A Rogue Who Nearly Became A Bigger Rogue (ie, An Economist)

Somewhere in the course of my education, I lost my way and considered – only briefly, I promise you – becoming an economist.
 
Ok, ok, I know what you are thinking with an involuntary shudder and your eyes rolling upwards.  How could this guy, a normal (well, relatively, shall we say?) self-respecting, law-abiding, well-nourished chap, who loves walnuts dipped in chocolate and never grew a beard and has an IQ – when reports last came in - above 22, from a decent middle-class background with family values that included watching Hum Log and bargaining with auto drivers and rinsing empty milk sachets to extract eleven additional molecules to that half-litre…. how could this guy even think that he should study Economics?  Yes, I know, I know, it can happen to anyone and Society should be forgiving. 
 
Now for the good news: I redeemed myself by flipping through an Econ textbook.  What I saw there was that one bane of human civilization which everyone agrees is an unnecessary evil but nobody does anything about: it’s called Math, and economics is full of it, all of it designed by sadists who have had their eyebrows pierced against their will.  I would rather swim with a starving Great White Shark in a baby pool.  So, economics took a back seat (in another car). 
 
Later on, in Misguided Life (don’t shudder, this para ends quickly), I even started teaching economics to a bunch of homicidal, ideologically-vacuumed, disengaged, moribund misanthropes – we called them college students to provide a veneer of respectability.  We had classes on aggregate demand, full employment and marginal revenue and pretended that none of this was fiction (mind you, this was before demonetization as well).  I even once managed a class on GDP without anyone needing first aid or asking me if there was a book by Jeffrey Archer on it.
 
Some of the misanthropes who had an axe to grind with teachers as a retardant sub-species asked questions – when they were awake – like “Sir, what happens to the GDP multiplier if a helicopter drops five thousand rupees from above into each poor household in India”.  Now, you see how dangerous these misanthropes are – since I had no fricking smart-aleck idea, I would say, “It will cause inflation.” and then suggest reading material that only Robinson Crusoe would attempt to read. 
p.s.: generally, everything causes inflation.  That’s why Economics is hot air. 

Some of the other misanthropes were delightfully funny with quotes from the textbook which began with “Since human beings are rational decision makers….”, after which we would all laugh so much that we needed a break.  Then, we’d have tests where I would ask questions from the Real World (i.e., newspaper), questions like, if National Income increases by 8 percent a year, how much water hyacinth will the Godavari carry in five years?
No, I made that up.  But you get the picture.

I did all this Economics instruction for no income, just fun, mind you.  Let me repeat that in case you have missed it: I did all this teaching just for Fun, which is incontrovertible evidence that the apparently mildest person – one, for example, who loves walnuts dipped in chocolate - has a streak of barbarism hidden somewhere along with two fangs.  

Stuck In The Mud (No, Not Me)

 The other day I did something that I am really good at: got the car stuck in mud, this time on the dirt track leading to Random Rubble (the farm).  I am an old practiced hand at this, so when I get a car stuck in mud, I do a thorough, systematic job following a CMM Level 5 process, with Six Sigma for company.  This time the car swayed sideways like Mariappa after his evening brew and the wheels got stuck in a deep groove formed by a tractor.  We – the car and I – sunk so low down that I could plant tomatoes and palak on my accelerator, no questions asked.  
So, I switched off the engine and waited for help.

Muniyappa was the first to walk by.  By way of intimate introduction, this Error-of-Evolution has the Intelligence Quotient that falls in-between that of a plastic chair and a caterpillar.  He had a puzzled look and tapped the car’s bonnet, expecting it, no doubt, to be made of banana fibre or Sentient Life or something.

“Sir, why did you not take this route?” he said, pointing helpfully to what I should have done.  I tried telling him that I didn’t see the mud from the driver’s seat, but gave up after the third attempt because Seenappa and two of his buddies landed up and asked me the same question, shaking their heads and grinning like that asinine scarecrow with a pot for a head in the avarekkai field.  

Everyone and his mother-in-law then got into a big argument on whether the car should be pushed forwards or backwards to get it out.  I suggested that they include up and down as well in the list of options, but sarcasm is generally wasted in my village after it is translated into Telegu.  Then Ramappa – whom I call Universe Boss because Society in general is carefully wary of him - turned up with his A2 cows and stated emphatically that we would propel the car forward. Forward, he growled again, so everyone, including the cows, nodded their heads with Deep Understanding.  

