Plane Tales From India

 

As air travellers, Indians’ reputation has been zilch class and their eccentricities have provided enough fodder for stand-up comedians. The most notable ones include stuffing up the overhead cabin baggage holder with their unwieldy bags and air hostesses struggling to shut the holders before a takeoff, and the mad scramble to the door as soon as the aircraft comes to halt after landing. 

But of late they have, quite literally, touched a new low with the leaky bladders of male passengers on international flights, where free liquor is served. India’s flagship carrier Air India, which was recently taken over by the Tata Group, has been rocked by two ‘peegate’ scandals on their international flights. 

Interestingly both flights were bound for New Delhi. The first incident happened on board a New York-Delhi flight on November 26 and the second one happened on a Paris-Delhi flight on December 6. The media got the stinky whiff of the first incident only a little before the second one came to light. 

In the first incident, a 34-year-old Shankar Mishra, working with an American bank Wells Fargo, and travelling business class had got drunk and urinated on a 70-plus woman co-passenger.

While the passenger’s conduct was unpardonable, the airline crew’s reaction too fell woefully short. The air hostesses cleaned the victim’s seat and offered her pyjamas to change over, but the crew decided against offering her a fresh seat.

She was told to make do with the same damp and smelly seat with some extra blankets thrown in. When she refused, they permitted her to sit in the “jump” seat normally occupied by flight attendants during take-offs and landings.

Mishra realised his mistake and offered an apology, and the crew readily considered the matter closed. Upon landing, he was not handed over to security and was allowed to walk off after being served a 30-day flight ban.

In the second incident on the Paris-Delhi flight, a man urinated on the blanket of a female passenger while she was away from her seat. In this case, the crew’s conduct was a shade better. They identified and isolated the offender and reported the incident to authorities. The erring passenger was taken into custody by CISF personnel at the Delhi airport.

However, a police complaint was not filed, as both the accused and the victim had reached an understanding. CISF allowed the accused to leave after he tendered a written apology in deference to the victim’s wishes, the airline later said.

After the stink started spreading in the media, Wells Fargo promptly dismissed Mishra. Now the heat was on the Tata Group and its chief N Chandrasekaran issued a statement that the airline crew ‘fell short’ of its duties and derostered the pilot and the crew of that particular flight.

The Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) too had ticked off Air India and reminded the airline that it should have reported the incident within 12 hours, and referred the matter to an internal committee to decide on a flight ban.

Meanwhile, Shankar Mishra went incommunicado and Delhi Police appeared clueless and many began wondering whether it is going to be a Komal Sharma redux. For the uninitiated, Komal Sharma has been elusive ever since carrying out an attack on Jawaharlal Nehru University students in October 2020. 

However, in this case, the Delhi Police nabbed Mishra from Bengaluru on January 6 from a guest house. Interestingly, his name was not even registered in the guest house logbook.

Amid all this din, everybody seems to have forgotten about the second culprit who had peed during the Paris-Delhi flight. His name and whereabouts continue to remain a mystery.

Mishra’s bail plea was rejected and he was in 14 days of judicial custody. After that, the trial began at a Delhi court, and Mishra is now singing a different tune. He now claims the woman had urinated upon herself due to her medical condition and pleaded not guilty! This was in contradiction to what he earlier said during the bail plea hearing. 

Air India’s lackadaisical handling of the incident is expected to make it all the more difficult to bring Mishra to book. 

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

Bollywood Bereaved

Bollywood, which was already facing widespread disruption in film making and distribution due to the lockdown, has now been hit by a double whammy of another kind - deaths of Irrfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor.

Both had diametrically opposite career trajectories. Khan was a rank outsider, while Kapoor was born into Bollywood's first family. For Kapoor, the entry into the tinsel town was a stroll in the park, but for Khan, it began with a hard landing.

Kapoor gained instant stardom with his debut film Bobby, but Khan had to move heaven and earth to be recognized. His was a gritty tale of an aspiring actor saddled with bit roles, who finally emerges out of the shadows through his talent and commitment.

Though I had seen Salaam Bombay way back in the late eighties, I only recently discovered that Khan was there in that film. Back then the only recognizable face in that Mira Nair's in-your-face peek into the Mumbai's red-light area was Anita Kanwar. She had become a well-known face because of her role in TV soap opera Buniyaad. Doordarshan was ruling the tube and satellite television was still a few more years away.

For Khan, the nineties was almost a washout - the mainstream cinema was under the stranglehold of David Dhawan-Govinda horseplay with double entendre ditties and wafer-thin plots. And people were more than willing to suspend their disbelief to cheer Govinda's gyrations. It even forced many established names to dumb down and fall in line.

On the other hand, offbeat film circuit was lorded over by Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri, who had by then carved out a niche audience after a long struggle.

