Those Little White Pills

 February 15th 2021

Yesterday, five of us took a walk to the top of a hill in the memory of a fellow-walker.  Doc was a thinker, part-philosopher part-iconoclast, consummate team mate. 

Above all, we walked together.  
Over the last twenty years, when we walked the hills – the ancient rock formations around Bangalore, above the stratus clouds in Coorg and across the narrow Pass of the Gaddis at Hampta in Himachal - he was a quiet, reflective, inspiring companion, his lithe frame skipping over the rocks, his breathing even, the eyes curious to explore.  When we shivered and cursed the biting, unrelenting freeze, he would swap short notes with our trek guide on local medicines – the cold was in the mind and if you convinced yourself that it wasn’t there, well, it wasn’t.
 
Every plant had a story to tell him, for wasn’t his homeopathy based on the science of the botanical? His was a life inspired by these plants, a life that was happy to seek answers to quotidian questions of pagan mystique, an uncomplicated, disciplined life of meditation, with gentle humour and an inner smile.  If he felt unwell, we would never know of it, for much of that conversation was with himself.  If he felt angry, he too would never know of it, for it was an alien emotion.  When the walk was done and we were back in our homes, he’d disappear till the next walk happened.  Attachment was like anger, an alien emotion.
He was built to be a walker.
 
On one walk, he reflected that he was becoming aware of his own mortality, which despite having had the occasional deeper conversation surprised me.  That is what walking does to you sometimes, and that reflection – when you see a giant of a hill by your side, the result of four billion years of utterly miraculous evolution – is evocative, humbling, meditative.  
Doc was a meditative walker.  The journey mattered.  Time did not.

We laboured up the beautiful Kaiwara Hill last morning – a
drying forest of waiting tinder - and exchanged our Doc stories and the odd one he had left behind in that noiseless, unassuming way of his.  We laughed about his little white pills, thinking of the times when he had defended his science with a knowing smile and allowed us our earthly mirth.  Had he been on the walk, that smile would have been teased us back in turn.  

We trundled our way up, with even DV – whose legs had last been pushed to perform three years ago – making the grunt to the top, and laughed and joked for much of the time, for Doc would have wanted it that way. 
 
“Don’t pay attention to me,” he would have said, in that dismissive way of his, “just move on.”
Doc was a walker, you see.
 

And as we dropped our bags at the top of the hill, and took the odd photo – sunlight reflecting off grey hair, stomachs in, shoulders up – he must have been smiling down on us behind that neatly trimmed beard in that bright way of his.  For nothing better could be expected from this motley bunch of stragglers, all of whom would remember him as The One Who Walked Alongside In Meditation.

The panorama from Kaiwara betta
Circa: February 14^th, 2021

I Live On The Road To Destiny

I live on the road to destiny

On an endless journey, surviving on memories

A wish of joy for you, my fellow travellers

For I am driven by wanderlust

On this journey to an unknown destination.

There are those who, in their search and wander,
Were burnt by the mid-day sun.

Scorched without, scorched within…..

To shadows, each with a memory of an earlier self,

And, as these shadows cast on an earth parched,

Some corner of that blue cloudless burning sky

Folded up and fell into light, troubled slumber.

As I traverse this interminable road

The mind lives in these memories of shadow and light

Streaming vignettes of solitary recollection

While my feet are in flight,

And the earth flows like a river beneath

I look over my shoulder and scan the horizon.

For a destination that is somewhere behind

Journey’s End, where wanderlust would cease.

Yet, there is nothing.

So I traverse the road night and day

A journey unending beyond inclination or will.

Stay well, fellow travellers - my wish to you on a wing

I am compelled to move, it is the only way I know.

The nest is empty, crumbly and decaying,
Its brown blades of grass now tossed by the stormy wind

On an endless turbulent flight to nowhere.

And as I reach villages that offer respite and rest

The road seems to take a turn

Away and back, to those reflections on the past

Blown by the breeze like those blades of grass.

Those memories are my home, carried within

And when I stop anywhere, that becomes my abode,

My nest and cocoon for the night ahead.

It is a comforting journey, the one on this road.

The only way I know

 

The Laugh That Won You Over

My first experience of Sivan uncle was his laughter.  One day in the mid-80s, I had just entered Vrindavanam and heard a booming, whole-hearted laugh, followed by another.  This was most unusual, for the older generation there believed that laughter was something that possibly earned you a bacterial form in your next life.  But entering this room, I saw this unusual man, with thick, white hair combed neatly back and a heavy pair of spectacles through which the eyes twinkled, seated cross legged on a bed, with a ready audience. 

