Rishi Rich

 Rishi Rich it is then finally, after Liz Truss's disastrous stint of mere 44 days in 10 Downing Street.  "The Colony has struck back", with due apologies to Lucas Films Ltd,  some of the oldies would recall"Empire Strikes Back", the 80s block buster. Yes to an extent it is the 'alien'  in the Island nation, who has captured the throne. An alien, a brown man, a Hindu ruling the roost. A Kamla in US,  Rishi in UK,  Indian diaspora is definitely going places. Brown and black is a deadly combination, both of them have an African connection as well.  One has it in the blood the other has a connection through his parents having migrated from the Eastern part of the once Dark Continent. Brits need to be wary of this connection, another man from another era, a century ago also sorted them out first in South Africa and then literally bundled them out from India, you guessed it, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Men and women of colour have finally come of age after centuries of having been a "burden" on the "Beasts of Burden", their 'white brethren' who have had to carry this for centuries. It is now the turn of the Burdens to come to the aid of the Beasts. Having once been equated with Dogs, "Indians and Dogs not allowed!", these beastly people and their beastly religion, as Winston Churchill once remarked, is the toast of the Empire whose Sun never set. It has now eclipsed not just set.

Murthys have also played a part in this success story, Infosys founder Mr Narayan Murthy is a visionary, he founded Infosys and took it to dizzying heights. His progeny did one better she picked on a start up and has groomed it to the pinnacle of British Parliament. The fact that he is richer than the King is incidental. No wonder there are memes galore that with the the Three Murthys in 10 Downing Street, high time it be renamed 'Teen Murthy'. As it is Indians have a penchant for changing of names. The other one doing the rounds is, it be rechristened as Dousing Street, after all he has his role cutout as a firefighter in these trying times.

Rishi as the name suggests means a Sage, a sagacious man, a politician at heart, just happens to have the Indian blood flowing in his veins, but obviously he is a dyed in the wool conservative and rightly so. He is a British citizen who has to serve the people of Britain, which I am sure he will do full justice to, having seen his impeccable credentials .  After Bo Jo and the Lettuce Truss finally the islanders have homed onto friend Sunak, better late than never. So the Punjabi in Sunak has to come to the fore to take the bull by the horns, while continuing to worship the cows as a devout Hindu. Like all Indians he is aware that to win over the fathers, you have to first get mothers on your side, so naturally worshipping cows is the first step towards getting the Bulls going and get the Bears off the radar. Pound has off late become a light weight and can do with some heft and lift. I am sure a generous dose of Lassi, Maaki ki Roti and Sarson da Saga will script a new saga of Salvation of the Goras! Go for it Rishi, hum tumhare saath hain!!!!

2 States Revisited

A couple of years ago there was a movie based on a Chetan Bhagat novel based on his own autobiography by the same name. A Punjabi boy falling in love with a Tamilian girl, wooing her and her complete family and the socio cultural issues which they face as a couple. But the culmination was a "they lived happily forever!" Over the last couple of days we were part of a similar wedding except that the groom belonged to the Bengali diaspora while the bride was the Military Tam-brahm Tamilian Brahmin. We have seen dear Meera grow up from the toddler days, the serious studious girl evolved into a pretty damsel and one fine day we found ourselves as her local guardians when she made a momentous career decision of joining BIT Mesra in Ranchi for her under graduate engineering. It is a proud moment for any parent to be conducted around in their schools of education by their kids, I found myself in a similar space. It was here that she met up with her Babu moshai,  the gentle genial Soham. 