Khan remained confined to the small screen and sundry TV serials. It was only in post-2000 he began finding his place under the sun. The tearing down of single-screen cinema theatres to multiplexes also worked in his favour.

He made a splash in the international film circuit by appearing in Life of Pi, Namesake and later Slumdog Millionaire. In the mainstream cinema, he made an impression by figuring in Life In a Metro, opposite Konkana Sen Sharma. His small-town naivete endeared him to the masses. Another film that won the critical, as well as mass acclaim, was Maqbool and Haider.

Soon the mainstream directors found him bankable as the multiplex cine-goers warmed up to the versatility of his acting prowess. Whether it was a light comedy, a crime thriller or tragedy, Khan assayed those roles in many shades with ease that soon became his trademark.

Movies like Hindi Medium, Qarib Qarib Single and others followed. However, the most talked-about film on social media turns out to be Lunchbox. Though I didn't like the ending, Khan, along with Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Nimrat Kaur successfully present a slice of Mumbai's suburban middle-class life.

The news of his ailment began doing rounds from last year, though the details were a closely guarded secret. His mother's death a few days ago made news for the fact that he was not able to go to Jaipur due to the travel restriction caused by the lockdown. Khan's end surprised many, and it came quite early - he definitely had much more of cinema left in him.

Rishi Kapoor

He was the youngest member of Bollywood's first family, and the first film Bobby was a dream launch. Soon he emerged as the archetypal lover boy with cherubic looks and happy-go-lucky demeanor. He was the original disco dancer of Bollywood and soon became the favourite pin-up boy in women's hostel rooms.

To his credit Kapoor stuck to his lover boy roles even when the anti-establishment angry young man hero, popularized by Amitabh Bachchan, was a rage. He continued to churn out reasonable returns to the box office through his movies like Sargam, Khel Khel Mein and later Chandini.

However, it was in the fag end of his career Kapoor got roles in which he could stand out. Whether it was playing a nonagenarian in Kapoor & Sons or the patriarch of a Muslim family branded as terrorists in Mulk, Kapoor assayed those roles with dexterity that was not on display during the early part of his career.

But my all-time favourite happens to be Do Dooni Chaar where he plays a harried Maths teacher who aspires to buy a car from his meagre savings. His wife, played by real life spouse Neetu Singh, provides an able supporting cast.

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

Confessions of a bibliophile (of paperback kind)

Online retailers may have 'click-baited' book lovers and Kindle may have hooked them on to computer and smartphone screens, but I still find going to book stores (especially the second-hand ones) worth the effort.

Entering a book store with hardly any particular book in mind, and being surrounded by shelves and shelves of books. Spending time thinking which book to buy or to buy anything at all, or suddenly coming across a book which I have been thinking of buying all these days but couldn't lay my hands upon. These are some of the unexpected thrills that attract me to a bookshop.

While in Mumbai I often used to visit those pavement book shops near the good old Central Telegraph Office on Veer Nariman Road (I am told they no longer exist) and spend hours squatting in the hot afternoon sun and rummage through the piles and piles of Harold Robbins, James Hadley Chase, Mills and Boon and not to mention the pornucopia penned by 'anonymous' writers, to find an Ernest Hemingway, a George Orwell or Somerset Maugham.

Quite often they used to be cheaper than the popular bestsellers. They were also old books with off-white pages and some even playing hosts to silver fishes. 

Considering the modest demand I hardly ever came across any pirated xerox prints. I guess the booksellers used to feel relieved that finally, a taker has arrived' for a book that has been languishing with them for long.

I have spent many afternoons and evenings at these pavement book stores and one of the booksellers seemed to have taken note of my preferences. A couple of times as I was going through the drill of mining for my favorite book, he would hand over a well known classic and say 'Yeh sir aapke type ka kitaab hai'. In hindsight, I wish I had made efforts to know more about him, but his actions often used to leave me surprised and startled, as if someone was reading my mind.

Thanks to him I got a copy of Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar and quite a few other books. He seemed to know a thing or two about an Aldous Huxley, a Henry Miller or Sylvia Plath and other English writers.

Rest of them I doubt whether they could even read English (or angrezi as they would say). They were only concerned about the price listed on the back cover and were least bothered about what lay between the covers. 

These second-hand books will often have names of previous owners scrawled on the front page. Some even had the date on which they were bought and some were given off as a gift for birthday. Some had both the previous owner's name and library seal. Probably some families may have donated them to a library for want of space or death of a bibliophile family member.

Interestingly, I happened to pick up a worn-out copy of Dog Years by noted German novelist Gunter Grass. It had the seal of Naval Officers Institute Dehra Dun and the date of procurement was mentioned as May 28, 1973. On the next page, somebody using a sketch pen had scrawled 'presented by INS Sutlej'.

In some books, I even came across the good old local train ticket (made of thick cardboard those days), which probably were used as bookmarks.