He was immediately likeable.

I did not expect to meet such a lively person; just about a year earlier, he had lost much of his life’s work in Sri Lanka: livelihood, reputation as a lawyer, home and God-knows-what-else, leaving the country when the ethnic violence reached a point of no return.  The  years had been harrowing and stressful, yet you would never have guessed it;  wait for a while and you would hear his laughter, a trademark that defined him along with those twinkling eyes.   So, when he stayed with us in Bangalore next, I wanted to know him more.  I showed him books by my favourite cartoonist, RK Laxman, and, of course, the laughter touched a new crescendo – he would read a cartoon and find every nuance possible, each funnier than the earlier one.  
Some months later, he told me that he had actually met Laxman, when in Bombay and had his autograph. 

“But, how?” I wondered, for I had read that Laxman was an irascible character, prone to rudeness.  He apparently liked to work in his room at the Times all alone and was entirely intolerant of any interruption. 

“I just went into the Times building, asked around and went up and met him.” Sivan uncle said, as if the answer was utterly rudimentary.   But, you see, for him it was.  For Sivan uncle was a charmer, a man who could melt a curmudgeon, and I could see just how Laxman might have found it impossible to be anything other than civil in his presence.  

Yet, it was as I got to know him better that the other facets of his personality came alive: his eclectic taste in books and extraordinary humility (by the way, have you noticed that people who laugh a lot and from their heart are generally humble; it’s funny, there is a clear positive correlation).

Two books in my college years particularly influenced me: Small is Beautiful by EF Schumacher and a biography of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer.  When Uncle and I discussed them – and, by the way, he was the only one I could discuss them with – I began to see more to him than a funny, lively human being.  Deep within, there was philosophy, extraordinary (for the times) liberal thought -hence the connection with the Mahatma - and a sense of purpose.

Much of our conversations centred around development, though there was little I could contribute to the conversation that was original (a generation later in 2006, I would have similar conversations with Purnima). These were rich learning, so rich that I even asked Uncle for help with admission to a Masters program in MCC, Madras, so that I could catch up with him more often; his soft word actually had the admission ready and I attended the interview as well, but didn’t take up the course (that’s a story for another day).

While in Madras, he had fought for the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka, about which I knew little.  But it was after moving to Coimbatore that he joined an issue that I could entirely relate to:

South India Viscose made staple fibre used in clothing.  It was owned by one of the richest men in India, Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry (today, better identified as the father of Cyrus) and operated an old plant with poor effluent treatment facilities, resulting in the horrific pollution of the Bhavani river, the waterline to Coimbatore.  There were activists fighting the factory and he joined them: his role was to help with matters of law and, critically, to inspire others who were in the boat.  We spoke about it often and I was thrilled to see an activist amongst the pantheon of conformists in the parent generation. 

One day in 1997, in his own lifetime and to his delight, the factory was shut (it subsequently put effluent treatment systems in place and reopened, but I do not know the current operating status; perhaps, it is better that way!).

But of course, Sivan Uncle took on a number of others too, including a lady collector in the Nilgiris who was known to be both corrupt and ruthless (much like her political mentor); she got him arrested and those months in jail were rough and hard.  Now here is the crux: over the years – even in January this year – I have felt nervousness and agitation, and fear, at sporadic attempts at activism.  Every such time, I have asked myself, Just how did Sivan uncle manage his emotions?   I got a clue when I met him once he had got out of jail, as a result of the direct intervention of Amnesty International.  “She is a dangerous woman,” he told me, the lips set in a grim line, but the eyes?  The eyes were twinkling.  Because Sivan uncle loved the battle; it got him going in a style that was uniquely his. 

With that battle, he became an icon for me.  Sivan uncle, it seemed to me with my early-twenties idealism, could do anything. 

When, in 1993, he came to Bangalore, Mum told him that Aruna and I were engaged.  The broad open smile on hearing the news, the warm handshake, the ‘aaahhh’ of delight, the hug that followed, these are unforgettable memories of affection and warmth.  And what I love about memories is that they are within and remain alive even when the person has gone away, amidst the deepest sorrow of absence.  He immediately wanted to meet her, so he hopped onto the back seat of my bike (CAO 7474, now a family heirloom) and we rode up to the Tata IBM office on Airport Road.  On that busy arterial road, as the three of us chatted, he had won her over in about a minute and a half with his laughter and self-deprecating humour. 

