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...The antithesis of this is the modern-day mall, like say the Inorbit Mall in our Hi-Tec City. My son once took me there and I promised I will never visit it again. It is monochrome, garish, sunless, dust-free, air-conditioned and cold as a polar bear's arse. (I think I told you the gag...there was this army colonel, Kamat, staying for a while in our Faculty Hostel...he is the one who one evening entered my room without knocking and started reading Feynman's Lectures for a couple of hours. The second day he came down to breakfast, he threw his quota of rotis at the face of Narayan, the bearer, saying they are as cold as polar bear's arse...all of us were curious and Tyagi asked him politely: "Why arse?" And he replied: "It has no other place to sit on than those bloody icebergs, no?")...
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2012/03/pig-elephant.html
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
The next Sunday when I entered our Faculty Hostel, late as usual, the place was like an abandoned church and the bearers were cleaning up the tables. Laxman duly arrived with his plate of 4 bread slices and kept them by my side. And I told him:
"Laxman, now on I won't have any eggs or cornflakes or porridge"
"Ok sir! (rubbing his hands gleefully...the eggs I was paying for would be theirs)"
He then left me with those slices of bread and a pot of jam and another of butter. I touched those slices and found them as cold as Kamat's Polar Bear's arse. And jam was out of the question because I knew it would be sweetish and anything sweet turned awful in my smoke-filled mouth. The butter in its dish was colorless, odorless and tasteless like those inert gases that we had to mug up in our hated College Chemistry.
I asked Laxman what sort of butter it was and he replied proudly:
"Polson Butter, sir!"
That horrible Polson had its monopoly heydays till Amul broke its spine and sent its producers into leather manufacture in the 1970s. Nowadays I munch Amul butter raw whenever I see it till my son snatches it away from my hand...he is scared of his dad's high cholesterol.
By then Laxman had brought his lippy juglet of milk and a cup and saucer for my coffee. And I tried pouring out the black decoction from its pot and found it colder than ten Polar Bears's arses. And I finally declared to Laxman:
"Laxman! Be my friend and give me just one cup of steaming coffee made by your hands and I ask nothing more for my breakfast"
And while he vanished happily into the kitchen I started musing on my little life till then and how wonderful it was even though folks took me for a goat.
This breakfast ritual was absolutely unknown in our households in my school days. We woke up at daybreak since we lived by the day since there was no power in Muthukur. And the daybreak wavered between 6 and 7 in the morning along the Coromandel Coast. After half an hour of my hasty ablutions, my mom served me a brass tumbler of hot coffee and I was on the streets looking for playmates with golies or gullidanda or spinning tops depending on the season. We had no home work, and studies at home were for three days before the Quarterlies, a week before the Half-yearlies, and a fortnight before the Annuals.
At 9.30 I would rush home by when the last bell in mom's puja would be ringing and after a quick wash we all ate our morning hot rice meal and ran in 5 minutes to the school whose third and last bell rang at 10 and we had to be in the Assembly by then (including my HM Father). We never carried any book bag or water bottle or tiffin box. Just the English text and a few note books. English text was compulsory because our teacher would ask us to stand up suddenly if we were caught playing the dots-game and ask us to read a chosen para from it. Often many forgot or didn't care to bring their texts and the teacher would give them a thump on the head or ask them to stand up on the bench (if there was one) and lend her own copy...
School broke for lunch at 12.30 and we ran back to our homes. And mom would be ready to serve us hot rice lunch which took all of 10 minutes for us to gobble and we were back in school for some horseplay or other before classes started at 1.30. And the last bell rang loud and proud at 4.30 and we were all back in our homes to fling our books and run to the streets for engagement with our umpteen playmates till it was dusk at 6 or 7 in the evening.
Night rice meal would be at 7.30 and we would all retire to our cots in the starry story nights by 8 when all the 3 hurricane lamps would be whooshed off except one which would be turned down and kept huffing and puffing at its minimum for nightly emergencies like that dung-beetle's young one that lost its way and found its fitful trap in our ears...which called for heating some oil and pouring it in the singing and stinging ear till the beetlet cried and sobbed and died an infernal death and its fragments teased out bit by wee bit next morning by jugfuls of swooshing water...no wonder I am turning deafer by the day.