That much for the introduction, yesterday we were witness to the formal solemnising of this holy matrimony, ' vivah ka pavitra bandhan' sounds a lot better,  this union of souls is not just holy, it is pure, and more in the spiritual domain in India . While I was pondering over this event, it struck me that as an Observer you can get the feel of the moment, unlike when you are an active participant in the rituals and the coordination which is typically part and parcel of any such mega event. Reminded of my son Abhijat's wedding just a couple of months ago. So here I was enjoying every moment of the typical Tamil wedding ceremony early in the morning in the land of Rabindra sangeet, it was the soulful flawless Carnatic rendition by Ramesh's mother and sisters which set the mood. Ramesh incidentally is the bride's father and my chuddy buddy, Meenakshi his lovely better half is also best friends with Preeti my own 'Shariq e hayat', the same thing in Urdu. The decor was so simple yet done very tastefully, simple bamboo stems decked up with marigold flowers,  banana stems which are considered very auspicious, apparently as each plant withers away after two three  young shoots have sprouted,  signifying procreation. The simplicity of the ceremony is probably the u s p of a Tamil wedding with the groom and the bride's father decked up in simple dhotis with bare torsos,  both appearing more ascetic than someone going to step into the rough and tumble of the  'grihasth ashram'! May be that's the reason why they begin with the Kashi yatra, where the groom to be, threatens to go to Kashi to pursue the spiritual path of 'sanyas', and the bride's father entices him with gifts to abandon the thought and accord consent to this matrimony. Gifts are simple just an umbrella and some sweets. How gullible we men folk are, we don't even wait for four pieces of silver before betraying our cherished and preserved bachelorhood.  We get hooked line and sinker and fall for our respective beloveds. But to be fair to dear Soham, bride as pretty as Meera would have shaken up the resolve of any Vishwamitra, so the charade of Kashi yatra was just fun and frolic... May be in bygone era of arranged marriages it provided a little lighter side to an otherwise very serious life event. 

Having fallen for the charms then, it was the turn of the Pandits to take Centre stage and their flawless 'mantrochhar',  the chanting of mantras reminded us all of the religious sanctity of the betrothal. Then finally having gone through the traditional havan and all the swahas it was time for them to literally swing around with all friends and relatives fishing over them, blessing them.  So curtains for the first part of the wedding was only after a very sumptuous Tamil spread for lunch, where even a hard core fork, spoon angrez like me gladly jettisoned the cutlery and relished the meal with my hands down to the last morsel. Not to forget the brief interlude of a South Indian Idly,Pongal filter coffee breakfast also. 

It was now the turn of the Bongs to get into the act, with an ethereal white rajnigandha mandapam and the groom decked up in his  traditional Bengali attire with the 'topor' the unique headgear looking the part,  Meera had transformed from the Tamil bride to a Banarasi clad  Bengali Bodhu, kohl eyed, with traditional Bengali  makeup on her forehead. The highlight of the evening was the seven pheras which the bride takes of the groom, while the bride with her face covered with paan ( betel) leaves carried by her brothers. Thereafter, the garland exchange and they were finally pronounced man and wife having gone through the motions not just once but twice on a single day. The traditional Begali dinner with Machh (fish) and Mishti Dohi, Rasogulla thrown in in ample quantities. No wonder their language and music is so sweet.

Watching Soham, I was convinced that girls invariably look for their Dads their beloveds, and just in case it is not so, then she makes all efforts to turn him into one. In Meera's case I don't think she had to make any effort, simplicity and decency were part of his identity,  a thorough gentleman with impeccable grooming, all credit to his parents Madhusudan Ray and Ananya. 

So the similarity with 2 states ended with just that the bride and groom were from the South and the Eastern part of the country. Here I think both sets of parents were very proud of their children for having made a perfect choice. So it was "yehi hai right choice baby". .

CHITRAGUPT

Chitragupt is the Hindu God who is responsible for data management, keeps track of your deeds, 'karma' and boy He must be  a nerd to be able to manage such a huge volume of data. I am sure he would have got the best possible tools for Big Data analytics. He may not need Artificial Intelligence as with His supreme intellect he would be able to do all the analysis even before you can say Jack Robinson or better still Ramesh Singhania.  All the same I am a recently converted admirer of his abilities at book keeping. 

 I was just entrusted with the task of compiling the data of my NDA course-mates and here I am at my wits end after more than a fortnight having barely made any progress. By the way I am supposed to be at a decent level of computer literacy and what I presumed to be child's play, with the good old Google docs form doing the needful and I could just pick it up and work at it and hog all the credit. But this task of getting these lazy bums to shake their booties and fill in the details is beyond even Hanuman so it can't be human. It would be easy perhaps to get Sanjeevni than try to elicit responses from these rascals. Newton's Second Law of Motion works in only one way here, the inertia of rest, simply impossible to shake them out of it, but there is no inertia of motion as they can come to a grinding halt without any external force, because the natural state of an ex NDA is to be permanently at Rest only. The movements are purely momentary lapse of reason, whenever it does occur, if at all.

