Kitchenstricken - Repeat Telecast

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Of all places on earth, kitchen is the worst booby trap, particularly if you are a stranger to it.

Here are a few of my real-life experiences:


1951 Summer:


We shifted to a dilapidated Government Bungalow in Atmakur where Father was posted as HM. The ceiling was high, it was a tiled house, spacious to a fault, but not lived in for a couple of years.

I was 8 then and a robust outdoor life meant I was as hungry as a starved Alipur Zoo Otter...

...They mainly eat aquatic animals, predominantly fish and shellfish, but also other invertebrates, amphibians, birds and small mammals...up to 25% of their body weight everyday...wikipedia.


The first night at dinner time under a flickering and whining hurricane lamp, I discovered a tiny scorpion in my heap of rice but kept quiet after hiding it under my dining plate.

Q: What is worse than finding a worm in your apple?

A: Finding half a worm


1954 Breakfast Time:

Grannie was visiting us in Muthukur and captured the kitchen as soon as she arrived:

As always, I was the first to hog the place around the chulha where Grannie was making dosas...so I was the guinea pig too.

The first one out on my plate looked a little redder than usual, but how does it matter if the cat is red or white as long as it catches mice?

It tasted somewhat outlandish if not outright exotic and I had to ask Grannie what was new in her recipe.

She denied any, smelled the Ovaltine tin from which she took the rice powder out, called mom who was resting, and was told that this particular Ovaltine tin, unlike the one below, contained washing soda.


1995 KGP Summer:

Prof X was a connoisseur of home-brewed coffee a la RKN, but his wife preferred Tea. Nonetheless she used to make him a couple of cups of bed-coffee.

One fine morning the first cup was handed over to Prof X which he drained with unwonted relish.

While pouring out the second cup Mrs X discovered a dead (boiled) garden lizard at the bottom of the saucepan, screamed, rushed to Prof X, saw that his cup was empty, and asked him to rush to the BC Roy Hospital for food-poisoning.

He coolly replied that he survived the food of the other and far older BC Roy Establishment (BC Roy Hall) for 3 years, so no worry.

He went over to examine the remains, and being a Chemical Engineer, wanted to apply for a patent in his wife's name for a new blend of coffee called:

Cappuccino Iguanino


2010 Hyderabad:


I finished blogging at 3 AM and wanted to make some instant black coffee for myself without disturbing the well-earned slumber of my dear wife.

The water was boiling and I had to decide fast which of the two look-alike Nescafe bottles had coffee powder. Picked one up, poured a spoonful of the brown appetizing powder into the sizzling water, heard a welcome roar, poured it into a cup, tasted it and found it passionately kicking.

Wife told me that the bottle contained crushed black jeera powder.

I turned an addict...


....Posted by Ishani

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Doctored Fiction - Repeat Telecast

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So the evergreen hero of my generation of films has been snatched away. There was this cartoon in DC which showed Dev Anand on cloud nine shooting clones of St Peter in front of the Pearly Gates and happy with the locale. That about sums him up. Films were an obsession with him. Till the end. And he was different from the other two: Tragic Hero Dilip Kumar and Awara Raj Kapoor. Raj Kapoor is said to have Charlie Chaplin as his inspiration. And Gregory Peck was Dev Anand's, at least in mannerisms. My next gen had their 'He' man Amitjee and 'Her' man Rajesh Khanna. I lost touch with Bollywood films thereafter...before the term Bollywood was invented.

The handful of obits I read talked a lot about his Guide. Apparently it was a path-breaking film, not only in music, dance, and other effects, but the very theme itself. There was this doubt if adultery as a theme in a mainstream Bollywood film of the 1960s would do well at the Box Office. One obit put the theme in a nutshell: 

...the hero dies and the heroine ditches her two men... 

Amen!

I was looking if any of those eulogies to the film Guide have at least a passing reference to RKN. They didn't. I suspect the Obiters may even be unaware that a novel of that title existed before the film was made.