For, he was, as you now know for sure, a Real Charmer.

And he was the only one who could persuade me to meet an Aunt in Palakkad, who wasn’t exactly known for her likeability and with whom I had, shall we say, a most frosty relationship.  The meeting did not go according to script (well, it was his script, not hers!), and he was most apologetic later.  But nobody else could have made me do that in a hundred years, and make me feel good about it later.  Charmer again!

And then there other memories too: of an afternoon in Kotagiri where Aruna and I stood at the back of a room listening to Uncle speak in Tamil.  I did not understand a word, of course, but the tone was passionate, committed, thoughtful, positive.  The words, Aruna later said, matched in style and flow and the command over the language was masterly.  That was the thing about Sivan uncle: after meeting him, you discussed him! 

And I think of a Sunday in Manas and of a discussion - over a drink - on philosophy and yoga between Nimmu and Uncle.  I think Uncle was posed a challenge and on impulse, he stood on his head, doing the shirsha-asana (and talking and laughing away).  That, I think, is the finest way to remember him: headstand, post-beer, philosophy turned upside down and laughing.

How could a person be just….so complete? 

Pay Obeisance to the Obese. Or else....

 I know of two rulers
One of whom was super fat

And he quite abhorred

Being called just that.

To be stamped lissome

He passed an obese Act

So those who were lissome

Could now be called fat

My Deep Research Into Why Rural Males in Maharashtra wear Gandhi Caps or have Mushroom Haircuts

Public transport buses in Maharashtra are red in colour for good reason. 

I got a seat at the back in one in Amboli once and, after a quick break, it took off at top speed. The roads were in awful shape after the rains and the driver reminded us of this repeatedly, taking great care to go into and out of every pothole with excruciating precision. Every time he did so, the entire crowd in the aisle – almost all male - would be launched vertically upwards and hit the ceiling with a soft thud. Soft, because, you see, the impact was absorbed by their strategically worn Gandhi caps or, in its absence, a robust mushroom haircut with a dense mop on top (such critical insights now-a-days are worthy of higher encomium, but I shun the spotlight).

These buses – all decades old - are held together only by coalition politics, I think, and their windows rattle like a skeleton doing a night trek in the Himalayas in winter. Once in a while, as we approached a village, the driver would discover the brake with surprise and stamp it with a hydraulic press. The aisle passengers would now be propelled forward like a battering ram and they always found their target – a middle-aged fellow who was facing them, who’d get about 440 volts electrical equivalent of impact in a soft spot of the male anatomy that I can only delicately describe in the language of trains as ‘frontier male’.  As nobody had any place to move otherwise, such involuntary movement was taken as a useful opportunity to adjust positions or jostle with a friend or step on people’s new footwear. 

The driver was very patient with people getting in, but the conductor did have a dim view of those who took time to exit, providing me with a rich, wholesome education in local abuse (entirely free of charge, I must add). 

People often leaned out of windows at perilous angles to 
a) wish those on the roads whom they thought they knew, as we shot past or
b) get rid of some paan masala (often, close to those on the roads whom they thought they knew, as we and the paan masala shot past them) 

And then there was an old monk who had eaten something he should not have. And a farmer who had had more Old Monk that he should have (no, not the former’s companion. This Old Monk is a farmer’s companion).   And a little boy who had eaten more than he should have (and was regurgitating some of it into a plastic bag).   At one point, a whole bunch of school kids got onboard with school bags that weighed about two tons each. As the bus swerved and bumped, these kids would giggle as their bags swung towards the seated passengers who (except me) seemed to duck and sway expertly in a skilled contest of brawn and brain. There was some excitement after I got a school bag on my shoulder and much jostling and negotiation amongst them to be next to me. It was all healthy, wholesome fun and, as you can see, left a deep impression (most significantly, on my hip). 

Combine this with charming sugarcane fields and a setting sun and I could not have asked for more. The next time I go on one of these, I will ask for less though.

Locker, Stock and Double Barrel

When I was growing up, the Indian middle class was deeply divided into two sub-castes: those who had bank lockers and those who did not.

When my father moved to Bangalore in 1978, about the first thing he did was to open accounts in forty different branches of nationalised banks in the hope that anyone of them would honour him with a locker.  He even tried to get a locker at the SBI branch on St Marks Road – which, in probability terms, is the same as trying to reach the US by riding on a tortoise with hernia. 

