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My son, then in his ritual dress of dhoti and bare torso, whipped out his smartish phone and ordered it on Flipkart.
The bulky paperback arrived in a couple of days and I started reading it...I read 3/4 of the tome before PGW intervened.
And I found a couple of pages devoted to a crazy chap called Yellapragada Subba Rao who went to Harvard a century ago.
And then I blogged this piece about him:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2012/07/yella.html
It didn't get too many hits for almost a year except from my few regular readers. And then it happened...my son calls it the Facebook Effect. During the past month there has been an avalanche of interest about this chap from readers all over the world...about 1800 hits and growing by the day...hell of a lot by my blog's meek standards.
A few days back my Literary Uncle (85) and his wife (80) rang me up to inquire about my well-being...I hadn't spoken to them after my wife passed away. They were worried and asked me why there has been no new Ishani booklet arriving at their address at Nellore for more than a year. And if I am continuing to blog or sank back into depression.
I reassured them that I am well enough and and keep up my daily blogging somehow or other.
And I decided (to convince them that I am not bluffing) to send them a hard copy of my Yella post....they don't have access to internet.
My son gave me a printout and I pushed it into the default cloth-lined envelope and carried it to the nearby Chandanagar Post Office where I have been a regular visitor for a while.
It was a Saturday morning and there was a heavy rush in the cramped Post Office. There were three long queues but a profound silence...except for girls whispering into their cell phones and the usual thud of the postal defacers. The half a dozen employees were too busy to chat.
Except a fiftyish, fairish, plumpish Punju lady standing two rungs ahead of me in my Speedpost waiting line. She was obviously cut up, and turned back and was loudly bitching in Hindi about Hyderabad and its post offices. She was carrying in her hand half a dozen plump paper envelopes which she wanted to send by Regd Post:
"Ajeeb sa jaga hai eh...koi help nahin karte hain idhar. Yeh-line wala bolte hai woh-line me jao...woh-line wala bolte hai undhar jao...undhar-wala bolte hai bahar jao..."
And I found her fityfiveish hubby sitting on the creaky bench for senior citizens and the handicapped. And he was asking his wife meekly to keep quiet. To no avail.
No one took any notice of her. I could see that the hubby looked well-fed and deduced that he must be having a heart condition to sit there and let his wife stand in lines and shout.
She kept going:
"Idhar ka log ko courtesy nahin hain. Aap hamara Chandigarh ayiye...udhar ka log kitna pyar-mohabbat se bath karte hain...ladies ko kitna respect dete hain!"
It was then that I pricked my ears.
I had never been to Chandigarh but I had been to Delhi a couple of times and know well how courteous their public servants are.
And her talk started amusing me.
And I decided to humor her if I could. It turned out that the chap in front of me suddenly left his place and joined another line meant for Postal Savings. And she found me right behind her.
I then became the epitome of Hyderabadi chivalry and told her:
"Aap ja ke baithiye bench per...mei aapko bulayenge jab aap ka turn aayega"
She looked at me curiously and said:
"Lekin bahut log hai peechey!"
"Aap fikar mat keejiye..aap jake baithiye please"
And then she went and sat beside her hubby but only for a minute...she returned to her place ahead of me.
And asked:
"Bhai saab! Regd post ka line yehi hai"
"Haanjee!"
"Shukriya...koi nahin bolte hai idhar"
"Haan! Hyderabad suchmuch ajeeb sa jagah hai...mei to Bengal me raha sara jeevan...udhar ka postal log bahut bahut courteous hain...ladies se cover cheen ke undhar lelenge"
"Merey paas eh 6 cover hain. Do me hum 10 rupye ke stamp lagadiya. Aur 4 me kuch nahi lagaya. Ey bhaisab jo baitha hai chup karke counter ka peechey...oh help karenge kya?"
"Ha ha...lekin oh weigh karke aapko bolengey kitna kitna stamp lagane ka...aur aap ko bolengey counter no 3 mey janeke...stamp kharidne ke liye"
"Aisa kya? Stamp koan chipkayega?"
"Oh aap hi ko karna padega...Fevigum ka tube laayen hai?"
"Nai to...gum nahi milega idhar?"
"Dekhiye...udhar pada hai gum ka bottle...pura ke pura dry ho gaya hai"
"Hai Raam!"
And then I noticed that the envelopes she carried were having the legend: "Rakhee"
"Rakhee kab hai is baar?"
"Teen hafte hai time..tab tak pahunch jayega?"
"Chance kam hai...bahut rush hoga...aur aap ka cover bahut najook hai...counterwala register karne ka refuse bhi kar sakte hai"
By then her turn came and she handed over her precious envelopes to the differently-abled but extremely efficient youth behind the counter...with trepidation.
He went into his routine silently...weighing, looking into his tables, pasting the speed-post labels, keyboarding the 'to' and 'from' addresses and taking printouts of the receipts and handing them over to the lady saying:
"Rs 95 please!"
She handed him a Rs 1000 note and the chap returned her change without a smile.
And she was so so happy.
And she turned back and looked at me with quizzical eyes...suspecting that I had been ribbing her all the while...
Moral: Chandigarh ladies are tough to please.
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Cervical cancer snatched my wife away last June.
While we were returning in the cab after her 9th day rituals, I asked my son to gift me a copy of Sid Mukherjee's cancer tome of which I had read 3 years ago:
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
'...The other day I saw a ticker in Yahoo News titled: "Indian American's book rated among the Top Ten Best Books by NYT".