So, when I started the car and revved the engine on first gear, three out of the five stalwarts in attendance, including Error-of-Evolution, pushed backwards with all their might.  The car dug itself deeper in, of course, and Ramappa got three bucket loads of mud on his shirt, after which he used words for his fellow-countrymen that may be classified as Higher Education In Pursuit Of Infinite Reality.

Muniyappa stood aside and looked at me thoughtfully. “Sir, you should not have taken this route,” he said, shaking his head like he was doing a stress test for the Timken ball bearings at the base of his thick skull.   

Ramappa then began to fill in the grooves with mud – the first sensible thing that anyone had done – while everyone else agreed that we needed a tractor, though no one knew why, while Venkatesh kept us engrossed with three tragic, deeply emotional stories of cars-in-mud that had become discounted scrap metal.  When Ramappa was done filling in mud and swearing at the others, everyone promised this time that they would only push forwards which, I am happy to report from the trenches, worked out.  So, the car was saved from being scrap metal (for the moment.  Watch this space).

I then parked the car by the gate just ahead and Muniyappa landed up, this time examining the wiper blade intently and testing it on his finger.  
“Sir, tell me,”he said, “why did you drive into the mud?”

Keep Walking

October 3rd to 5th 2022

We walk.

We walk to think.  To pick up soap.  To meet a friend.  To catch a bus.  Sometimes, we walk because there is a path.   

That's it.  

This path that we take over the first two days leads to a crest where we sit for a while, turn around and head right back. 

Along the way, there are trees, fungi and birds to see.  Conversations to excite comment, morbid humour to stay unfocused.  Some trail mix and philosophy to chew on.  Well, here's the pot pourri.....

Egg-like mushrooms.  
That is about All
That I need to know.
Unless they are not edible

   

Our guide, Bhagwat Singh - Bhaggu - is struck by my interest in mushrooms (it takes all types to make the world, he is thinking) and is the attentive sort, willing to share his knowledge and listen.  I am just reading Entangled Life - a book on fungi - so the interest is new and I have all the enthusiasm of a recent convert.  Bhaggu hence is a perfect companion.

The only time I frown is when he helpfully points to a dense foliage below and lets us know that the Emperor of All Birds, the monal pheasant, one that I would parachute off Nanda Ghunti peak in my swimming trunks to see, has just entered the foliage and is now out of view.  

(ps: not my photo, but give me credit for lifting the best one I found online)

He points to the tall trees by the side of the path: the wild walnut is inedible, unbreakable, even unpredictable .....sounds exactly like the rotis we had on campus three decades ago (the taste, if you can call it that with fervent imagination, lingers).  

The mushrooms that he has just shown me are at the base of the Panghar tree - Aesculus indica or the Himalayan horse-chestnut - giant trees with beautiful, light green leaves that are abundant here.  And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the chestnut. I grew up with the Enid Blyton-squirrel-chestnut triumvirate in my head, so this is good to see.  If you are as jobless as I am and have no clue why it is called a chestnut, here is the definitive link to illuminate the mind: 💡🔦

https://mashedradish.com/2015/12/22/what-is-the-chest-in-chestnut/

     

This is the beautiful Khamiya tree, with epiphytic ferns of a rusty silver colour.  

We walk past lovely large oaks, locally known as baanhj (Quercus leucotrichophora - say that again, quickly), another oak called Kharsu (Quercus semecarpifolia - repeat, twice a day after food) and a stretch of conifers - good hard wood, I was told - extending across the hillsides.  

And then, these giants give way to smaller trees: enter the rhododendron zone that accompanies us all the way to the Panghu crest at 11700 feet.  The first rhodos are taller and straighter, while the higher ones seem to have wider entangled roots and cluster in a dense monoculture that must be a summer walker's delight as the flowers blossom.   

The trunks are a delicate pink
Peel the bark and it's a bloody red
Stop for a while and reflect.  Think
Rush right in where angels tread.

A broad-leaved Himalayan forest, with little trace of chir pine is a forest of my idyllic dreams, a forest that invites the denizens of these high-altitude landscapes: bear, deer - sambhar, barasingha and the occasional musk deer, going by local accounts - and porcupine (I see some droppings on the path, so Mr Prickly has been around).  

Can you, in your mind's eye, see these montane forests under a moonlit sky, with a languid, prowling Bhalu searching for tubers, deer browsing on leaves and the sleepy langurs up in the branches keeping vigil for the Big One, the leopard.....  

Bhaggu has, at times, seen his namesake - bhaggu, bageera, cheetah even, to locals - and once, at a higher elevation, saw the snow leopard with its kill.  Both bhaggus bounded off in opposite directions, one to safety and the other - a feared predator - to call his mates, all of whom returned on their two supple legs in a group to pick up the remains of the deer for their dinner, while the snow leopard cursed her luck.  