RKN in his heaven would have been glad that his name is not mixed up with the film and its hero from what I gathered from his version of how the film was shot. His punch line was that he could poke the sky with his umbrella...a reference to the promise: "sky is the limit" for his royalties as the author. I bet he laughed to his heart's content at the film when it was released.

There is an underlying theme here. 

RKN must have had some sort of real-life figures as his Raju and Rosie; and the locale. Then comes 'his' fiction. He must have developed a readable story by doctoring Reality, if any, continually as the novel progressed. He must have felt that his end-product has very little resemblance to his initial mental pictures. And after publication of the book, and reading it the first (and maybe the only) time, his initial mental pictures would have completely dissolved and replaced by the pictures that appear in his book. 

SDM used to call the initial attempts, Scaffolding; and he was talking about the progress of his Research Papers...everyone who does creative work is aware of this continuous evolution, with occasional cutting of the Gordian Knots on the way. I would say that the finished product has as much resemblance to the seed as the baby has to the fertilized egg in the womb.

Dipak Munshi said it pithily in his entry for the 'gps autographs':

"If I knew what I were doing, I would not call it research"

This is true even with the Interviewer with or without her TV Camera. What appears finally after much doctoring and editing often has little resemblance to what the Interviewee wanted, who becomes furious and issues statements that he had been misquoted or quoted out of context...even these 'corrections' are at the mercy of the Editor.

So, Editors of the so-called Old and New Media are as powerful as Directors of Films. They have their authors at their mercy.

One fine evening when he was in his Final Year, Aniket brought two smart gentlmen into my room and introduced them as Correspondents of BBC and they wanted to interview me (of all people) about the Phy Dept and perhaps IIT KGP. I was smarter and excused myself saying that I am not photogenic and forwarded them to Professor STH Abidi who filled the bill to a T. A few months later, STHA told me that he watched his BBC program and was not too happy...and STHA is a born optimist...one never heard him complain.

Even more atrociously, the TV Crew of a popular private TV Channel led by a cute lady suddenly appeared in front of Raman Auditorium when my final End-Sem Invigilation was going on. I was the Boss of that Exam Hall by virtue of my donkey seniority. They were almost barging in saying they have the permission of the PRO and the Gymkhana President to film a typical Exam Hall at IIT KGP, after canning perhaps a typical Hall Mess. I uttered some platitudes about the sanctity of the Exam Hall and shooed them away. They appealed to the Prof-in-Charge of Exams; and I offered gallantly that he replace me for the period of the shoot.

And that was that...


...Posted by Ishani

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The Bathroom I Built - Repeat Telecast

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This is a story of falsification, pacification, gratification & escalation...

About 20 years ago I went home from KGP on one summer vacation of 40 days slipping Rs 3,000 in my pocket (my 3-month-take-home-salary).

And was told by my mother (then 70) that Father (then 80, arthritic) slipped and fell outside our far-off toilet on a hot midday, was screaming feebly for help, and was stranded for more than fifteen minutes till a search party went to his rescue.

At once I decided that I would gift him an attached bathroom.

The house was solid, 40 years old then, linear like a train, and the walk to the Indian style toilet was about 30 feet.

Father promptly put his foot down saying he can't imagine a stinking bathroom within his bedroom, that he had used Indian hunching toilets all of his 80 years, and is not going to bloody well sit stark naked on a hot-seat holding his chin like that stupid bronze Thinker of Rodin .

I said OK...that was the first lie...

Mother said she made inquiries and a temporary shed with temporary walls and a temporary door with permanent fixtures would cost about Rs 3,000, and no more should be spent on an aging couple.

I said OK...that was my next...

I brought our mason and he inspected and certified that a toilet can be attached only to the front bedroom and would be sticking out visibly like a sore thumb in front of the splendid house and he wouldn't approve of a shed but it has to be a pukka structure which would cost about Rs 10,000 in all, and he wouldn't work on a contract but on daily wages for him and his lousy assistant.

I said OK...

Father being a retired Govt Official insisted I get the municipality approval before starting any permanent addition to his beloved house.

I said OK....