Having finally kicked their butts as that is the only force which works here, they did comply and started to fill in the details. But the battle had just about been joined, with many of them expressing their computer illiteracy and very proud of their exalted status, they naturally expected us to be the data entry operators to do the needful. As is customary, I had requested for their current photographs and family photographs also, primarily for the reasons of identification, as some of us have actually taken this ageing a little too seriously and have greyed and grown bald that even our mirrors may be refusing to recognise us. So it was wise to arm ourselves in advance rather than be shocked out of our wits that may jeopardise the merrymaking in the reunion itself. While some others have apparently been there at the Samudra Manthan and were the ones who stole the elixir and have defied the laws of nature totally by just maintaining that youthful handsome drop dead looks that again may cause a different kind of turbulence amongst the fairer sex.  The family photographs shared have their own unique stories with some with a toddler in their arms, now one is not sure whether  the progeny here is a result of a late bloomer in life or an early grand child in your arms. If the latter, it is not a matter of concern but if it is the former again, you are the cynosure of all eyes, after all, you still have it in you!!! while the others are all spent forces, empty cartridge cases...!!

God bless the 25 who have already made their peace and are sipping their drinks nice and easy waiting for their brethren to finish their innings to welcome us aboard. At the last count I had about 115  out of the 272 who had finally obliged. The balance, I think require some other means which I better leave to your imagination!!!

GOAT

 I am sure you would have guessed it, this GOAT   is part of the lexicon of the Gen Y, I am referring to the title of GOAT conferred upon Roger Federer, Greatest of all Times. That he is a legend and will remain one is beyond doubt. But 'Greatest'!!  Well we have had Muhammad Ali, "the Black Superman"who also proclaimed his greatness, so was Sir Don Bradman in Cricket or even Sir Garfield Sobers. We had Dhyan Chand in Hockey, Nadia Comaneci in Gymnastics, Pele and Maradona in Soccer. I know I am treading a treacherous path here as Roger's fans even in my own family will treat a doubting Thomas like me with utter disdain and even contempt for not knowing my serves and volleys. Yes I indulge in Tennis very occasionally and am not really very good at it, but not that bad either. After all I was struck by the glamour of the game rather early and that too without watching the spectacle on screen. We didn't have the luxury of TV in our parts of the country those days. By merely reading about it in newspapers, Sports magazines and watching the Club version of Tennis where oldies indulged in their pastime trying to connect the two important pieces of equipment essential for the game, the racquet and the ball. Once they managed to connect the two, the next big challenge remained of sending this trajectory across the net. But to be fair, even in a remote place like Dhar which is near Indore in Madhya Pradesh, Uday Ranjan Club could boast of a Pune University champion in Hamir Chand Chaudhary with his mastery in the baseline exquisite strokes, he could mesmerise any casual onlooker also. Of course there were others, the local talent who could mount a challenge on their chosen day, where their street smart antics won the day against pure class. My father too dabbled in Tennis and thus we got to witness these duels. The who's who of the town were there, The Maharajah Dhar, his sons, leading advocates, businessmen and of course some Govt functionaries also spent their evenings in this passionate pursuit. 

My tryst with Tennis started when I joined RIMC, Dehradun. Having watched the game from the sidelines only, as an eleven year old was considered rather young to be baptised into this game, the school provided me the opportunity to get on the court with a small racquet which was my size, I still recall it was "Hitway", some Jalandhar company but it did get me hooked. So I played for a while but with hardly any players of our age, switched to Squash as that was considered to be the forte of Rimcollians. I played both in later years, but Squash became the preferred sport, owing to its easy availability in Cantts and more sparring partners. But Tennis was always the more glamorous cousin and with extensive TV coverage of the Grand Slam events, we had our own idols, Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe were the stars those days and with six consecutive Wimbledon titles; Borg was considered the GOAT then. It was the firebrand McEnroe who ended his reign and Borg just retired and disappeared from the scene. Then there was this sixteen year old  unseeded German who by his sheer athleticism and daredevilry upset the Top seeds on his way to his maiden Wimbledon. Yes it is Boris Becker, I am referring to. Swedes continued to reign supreme in the 80s with Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg et al, till Agassi and Lendl appeared on the scene. Indians had our own stars with father-son duo of Ramnathan and Ramesh Krishnan, the Amritraj brothers, Anand, Vijay and Ashok till Leander Paes emerged on the scene, who also refuses to sign off and is an ageless wonder. Pete Sampras was also the cool cat who was finally dislodged by Roger finally. It's been two decades since then, we have greyed, are on the verge of retiring ourselves but this man defied all odds and just played on and on, reminding me of "petrol khatham hi nahi honda hai!" A popular old  Maruti ad where a cute Sardar kid is playing with his toy car and when asked to stop, he says Petrol just doesn't run out. The gas appears to have finally run out, reducing everyone to tears, in a fitting tribute a very emotional arch rival Nadal another GOAT by any means bid him a very tearful farewell. I dare say there aren't many sports where two rivals are so deeply connected that their bond is not just of two sportspersons but that of two wonderful human beings. So Roger tussi great ho, tofa kabool karo!

