overwhelmed my senses and sent me reeling. Seriously, they were loud enough to startle a sleeping bull and perhaps give him lifelong nightmares. Wearing them in public can be a traffic hazard as otherwise sane drivers may lose control of their cars upon being stunned by their appearance. They ought to carry a warning. Small wonder then, that after seeing them, I had overlooked the missing pockets on the shirts I bought.

I remember the time when shirts had pockets on both sides of the chest. You could see men sporting whole sets of pens in their pockets at work - different colours for different purposes. Some shirts even came with a safety pocket on the inside where you could store valuables out of the reach of pickpockets. Other shirts had flaps over the pockets and/or buttons to close the pockets, making them more secure and imparting a military look to them.

While having no pocket is a bit of a nightmare for me and for most men I am sure, I wonder how women put up with a pocketless existence. There are many puzzling things about women's clothes, but the lack of pockets is the hardest to understand. Women must find the constant need to carry a bag exhausting. I bet one of them cracked under the strain, became a designer and took out her frustration by removing the precious chest pocket from men's shirts.

Men have always preferred practicality in the matter of clothes. That is why we have 'Relaxed Fit' style available for everything  (I do not believe that such a phrase will ever be associated with women's clothing). So it is deeply distressing to note the absence of pockets on new shirts. One hopes this does not become a trend. We should firmly resist this attempt by misguided designers. Equally firmly, we should reject the new loud colors for shirts in the interest of public safety.

The Violin in Carnatic Music

As I read the news of the passing of the great Lalgudi Jayaraman, I started thinking about the place of the violin in carnatic music. The adaptation of this instrument into carnatic music is so complete that one does not even think of its western origins. It is the the melodic accompaniment of choice in a vocal concert. I don't know if any other instrument is even considered for this purpose anymore.

The violin made its entry into carnatic music more than a hundred and fifty years ago. Though it has an exalted position in carnatic music, I feel that there is still scope to enhance the role of the violin. Specifically, I find that the way it is used as an accompaniment has a couple of issues.

Firstly, when the singer is presenting the raga alapana, I would humbly suggest that the violinist lay down the bow and just enjoy the exposition. After all, the violinist gets to present a solo version later and, may I say, without interruption from the vocalist. As the singer weaves the raga together, I do not want the violin intruding in the gap between successive phrases. I find this rather jarring. This gap with just the drone of the shruti, serves to enhance the meditative mood and builds expectation.

The other issue I have is with the niraval/swaram phase. Often, the violinist simply plays the same notes that the vocalist sings making the whole thing sound like a class. I wish they would instead engage in a sort of a friendly duel where each would feed off the other's energy and also challenge each other. This usually happens in a dual violin concert or a concert involving two instruments. The format then changes from one of leader-accompanist to collaborators. Why not adopt this in a vocal concert?

One of the most memorable concerts that I have ever listened to is a collaboration between Lalgudi Jayaraman and the flute maestro N. Ramani from 1971. The synergy and understanding between the two in that concert is simply fantastic. I keep going back to this every now and then. Some of the songs from that concert ('vatapi gananptim' and 'cakkani raja' to name two) have become benchmarks in my appreciation of other artistes performing them. I am yet to hear better versions of these, I must add.

I see no reason why the vocalist and the violinist cannot perform in a similar fashion. The raga exposition can be a collaborative venture with the voice and the violin complementing each other. The violin can extend the range into higher and lower octaves. Instead of being two separate solos, the alapana can be a duet, where the voice and the violin work in tandem building the raga so to speak.The niraval and swaram phase can be a true jugal bandhi.

Would the artistes consider this format?  I am sure this will provide more freedom of expression to the violinist and enhance the listening experience for the audience. And judging by this article from The Hindu, it appears that this is an idea whose time may be at hand. I, for one, would love to see such a concert.

The purists may say this goes against pakkavadhya dharma, but Carnatic music has been very progressive. While it has remained true to its traditional roots, there have been many innovations. Apart from the violin, other instruments have made their way into the system - the clarinet, the mandolin and the saxophone for example. New concert formats are being tried. There are also attempts at fusion between carnatic music and western music (though these are still somewhat sketchy in my opinion). The carnatic tradition is thus a living tradition capable of absorbing many new elements. I hope the format suggested here will find a place in it.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

"So we say, grow your hair for peace" - John Lennon 

As I sat down to wait my turn at the barber shop, I was somewhat amused to see a man having a 'trim' when his hair was already very short. I mean it was about an eighth of an inch long. Why would he need a hair cut? He must really enjoy the whole experience, I thought. I, on the other hand, generally don't like having haircuts. I end up postponing it often and then I start looking a little grungy and unkempt. It eventually gets to a point when I must get my hair cut. And, unlike David Crosby who felt very strongly about it (you can listen to him sing 'Almost Cut My Hair'), I end up getting a haircut.

