Answers to 3 Questions No one Asked

I have been getting positive feedback about my previous post, and thanks for all the encouragement. Am having some problem with the blog...everyone except me, can open and read it, while I have to go to a cached copy to read and post something new! Guess only I am capable of such goof ups, but in time I will find out what went wrong and how to set it right.

Was quite surprised no one raised 3 questions after reading the blog. Who is this Batra...didn't you want to know? Well, he put me back on trail and asked me why I had stopped my postings, and the very fact that someone out there in Calcutta should remember and enquire, despite his own busy schedule, encouraged me no little bit. We had shred a carefree and funfilled fortnight long back in 1994, in Hyderabad, at the Bank's Training Center. 6 of us, Batra, Sridhar ( both from Bombay), Suman from Lucknow, Shashi from Baroda and Geetha from Ahmedabad! What fun we had! The rest of the participants, from all over India and with all sorts of hang ups, soon fell in line with us and a boring "Merchant Banking" Training Session became a lively one. We lost touch later and found each other again and have been communicating off and on( more off than on, I admit) . So when he asked me to keep writing, I was really thrilled, and sat down immediately to post that piece. It had been on my mind for quite some time.

The second question no one asked was about Marja of 79, Park Avenue. I confess I had to look up her name, but I don't think I am mistaken in the name of the book or the incident I referred to. Marja is a prostitute in the novel by Harold Robbins, and while waiting for a prospective customer, has to make sure it is not a cop who is approaching her. For some reason, even cops in plainclothes apparently wear a distinctive style of footwear, so her eyes automatically dart to the feet of any male approaching her, to check out the shoes. For some reason, this has stayed on in my mind, though I do not remember anything more about the novel, except that I cried over it.

Now for the other person mentioned...Basu. A friend of my daughter, and a PhD student at IISC, Bangalore, he has been very helpful and patient with me after she left for Germany. If you have read my other pieces, you will be knowing that she left behind a little mouse called Trans. Whenever we had to leave town, it was to Basu or my other daughter whom we would request, to take care of Trans, in our absence. Besides this, I would call him up every now and then to find out what to do about something or the other...from Trans not eating to when baby pigeons would start flying, etc!

Vaishnavi, who got time to read the blog just some time back, has asked me the questions to the firts two answers. She knew who Basu was, of course!

THIS IS FOR YOU, BATRA!

Hearing the unmistakable tinny pitter patter of pigeon feet on the balcony railing, I go out to shoo the pest off, but not before a quick look at its feet....A la Marja of 79, Park Avenue, though instead of men and their feet, I have started giving a quick look at the feet of any pigeon I come across. Could this be my Choppu? I wonder, and wish I knew if she was still alive.