Welcome Home Cheetahs

The cat family has a new addition in the country their cousin Cheetahs who were unfortunately hunted down to extinction in the pre-independence era are back with a bang. The PM himself released them into Kuno Sanctuary in the Hindustan ka Dil, Madhya Pradesh. MP has been a home to Tigers, Leopards, Panthers and were keen to host the Lions too, unfortunately Gir did not want to part with their exclusive preserve. But well now they have the Cheetahs! Although we are ignoramuses, when it comes to wild life, but we do enjoy seeing them in their habitat and as aware gentry we would like all the species to flourish. We have a connect with the Cat family of sorts. We had a pet wild cat many moons ago, it was she who adopted us, injured, she was cared for by my mother, thereafter she became a part of the family, but on her own terms, i.e. she would come at her own will demand her share of milk and affection and disappear. But this connect was with Cheetahs, Lions, Jaguars…..

We had the Cheetahs, Jaguars and Lions on the wild side alongside the natives of Americas Apaches and Injuns. We also had the Eagles, Foxies along with Hunters and Killers living together, not always peacefully. We would bay for each other's blood in the ring but at the end of the day we would smoke the peace pipe even though smoking was officially banned there. My friends would have guessed as to what exactly am I referring to, for those from the civilised world, it was our alma mater the National Defence Academy. Divided into twelve squadrons those days; each deriving its name from the phonetic code used for alphabets, with Alpha denoting the letter "A" and Zulu for "Z". So we were Alpha to Lima, twelve squadrons and sure enough not enamoured by the rather mundane phonetic code names, our ancestors in the academy rightly adopted the more ferocious sounding epithets. So Alpha became Apache and Charlie became the Cheetahs. The Cat family of NDA had Cheetahs, Jaguars who were otherwise known with the  feminine  Juliette and Lima adopted Lions or may be Loins after yesteryears villain Ajit's iconic," Sara shahar mujhe Loin ke naam se janta hai!"( The whole city knows me as Loin). We had the Head Hunters for the rather hospitable Hotel and Killers who believed in "Kill'em Kut'em, but Kneel Knot" for the  dour sounding "Kilo". Apaches were not satisfied being the numero uno in this list and had adopted the Apaches while their cousins from India too followed suit with Injuns, wisely they stayed away from Incas lest they fade into oblivion. Bravo were happy with being Brave, but Delta were Daggers drawn with everyone, Echo were soaring high as the Eagles and Foxies despite their scholarly aptitude wanted to believe they were equally cunning. Golfies responded to just the war cry of "chiki laka chiki laka!".  

There were more squadrons added after we passed out way back in 1986 as part of the expansion of the academy, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa and may be even Quebec, rumour has it that the girls in the academy have been allotted the Romeo Squadron. Frankly I haven’t kept track of the monikers adopted by these Johnny Come Lately variety. For us the Deadly Dozen that we were, were the best!

Seat Belts

 It was the unfortunate demise of Cyrus Mistry on 4th September  in a tragic road accident which brought the focus on seat belts for rear seat passengers. Seat belts for the front seats in four wheelers is mandatory as per traffic regulations in vogue all over the world. But we Indians take pride in not following the rules, so, often we have front seat driver or co driver  giving the belt a miss. After all, who wants any restrictions, when we were born free in a free country, we are free to do what we wish to. Seat belts warning signs be damned and by the way, they can easily be silenced by hoodwinking the system by merely mating the two ends without actually getting under the seat belt. Traffic policemen in India, by and large are magnanimous people and ignore this violation, they get their coffers full with Masks violations in the Covid era, or with merely over-speeding ones, with speed restrictions of 40 and 50 km per hour, drivers are bound to overshoot.