Often while at play in the evening I felt sudden pangs of hunger and took leave and ran home and mom would break a piece of dried coconut and hand it to me with a bit of jaggery and that would be enough for the next hour. Or puffed rice and jaggery or parched rice and jaggery or roasted dal and jaggery...jaggery was the instant stimulant.
Back to play.
On weekends mom used to make dosas or vadas or bajjis in the evening and we would all go to heaven promptly.
And stay there.
There was this Aiyyar's hotel in Muthukur that served many dishes but my parents were orthodox and didn't believe in eating outside polluted stuff. And my mouth watered whenever my friends used to buy Mysore Paks and ate them in their hands. And I used to ask mom to make them at home. She tried but never succeeded. They turned out to be either soft and gooey or hard as rocks...some trick there that Aiyyar never let out.
This changed suddenly when I reached my school-final year in 1956-57 when Nehru's India woke up and started training her urchins in march past, turn left, turn right, attention, stand-at-ease, and finally Disperse happily after an hour or two of army drill. That came about since what was called ACC (a sort of cub-NCC) got started at our school. And Sunday mornings were meant for that drill which was compulsory for all boys...girls had to attend the classes but played ring tennis aside from ogling at us boys in khaki knickers and white shirts and tilted caps and worn-out footwear.
The sweetener was that after the morning drill that lasted anywhere between 2 or 3 hours depending on the whims of the NCC officer who traveled from Nellore to drill us, we would all be marched to the maidan in front of Aiyyar's Hotel. And Aiyyar's daughter would serve us all free idlis and dosas and vadas at the cost of the exchequer.
Can anything be more of an incentive?
Of course we turned right when asked to turn left and got spanked...but what is a slap or two before the coveted free tiffin served by Aiyyar's cute dot-product?
**********************************************************************************************************
...The antithesis of this is the modern-day mall, like say the Inorbit Mall in our Hi-Tec City. My son once took me there and I promised I will never visit it again. It is monochrome, garish, sunless, dust-free, air-conditioned and cold as a polar bear's arse. (I think I told you the gag...there was this army colonel, Kamat, staying for a while in our Faculty Hostel...he is the one who one evening entered my room without knocking and started reading Feynman's Lectures for a couple of hours. The second day he came down to breakfast, he threw his quota of rotis at the face of Narayan, the bearer, saying they are as cold as polar bear's arse...all of us were curious and Tyagi asked him politely: "Why arse?" And he replied: "It has no other place to sit on than those bloody icebergs, no?")...
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2012/03/pig-elephant.html
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
The next Sunday when I entered our Faculty Hostel, late as usual, the place was like an abandoned church and the bearers were cleaning up the tables. Laxman duly arrived with his plate of 4 bread slices and kept them by my side. And I told him:
"Laxman, now on I won't have any eggs or cornflakes or porridge"
"Ok sir! (rubbing his hands gleefully...the eggs I was paying for would be theirs)"
He then left me with those slices of bread and a pot of jam and another of butter. I touched those slices and found them as cold as Kamat's Polar Bear's arse. And jam was out of the question because I knew it would be sweetish and anything sweet turned awful in my smoke-filled mouth. The butter in its dish was colorless, odorless and tasteless like those inert gases that we had to mug up in our hated College Chemistry.
I asked Laxman what sort of butter it was and he replied proudly:
"Polson Butter, sir!"
That horrible Polson had its monopoly heydays till Amul broke its spine and sent its producers into leather manufacture in the 1970s. Nowadays I munch Amul butter raw whenever I see it till my son snatches it away from my hand...he is scared of his dad's high cholesterol.
By then Laxman had brought his lippy juglet of milk and a cup and saucer for my coffee. And I tried pouring out the black decoction from its pot and found it colder than ten Polar Bears's arses. And I finally declared to Laxman:
"Laxman! Be my friend and give me just one cup of steaming coffee made by your hands and I ask nothing more for my breakfast"
And while he vanished happily into the kitchen I started musing on my little life till then and how wonderful it was even though folks took me for a goat.