 We have had a lot of trouble with these pigeons, and have tried all sorts of things to keep them away from nesting or even resting in our balconies. For the record, we have 4 balconies, and it is no fun doing this patrolling work. Every now and then we decide to close up the balconies, glass shutters, bamboo drapes...discussions go on, but at the end, the loss of the open spaces, which was the original purpose of any balcony, is too much to bear, so we put it off.
 It was on one such patrolling and shooing off session that I realised that the pigeon had been up to something. Experience with them gives one these hunches. I brought out the ladder, climbed up to check, and aha..there was this gleaming white egg, on the shoebox on the top rack of the shoe shelf behind the door. Now there was nothing to do but to let the mother come over, brood, hatch, etc. I persuaded my husband to let it be, and promised to clean up every day after the birds.To my amazement, they stopped dirtying the floor! Whether it was because they had free access and did not need to wait around to check if the human pest was around, or whether it was a gesture of gratitude, I do not know, but they no longer dirtied the floor.
 At long last the egg hatched, and now we had to wait for the little one to fly away. I looked up Wikepedia to see how long it would take, and would keep a check on the little one, keeping track of her, talking to her....Choppu, I would say, do eat well and grow strong and fly away...the suspense is getting to be too much. She would not respond, as she always sat facing the wall. I realised later that it was so that she could shit right down the floor instead of dirtying her bed! She did not have the niceties of her parents, but that was ok, she was just a baby, I told myself. But they were all too quiet, perhaps not wanting to attract the attention of the human pests or the ravens that flew by every now and then.The constant regurgigating sound that drove one crazy, or the chirping of the little one could never be heard, and the only sounds I could hear were the fast fluttering sounds of beating wings, a desperate attempt to fly. Whether it was the adult bird or the baby I could not make out, and once in a while, I would move the old shoe box slightly to see if Choppu was still there. There was a lot of unwanted stuff heaped up there , and sometimes she would be hidden under some plastic bag or so. One morning, opening the balcony door, I saw her down on the floor, and not wanting to scare her, I quickly shut the door. The next time I opened the door, she was at the farther end of the balcony, and the fibre bag I thought had fallen off when she flew down, was also with her. I realised that her claws had got caught in the fibres, and that was why she could not fly. The bag was preventing her, and perhaps it was this that had delayed her flight. Even the parents, I realised, had been giving up, with fewer visits every day. I had to free her. Getting a pair of scissors, I went up to her, and softly assuring her that I meant no harm, cut off the strands, leaving her feet free. I noticed then that she had cleft feet...only a big claw and a little one at the other end.She lay there still, realizing that I was only helping her, though I knew not what else to do. I called up Basu, at the IISC, my guide when it came to animal matters and found out that the lack of the other claws would not prevent her from flying.

The parents too came back and fed her once in a while. I hung up saris from the top of the clothes line hanging right down, like curtains, so that the ravens and crows or the occasional kite would not be able to spot her. The next day, she flew up to the balcony railing, and kept walking up and down, then flew just a little higher to the rose planter. The parents once again lost interest and started planning another offspring! I was shocked and angered but Choppu would hop up to them, force them to pay attention and get fed. I tried keeping some soft food, rice, idlis etc, but it was the parents who would feed on them. She was however safe as the saris hid her from any aerial view, and I had to be content with that. That night, however, she gave me a lot of worry. She would go to a corner of the planter and put her head out, as if wanting to breathe in the fresh air. After scolding her a couple of times, I tied up the sari tightly so she would not be able to poke her head out. I knew that on their early morning rounds, the bigger birds would make mince meat of her if they spotted her. Even after going to bed I came over a couple of times to check and the little fool had found another gap to put her head out. It was getting late and I was getting tired, so I finally I gave up, and went to bed. All my thoughts on her, I prayed that nothing should happen before I got up and that I would find a way to keep her safe in the morning.
 Early next morning, I rushed to check, and was amazed to see her resting calmly within the sari folds, out of sight of the circling ravens.Talk of the survival instinct! Since she was no longer in that corner, I decided to get it cleaned and requested the apartment sweeper to clean it up. He eyed her suspiciously, but I told him not to worry, neither she nor the parents would give any trouble, and left him to his cleaning job. "Amma," he called out after some time. "See, I have finished cleaning. Shall I take all this away?" I went to check. He had a gunny bag, filled with a lot of what we had stored on the rack and I told him to take it away. But Choppu was no longer there. "Where is the bird?" I asked him and he said it had flown away. This was a bit hard to swallow. "Did you chase it away?" I asked, to which he replied that he had done nothing of the sort, and that his movements may have scared her to take to wings. I had to leave it at that.
 After he went away I kept wondering if he had chased her away, whether she had become easy prey as she flew off, if she had fallen off the balcony down into the next floor...but no answers could be found. My tortured mind even wondered if he would have just caught her, wrung her neck and stuffed her into that bag? Do people eat pigeons? I didn't know and there was no way to find out. The serenading parents were kept away again, but if any pigeon comes and sits on the railing, I check its feet before shooing it away.