Some trees have been chopped and I hear the sound of a motorised saw below.  This is a community forest, Bhagwat tells me, managed by a van panchayat and the local folk of the village are allowed - for a fee - to chop a tree or two for their use; occasionally this privilege is extended to the inhabitant of a neighbouring village. This isn't egregious by any means, for the forest is dense, with a rich layer of humus.  

What is being done elsewhere on an organised scale in the ill-concealed guise of development is far worse, a hundred times so - the 5 kilometre road to Khati has on its slope an ecological graveyard.  We debate on the issue as we walk and it is cogently argued that to make an omelette, one must break eggs, but surely a middle way is possible? 

What a panorama tells us is that there is a larger picture that is missed

If I have learnt one thing after all these years, it is that Economic Development - whatever that means - is a chimera.  One day, I know, we will learn the fallacy of assumption as well.    

But, for now, more mushrooms follow....

And that is where this story must stay.

Looks like a thick slab of paneer, hard as as plastic chair
Tap, tap, goes Bhaggu, to prove his point.

Another tap-tap one, rock solid

An awning for your window that you can eat when you are hungry? 
It grows right back, 

Moss, fern, wood, mushroom.

No rolling stone.

Sept 22nd 2022

Random Rubble

 

It is a lovely clear morning and the rains have taken a welcome break in the last fortnight.  The stand of grass across the farm is over four feet tall after a vigorous monsoon and we – a team of four – move about cautiously, clearing up a couple of paths and uprooting invasive weeds.  Seenappa takes a step sideways and yelps in surprise as, in a flash, a hare darts out of a clump of grass and dashes into the undergrowth behind him.    We wait motionless for another to make its move, for they often move in teams, but there is stillness.

My day is made.

 

I have said this before: the Indian Hare (the South Indian sub-species is the Black Naped Hare, but you can leave these details for the specialists) is an unusual, astonishing product of evolution, with extraordinary power in its very long hind legs. Watching them bounce-and-sprint is sheer delight: they are Usain Bolts On Energy Bars and they change directions in sharp and unpredictable ways (which reminds me of the Centre’s trade policy, but let’s not get carried away), twisting and turning their way out of trouble - of which there is no paucity - with a speed that can leave you breathless and overawed. They are, in a phrase, Nature’s great dashers.  If otters are mesmerizing to watch, hares are equally so. 

And they are as beautiful!  Their bunnies, ah! they are unforgettably cute and endearing too; I have seen them just once as they bounded away, bundles of bouncy fur and nervous energy.

Photo by Nagesh Rao

They seem to love this time of the year at the farm as much as I do and I understand this is the breeding season; they make their cave-like creations - multiple ones - in this case using the lantana that had been cut at the farm in mid-Oct 2020.  A pair hung around and helped themselves to some ragi stems, depositing the nibbled grass neatly to one side and prodigious quantities of droppings – again, neatly - on the other. I can, in my mind’s eye, see them nibbing rapidly away, with the male standing up and sniffing nervously ever so often and looking around all the time, with his long, narrow, upright ears twitching like vibrant antennae.

 

Nature built them for speed but if they need protection against anyone, it is us, for hares are hunted in the ghastliest ways, with snares and packs of trained dogs and Heaven knows what else.  Perhaps in response, they have become ever more elusive and nocturnal. 

For now, my hares are safe and I know they will be around but it’s unlikely I’ll see them much. Because big boys, you see, play at night. Others write on Facebook.

Today is World Rabbit Day and, of course, a note is in order, though you don't find them in the wild in India.

My introduction to rabbits was through, well, Enid Blyton; I grew up (now, did I ever?) on her stories of Brer Rabbit, and that old red hardbound book, thumbed dozens of times by a dreamy kid and his patient mum, has pride of place in the bookshelf in the study.

I even had a rabbit given to me as a birthday gift as a result – he was a beautiful white, with shiny pink tender eyes – but, I must say, he was boring as hell and not anything as smart as Brer Rabbit was and he didn’t smell that good (you can’t eat cabbage leaves all day and smell of roses – old jungle saying), so I sort of lost interest until he went missing one day from his cage by the veggie garden.

And when in my teens, I read an eerie story called ‘The Rabbit’s Paw’ (read it at your peril), but it only enhanced my fascination for the family of Lagomorphs to which hares, rabbits and that other marvellous chap, the pika, belong (once shared a lodging with a pika at Bedni Bugyal up in the hills in Uttarakhand and he loved my food, a matter on which he and I had a serious disagreement).