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While in Chennai I once got the chance to visit the famous second-hand book shop on a pavement near Luz Church road run by one R.K. Alwar. There were piles of books housed under a tarpaulin cover. Alwar was present and since it was a hot afternoon he was wearing only a veshti and no shirt, and his flowing Tolstoy-type grey beard covered most of his torso.

His fame had traveled far and wide and his clientele included the intelligentsia of Chennai, ranging from Alladi Krishanswamy Aiyar to Cho Ramaswamy. It is said that when Chennai's municipal authorities tried to remove his shop there were public protests, something Mumbai ought to have done when booksellers from CTO were told to move. And when he died last December, city newspapers accorded him a rare privilege of running obituaries.

The obits had stated that he was not literate, but when I had gone there he spoke decent English and came across as someone who eats, drinks and sleeps books. When I saw a copy of the Discovery of India and made a weak attempt to haggle about the price he said, "This is a classic written by Jawaharlal Nehru, I cannot give at a lower price."

At that point, I missed those booksellers in Mumbai who had little idea of what lay between the covers of what they were selling, and hence open to some bargaining.

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Second-hand booksellers in Bangalore are a more empowered lot and thriving. Though there are places Avenue Road where they sell on the pavements, the two famous sellers Blossoms and Bookworm, which trace their origins from pavements, have now become gentrified.

They are located on the prime Church Street and housed in proper shops running into more than square 5,000 feet, with modern-day payment trappings such as credit card swiping machines and mobile wallet facility thrown in. 

These two book stores have in fact bucked the worldwide trend of brick and mortar book stores closing down across the globe due to falling readership and onslaught of e-commerce companies. They, in fact, moved to bigger premises to cater to their patrons.

The rows of metal shelves at Blossoms may remind you of government offices. The books arranged on them burst at the seams. Bookworm too had that old world crammed look when it was housed in an outlet on the Shringar Complex on MG Road. But now after moving to Church Street it has acquired a high-street supermarket look.

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

Working class heroes: Apna Time Aaa Gaya

Working class heroes have quietly carved a few sweet spots in the Bollywood box office. Actors like Ayushmann Khurrana and Rajkumar Rao with their boy next paan shop looks and non-filmy backgrounds have succeeded in becoming ‘bankable’ with their movies turning out to be money spinners.

In their movies they hold regular middle-class jobs - a private company executive or a government bureaucrat and move around in two-wheelers or not so fancy hatchbacks like a Wagon R or a Santro and live in very middle-class colonies and apartments. Their love lives also would be far from perfect and sometimes even their love interests need not have ‘heroine’ looks as in Dum Laga Ke Haisha.

However, both Ayushmann and Rajkumar partly owe their success to Amol Palekar, probably the first working class hero with a middle-class background in Bollywood. It was Amol Palekar, who in association with director Basu Bhattacharjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee painstakingly carved a niche for such characters in the 1970s, when larger than life heroes held a vice-like grip over Bollywood box office.

During my childhood days in the 70s heroes were six-footers with drop-dead looks, while heroines dazzled us with their flawless skin and even more flawless aadarsh Bharatiya naari character, someone above all forms of suspicion.

Those movies were three-hour long dramas with highly formulaic plots, laden with distinctly black and white characters and copious running-round-the-trees duets. Needless to say, our young impressionable minds easily got hooked to it.

Along came Amol Palekar with his aam aadmi demeanour harried about the challenges of life. Back then it seemed sacrilegious to us that a hero could go about the whole movie without even getting involved in a single fisticuff; not court his lady love in fancy cars, but BEST buses and local trains; drive a rickety Lambretta scooter or Standard Herald car. No Impala or Ford Mustang car chases, no horse riding ... tsk tsk, how can he be a hero!! We wondered.

After some initial tut-tutting people started warming up to him thinking that cinema need not always be an escape from reality, a little dose of realism with a pleasant middle-class setting as a prop was welcome.

Then came guys like Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri, and it led to further unlearning of our concept of heroes. They came with hard as nails reality and provided a peek into life in lower middle class and slum localities. It took a lot of time for people to appreciate their style of acting.

Their legacy was carried forward by the likes of Manoj Bajpai and now by Nawazuddin Siddiqui. However, though this particular category enjoys greater critical acclaim, its bankability in the box office is low.

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

Jawa: Back From The Dead

For the bikers in the frugal licence permit raj era of 1960-70s, when 'Be Indian buy Indian' was the norm, owning a Jawa was nirvana on two wheels. Though entombed nearly four decades ago, this Czech pedigreed bike continues to remain in the recesses of the memory of 40-plus generation.

On the other hand for a millennial the name only means a computer programme (albeit with minor spelling change of 'v' instead of 'w') and voluminous books to master it adorn the shelves of second-hand book stalls.