This dislike of haircuts probably goes way back. When I was young, I dreaded the hand-held trimmer that the barber used to shear my locks. He would have my head in a vise-like grip and run the trimmer up and down and left and right with absolute abandon. Sound technique if you are mowing a lawn perhaps, but not for cutting hair. This trimmer (I am sure many of you will remember it) was not electric but mechanical and had a jerky motion. It was utterly unpleasant.

The best haircut in my opinion is one which leaves you looking like you had not had a haircut at all, but nevertheless does some trimming in the right places. This was all but impossible when you were young and accompanied by a parent when you went to the barber shop. Your father invariably wanted your hair cut very short. Even if he was not there, the barber himself made it his mission to cut it short over your protests. After all, you were not the one paying him. The result was you came out looking like a freshly shorn sheep.

A good haircut has been mostly elusive through my adult life as well. I feel very few barbers and stylists understand my hair. This is perhaps the reason I never like having a haircut. All the same, I cannot completely avoid it. While I am all for world peace, I cannot follow Lennon's advice even if I wanted to. You see, now that my hair has thinned considerably, it is even more important to have regular haircuts. It sounds counter-intuitive, but if you have thinning hair and a bald patch, you will understand. It is more difficult to cover up a bad haircut (or bald patch) if you don't have enough hair in the right places!

It seems that when you start losing hair from your head, hair around your earlobes and in your nose seem to take up the void. This is the way of the world, I guess. What you don't want you will get plenty of and what you do want will be hard to come by.

My hair started turning grey fairly early - around forty. I could never bother with dyeing my hair. It seems to be too much work. About all I can do is to run a comb though my hair in the morning. But when the first silver threads made their appearance, it was with some sadness that I greeted them. And when I got used to these pioneers and their tribe increasing merrily, I was comforted to note that the problem would go away eventually anyway because I was also beginning to go bald! The race has been going on for a few years now. Whether all my hair will turn grey before falling out seems to be an even bet. And I am not going to lose my hair over - well, you know what I mean.

(Picture courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manual_hair_clippers.JPG)

Ticket to Ride

I just read this disturbing news about commuters on the Mumbai local train being sprayed with a toxic powder. I was saddened. My memories of the Mumbai trains are from about twenty-five years ago, but I do not recall that you had to fear the other riders, especially when the train was crowded.

Riding those trains was certainly not for the faint-hearted and the newcomer to the city found it quite intimidating. The art of getting off a train before it stops (so that you do not risk being put back on the train by the onrush of commuters) and of moving away from the  exit before the train stops at a busy station (lest you be placed on the platform outside involuntarily) were only a couple of the many skills to be mastered. I remember a friend  who was getting to Churchgate in the evening (no crowds traveling in that direction). He failed to get off the train before it stopped and was engulfed by the oncoming evening rush anxious to get home to Borivali. There was no way to get out of the train. Worse, the train was an express which meant that my friend was now going back to a station even beyond where he started from!

There are many scenes from the train commute that have stuck with me through the years - a poor beggar being shooed away by most passengers, but receiving alms from a porter; the group of people regularly performing bhajans in the compartment complete with hand cymbals and offering prasad to those who broke their strides to stop by the window even as they rushed to wherever they were bound; people who played bridge inside the crowded compartment using a briefcase to put down the cards and hung around the platform even after getting to their destination in order to finish the hand (such dedication). Then there was the hushed rush with which money was passed to the riders at the doorway in exchange for the batata vada packages sold by vendors at Dadar station (the best, I was told, in all of Central Railway). In the few seconds for which each train stopped there, at least a dozen orders were fulfilled. Let us not forget that all these happened while the trains were jam packed.

Riding the local train to work in Mumbai is a unique experience. The train represents a microcosm of the city that is a microcosm of the nation. To me the visage of the train is almost alive with humanity bursting from every doorway, its only purpose, to get people to work or home or wherever they were going. Never mind that the train had long passed any reasonable retirement age; that the tracks were in need of serious upgrading. Uncomplainingly, it bears its burden at surprising speeds gliding along the rails that snake through the city. How much abuse can a machine take? I recently read that these old trains are being replaced with newer ones (about time, I guess). I hope the old ones get a respectable farewell.