When did I weep last? When my father passed away, in 2003, I think. Not when I saw that last bubble burst through the drip bottle, as I sat at his feet, trying to warm them, but later, when all was over, the numbness had passed, and I was all alone. And then, every day, whenever I saw the chair he had sat on just a day before he was admitted, rushed to the ICU due to a heart attack. We hadn't taken that seriously enough, given that just a couple of years before that he had walked out of the same ICU, much to the astonishment of his doctors, who had been counselling us on how to deal with a semi-paralysed man. The third day after they had predicted partial paralysis due to a stroke, and a blood clot that would be cruising in his blood stream lifelong, he just walked out. We had expected a repeat performance, and joked about how someone like him who could give heart attacks to others could get one himself. He had smiled weakly. So there were a lot of if onlys in retrospection and I had felt sad and guilty for taking the Leveler so lightly.

 I had gone prepared with a couple of handkerchiefs when we went to see off Vaish. Surprisingly, we were so caught up with the baggage, the weighing, the removing, the re-arranging, that we only heaved a sigh of relief when her flight took off. There had been no time for even a tear!
 After my mother in law passed away, performing the ritual of pouring water around while circumventing her, I had to finally pour some on her face....the finality hit me then, and a sob escaped.
A few sobs did escape and I broke down while reading H.M.S Ulysses some time back....had grown to love the Captain like my own dad.

 But yesterday, the tears came pouring down uncontrollably. " Payithiyam, control pannikko!" my mother said. "What's the point in all those Vaishnavism classes," my husband asked, and went on to console me with talk of how the atma does not die. That was no consolation. Stoic as I am most times, this was one time when I could not reason out and be practical. " For a mouse, she has had a long life," Basu, who is doing his Ph.D at IISC, and whose mouse Trans first was until Vaish managed to save and smuggle her home, said." She was past 2 years and by all standards that is a long life, and she was well cared for too!"
But tears still kept pouring. Had she been in pain? Did she know her end was nearing? Was that why she kept climbing on to my hand every time I placed some food for her or opened her cage for some other reason? " As with appa, I had jokingly told her, " Hey, did you think it was Maithreyi?" 'Cos Trans was never very comfortable in my hands. After the initial fear, nervousness, discomfort of handling her, I had got used to her feel and thought nothing of lifting her and putting her on a shelf when I set about cleaning her cage, but she always tried to get off. "That's because she senses you are not really relaxed," Raj had said at the beginning, and later we had decided that it must be because my hands weren't that steady. But yesterday, she kept climbing on and snuggling into my hands every time she got an opportunity. I had pointed it out to my mother, and said ," Maybe she is looking for Maithreyi to come and pet her." I decided to put the POOH bear back in the cage for her to play with. She had started a habit of climbing on to the doll and not coming down even to eat, and I had assumed the soft comfort was so tempting she was sacrificing her food.So I had taken away the doll the previous day. When I realised she was looking for comfort, I put the doll back, and after a little reconnoitering, instead of the immediate climbing up, she found a suitable spot on Pooh and lay down. It was much later, after serving his dosas to my husband that I brought a few crisp pieces for Trans. She was lying by the side of Pooh, and did not perk up when I dropped the pieces inside without opening the cage. That should have alerted me, for , unless she was looking for food or water, or if something had disturbed her, she would never leave her perch on Pooh.But foolishly I assumed that she was asleep, and went about my work. Later, just before I switched off the light in the room, I picked up the cage to place it on the bed, so that no one would trip up in the dark, and saw that she was in the same position, by the side of Pooh, instead of on her, and realised something was wrong. I quickly opened the cage, and...yes, she was gone. She was already becoming stiff, and her head was turned at an angle, as though she was trying hard to lift it up. And I broke down.

 The if onlys have started.

Exam Fever!

The painting of our Apartment, its exteriors, has been postponed to April, on account of two kids in the block having exams! It seems unbelievable to me, that exams should be given so much importance! A whole apartment complex reframing its schedule on account of an exam timetable? Really!