Back then the motorcycling world was ruled by a triumvirate of Jawa, Royal Enfield 'Bullet' and Rajdoot. Jawa and Royal Enfield were considered classy, while Rajdoot was for the plebeians and country bumpkins, and looked down upon.

Jawa and Bullet had its legion of followers. While the former had a sleek look, the latter with UK pedigree had an erect ramrod stiff exterior. While Jawas were patronised by college students and young urban professionals, mainly medical representatives, the latter by those who wanted to wear their machismo on their sleeves. 'It takes a man to ride a Bullet' ran the print ad catch line.

Both had their own unique quirkiness. While Jawa had a kick-starter, which doubled up as gear after ignition, not found in any other bike, Bullet had brake on the left and gear on the right, and it migrated to 'standard' format much later in 2007.

To the credit of Royal Enfield management, they stood the test of time and through their upgrades and new models remained in the business. It weathered the storm of 100 cc bikes and later the entry of global names such as Harley Davidson and Triumph.

Whereas Jawa later gave way to a new avatar Yezdi and that too got mothballed in the 90s, under the onslaught of fuel efficient 100 cc bikes.

Most Yezdis faded away to scrap yards, while some aficionados kept them running with a missionary zeal, despite facing challenges like scarcity of spare parts. For the millennial crowd an occasional bike rally by Jawa-Yezdi Motorcycle Club provided them a nodding acquaintance with the classic their uncles once rode.

However last week Mahindra and Mahindra, under it subsidiary Classic Legends, decided to bring back this iconic bike from the dead. The move has rekindled the euphoria among many cutting across age barrier, evoking a mix of nostalgia and futuristic feel.

While old timers were happy the manufacturers have taken care to retain its retro looks, especially the iconic petrol tank, the younger generation was drooling over the fact that it had high tech features like liquid cooled engines, used in high performance bikes.

There are three models on offer – Jawa, Jawa 42 and Perak. All with eye-catching colours, and the bobber design of Perak has left many bike lovers pining for a test drive.

Once again the old rivalry is back. Considering the pricing and specification of its models, Jawa is once again pitted against Bullet. However, Jawa has a lot of groundwork to do in terms of establishing dealer and service network across the country.

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

In Praise of Macaulay

English language is a favourite punching bag for the country's political class, as it pays them rich electoral dividends. While those in the cow belt dub it as a vestige of our colonial past, often to mask their obscurantist agendas and insecurities, those in the south of Vindhyas and eastern India see it as an impediment or even a threat to their native tongues.

But at the same time they ensure that their immediate kith and kin study in the best English medium schools and later acquire foreign degrees.

The latest to fire a salvo against English was Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu, who termed the English language a ‘disease’ left behind by the British and stressing that Hindi was the symbol of “socio-political and linguistic unity”. The occasion happened to be 'Hindi Divas'.

He lamented that the Constituent Assembly (which framed the Constitution) had accepted Hindi as one of the official languages of the country, but its wishes have not been fulfilled. Interestingly, the same assembly had also adopted English as an official language at the same meeting.

Later at another meeting he clarified that “English mind” is an illness, and not the language, and stated the country should be proud of its rich heritage.

For the political class irrespective of the party or the ideology they profess, English is a red rag that charges them up. They see Thomas Babington Macaulay, the man who played a major role in bringing in English education to India, as an evil incarnate.

Though Macaulay had a very narrow utilitarian intent to promote the language among the elite Indians to build an English knowing clerical class, the fallout it created was something nobody had foreseen.

It did develop an elite class in all parts of the country, especially urban centres, but in the linguistically diverse India, English soon emerged as a link language and also a means to acquire global knowledge in science, mathematics, law and all forms of modern scholarship.

Though we may not like to admit it but the seeds of nationalism, social reform and even freedom struggle were also unwittingly laid because of English language.

The formation of Indian National Congress in 1885, in which Scotsman ornithologist turned civil servant Allan Octavian Hume played a major part, became a platform of the political fight towards India's freedom.

In the early days Congress party was a gaggle of lawyers drawn from the length and breadth of the country and they all conversed and even made speeches in English.

This is how an Ismaili Koja Muslim lawyer Mohammed Ali Jinnah became friends with Maharashtrian Brahmin Gopal Krishna Gokhale; a Gujarati Baniya lawyer Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi got acquainted and later became related to Tamil Brahmin lawyer S Rajagopalachari.

It is the same English education that helped Dr B.R. Ambedkar fight the deeply entrenched casteist oppression prevalent during his period and become one of the most influential and inspiring figures in general and for the underprivileged classes in particular. That is how the idea of India took shape. All this is part of our history and cannot be wished away.

And now cut to the last decade of twentieth century. While US technology giants were scouting for locations to outsource their work, what worked in India's favour? It was again the knowledge of English language, though the constant attacks on the language had taken its toll in terms of standards.