Finally, we got a locker in State Bank of Mysore.

Now, until its merger with SBI, State Bank of Mysore was the second worst bank in the world, a title for which there was great worldwide competition. The locker room in SBM had 2 characteristic features:

1.       It was on the 2^nd floor, with the sole intention of dissuading those retirees whose principal source of entertainment was to use them

2.       The room had a full-length mirror.  More of this later.

Indiranagar in Bangalore used to be packed to its rims with defence retirees in those days, all of whom had lockers because of some dumb scheme (Why, I cannot imagine.  “Manager, I have a used surface-to-air missile.  I need a large locker.”).  Generally, defence retirees– because they abhor civilian life and its attendant inefficiency – spent all their time opening fixed deposits, closing old ones and threatening to shoot anyone who comes in between these two tasks. 

So, we’d wait until the assistant bank manager, who looked like a bull dog that had chewed on amla soaked in lime juice,  called you and pulled out a ring with thirty Godrej keys, all of which looked just the same.  He would try one key after another, which reminded me of Geoff Boycott’s batting because it was so soothing and sleep-inducing and there was no notable application of intelligence.  At last, when a key fitted, the locker would reluctantly open and he would stride out of the room mumbling deep curses at having passed the Probationary Officers exam twenty two years ago. 

The mirror in the locker room was placed to enable women to try on their locker jewellery, the idea surely coming from a bank employee who hated humanity.  One particular lady from Andhra would labour up the stairs to the locker room, her chains clanging like those on a temple elephant and waiting customers would just go off, see ‘Gone with the Wind’ come back and take their place in the queue.  It was hopeless.

When my mum made me the joint holder of her locker, I knew this was clear revenge for the times I did not appreciate her cooking.  But things have changed at the bank too: every time I go to SBI to close the locker, the Manager tells me how lucky the bank is to have a customer like me and offers me a free credit card for life.   I have a bigger locker as a result and all it has is an old Nikon F 80, which, I hope, will be worth half a million dollars in 2119. 

Luke-warm

Imagine for a moment that you are standing in front of a skeleton, a tall one.  Its limbs dangle loosely, the skull and the involuntary smirk send a shiver up your spine and the demeanour is thoughtful, almost pensive.  Now, add a layer of fair skin to this skeleton, a pair of non-descript eyes, a light brown suit and bowler hat and you would get Luke D’Souza.

You could do the reverse too: add a smile to Luke and you’d get a skeleton (now that’s creeping you out). 

He taught us geography and history (Luke, not the skeleton) and quite rightfully so, for he was a walking relic himself, his tall gangly body carrying the typically British suit – entirely out of place on a summer day in Bangalore – while striding down the grim, unlit corridor leading to our class.  

In our days in school, there were two kinds of history books: those that were horrible and others that were unreadable.  Luke would read out from a brain-numbing tome in a flat, low, deflated monotone, sometimes adding a sentence while staring at an imaginary Alauddin Khilji on the wall.  And we would listen.  Well, truthfully, we would pretend to listen while doing the following things:

-          Play book cricket (now an extinct game, thankfully.  It reduced my IQ to around 27)

-          Pass notes onto others who would pass notes onto others who would pass….(you get the drift)

-          Doodle.  There were two variations – doodling in our books or in the books of others (where creative forms of expression were at their peak)

-          Carving on the desks.  This requires explanation:  the desks, having been used by generations of carvers, were like the roads in Defence Colony and hence required Mohen ja daro-like excavations to be enriched.  This, in turn, required an annual supply of compasses, most of which were supplied (unwillingly) by Sarosh Guzder, whose dad was wealthy enough to buy first-hand geometric boxes.  

There were two things we would never do in The Skeleton’s class:

-          Laugh

-          Throw paper at anyone (which was otherwise our national sport)

..for these crimes called for capital punishment and the impact of Luke The Skeleton’s bones on you stayed around for a few days.  

He was in charge of a dreadful activity called figure-running in our Annual Day, that was supposed to highlighted collaboration, but, instead, showcased carefully-controlled-chaos.  He would be in a bad temper every year at this time and everyone - even the pariah kites that stole our lunches - avoided him.  And, when this was all over and we were back in class, Life (and our excavation) went back to normal.  

The other day, I saw a skeleton in a lab, that looked eerily like him and (was I imagining this?) smirked as I slunk away.  Luke-the-Skeleton’s place in History isn’t assured, but if I am right in my guess, his place in Biology is.