Wonder when parents and kids started giving so much importance to exams.I know of cases where guests have been told to postpone their visits, maid servants have to adjust their schedules, even grandmas need to sacrifice their tv time on account of exams. A bit too much, don't you think? All this focus on exams makes the kids more nervous,I feel,and this in turn makes them do badly.

When I was a child, I have heard my mother say, dad used to take her off on an outing during our exams. Apparently, I was a very obstinate child, and would refuse to open my mouth, and she would get angry, so to avoid friction on both sides, he would take her out!And I did get through, faltering but not failing, on my own!
I know many working women who take leave during the Annual exams of their children. In fact, when I was in the bank, March/April was a period when there used to be so many absentees, mostly women. Once, when I happened to be the only female staff in our branch, the frustrated manager snapped at me," Why don't you too take leave and go? Then this will be an all-male branch!"
" Sir," I explained to him quite seriously," I have two daughters. The first one will study even if I am not there. The second one will not study even if I am there. So why waste my leave?" Fortunately both have done well in life without my ever having to take leave for their exams! Ah, I did take leave during Maithreyi's 1oth board exams, but because we had a new car in which she and her friends were driven to and from the exam centre, and every day would see a new driver whom we could not trust with the children.... or the car!

P.S.!

I know, a P.S. should come last, but this is a post script to my earlier blog on the dentist appointment.If I were to write about my various dentist visits several years from now, this would certainly feature in that blog.
Not because of the pain or anything like that. In fact, when I asked the doc if he was going to give me a local anesthetic, he said, "No need...the tooth is too dead to give you any pain!"
So it wasn't the pain or the time they made me wait( because they didn't) or the other people waiting ( there weren't any) or any such thing.
It was the prescription the doc gave me at the end. No, it wasn't a big or scary list, just 2 tablets. Under the first one he wrote
1-0-1.
Under the second one he scribbled
S-O-S
Reading it as 5-0-5, and knowing no doctor in his right mind, and no matter what sort of bribe he had received from the pharmaceutical company, would ask someone to take 5 pills at a time, I queried..." you mean for 5 days?" Even then it didn't make sense, but I asked anyways.
He replied, "No, no, that means SOS....if in pain, an emergency, only then you have to take it!"
Was this a 'cool' doc? What if I had been foolish enough to take it as 5 in the morning and 5 in the evening? At that time I didn't think of it, but on Thursday, when I will be meeting him next, will take advantage of my age factor and dish out some advice! Ha ha!

Freeeeeee Freeeeeee!!!!!!!

"Buy 6 sarees from our showroom," the model screams,"and the 7th one is freeeeeeeee freeeee!!!"
Tempted, anyone?
If not by this, I guess there would be other things that, being free, tempt one.

Just after taking VRS, with a lot of free time and enthusiasm on my hands and heart, I used to visit different superstores , especially the new ones, to check out their 'offers'. While the teaspoons or bowls coming free with some beverage never interested me,I was always a sucker for pretty plastics and shiny stainless steels. In fact, my free collection grew so much that when my sister in law had to spend a year in India and needed to set up home,I was able to supply her almost all the containers for her kitchen!

Free...also brings to mind the euphemism used for the word by my erstwhile colleagues in Allahabad Bank, Bombay. I first thought it was a Maumbaikar habit, using"phenyle" for free, but realised later that it was typically Allahabad Bank!You got a gift? "Phenyle" it was. You gave someone something? That was also "phenyle". I first heard it when my manager Indira complimented me on a saree I was wearing. I told her it was a gift, and later when another colleague appreciated the saree, Indira said it was "phenyle" and they both laughed. When I demanded an explanation I was simply told "phenyle" meant free, or gift. I accepted that, albeit with reservations, as I could see no connection between the two words.It was some time later that the full impact of the term dawned on me.