And I assured him that nowadays one can go ahead with slight modifications and later on get the municipality approval, much like a love marriage in which the wedding takes place in a hurry and the horoscopes suitably tallied at leisure later on.

That was the Pacification.

When sand and gravel were accumulating outside our gate, a municipal informer came in and threatened dire consequences like waiting for the structure to be completely built and than fetching the demolition squad.

I asked him to fetch instead his senior-most official for a hot cup of coffee and gold biscuits; and told mother that since my conduct rules won't permit, she has to take care of the Gratification.

She agreed reluctantly but not being used to it, she made the coffee and biscuits sweet in cash but sour in kind (she abused them black and blue).

The carpenter was brought in for the woodwork of the door and the ventilators. I insisted that they be of teak like the others and that alone cost Rs 8,000.

That was the first Escalation..

I insisted by and by as work progressed that the attached bathroom should be raised to the same height as the bedroom so it wouldn't look like an Appendix, the ceiling should be of reinforced concrete, the added parapet walls should be tiled like the rest of the frontage, new soak-pits should be dug instead of laying long undependable pipes, the color of the new walls should match with the rest of the house etc etc....

A series of Escalations..

After 40 days the work was just about through and I told the plumber that after I quit, he should install the best available Western style commode.

The bill came to Rs 25,000 and I had to raise goodwill-cash which could be reimbursed as soon as I reached KGP from my provident fund loan (for performing the marriage of my 20th dependent mythical sister).

Apparently everyone who visited us after it was finished started asking: 

"Where is the attached bathroom? Where is it?? We can't see any attachment at all!"...
....The thing merged so sbugly with the rest of the house that to this day 20 years later not even municipal informers have a clue....

After the reluctant first week, Father apparently used to take The Hindu to his attached toilet and had to be coaxed and cajoled to come out since everybody in the house was queuing up...the old far-off Indian style toilet is in disuse except when I go there...

...Can't sit stark naked on a hot-seat holding his chin like that stupid Bronze Thinker of Rodin.....

...Posted by Ishani

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Procrastination - Repeat Telecast

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That is a big word for postponementality. Webster defines it as putting off intentionally the doing of something that should be done.

Like for instance opening that ghastly-looking object called the Answer Scripts Bundle. Every warm-blooded teacher procrastinates it instinctively.

My Guru SDM made no bones about it; and even the HoD, HNB (5 years his junior in age) was hesitant to remind him that the last date was long over, the Dean in the UG Meeting was sarcastic, and the Chairman Senate would pull him up and put the Dept to shame. Once he had to ask me to politely cajole SDM to open that bundle. And I had to use all my tact to convey HNB's request at the appropriate weak moment.

Procrastination is supposed to be a male prerogative. Women are different; their lives are guided by timeliness and strict rhythms. And perhaps they don't have too many excuses to procrastinate. I mean, males can postpone for no reason at all...they can just languish doing nothing like that well-fed lion in the safari park. I have rarely seen a full-blooded woman doing nothing. Like Nature abhors vacuum, women abhor empty moments (my wife is busy peeling potatoes, instead of buying chips).

We postpone doing things we dislike and jump on things we like. There is another angle to this. We linger over things we love, like that plate of hilsa or that book of our favorite author. On the other hand we get over quickly doing things we hate to do. Like that bundle of answer scripts. This works to the advantage of students. Whenever SDM was late, as always, and finished his bundle in a hurry, he was very liberal out of fear. I haven't heard of any student failing in his paper. Can't say the same of some perverts who jump on that bundle as soon as they see it...like cats on impounded mice.

When Yama declares that you have to live in hell for 5 years and heaven for 5 years, but the choice of which one first is left to you, you will invariably choose heaven first thinking that conditions in hell would improve by then (unless you are a pessimist, cynic, or an outright masochist).

The classic case of procrastination is that of students going to the US for higher studies like Ph D or even MS. They promise their mothers they were going solely for improving their knowledge, and would return soonest, mouthing flash words like payback time since patriotism is a dirty word in this globalized world.

And, after finishing their studies, they would tell their mom that they need some 'hands-on' job experience to round off their knowledge and also to put by a few thousand dollars since they have been starving while studying.

