I guess it all started with headhunters.
When I was a kid of 5, I was visiting the houses of all my friends in the street, mostly for a glass of water midway through our outdoor games.
Except one.
I went in only once and got scared. Right on the wall of their hall was nailed a stag's head with magnificent antlers with a gun mounted on either side. That frightened me no end. My father discovered my fears and tried to allay them saying they were all wooden showpieces. I don't believe him now. There was no outcry on wildlife then; and many Brahmin households were replete with tiger-skins and deer-skins which were supposed to be Power Seats for their meditations.
Even as a kid I sensed that there was lot of hypocrisy in our South Indian Brahmin families. To this day I have a revulsion for buying what are cheaply boasted as Pure Silk saris after I read in school that each of them needed thousands of cocoons boiled along with their poor inmates.
When I was in Class 8, we kids were all playing marbles under the neem tree in front of our house. Suddenly, a cute blue bird (now I know it is a jackdaw) fell to the ground and was struggling to get up. As we were watching it helplessly, a tribal kid no bigger than us ran in and swooped it into his palm. And my mother came out asking what happened. The kid laughed and went over to her and opened his palm; and she ran in as if hit by the catapult dangling from his hip. The kid ran away with his trophy.
Since I happened to read in Chandamama the story of Siddhartha and Devadatta a few days earlier, the incident left a deep impression on me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfdpTSUN_CI
I guess the dilemma of good and evil remains unresolved from Adam to Bush; unless one cleverly bypasses it as in objective sciences like Physics or subjective acrobatics like Advaita.
There were a regular stream of itinerant tribal tradesfolks visiting our homes in our Village. And the Brahmin ladies used to haggle and buy their fare like honey (pure) and beads. Apart from these, they were also buying what were supposed to be eagle's talons and tiger's claws. These were hung around our necks since they were supposed to make us brave and fend off evil. Since plastic-age didn't yet dawn, I guess they were no fake...maybe.
But I didn't feel any braver then or now.
All our households had copper lothas (tumblers) for drinking water. And it was the laborious duty of our maids to clean them everyday with coconut fiber and sand till they shone. I am reminded of this because there was a news item in DC yesterday that scientists have discovered that copper kills all germs in the water stored in them for 24 hours. So there is no need for boiling or otherwise purifying water.
As usual, there is a catch with all such scientific discoveries: the copper must be sufficiently pure! They have the standard escape route: "I told you so!"
Of all the trophies I watched on TV, the one that gave the recipients unbridled glee was the Audi Car presented to Ravi Shastri as Champion of Champions in Australia, 1985. The entire Indian team of maybe 15 went round the galleries on their victory lap clinging to it like so many bees around their hive:
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100310/images/10zzsporavibig.jpg
When Arundhuti's batch were in their Final Year (circa 1998), the Y2K buzz was on and the dotcom 'bubble burst' was nowhere on the horizon and campus recruitment was vigorous for software jobs. So, all those who were interested got some job or the other in Bangalore; except our Ghazal Kumar who was the shyest of the lot although he was the Hockey Captain. So, he was rather forlorn that everyone was talking of 1.5 lakhs and 1.8 lakhs.
A few days before close of the season, while I was climbing our staircase beside the T & P Office after the lunch hour, he ran to me and shyly asked me if I could lend him Rs 10 for a day. And he said he cleared the written test for a new Company and was waiting for the viva (nervously), and he didn't go for lunch and wanted to have a cup of coffee and biscuits at the Nescafe Counter.
Next morning at 10, he barged into my room with a broad grin and said he got the offer @ 2.25 lakhs (he joined later).
And returned me the very note I gave him because, as he said, he was called in immediately after our encounter.
I signed on that note and gave it back to him to keep it as a trinket memento...which he said later he did, after laminating it.
He helped me a lot later on from B'lore when I had trouble sending attachments to Edwin Taylor from my IBM PC to his Apple Macintosh.
Nice guy!
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News & Views
N: "Meteorites created life on earth" (DC Headline)
V: Who created meteorites? (Next question)
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