Spray and pray

 Seenappa’s wife came with him to meet me the other day.  She is a tall, thin, hard-working woman, albeit a forbidding personality with a quick temper.

“Can you give me something really strong for a headache?” she asks, walking slowly to a seat and squinting through the obvious pain she is in. I know that she suffers from headaches often; when she does, her husband keeps his distance and bears the look of a starving terrified gladiator (how do I know what a starving terrified gladiator looks like?  Asterix).    

“I have some Crocin and Dolo. Will that help?”  When you aren’t a doc, it feels good to be treated as one.

Despite the discomfort, she smiles and shakes her head (when her husband shakes his head, it is because he thinks I am nuts).  “Sir, both will not help, neither will Saridon.  I have even taken 2 Dolo tablets at a time; it had no effect.” This is, of course, downright dangerous and can damage her liver, but I skip the point for the moment. 

I ask her a few obvious questions and call a doc back in Bangalore, but it’s useless; as with most migraines, there is no single cause.  I then remember seeing her in the morning, returning from their beans field, the pesticide sprayer slung over her shoulder.

“If you are prone to regular headaches, spraying poisonous chemicals is a trigger,” I tell her.  “You really should stop using pesticide.”  She says nothing, but lifts her head and gives me a withering look that speaks with eloquence, “Don’t foist your ridiculous ideas on me!” it says and I understand her viewpoint, though with reluctance. 

They leave shortly after and a few days later I see her returning from the beans field, with that sprayer on her back, so my homily has had little effect. 

Perhaps they connected the dots – monocrotophos to migraine - much before I did and have made peace with the devil.  They, and a million others, are conjoined in this matrix-cum-maelstrom of chemical farming to achieve a modest family dream – a small home in her case. It is hardly a dream to grudge….

In search of that ever-elusive bumper harvest – where high output and happy price will combine - migraine must yield to mania. 

As always, the question is: how do you change the script?    

The Wolf of Wall Street

In the year 1989, IIMB forgot its arithmetic: they hired more students than there were rooms and put up the excess baggage at D Quarters – affectionately called DQ - opposite the faculty housing. 

I belonged to this group of motley regulars and we kept our genius - that Superior Indefinable Intelligence - carefully away from academics of any sort (the one hard working chap - the indubitable Krishnan Nair - was much maligned by the rest for dragging our collective reputation down, until we realised that we could use his notes).  From the faculty, we had one humble, deeply-emotional request: unlimited compassion, when they evaluated our performance.  No sadism (such as comparison with those who had nothing better to do but study) or making-an-example-of kind of behaviour.     

So, when we heard that one of us - person or persons unknown - had apparently whistled at a Professor’s wife one late evening, there was considerable panic.   

This was not just any Professor (or any Professor’s wife).  For starters, he taught financial accounting – an arcane, terrifying subject to most. He was a fair, dour fellow, with the face of a WWF wrestler who was yet to win a bout but would nevertheless like to beat up somebody in compensation and it was rumoured that the only time he had been spotted smiling was while tearing up answer sheets of Life's Accounting Victims.   

So, here he was, complaining that one of us – one of this endearing, gentle, eviscerated, disenfranchised, embattled, docile, somnolent, enervated bunch – had done the unthinkable.

When we first heard the news, the immediate question that arose was a frightening one: Would we now have to listen to Chari’s jokes on the subject? 

The question of lesser impact, but of greater interest was: Did somebody – one of us – actually whistle at the lady? Not just whistle-whistle, but whistle in that meaningful, vile way that you see in Road Runner cartoons and in the 1980s films with white-shoes Jeetendra.  Was there a wolf among us (and if so, which species) ? 

"No", we all said.  In addition, we unanimously agreed that, when we did whistle meaningfully, it was at the sight of Dollops ice cream (dark chocolate, with nuts, caramel and dates).  This opinion poll carried no weight with the Prof (he had enough of his own, which is what happens when you eat curd-rice nine times a fricking day).   

The third question concerned the impact of this incident on all those who were in His class.  Some of us were in Section A, which he did not teach (who says there isn't a God up there?).   Emotions ranged from defiance, exhibited in much measure by the other Nair in DQ, to despair.  That last emotion, emanated, in particular, from Vish Mathur, whose fear of accounting led to the addition of the word Debitophobia to the lexicon (this has later changed to Ebitaphobia, when making profits means that you are sick and need therapy.  Serious reporting follows, sorry again).  SatRao, another DQ stalwart, used to wake up in the night and say, "Fight, fight" to inspire his troops (noticeably himself). 

The final question concerned the next course of action and the President of our batch, Bhushan, joined the group in an all-hands, no music, this-is-serious-stuff sort of meet.

The news from the political leadership was not good.  The Professor, the suspicious accountant that he was, had the solution all worked out: we would have to exit DQ.  Being an adroit diplomat with commendable ownership, Bhushan moved to damage-control mode.  A key factor in our favour, in addition to the lack of any evidence (particularly the inability of the Plaintiff to duplicate the pitch and tone of the whistle), was that there was a fair bit of construction activity around the campus – could someone else have done this? When you have eliminated the impossible (i.e., us), whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth (not mine. AC Doyle).   

The resultant meeting between the President and the concerned faculty member who oversaw this incident’s resolution was conclusive: Bhushan firmly defended us, his belief in the quality of IIMB students (and their inability to wolf-whistle) unwavering and resolute and the Professor of Financial Accounting had to make peace with one Provision for a Bad and Doubtful Debt.   

As a group, of course, we prohibited any form of whistling while in the shower.  Santy was persuaded to tune up his guitar to stifle any resemblance to a whistle, while those with perpetually blocked noses had to steam-inhale before they slept.

And, needless to add, the mystery remains to this day: just who did whistle at this demure, dignified lady?