And after a couple of years they would tell their mom that conditions in India are not ripe right away and they would like to stick on for a couple more years so they can make optimum use of their hard-won knowledge.

Then they would get married willy-nilly and become fathers and pass on the blame of procrastination to their wives and kids.

Finally, after 30 years in the US, the following canonical conversation takes place:

Son: I have got my green-card and citizenship so you can live with us here as well as in India. Sell that ancestral house in Jubilee Hills and come over

Father: It's OK. Don't worry about me

Son: But I can't come whenever you fall in that greasy bathroom and break your hip bone

Father: You don't have to...my sister's idiot son will take care of me

Son: But I feel guilty

Father: That's your problem

Son: But you are already home-bound at 85 and live alone in a centrally air-conditioned house, so, what exactly prevents you to come over to the US?

Father: I don't like that bikini in which your wife moves in your house day in and day out...


...Posted by Ishani

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Conceit - Repeat Telecast

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-- Little localized powers, and little narrow streaks of specialized
knowledge, are things men are very apt to be conceited about.
Nature is very wise; but for this encouraging principle how many
small talents and little accomplishments would be neglected!  Talk
about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what
salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet, and renders it endurable.
Say rather it is like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl's
plumage, which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him and
the wave in which he dips.  When one has had ALL his conceit taken
out of him, when he has lost ALL his illusions, his feathers will
soon soak through, and he will fly no more...

...Oliver Wendell Holmes

I don't know about fish, but among reptiles cobra is the most conceited.  Just because she has a fancy bespectacled retractable hood, she thinks she is a scheming pot of poison; de-fang her and she is as defenseless as a retired professor.

Among the airborne birds the Indian Crow takes the cake for sheer conceit just because Mark Twain devoted an entire passage dedicated to him. He has no scruples in snatching the piece of bread li'l Ishani is holding in her tiny tender frightened hands. But in shraddh ceremonies when I am asked to lay out a pind (morsel) of rice studded with dal and ghee and delicious vadas to entice him, a dozen of his clever tribe would be hovering but none would touch it....they suspect that if gps is offering them free lunch it must surely be laced with poison. But he is caught square in the gully by cleverer Benarasi birdies who let you release him from his cage @ one Rupee each so you can reach heaven by and by.

Among the grounded birds, hen is said to be the most conceited as she cackles as if she laid the Universe (Brahmanda) when she has only laid a tiny egg...just one anda... she may just be rejoicing her relief from labor pains.

In the four-legged kingdom, the KGP street dog has the most conceit. He will wag his tail and lick your legs for a morsel of your veg meal, but after 10 PM he thinks he owns the KGP roads and chases you barking alongside your Chetak scooter till you halt and pretend to reach for your chappal; and then he will flee with his tail tucked between his legs. But if any kind professor in an act of misplaced mercy hangs a collar around his swollen neck, he will stop mixing with his friends thinking he won a Ph D from IIT. And expects free conference lunches and hopes to lead a pensioned blogger's life here and hereafter.

Rising higher up the animal kingdom, Sage Durvasa was the most conceited. Instead of thanking Ambarish for a free lunch, he curses and chases him for a perceived insult till Lord Vishnu counter-chases him with his spinning wheel.

Among brahmins, the pandas of Gaya are convinced that nobody can help their ancestors go to heaven until they are first pleased. When I landed there at 3 AM by Neelachal Express on the railway platform with my old parents, I felt a strong hand gripping my shoulder trying to pull me aside. I looked back and found a Giant Panda hovering over me. In spite of my lean and mean figure 25 years ago, I was so angry that I pushed him back with all my might. He was stung by this unexpected assault much like a lion stung by a tiny scorpion; and we fled to the Bharat Sevashram Sangh's Reception Hall to take shelter there.


Finally, among all gran'pas, gps is certainly the most conceited since he fancies his li'l Ishani is the cutest and cleverest thing the Universe has ever created and brings out of his hat booklets in her name every three months and distributes them all over the Universe for free, like so many flier-ads...

