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Hyderabad is at a height of 1800 ft above sea level. And our apartment complex is on top of what are fancifully called Madhavapuri Hills in suburbia. And we live on the 7th floor. And our flat has four balconies. Drag your chair and sit in any one of them and you are literally in a poor man's hill station. And monsoon here is cool, cloudy, breezy and dry with occasional downpours. And for a retired soul, nothing could be more thrilling.
For about three years we were living in downtown Hyderabad off the posh Banjara Hills on their downward slope. And in the ground floor. And it was gloomy, dark, stuffy and the narrow roads were flooded with (d)rain water. I was practically marooned and bottled up for the four monsoon months. But the land prices there are three times here...a rich man's hell station.
The other evening around 8 PM I was sitting in our balcony and gathering wool. It was cloudy, moonless, starless, and breezy. And I watched a lone blinking airplane below the clouds flying its languid course horizon to horizon.
And called out to Ishani (2.7), for, I knew that one of our fantasy sessions was overdue.
She came running and watched the twinkling star wandering lonely like one of those Wordsworth things. Then I put her in the pilot's seat and myself in the copilot's. And taught her how to taxi on the runway, pull up the joystick, vroom, level off, turn, nose down, land, brake, halt, get down triumphantly, and of course all about seat belts and parachutes and stuff. And to take care that the plane is fully fueled before take-off since there are no petrol pumps up there...
And just watching the starry wonder in her eyes was bliss...have a girl grandkid if you wish to enjoy your retired life.
I recall only one fantasy session of my boyhood that lasted months and months...the rest were stupid and ephemeral by comparison.
I was 10 then and we were living in the town of Kadapa...it was then spelled Cuddapah charmingly. My Uncle (who later became an MD) was a house surgeon in the District HQ Hospital there and my didi was hospitalized for ten days recovering from her appendectomy. There were no rickshaws then in that town. The only mode of transport was what we called jhatka (tanga), a horse-drawn carriage. And we hired one for the whole of ten days and it was my pleasure to share the seat beside the driver's during our to and fro trips carrying tiffin, lunch and dinner for my mom who was stationed there...our home was about 2 miles away...
As I watched the driver's commands and controls over his horse, I became fascinated...pulling the rein rightward for a right turn, leftward for a left turn, pulling hard for braking, using his joystick as throttle, cracking his whip in the air for fun, shouting hai, hai, hai as a horn, using his legs for tickling, the tak tak tak tak of the musical hoofs...the entire ride was simply adorable...and I wished my Father would buy me a horse and a cart for my living...like Ishani finally went and asked her dad to buy her a REAL airplane...
I never had a more enduring fantasy than that...
Certainly not in Physics or English.
I am told that for every published author in English there are a hundred fantasizing souls pestering them.
Listen to Thurber:
...These pieces have usually been written in a gay, carefree vacation mood, and it is a sound rule to avoid self-expression at such a time, since it leads to over-emphasis, underlining, unnecessary quotation marks, and the odd notion that everything that happens is funny. The American housewife, possibly a a result of what might be called the 'Blandings Influence', also seems to believe that amusement is inherent in everything that goes wrong about the house and in everybody that comes to fix it. My own experience has not been that fortunate. In my view, a carpenter named Twippley is likely to be as dull as a professor named Tweedle, and I think we are safe in setting this up as a standing rule...
Or RKN:
...We always question the bonafides of the man who tells us unpleasant facts. On the surface it is all very well to say, "I want an honest criticism that will help me, not blind compliment." I wish people would mean it. In my experience I have met only one person who took my views literally and tore up the story that he had brought to me for an opinion. He could very well have turned round and said, "The stories you write up are no better. I see no reason to accept your judgement," but he tore up the manuscript into minute bits and scattered them out of the window, and turned his attention to other things immediately, and later became a distinguished anthropologist. His book on the subject, a respectable demy size volume priced at thirty shillings, is about to be published by a famous press...
For the rest of us there is always the blogspot...
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For about three years we were living in downtown Hyderabad off the posh Banjara Hills on their downward slope. And in the ground floor. And it was gloomy, dark, stuffy and the narrow roads were flooded with (d)rain water. I was practically marooned and bottled up for the four monsoon months. But the land prices there are three times here...a rich man's hell station.
The other evening around 8 PM I was sitting in our balcony and gathering wool. It was cloudy, moonless, starless, and breezy. And I watched a lone blinking airplane below the clouds flying its languid course horizon to horizon.
And called out to Ishani (2.7), for, I knew that one of our fantasy sessions was overdue.
She came running and watched the twinkling star wandering lonely like one of those Wordsworth things. Then I put her in the pilot's seat and myself in the copilot's. And taught her how to taxi on the runway, pull up the joystick, vroom, level off, turn, nose down, land, brake, halt, get down triumphantly, and of course all about seat belts and parachutes and stuff. And to take care that the plane is fully fueled before take-off since there are no petrol pumps up there...
And just watching the starry wonder in her eyes was bliss...have a girl grandkid if you wish to enjoy your retired life.
I recall only one fantasy session of my boyhood that lasted months and months...the rest were stupid and ephemeral by comparison.
I was 10 then and we were living in the town of Kadapa...it was then spelled Cuddapah charmingly. My Uncle (who later became an MD) was a house surgeon in the District HQ Hospital there and my didi was hospitalized for ten days recovering from her appendectomy. There were no rickshaws then in that town. The only mode of transport was what we called jhatka (tanga), a horse-drawn carriage. And we hired one for the whole of ten days and it was my pleasure to share the seat beside the driver's during our to and fro trips carrying tiffin, lunch and dinner for my mom who was stationed there...our home was about 2 miles away...
As I watched the driver's commands and controls over his horse, I became fascinated...pulling the rein rightward for a right turn, leftward for a left turn, pulling hard for braking, using his joystick as throttle, cracking his whip in the air for fun, shouting hai, hai, hai as a horn, using his legs for tickling, the tak tak tak tak of the musical hoofs...the entire ride was simply adorable...and I wished my Father would buy me a horse and a cart for my living...like Ishani finally went and asked her dad to buy her a REAL airplane...
I never had a more enduring fantasy than that...
Certainly not in Physics or English.
I am told that for every published author in English there are a hundred fantasizing souls pestering them.
Listen to Thurber:
...These pieces have usually been written in a gay, carefree vacation mood, and it is a sound rule to avoid self-expression at such a time, since it leads to over-emphasis, underlining, unnecessary quotation marks, and the odd notion that everything that happens is funny. The American housewife, possibly a a result of what might be called the 'Blandings Influence', also seems to believe that amusement is inherent in everything that goes wrong about the house and in everybody that comes to fix it. My own experience has not been that fortunate. In my view, a carpenter named Twippley is likely to be as dull as a professor named Tweedle, and I think we are safe in setting this up as a standing rule...
Or RKN:
...We always question the bonafides of the man who tells us unpleasant facts. On the surface it is all very well to say, "I want an honest criticism that will help me, not blind compliment." I wish people would mean it. In my experience I have met only one person who took my views literally and tore up the story that he had brought to me for an opinion. He could very well have turned round and said, "The stories you write up are no better. I see no reason to accept your judgement," but he tore up the manuscript into minute bits and scattered them out of the window, and turned his attention to other things immediately, and later became a distinguished anthropologist. His book on the subject, a respectable demy size volume priced at thirty shillings, is about to be published by a famous press...
For the rest of us there is always the blogspot...
...Posted by Ishani
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