This breakfast ritual was absolutely unknown in our households in my school days. We woke up at daybreak since we lived by the day since there was no power in Muthukur. And the daybreak wavered between 6 and 7 in the morning along the Coromandel Coast. After half an hour of my hasty ablutions, my mom served me a brass tumbler of hot coffee and I was on the streets looking for playmates with golies or gullidanda or spinning tops depending on the season. We had no home work, and studies at home were for three days before the Quarterlies, a week before the Half-yearlies, and a fortnight before the Annuals.
At 9.30 I would rush home by when the last bell in mom's puja would be ringing and after a quick wash we all ate our morning hot rice meal and ran in 5 minutes to the school whose third and last bell rang at 10 and we had to be in the Assembly by then (including my HM Father). We never carried any book bag or water bottle or tiffin box. Just the English text and a few note books. English text was compulsory because our teacher would ask us to stand up suddenly if we were caught playing the dots-game and ask us to read a chosen para from it. Often many forgot or didn't care to bring their texts and the teacher would give them a thump on the head or ask them to stand up on the bench (if there was one) and lend her own copy...
School broke for lunch at 12.30 and we ran back to our homes. And mom would be ready to serve us hot rice lunch which took all of 10 minutes for us to gobble and we were back in school for some horseplay or other before classes started at 1.30. And the last bell rang loud and proud at 4.30 and we were all back in our homes to fling our books and run to the streets for engagement with our umpteen playmates till it was dusk at 6 or 7 in the evening.
Night rice meal would be at 7.30 and we would all retire to our cots in the starry story nights by 8 when all the 3 hurricane lamps would be whooshed off except one which would be turned down and kept huffing and puffing at its minimum for nightly emergencies like that dung-beetle's young one that lost its way and found its fitful trap in our ears...which called for heating some oil and pouring it in the singing and stinging ear till the beetlet cried and sobbed and died an infernal death and its fragments teased out bit by wee bit next morning by jugfuls of swooshing water...no wonder I am turning deafer by the day.
Often while at play in the evening I felt sudden pangs of hunger and took leave and ran home and mom would break a piece of dried coconut and hand it to me with a bit of jaggery and that would be enough for the next hour. Or puffed rice and jaggery or parched rice and jaggery or roasted dal and jaggery...jaggery was the instant stimulant.
Back to play.
On weekends mom used to make dosas or vadas or bajjis in the evening and we would all go to heaven promptly.
And stay there.
There was this Aiyyar's hotel in Muthukur that served many dishes but my parents were orthodox and didn't believe in eating outside polluted stuff. And my mouth watered whenever my friends used to buy Mysore Paks and ate them in their hands. And I used to ask mom to make them at home. She tried but never succeeded. They turned out to be either soft and gooey or hard as rocks...some trick there that Aiyyar never let out.
This changed suddenly when I reached my school-final year in 1956-57 when Nehru's India woke up and started training her urchins in march past, turn left, turn right, attention, stand-at-ease, and finally Disperse happily after an hour or two of army drill. That came about since what was called ACC (a sort of cub-NCC) got started at our school. And Sunday mornings were meant for that drill which was compulsory for all boys...girls had to attend the classes but played ring tennis aside from ogling at us boys in khaki knickers and white shirts and tilted caps and worn-out footwear.
The sweetener was that after the morning drill that lasted anywhere between 2 or 3 hours depending on the whims of the NCC officer who traveled from Nellore to drill us, we would all be marched to the maidan in front of Aiyyar's Hotel. And Aiyyar's daughter would serve us all free idlis and dosas and vadas at the cost of the exchequer.
Can anything be more of an incentive?
Of course we turned right when asked to turn left and got spanked...but what is a slap or two before the coveted free tiffin served by Aiyyar's cute dot-product?
**********************************************************************************************************
" Aiyyar's cute dot product ".. :D,this sure can go into a dictionary of nerd romance
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