...Posted by Ishani

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Problems of Plenty - Repeat Telecast

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On the coast of Coromandel
Where the early pumpkins blow,
In the middle of woods
Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo

....Edward Lear

Not only pumpkins but also cucumbers, watermelons, bottle gourds and all such watery creeper-borne vegetables blow at a mind-blowing rate when they decide to do so.

In the early 1950s we were living on the famous Coromandel Coast in the Village of Muthukur in a tiny house with a mammoth backyard. The house was then good enough for us but keeping the backyard clean was a Herculean task in which everyone participated enthusiastically in the beginning.

Call it Beginner's Luck, but there was this creeper of bottle-gourd which was wilting, withering and dying till Father tended to it with love, manure and water.

It reciprocated famously.... within six months it spread all along our side of the boundary wall, with lovely tendrils, tiny buds and milk-white flowers, making all of us glad that a dying sapling was revived.

Then came the rains....and the creeper started yielding its bounty. The harvest turned out to be simply unmanageable. There would be slim six-inch fingers when we went to bed at night and by the next morning they grew to two feet; and by the dozen everyday...a veritable cornucopia...

Bottle gourds were expensive in our villages because they can be cooked in a dozen ways: curries with dal, milk, masala, curd, sambar and other inventive recipes. And tender bottle gourd is supposed to be good for the tummy.

Mother made all these varieties day in and day out till everyone of us was fed up and declined to touch her food if they find any preparation of the damn thing in the menu,

And they grow too tough and useless if left on the creeper even for a couple of days.

So every morning myself and Father had this duty of plucking them. And it was left to me to distribute them among neighbors near and then far away....they were all very happy at first but they used to shut their door soon enough when they spotted me with 2 ft long gourds on my shoulders much like the maces of Bhim and Duryodhan.

Since Father was the Head Master and a virtuous brahmin at that, he couldn't dare sell them and get a bad name. So, we had to carry them to Nellore by bus and distribute them among our dozens of relatives near and dear as well as far and feared. And they used to pick the ones of their choice and leave the others behind...so much so that all of them were unhappy thinking that they were not the first in the receiving line. So, we had to rotate the itinerary....all in all we made more enemies than friends.

Our neighbor was eyeing us with envy...he hardly knew.

So, one night he pulled the creeper to his side of the boundary wall preparing for a fight on his hands next morning...he hardly knew...

After a couple of days of relief, the wretched creeper turned back onto our side of the wall and refused to leave us in peace. There was this sentiment that we can't very well kill the creeper that was yielding such a rich crop.

The agony lasted 2 months till rains stopped; and we decided to move to a bigger house with a tinier backyard with just a wilting guava tree which we decided not to manure or water. We hardly knew...

Following Vastu Sastra, mother made a kitchen drain that happened to water that guava tree in abundance with the leavings of minerals, vitamins, and biochemicals that it was just thirsting for for decades.

When rains came, it yielded tennis-ball-sized fruit with bright yellow skin and blood-red innards...a Benaresi Guava tree...prize possession for any fruit-lover.

And it apparently wished to worst the bottle gourd creeper in its bounty.

We were back to square 1.

And our new neighbors who were at first jubilant turned our enemies, because an over-ripe Benarsi guava fruit is worse than the cottage cheese and paraffin oil of Harris, Jerome, George and Montmorency...it spreads its richly stinking perfume all over the house...you drink it, eat it, read it and go to bed with it...

We shifted house again....

This time a pleased student celebrated his success in the exams by gifting his HM a cute pair of blinking rabbits.......

...Posted by Ishani

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To B or not to B - Repeat Telecast

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It has been a long long while since a politician graced our blog.

And what a politician!....Mamata Banerjee, as young as my youngest sister, but of course she is the Didi for all. Coming from a lower middle class non-superior-intellectual background, she stormed the formidable Writer's Building manned by the aristocratic JB once, and now the intellectual BB.

I simply adore her.

For a spectator like me who watched her career from close at hand in West Bengal (I think it is high time that they drop the West from Bengal...the only surviving East Bengal being the Football Club) she is the most colorful of all the current crop of pale politicians.