One of my friends had sent me this song that I think captures the spirit of the Mumbai local train riders. Even though I must confess to hating my daily ride while I lived in Mumbai, I cannot deny the sense of nostalgia this song brought to me.

Photo Courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bombay4.jpg

The Not-So-Gentle Art of Dentistry

There are few things about which there is universal agreement. On almost every topic, you are likely to get as many opinions as the number of people you ask. But ask anyone about going to the dentist and you are pretty much guaranteed to get a unanimous answer. No one likes to go to the dentist. My recent visit to the dentist was no exception.

Believe me, I have nothing against dentists personally, but the experience can definitely do with improvements. The whole thing is designed to be unpleasant from beginning to end. First of all, there are intimidating pictures of gum disease, crooked teeth and such to greet you. Then there are alarming brochures describing the consequences of not having your teeth cleaned every six months. I put these away in a hurry but not before realizing that I have not been here in more than a year. Visions of bloody pits, where teeth used to be, well up in my mind.

Since it has been so long since my last visit, the assistant tells me that I need a full set of x-rays. She makes me bite pieces of hard plastic which dig into my mouth making it all sore. It does not make me comfortable that she darts into the adjoining room every time she takes the pictures as if recoiling from a frying chamber.

Then she adjusts the seat so that I am suspended at an unnatural angle with blood rushing to my head. Actually, I think this is done so that your mouth will bleed easily when poked even slightly.

The stage is now set. I have a bright light shining on my face and I am surrounded by masked people holding sharp instruments. The dentist looks into my mouth and, after a couple of ah’s and oh’s, shows me close-ups of my teeth and gums in a mirror. Now, I don’t know about you, but most people tend to look bad under bright lights even with their mouths closed. With my mouth open under the glare of these, I look positively hideous. Some dentists try to make you feel comfortable with some small talk during this humiliating process. Others exchange notes with the assistant as if you are not in the room. Of course, you cannot say a word, as your mouth is held open while the dentist pokes your gums with the little hook-shaped instrument, drawing blood with every poke, which you can neither swallow nor spit.

This time, I am told, I needed to get my pockets cleaned. You know, I think this is what gets dentists a bad name. All other things – the bright light, the seat, sharp instrument, the screeching drill, etc. – can be considered necessary evils, but cleaning my pockets? I mean, really! Can't they come up with a better phrase? Can you imagine the following conversation?

A: Hey, where have you been?

B: I was at the dentist’s.

A: Oh, what did you have done?

B: I had my pockets cleaned.

A: Yeah, I know the feeling. I had a crown put in that set me back a cool thousand bucks. But seriously, what procedure did you have done?

Enough said.

Morning's At Seven

I wonder if you have ever read the poem, Pippa's Song by Browning?

The year 's at the spring,
And day 's at the morn;
Morning 's at seven;
The hill-side 's dew-pearl'd;
The lark 's on the wing;
The snail 's on the thorn;
God 's in His heaven—
All 's right with the world!

Well, I must say that Pippa had it really great. From the day I started school, my mornings have tended to be somewhat busier than Pippa's typical spring day. Seven in the morning is crazy for most of us. 

It is interesting that Pippa sings about Spring because it is particularly hard in Spring when the daylight savings time kicks in. They call it "Spring Forward" to indicate setting the clock ahead by an hour. To me, it is more like "Crawl Forward". Our bodies are adept at staying in tune with the environment. Daybreak and sundown are markers that the bodies rely on to stay in harmony. But they cannot adjust to an arbitrary change in a mechanical device that keeps time.

Daylight Savings Time is supposed to save energy. I don't know how much energy this actually saves, but trying to adjust to the change in the clock is sapping mine. 

The clock rules us in the morning. This slavery to time is inculcated early in life starting with school. The schools were the worst because you risked punishment for being late. I used to walk to school or run if I was (quite appropriately) running late. 

When I used to work in Mumbai, things were hectic and my mornings were so precisely timed to catch the right bus and train to make it to the office on time. If I missed the 7:25 shuttle to the station to catch the 7:43 fast train, then I ended up having to take an auto-rickshaw or taxi. If you so much as stopped to look at the snail on the thorn (seriously? the thorn?), you risked missing the connections which were set up like dominoes.

Mercifully, the Mumbai period passed and now I am not dependent on public transport to go to work. Even if I tried to use it, it would be so tortuous, with many connections and take a couple of hours, but that's another story. On a good day, meaning the traffic behaving, I can reach my office in about twenty minutes. Though it is not quite the same as Pippa's morning, I really cannot complain. Perhaps, when I retire, I can emulate Pippa. But for now, 

Morning's at seven
My face needs shavin'