And you should know that rabbits were used in cosmetic testing for years: with their heads held tightly in brackets, for example, drops of shampoo were put into their eyes that must have been terrifyingly painful, setting new standards in needless cruelty. Beginning in the 1980s, a no-testing-on-animals movement began and some, including the passionately heretical Anita Roddick of The Body Shop - a hero of mine -, gave it strength. Better still, it became a marketing weapon and (hopefully) the cosmetic folks walk their talk today, so things have changed for the better overall (so be an optimist. If you are wondering who that is, an optimist is one who expects all the crayons to be in the box).

So, for rabbits at least, the world is probably a better place today.  And that is more than we can say for most others.

Gowramma, the lake Goddess, there's a fly in the pakoda and why the Chinese have a stake in an annual festival

Today is the habba, the festival, and the temple, a pleasant drive away from the farm, is teeming with people: a group of women singing in a corner, families with offering, decked in their finest dresses and a surprising stack up of cars that bear testimony to the increased prices of land. The air is festive, chaotic and happily loud. 

A month ago, as is done every year here, some clay was dug out of the lake bed a short distance from the temple, and fashioned into the Goddess' petite figure, decked with her cloth and jewellery. Today, the Form will go back into the lake; the adornments stored for next year. 

The lake is sacred and conserved; the rule of religious conservation belief reigns as it does in so much of India. 

Children pay little attention to all of this. They, and the Chinese who make the cheap, disposable toys sold here, have a stake in these stalls, except for the ones that serve food. The ones with the stake there are adults with a touching belief in their iron constitutions. And, yes, flies have a stake too and are having a time of their (short) life  (though I don't want to put you off your meal). 

A fly and a flea in a flu
Were stuck.  So what could they do?
Said the flea, Let us fly
Said the fly, Let us flee
So, they flew through a flaw in the flu

I seem to be the only one thinking of the plastic waste that will pile up after today, but wishes aren't horses.....
Change will come one day. But may the festival of  Gowramma - her creation and immersion - never change.

Rain, Rain, Horn OK Please

The reason we Bangaloreans get all excited when the city floods after a rain is that we need something to complain about other than the traffic, which gets terribly (yawn) borrrring after a while.  

“Do you know how long it took me to do the 5 km to Brigade Gateway?”

“Ok, if took you less than 2 hours, buy us the bisi bele bath and one by six coffee. Ask for extra kara boondi.”

…and so on.  After all, we are only human (even though it does seem otherwise if you listen to conversations on food as above).

In these last few days, the neighbourhood Whatsapp group – of which I am now a Distinguished Alumni, but still receive messages – has everyone’s personal account of the trauma they faced the last night, with video, photos, Income Tax Refund details and annual expenditure on dog food.  Needless to add, everyone is deeply touched by everyone else’s plight, before adding: “Suresh, this is nothing.  My basement……”

Everyone is of the view – and this is synchronous, unanimous, unambiguous and uninterruptedly emotional – that someone should do something.  Now, you should know that the city once had a municipal council.  This council had a bunch of elected folks and if you put their photos into a box and took eleven of them out, you would have a Wanted poster for the nearest cop station, no questions asked (those photos also raised serious doubts on the rest of our population – the Are They Homo Sapiens? Question – but I shall not digress).  The Municipal Council was dissolved (no, not in the rain, dumbo) and since then, We Have No One (well, Jesus saves, of course, but in a slightly larger context, if you see what I mean), the thought of which makes most Bangaloreans burst into tears which, you will agree, doesn’t do much for the flood situation.

The road in front of my home – calling it a road is a touching gesture on my part – was under a foot of water this morning and there were seven people standing in the water looking important (the people, not the water.  These details matter.)  Most of them were on their phones.  (Now, now.  Don’t take this literally.  They weren’t ON the phones, which would mean that the phones were IN the water, which, even the Unicorniest of Bangaloreans – the chap who runs Cred, for example – wouldn’t do).  I gathered by listening in – a most healthy and biologically nourishing activity with your morning tea - that all of them were telling others how bad it all was and, presumably, they were standing in the middle of the road, sixteen inches in the dirtiest water I have seen since my school’s sambar, to ensure accurate measurement.  

ps: just fyi - this need for accurate-measurement-with-adjusht-maadi is another Bangalorean auto immune disease that makes us sometimes seem not so human. 

It's been sunny all day today and everyone’s deeply disappointed and returned to complaining about traffic: apparently, someone on Outer Ring Road (now called Under Ring Road) has parked his boat in such a way that it is obstructing all boats and that one fishing vessel that has come up this morning from Mangalore.