If You Follow An Elephant, Click The Like Button On Your Torch

At Random Rubble, the farm, an enthralling addition to my vocabulary is the utterly delectable phrase, “One tarah looju”.  Now, being the studious, researchy sort who likes to get to the root of the deeper questions of Life (such as, Why are there so many certified idiots on Whatsapp groups?), I embarked on the project to enrich Society’s vocabulary and get to the bottom of it (the phrase.  Not to the bottom of society, which will not be a pleasing sight in daytime). For a long time, I had no clue on what this laden-with-meaning phrase meant until the power went off one day at RR and a local electrician looked at the switchboard and told me that the problem was with the fewju which was looju.   

Tarah, of course, means ‘like’ and it’s only fair that everyone and his cow use it, since the younger gen in the city say Like whenever they say anything (about which deeper question of Life, I have, like, published papers. This you, like, know).

Ananda, my indispensable farmer, friend, philosopher and guided missile, uses this phrase to refer to anyone he thinks is – in his immortal words – ‘mental’.  Which is much of the rest of humanity who has views that are below his exacting standards (I almost certainly fit neatly into that category, but he has not called me One Tarah Looju yet.  Maybe because I pay him.  Call this protection money). 

There is a broad and generous brush to the usage of this priceless label as well.  A couple of years ago, a prominent male elephant in our area named Makhna was in musth and it was promptly agreed by all present and voting that he – the elephant – was One Tarah Looju.  And hence to be avoided by anyone, unless that anyone was…, well, you guessed it and you are getting better, One Tarah Looju as well.  

But Ramappa, my neighbour, is known to follow an elephant in the middle of the night on foot, shining his torch at the elephant’s backside (which, you will rightly argue, is unlikely to increase his body temperature, if that is Ramappa’s admirable objective) so this luminary, this shining light of Modern Civilisation has been regrettably labelled One Tarah Looju as well. 

Others – most of whom do not follow elephants on foot in the middle of the night - can be One Tarah Looju too.  Such as a distant neighbour, an overweight, opinionated windbag who thinks no end of himself (given his size, it admittedly takes a while to find the end).    Ramappa claims to have seen this One Tarah Looju stalwart with a cap on and nothing else under the broadly liberal definition of clothing, which visual has me awake at night with a torch and quivering, Makhna-the-Musthful-Misanthrope be damned. 

Our larger Society forms opinions on grave topics like One Tarah Looju generally after the third peg of Red Knight Deluxe - courtesy Tasmac - has lit a flame in the small intestine and is radiating in seven unspecified directions.  In such senior leadership conclaves in our village, the following sub-species are classified as One Tarah Looju: 

- people who spend more money than is prudent, in Society’s opinion

- people who do not spend more money than is prudent

- people who use a tractor

- people who do not use a tractor

- people who don’t work

- people who work

- people

You get the picture.  Hopefully. 

If not, there is a chance – a slender one, just a sliver of a ghost of one, a fractional proclivity – that you may be One Tarah Looju.  

Doing a somer-salt

Sometime in the early 1990s

Mr Ramu opened his tiffin box: it was curd rice again.

He used to eat curd rice about seven times a day, which is why there were more blocks in his heart than in our water supply, and his best friends were plumber-cardiologists. And, when he was not eating curd rice, he ran two companies, of which we had invested in one, Sundar Nutritions in Chennai.

The company was set up to produce iron-fortified salt, which - at least if you read the report that recommended that we invest - had a market that was as endless as the south Pacific ocean.  Or, if you think that the analogy is limiting and does not do justice to Ramu, let me amend this to, as endless as the calls offering me a free personal loan.  

Ramu’s daughter had developed the technology - at least that is what they said and ICICI had no reason to think otherwise (or think wise), being touchingly ingenuous and deeply trusting (try not to laugh please).  Dad+daughter+pomeranian had a small production facility on the outskirts of Chennai and so life, you could argue, was all set.

The only minor issue was that there were no sales. Not one of India’s millions wanted to buy his salt and, as someone who had had a free sample once, I made the case with my boss, Sudhir, that the salt was just not worth, well, its salt, which, to complete a litany of disgraceful puns, was rubbing iron-fortified salt into the wound.

Every time I met Curd Rice Ramu, he would speak optimistically of the Tamil Nadu Government’s impending plan to include this salt in their mid-day meal (without curd rice) scheme.  He would then complain about the corruption inherent in the system being the block (roadblock, you imbecile, not the ones in his myocardium). And everytime I’d return from the meeting convinced that we needed to exit this investment the day before yesterday.  My boss heartily agreed - another hearty pun - but no one above was ready to bell the pomeranian (that would be adding in-salt to injury.  Gosh, that was bad).

When I once visited him, I happened to mention in conversation that I was going to buy my first-ever car soon. “My son-in-law’s Premier Padmini is up for sale,” he replied, “it’s a good car and he wants only 65000 for it.”  Back then, 65000 was around three-fourths my annual salary, but a new Maruti would be two years of slave labour.  

So I reasoned - in my perfectly rational way - that the son-in-law he had chosen (which he admitted to doing) would probably live on curd rice anyways and hence be utterly unable to misuse the car by, say, doing a Sonic Spiral Jump or something. So, I drove back from Chennai in this Premier Padmini, now christened Rockstar Moto, and sent him the cheque in a day.

The next Sunday, while I was driving Rockstar Moto to Whitefield, the tail pipe fell off. It was pointed out to me by a passing motorcyclist (when he had stopped laughing), who noticed it trailing the car a few feet behind. When I took the car for repair to the local mechanic, he opened the hood and, with a look of utter delight, pointed out that this was the worst car he had ever seen and could I please leave the car and a blank cheque with him and come back in a month?

In the ensuing days, I made two significant disinvestments:

- The company’s shareholding in Sundar Nutritions was sold back to Curd Rice Ramu, for the equivalent of a few bags of Sona Masoori

- The car was driven back to Chennai and sold at about Rs 18.50 per kilo

Teesta - Run, River Run

To stop the river, they built again.  Yet another wall
Power. That energy aphrodisiac had them in enthrall
Thousands of tonnes of steel, cement, gravel and sand
And an inflated Excel projection that promised wonderland

 

“Yet another dam is raised; this river’s a subdued beast

Power for the malls, for rapacious urban feast

Any water that flows to the ocean is a economic waste

Dams.  More dams!” Built in cupidity and haste.

 

There were naysayers too: from tradition and from science

Who warned of the dangers, for they read between the lines

“You know of cement, yes, but you know not of this sky

When it rains, it pours and these waters aren’t shy.

The glacial lake is brimming and if the head stones unturned

An avalanche of water……have you no lessons learned?”

 

“This mountain is our mother and the river is our blood

Revere their bounty as is and only our hearts will flood

When the story unfolds, the loss will be ours indetermined.”

But these words of caution, alas, were cast to the summer wind

 

Well.  The story unfolded.  Over dusk and stormy dawn

And, like a paper between two fingers being unevenly torn,

That wall of hubris was ripped to a sentinel jagged shred

Lives and dreams lost forever amidst ominous dread

 

Every pebble in the Teesta has a poignant story to tell

But those who wear the shroud of Hubris hardly listen well

Never.  Never. Never must this happen ever again.

But we know it sadly will for the builder feels no pain.

 

My heart goes out to you, stoic Lepchas of the Mist

To the soldiers whose lives we lost in Destiny’s twisted tryst

To those who warned unheeded of the fate to befall

And to the mystical, magical, enigmatic, sacred Teesta river,

……now under a fallen wall.