Cheap and well trained manpower was also available in China and many other countries, and they had far superior infrastructure, but it is the much maligned English education that swung deals in India's favour.

US company officials were ready to overlook potholed roads and crumbling infrastructure to set up base in India. Now the Chinese are burning midnight oil to master English language and wrest the lone unique selling proposition (USP) India enjoys, and our above-mentioned political class is working overtime to hasten that process.

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

An Ode To an ATM

I was seen as a game changer. I relieved Indians the tyranny of trudging to a bank every time they needed cash, be mindful of banking hours and holidays, and sometimes even the mood swings of the hassled bank teller.

Though the expansion of my name stands for automated teller machine (ATM), the HSBC slogan ‘Anytime Money’ gained greater currency in people’s minds.

In 1990s I was patronized mainly by the uber rich metro based yuppies with fat bank balance, but now my card (or cards) can be found in every second wallet and my footprint extends to small towns and even rural areas.

The clientèle has also become very diverse, ranging from ultra tech savvy to nervous novices - teens who just got the first ATM card issued in their name or elderly pensioners, who have been using bank withdrawal slips and cheques all their lives, trying to make a switch. The latter category often seeks the help of security guards or is chaperoned by ATM savvy relatives.

In short I have become so much a part of their life that an ‘ATM out of order’ or ‘no cash’ board is enough to trigger a panic attack among most of them.

Over the years I too have undergone many makeovers. Earlier I used to gulp in the card for authentication and gulp out only after the transaction got over. The worried look on the faces of customers after I gulp in their cards used to evoke in me a range of emotions - from amusement to concern.

The duration a card spent inside the machine used to be directly proportional to upward movement of anxiety levels among the customers, as there used to be numerous cases of cards getting stuck within machines. This had to be followed up by numerous visits to the bank and a brush with its bureaucracy, which many customers had long unlearned.

Another nightmare is of course the ghost transactions. The money does not come, but you get a text message of money being withdrawn. Until this anomaly gets corrected in statement, the anxiety levels refuse to come down.

When demonetization was announced the whole nation queued up in front of me, though I had very little to offer. It was as if the Indian public has been sent on treasure hunt trying to spot an ATM with cash in it.

Almost everybody became aware of the ATMs located in their own localities and even far flung ones, including those put up by nondescript cooperative banks in small lanes.

I was not equipped to handle the new series of Rs 2,000 notes and the humble Rs 100, which was generally looked down upon, suddenly became the much sought after currency.

It really took a while before I could handle the new Rs 2,000 note. But the new note was frowned upon by shopkeepers as they found it difficult to dispense change as the availability of new Rs 500 note was still very low.

Till the supply of Rs 500 stabilized, Rs 100 continued to relish its unexpected second coming, a throwback to pre-1980s, after which the inflation took a heavy toll and it lost out to peers with greater purchasing power.

Of late the governments and bankers have been pushing for cashless transactions with swipe machines and point of sale devices becoming commonplace enough to be found in neigbourhood kirana stores. It has also caught the fancy of millennial and yuppies.

But still cash cannot be wished away. The latest RBI data says that the currency with the public has reached a record high level of over Rs 18.5 lakh crore, more than double from the low of about Rs 7.8 lakh crore it had hit post-demonetisation in late 2016.

As long as cash is around, so will I. Unless of course some new high tech invention happens, courtesy artificial intelligence.


Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

Biplab Deb Uninterrupted

When Tripura voters inked their index fingers on February 18 to elect their public representatives, little did they know they were in for exciting times.

Decades of Marxist rule had made them averse to continuity and they were sick and tired of their fellow countrymen post pictures on social media of their chief minister Manik Sarkar as 'poorest CM' and patronisingly talk about his austere, Gandhian ways.

It was like having to make do with a daily 'healthy' diet of rice gruel or oats, while the rich aroma of biryani wafted into their homes from neighbourhood during lunch and dinner times.

It was becoming a bit too jarring and they thought they would rather have a more Epicurean leader who would bring 'development' to their sedate and dour existence. 

Although Tripura has a high literacy rate, the state lacks job opportunities and hence the problem of unemployment is very high. Moreover for the educated class there are only government jobs to aspire for, as there is little private investment. 

The images they used to see on television screens of technological strides made in distant metros of Delhi, Bangalore or Mumbai, symbolised by spanking steel and glass structures housing technology parks and shopping malls, was too alluring.

Hence when Prime Minister came calling and during his campaign tour dangled a new acronym 'Hira' - "H for highway, I for Internet way, R for roadways and A for airways", many began daydreaming that an El Dorado was around the corner.

Few days later the verdict came. And needless to say it was stunning. It was as Oscar Wilde once said "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

The early days were quite heady. The symbols of previous regime, the statues of Karl Marx and other Communist vestiges were pulled down with gusto.