I have had my share of an escapade where the seat belt was the saviour. While on UN Peace Keeping Mission in Cote D'Ivoire, out on a vehicle based patrol with a Pakistani officer driving the Toyota Forerunner and I was the Co-driver. Cote d'Ivoire incidentally has an excellent road network from one end of the country to the other and with sparse population and a strife torn nation then, the speed limit of vehicles was often ignored. Unfortunately this one time, we took a detour from the highway, onto the dirt track and my friend's reflexes were a little too slow. The vehicle lost its balance and went turtle, my Pak officer was so scared that he admitted later that he had started to mutter his fatiha (prayers at the time of death), I was nicely strapped on and was hung upside down like a spider in my web of the seat belt. That was the closest I came to being a super hero, the friendly neighbourhood Spiderman. The rear seat was occupied by two more Military Observers from our Team, who too sustained minor injuries. The seat belt came to my rescue, else I would have broken a couple of bones, as it is I am very injury prone. Despite such personal examples, my better half is not convinced and finds it too much of a bother and manages without it most of the time. Interestingly ladies in our household are brave-hearts and all of them decide to give it a skip unless the traffic cops are in close vicinity. 

Three point seat belts in automobiles are different from the strap on seat belts in aircrafts. Aircraft seat belts are a prerequisite during the take off and landing as the flight stewardesses remind us each time we get airborne. We have undertaken flights also without any seat-belts as anyone who has flown in service aircrafts will confirm. When you have meat on hoof        (goats/sheep for the uninitiated), chickens as your co passengers, it is obviously difficult to find seat belts for ourselves. We were just grateful that we secured a seat on the flight which saved us from the drudgery of the road convoy which took two days to cover what the courier flight took merely two hours. Needless to say we had complete faith in our pilots in delivering us in one piece along with our rations.

There is one more species who would like the introduction of seat belts and being made mandatory, have you guessed it, politicians of course, after all which politician wants to let go off his seat of power. I am sure they would all be secretly praying for this invention which would ensure that they too get strapped on for life...

Chanakya

Chanakya or Kautilya has been adopted as the mascot of everything strategic in India, and strategy is synonymous with the Military, after all the men in uniform are the premier arm of the government in execution of this strategy. While the teachings of Chanakya are immortalised in his magnum opus "Arthashatra", but I dare say most of the arm chair strategists who quote him endlessly have hardly read it; their views have been conjured or conceived in our Sand Model Rooms or the War Rooms which have been  aptly named Chanakya or Kautilya. 

Anyway, this piece is as divorced from strategy as chalk is from cheese. Today being a Sunday we were just idling away post lunch and not being fond of the afternoon siesta, we, my better half and self decided to go on a date. That is how Chanakya was discussed, Delhiwallahs  would have guessed it, The Chanakya is a Mall, which is not  for the  hoi polloi. Staying in Chanakyapuri, we thought ourselves to be the Elites too and sure enough in our Sunday best, we stepped into the haloed precincts of The Chanakya. We were like Alice in Wonderland, having stepped into this modern day fantasy world, we were lost at first, trying to fathom, whether it would be propah for us to step in and ask the cost of a few of the items on display. Actually I was in one of those benevolent moods, after admiring some from the displays outside, we gathered the courage to step into one of them and decided to look at the price tag of one of the shawls on display, it was an outrageous 75000/-. My magnanimity and benevolence went ducking for cover immediately and we sneaked out without being noticed. Well frankly we were not noticed even when we stepped in, as the sales persons know their customers well and can differentiate with window shoppers like us, giving us the cold shoulder reminding us without actually saying it that we don't belong there.  To be honest, it is not that one can't afford a 75 grand Shawl, it is just that the cost doesn't seem justified. Our middle class mindset probably keeps us grounded. An occasional extravagance once in a while is relished, but this was definitely not. To be honest i am not sure even if i were a billionaire,  i would still be able to indulge in this. We were wiser and steered clear of the Rolex, Mont Blanc or Ralph Lauren outlets. We came across a small stall with some desi sweets with the tagline, "Be a monster..eat a laddoo". Intrigued I asked him what was monster like in eating a laddoo, he looked at us  urchins with utter disdain and explained that desi sweets are not the flavour here and thus partaking one was almost a cardinal sin earning them the moniker of the monster. We then sought refuge in the Foodhall, knowing here even if the prices were exorbitant it would still not tax my wallet. After all how much could bakery items, spices, veggies and fruits cost ? That basement store provided us some respite as there were some exotic varieties of these were on display which would put any supermarket in Europe to shame. They boasted of Cheese from Belgium, France, Netherlands apart from some local ones here, Thai Basil, Mexican Cherry Tomatoes, California Avocados and what have you!

We finally decided to settle down to a well deserved cup of Darjeeling tea, which unfortunately was not served in China but in a disposable ripple glass and relished it, looking around the gentry which was quite comfortable and at home in the surroundings.  We could see that we didn't belong here and so decided to bring curtains to our adventure and returned home.