Before clicking on it I bet with myself (always safe...it is a win-win..) that it is either a Mukherjee or a Sengupta (....Siddhartha or Gautam...the same fish...);
...and I won hands down:
"...Just three weeks after publication, Indian American cancer specialist Siddhartha Mukherjee's first book 'The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer' has been rated among 'The 10 Best Books of 2010' by the New York Times..." '
Before clicking on it I bet with myself (always safe...it is a win-win..) that it is either a Mukherjee or a Sengupta (....Siddhartha or Gautam...the same fish...);
...and I won hands down:
"...Just three weeks after publication, Indian American cancer specialist Siddhartha Mukherjee's first book 'The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer' has been rated among 'The 10 Best Books of 2010' by the New York Times..." '
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
The bulky paperback arrived in a couple of days and I started reading it...I read 3/4 of the tome before PGW intervened.
And I found a couple of pages devoted to a crazy chap called Yellapragada Subba Rao who went to Harvard a century ago.
And then I blogged this piece about him:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2012/07/yella.html
It didn't get too many hits for almost a year except from my few regular readers. And then it happened...my son calls it the Facebook Effect. During the past month there has been an avalanche of interest about this chap from readers all over the world...about 1800 hits and growing by the day...hell of a lot by my blog's meek standards.
A few days back my Literary Uncle (85) and his wife (80) rang me up to inquire about my well-being...I hadn't spoken to them after my wife passed away. They were worried and asked me why there has been no new Ishani booklet arriving at their address at Nellore for more than a year. And if I am continuing to blog or sank back into depression.
I reassured them that I am well enough and and keep up my daily blogging somehow or other.
And I decided (to convince them that I am not bluffing) to send them a hard copy of my Yella post....they don't have access to internet.
My son gave me a printout and I pushed it into the default cloth-lined envelope and carried it to the nearby Chandanagar Post Office where I have been a regular visitor for a while.
It was a Saturday morning and there was a heavy rush in the cramped Post Office. There were three long queues but a profound silence...except for girls whispering into their cell phones and the usual thud of the postal defacers. The half a dozen employees were too busy to chat.
Except a fiftyish, fairish, plumpish Punju lady standing two rungs ahead of me in my Speedpost waiting line. She was obviously cut up, and turned back and was loudly bitching in Hindi about Hyderabad and its post offices. She was carrying in her hand half a dozen plump paper envelopes which she wanted to send by Regd Post:
"Ajeeb sa jaga hai eh...koi help nahin karte hain idhar. Yeh-line wala bolte hai woh-line me jao...woh-line wala bolte hai undhar jao...undhar-wala bolte hai bahar jao..."
And I found her fityfiveish hubby sitting on the creaky bench for senior citizens and the handicapped. And he was asking his wife meekly to keep quiet. To no avail.
No one took any notice of her. I could see that the hubby looked well-fed and deduced that he must be having a heart condition to sit there and let his wife stand in lines and shout.
She kept going:
"Idhar ka log ko courtesy nahin hain. Aap hamara Chandigarh ayiye...udhar ka log kitna pyar-mohabbat se bath karte hain...ladies ko kitna respect dete hain!"
It was then that I pricked my ears.
I had never been to Chandigarh but I had been to Delhi a couple of times and know well how courteous their public servants are.
And her talk started amusing me.
And I decided to humor her if I could. It turned out that the chap in front of me suddenly left his place and joined another line meant for Postal Savings. And she found me right behind her.
I then became the epitome of Hyderabadi chivalry and told her:
"Aap ja ke baithiye bench per...mei aapko bulayenge jab aap ka turn aayega"
She looked at me curiously and said:
"Lekin bahut log hai peechey!"
"Aap fikar mat keejiye..aap jake baithiye please"
And then she went and sat beside her hubby but only for a minute...she returned to her place ahead of me.
And asked:
"Bhai saab! Regd post ka line yehi hai"
"Haanjee!"
"Shukriya...koi nahin bolte hai idhar"
"Haan! Hyderabad suchmuch ajeeb sa jagah hai...mei to Bengal me raha sara jeevan...udhar ka postal log bahut bahut courteous hain...ladies se cover cheen ke undhar lelenge"
"Merey paas eh 6 cover hain. Do me hum 10 rupye ke stamp lagadiya. Aur 4 me kuch nahi lagaya. Ey bhaisab jo baitha hai chup karke counter ka peechey...oh help karenge kya?"
"Ha ha...lekin oh weigh karke aapko bolengey kitna kitna stamp lagane ka...aur aap ko bolengey counter no 3 mey janeke...stamp kharidne ke liye"
"Aisa kya? Stamp koan chipkayega?"
"Oh aap hi ko karna padega...Fevigum ka tube laayen hai?"
"Nai to...gum nahi milega idhar?"
"Dekhiye...udhar pada hai gum ka bottle...pura ke pura dry ho gaya hai"
"Hai Raam!"
And then I noticed that the envelopes she carried were having the legend: "Rakhee"
"Rakhee kab hai is baar?"
"Teen hafte hai time..tab tak pahunch jayega?"
"Chance kam hai...bahut rush hoga...aur aap ka cover bahut najook hai...counterwala register karne ka refuse bhi kar sakte hai"
By then her turn came and she handed over her precious envelopes to the differently-abled but extremely efficient youth behind the counter...with trepidation.
He went into his routine silently...weighing, looking into his tables, pasting the speed-post labels, keyboarding the 'to' and 'from' addresses and taking printouts of the receipts and handing them over to the lady saying:
"Rs 95 please!"
She handed him a Rs 1000 note and the chap returned her change without a smile.
And she was so so happy.
And she turned back and looked at me with quizzical eyes...suspecting that I had been ribbing her all the while...
Moral: Chandigarh ladies are tough to please.
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