A tall, youthful looking chief minister Biplab Deb, the youngest one in the state, with a sartorial taste that would make costume designer of Dharma productions proud, was sworn in.

This former gym instructor was always seen in his customary ethnic chic wedding guest attire, right up to dupatta. He gave the impression that at any moment he may shake a leg or two to a wedding song we see in Sooraj Barjatya or Karan Johar films.

It was a breath of fresh air for Tripura voters, especially the young ones, who were tired of chief ministers who looked like ancient pensioners and failed in providing them jobs.

True to his flamboyant style within one month of swearing-in he made a blockbuster opening.

He claimed that internet and satellite communication existed in the days of Mahabharata. "Internet and satellite system had existed during the lakhs of years ago. How could Dhritarashtra see through Sanjay's eyes? There was technology available at that time... Internet was there, satellite communication was there."

To be fair this is not the first time a politician has tried to airbrush our ancient puranas and myths to make them look advanced and tech savvy. This trend of waxing eloquent about our glorious past, which was later 'ruined' by Muslim and British invaders, has always been there among the political and intellectual class. But of late it has seen a spike with leaders of Biplab's own party in the forefront.

They have been spinning yarns regarding ancient India's technological strides in areas such as aviation and plastic surgery. However this was probably the first time someone has credited our ancestors with a large footprint in digital technology.

Barely had the social media and twitterati done with cracking up over Deb's remarks, through memes and one-liners, he fired his next salvo. This of course revealed his exclusivist mindset honed up during his long drawn association with RSS.

He remarked that Diana Hayden is not an Indian beauty, while Aishwarya Rai is, thereby revealing his aversion for brown skin and minorities. This ruffled many feathers among the feminist and anti-fairness cream activists.

Next he waded into another controversy while commenting on the vexing problem of high number of educated unemployed, who had in fact rallied behind his party during elections.

His first remark sounded like a trite PJ. What should civil engineers do? Join the civil services. Mechanical engineers do not fit the bill and hence should not venture into it.

At a different event he chided the youth for running after politicians to get government jobs and advised them to seek self-employment instead. Nothing wrong in that, but the choices he offered made many cringe – rear cows or sell paan.

Barring his own party men, who were left red faced and seething, his remarks vigorously tickled social media’s funny bone.

Then came the parting shot against those trying to attack his government. "When I was young... people used to say if it's government property, you can do anything you want with it... just as you do to a lauki. A vegetable seller brings fresh lauki to the bazaar at 8 am. By 9 am that lauki gathers so many nail marks, it cannot be sold. You either have to feed it to a cow at the bazaar or take it back home. My government cannot be like that, no one can leave nail marks on it. Whoever leaves nail marks, their nails will be cut," he said.

For Tripura residents it's truly nail biting days ahead, wondering where next will their boisterous leader train his loose cannon.

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

A Note From Planet of The Apes

To my fellow apes,

Just got to know that some guy in India said Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution of man was “scientifically wrong” because nobody has seen an “ape turning into a man". This has led to lots of amusement among the humans of India, many are grinning like hyenas.

But for apes like us it offers a glimmer of hope. Finally we can get rid of these centuries old chains of so called association with humans. 

Ever since that long bearded bloke Darwin came to the scene we apes have been linked to hideous humans, the pompous termites working overtime to destroy the environment and hasten doomsday. They are never in harmony with nature. Never seen such confused and fun averse creatures!

His book ‘The Descent of Man’, published in 1871, claims that we and the humans have common ancestors. It is considered path breaking by the humans, but it actually led to our free fall. Ever since we have been smarting under the stigma of being associated with these wretched and born greedy creatures.

Initially there was opposition to the book and it enjoyed little credence among humans, thanks to the stranglehold of human centric obsession - religion. Then gradually all that outrage died out and the book almost became sacrosanct.

Every year these humans have been nibbling away the forest and disembowelling our mother earth to satiate their greed and the whole of animal and plant kingdom have been suffering.

These merciless marauders have taken away most of our habitats and we have been literally cornered and forced to make do with our shrunken habitats. Like ocean waves there seems to be no end to their greed and the threat posed by these malicious marauders keeps getting renewed from time to time.

Hence any claim disassociating us from these despicably evil two-legged monsters is welcome.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

'Your call is important to us ...'

'Your call is important to us, please stay on the line. All our operators are busy.' This cold impersonal voice at the other end of the phone is followed by instrumental music or announcement of discount offers.

Mind you this is what we get after undergoing a long drawn rigmarole of 'press 1 for this ... press 0 for that'.

By the time one of the 'busy' operators comes on line and says 'good morning my name is so-in-so and how can I help you' your systolic blood pressure may have travelled a great distance in the wrong direction.

Hence when they ask some questions like model of the gadget, its serial number or exact date of purchase - all essential from the manufacturer's or a service provider's point of view, but to the customer it acts like yet another turn of the screw and things reach snapping point.