And she is colorful despite her colorless dress, makeup, car, home, and Bank Balance.

Saturday, March 28, 2009:

Humpty-Dumpty of West Bengal

Singur people want Nano back: Buddhadeb

Buddha-Mamata fought on a wall
Buddha-Mamata had a great fall
Not all their wits
Nor their big sticks
Can lure Tata back to their stall!

Friday, April 3, 2009:

Mamata's Bloody Pledge

"I will never ride Nano; it is made of peoples' blood": Mamata

(With apologies to Christina Rosette's 'Rainbow')


Boats sail on the rivers,
Ships sail on the seas;
But Tata's cute Nano
Stolen by Narendro
Sails on the blood of W.Bees!

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Bloody Red!

"Nano makes a Big splash on Day 1": DC Front Page Headline April 10 

"I will never ride Nano; it is made of peoples' blood": Mamata April 3 

Nano comes in three colors:
Blue, white and red;
A splash in Mamata's metaphors
Turns them all Bloody Red! 

That brings us to why my sudden interest in her after more than a year and a half:

It is because of her piquant statement a couple of days back that she would love to have Pranab-da as the next Chief Minister of Bengal.

Mamata Banerjee left Congress terming it the B Team of CPM. But didn't drop Congress from the name of her new party: Trinamul Congress. Note it means the Grass Root Congress: not Flower or Fruit but Grass Root.

That brings us to the B Team folks.

In every sphere of life it is the B (not the A) that is the most colorful and influential; and she knows it: hence the offer of the A Post to Pranab-da keeping the B Post of Home Minister to herself.

Britain has been the wisest and the most graceful nation. She acquired the biggest empire in history without meaning to do so, almost dreamily, for a 'Nation of Shopkeepers' as Napoleon called her. She managed it with minimum force and dismantled it with minimum bloodshed (of Englishmen).

Contrast this with the American fiasco in Vietnam and the hapless downfall of the untenable Soviet Empire like so many ninepins.

And Britain's most powerful person, her PM, is a B and not A. The powerless A Post is reserved for her King or Queen. And her most powerful agent in her empire was the Viceroy (note he is the Vice...and not the Roy).

In our own country it the PM (the B) who is most powerful...not the A (the President)

In our university the Principal had only a humble 'Home' but our Vice-Chancellor had a regal 'Lodge'. The Governor-Chancellor, a mere figurehead, is an A with rubber-stamping and rebuking power. But it is the B, the Vice, that holds enormous powers of appointment and disappointment.

And in day-to-day affairs it is again the Vice-Principal whose office is most crowded. Please the Vice-P and you get your work done automatically through the virtual-P.

At IIT KGP it was the DD and not the D who was to be buttered...D being unapproachable to commoners like me.

In Halls of Residence it is not the Warden, who rarely comes, but the Asst Wardens who hold the fort and manage things.

It is not the President's Gold Medalist (who is a bookworm and a geek) who is colorful and goes places but the Best All-Rounder B C Roy Medalist who oozes charm.

It is not the Deity but the Temple Pujari (having direct access to the sanctum sanctorum) who is the most powerful...marry into his family and you don't have to stand in the mile-long queues at Tirupati for shaking hands with the Lord from close quarters.

In every well-oiled household it is the mother who wields real power but not the father who is busy winning bread and a little butter.

In every hive it is the Queen Bee that rules....

In chess it is the Queen and not the King that has the most mobility and killings. The King is castled most of the time...

In the newspaper Industry it is not the Proprietor but the Editor (and perhaps the sub-editors) who make thing happen.

In the film industry it is not the Producer but the Director who rules the sets.

In most businesses it is the VPs not the P who brings home the bacon.

In the Indian Railways, the First AC is infested with rats and vermin but it is the AC Two-Tier that is most comfortable.

And Buddha says it is the Middle path (like the middle lane on the Hyderabad Roads) that is the safest.

Always aim to be a B (B for Bengali) for maximum happiness instead of an A (A for Andhra)!!!

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