One has to rummage through old bills, bend down or even go underneath the gadget to get the required numbers. After mentioning the number comes the assurance, "Thank you, your complaint number is so-in-so and our technician will rectify it within 24 hours," followed by a text message.

For some lucky ones their deliverance happens at this point, while for many others it is back to the Sisyphean grind with follow up calls.

Welcome to the world of answering machines, a contraption ushered in by the telecom revolution. It was seen as a as a posh device intended to ease customers' pain, but its too has its own penchant of being Kafkaesque and open to manipulation by human operators.

While bureaucracy of yesteryears took a toll on your legs with sundry babus making you run round in circles, the modern day answering machines does the same on your nerves by making you sit as your mental poise and phone balance take a hit.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

No Country For Old Men

While Indian employers are gleefully adopting the hire and fire credo by copy-pasting the American template, the HR recruiters, on the other hand, are pursuing ageism with a missionary zeal. With the country flush with young people (thanks to our rabbit-like breeding tendencies) fresh graduates are dime a dozen. Hence, our HR managers never had it so good.

In private and corporate sector no job at any level can be considered immune to pink slips. Nor do higher ups get any stray thoughts (bordering on altruism) "Oh, if I fire such a senior person he may find it very difficult to get a job. He has a family to run and EMIs to pay." In fact they are often the first to be sent off.

If the layoff axe falls and you happen to be on the wrong side of 30, your chances of re-employment are slim as the long shadow of experience makes your journey towards the coveted offer letter a gruelling marathon. And if you are above 40 then you are the proverbial camel trying to get through the eye of a needle.

They eagerly hire fresh graduates keeping in mind low wage bills and short shelf life. As these recruits hardly stay beyond a couple of years, they need not bother about doling out gratuity and other retirement benefits. Hence they do not want to suffer the toil of even considering a ‘costly resource’ with years of experience.

If at all a senior guy makes it to the personal interview stage, he or she will have to contend with patronizing interviewers and dynamite through an iron curtain of skepticism. Sample questions: How comfortable are you while working with young people? (ideal answer could be "As comfortable as former US president Bill Clinton with his interns") or “We have a very young team, are you sure you will be able to fit in?” (As if you came out of the womb as a 40-year-old, then lived rest of your life in an old age home!)

Unless you happen to be a ‘referral’ candidate or part for some crony entourage that follows a CEO when he moves from one company to other, then be assured you have been called due to extraneous factors like filling up a quorum of candidates (higher ups in HR department often ask 'kitne aadmi the') and not because they have any intention to hire you.

While many companies may wear their 'equal opportunity' employers tag on their sleeves and some may even carry out 'trophy hires' from sexual minorities and other disadvantaged groups, 'ageism' is not even considered a form of discrimination. In fact it is an essential requirement to retain 'competitive edge' and be 'nimble footed'.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Blurred Vision, Myopic Planning

It looked like the clip from a dystopian movie series Mad Max. A surreal looking video of an 18-vehicle crash near Delhi brought to the fore the chilling devastation caused by smog. Visibility on Noida-Agra Yamuna Expressway was so low that incoming cars at breakneck speed kept on banging into the vehicle pile up with drivers utterly clueless.

The winter season in north India, which used to come as welcome relief from energy sapping heat waves, is now turning into a smog season and the erstwhile gentle fog which used to blanket the region from time immemorial has now acquired a toxic dimension.

A doctor in Delhi told a British newspaper that half of his lung cancer patients are non-smokers. The air has heavy metals and other carcinogens at levels more than 30 times World Health Organization limits, conditions likened by medics to smoking at least 50 cigarettes in a day, the newspaper added.

The usual suspects used to be the rising number of vehicles and their emissions. But of late the paddy stumps burnt on the fields of Punjab and Haryana are also being pointed out as partners in crime. Esoteric terms like PM 10 and PM 2.5 have entered into common lexicon of the populace.

Air knows no boundaries and even neighbouring Pakistan is affected. But if you watch our TV channels you would be forgiven for believing that only Delhi is affected by smog. An India Gate blanketed with toxic air may be a good TV footage, but the problem is actually more acute and much more unpalatable in some of the smaller towns.

For instance, the air quality index in Moradabad is worse than Delhi, but this town and the lives of its inhabitants is of little interest to our TV anchors and talking heads.

Setting aside the Delhi-centric view of our news anchors, it must be said the prevailing smog over most parts of north India is a also a pointer towards the government's and society's failure on two fronts.

Firstly none of our towns, big or small have a viable public transport system. This has only led to proliferation of private vehicles. It began with Hamara Bajaj in the 1970s to Mera Sapna Meri Maruti in 90s and now to much more high-end offerings. In every city the number of vehicles are way beyond the carrying capacity of their roads and traffic jams are ubiquitous in almost all cities no matter the size.

Secondly our agricultural scientists and governments have done little to provide the farmers with a economically viable alternative to burning stumps. They still continue to do so as the farmers in Punjab and Haryana are short of time and have to sow wheat within a fortnight after the paddy harvest.

Amid all this shortcomings the desperate people have stopped expecting anything from the political and bureaucratic class. Many from middle and upper classes are trying to find individual solution such as air-purifiers, pollution masks to keep toxins at bay.

But they are at best desperate measures with limited effectiveness. Air does not care about social strata either!

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

RBI - Ha, Ha, Ha!

RBI was never a laughing matter until Urjit Patel came along. Before that the Central Bank job used to be a very boring and staid affair with jaded, bald headed men in grey suits and grand-fatherly air appearing on business TV channels from time to time and talking about the intricacies of monetary policy and announcing interest rates. Apart from bankers, pensioners (as their fixed deposit income was at stake) and the Sensex driven class, it went totally over the heads of the plebeian masses.

Along came Raghuram Rajan, who added some pizzazz to the post with a touch of glamour. The pink press and the society ladies were swooning at his good looks (he was probably the first governor with full crop of hair) and athletic prowess. He was a keen marathon runner and TV cameramen used to keep an eagle's eye to spot him among the teeming runners during Mumbai marathon.

His financial wizardry and his gumption to stand up to the political bosses were dismissed as a mere footnote. He left the stage for good and with his integrity intact. Though it left many female fans heartbroken and their nascent interest to differentiate between repo rate and reverse repo rates, to impress their peers at kitty parties, died a premature death.

After his exit many names started doing rounds and most were the chip of the old block - the bald headed grey suited mandarins who had graced various posts in finance ministry and the now defunct planning commission.

The mantle finally fell on a totally unknown commodity - Urjit Patel. Political commentators yawned: Oh no! Not another Gujju. As all key posts were already cornered by them.

Patel came across as what the TV comic character Mr Bean would have been if he had gone easy on calories. Unlike his predecessor he is extremely wary of media and sometimes even provided Bean like moments when confronted with TV flashbulbs. During the high noon of demonetization, he almost succeeded in making himself invisible. When nosy TV journalists once made a rare sighting of Patel, their Salim Ali moment lasted a few nano seconds. They had to rest content witnessing his rare ability to sprint away!

The then Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das held forth on behalf of the government and the unenviable job of announcing changes in rules regarding deposit and withdrawal of money from banks on an everyday basis.

Those were the early days of demonetization and the much vaunted premise of panic stricken black money hoarders flowing their unaccounted stash in the Ganges or setting them on fire did appeal to many and sceptics were bullied to silence.

However, after the initial shock and awe the deeply ingrained jugaad mindset of the Indian populace took over. New money laundering techniques were improvised and demonetized cash started flowing into the banks. RBI, which used to reveal the exact inflow of money on a daily basis, suddenly clammed up.

Now more than eight months after the exercise, RBI continues to be coy about how much money actually got deposited in the banks. “They are still counting,” is what our Finance Minister would like us to believe. And Patel too like 'his master's voice' continues to parrot the same line in one Parliamentary committee after other.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Return of The Prodigal

First it was the hoardings, then the front page advertisements in newspapers of a well known bespectacled and smug face. For the first time I noticed he has a mole on his forehead. 

After a hiatus of six months, post-truth icon Arnab Goswami was coming back to TV screens, and his fans began feeling giddy and delirious. With their echo chamber bereft of its favourite nightingale, they were battling cold turkey conditions all these months.

After all how long can one make do with cheap imitations like Gaurav Sawant! Even during his earnest display of machismo (being clad in battle fatigues at newsroom) Gaurav seemed like Ben Stiller trying to pass off as Rambo Sylvester Stallone. 

Now the fans wanted to make up for the lost opportunities of the inimitable Arnab fix that transports them to a feel good delirium. His force multiplier vocal cords, which he uses to decimate Pakistani panelists, were sorely missed while the country was going through tumultuous events such as surgical strikes, demonetisation and UP elections.

As the launch date of the Republic TV channel approached the hype was gradually built up. His fans regrouped under various hashtag battle formation across all social media platforms, ready to blow Republic's trumpet and pounce on detractors in a manner which would make even Goebbels blush.

True to the hype he began from where he left off. For fans and worshippers their echo chamber was once again vibrant with the hyper-ventilating jingoism they were addicted to. The template continues to be same: Find an 'other' and attack him or her in a pack, never allow them to put their views across. What amazes me is how some of the panellists, especially the Pakistanis, even agree to appear for the show considering its pointlessness.

So finally it is achche din for the fans, with onerous tasks like trolling the detractors (go wild on keyboards, issue murder and rape threats) and play cheerleader to their beloved anchor. For them he remains the minstrel of utmost happiness!

Also Read: Bangalore Beat