One morning, when Indira and I were the only bank staff present, a customer turned up, and gave Indira a bunch of greeting cards. He spoke to her for a few minutes and then left. She later distributed the cards amongst us and told us we could use them.Even though I did not want any, she forced a few on me.
A few days later, the same guy who had given the cards came again, and there was an argument going on between them. This time too, only Indira and I were present, so I went into the cabin to see if she needed any help. I could make out that he was demanding money for the cards, while she,not having realised that he had meant them to be purchased by the staff and not just given away,had distributed them! How many cards had been taken, and by whom, she had no idea, so there was no way she would be able to collect the money. In any case, since she had told them it was free, no one would now pay for them either! I could see the frustration mounting within her, and when the customer once more started his demands, she told him in no uncertain terms to forget about the cards...."kyunki hamare staff, na, phukat me milega tho phenyle bi piyega!" (Our staff will drink even phenyle should it be supplied free!)
That was the etymology behind the term phenyle! It doesn't sound as funny in English, and at that point of time, it didn't sound funny to me at all! I was filled up to my throat with indignation (used to take myself pretty seriously those days!) I could hardly speak. Finally I managed to get the guy out, to pay him for my share of cards, and even went to the extent of buying a couple of sets of New Year cards, though I did not need them, just so he would go away! When the others trickled in later and found out what had happened, they just laughed. No one was going to take that card seller or their Branch Manager seriously. After all, they had got good quality Christmas and New Year Cards free, and phukat me milega, tho phenyle bi piyega! was proved right!

Got a Dentist's Appointment Tomorrow

What's so great about that? After all is there anyone at all who hasn't had one...dentist, appointment, or both, at some time or the other?
Well, my story may be slightly different. My tooth troubles started as soon as I started teething, I think. While I have been told by almost everyone I know that it is because of the chocolates I have been eating ever since I was this small (you won't be able to see how small...that small!) the latest dentist did not mince matters. "Bad oral hygiene" she said bluntly.
So this must have started when I was, you know, very very small. The first dentist was Rao in Mount Road. Several times while driving from and to the Central Station I have wanted to see if the Rao Clinic was still there, and last time was thrilled to note that my memory hadn't failed me. A narrow staircase leading to the clinic was what I had remembered and it was very much there...in the vicinity of the Shanthi Theatre. It is surprising how my brother, a year older, doesn't remember so many of these childhood occurrences. Anyway, that is not the point now. My dental troubles started quite young and I remember the first tooth was extracted under  anesthesia!

I do not remember going to any dentist, or even a doctor when in Egmore or Purasawakkam, perhaps nothing memory worthy happened then. The next dentist was at Cochin. There was this guy at Thoppampady where we lived, and after a sleepless night of pain and puffed eyes, we went to the nearest available dentist, who checked, gave me pills to reduce the pain and the swelling, and asked me to come in the evening for an extraction. There were two trouble mongers, he said, and he would extract 1 the next day, and the other, the day after. No.1 was duly extracted, and my father paid him in advance for the next extraction which was to be done when I visited him on my way home from school the next day.
But fathers propose and daughters dispose. The guy had been so rough, I decided I'd rather bear the pain(which had diminished anyway) than go to him for another extraction. So on my way home, I did pay him a visit, but instead of him extracting my tooth, I extracted the advance amount paid to him and came home. My parents were never ones to object or scold unless it was really warranted, and they accepted my reason and left it at that.

It was this tooth that gave me so much trouble several, several years later, after we had shifted to Bangalore. Unable to bear the pain, I had placed an electric pad against my cheek and with the warmth and comfort provided, had gone to sleep. The next morning, Man, I couldn't see my eyes! Fortunately, I could see the rest of my face, and realised that my eyes, naturally small, had just got submerged in that swollen mass that was the rest of my face. Times had changed and there was no dentist available at any time of the day, and as I waited for the morning to progress, both the pain and the swelling subsided. I set about my normal routine, went to work, and on my way home, stepped into the dentist's and was able to persuade him to extract the tooth. It was on the upper right, slightly visible when I spoke or smiled, especially the latter. He advised me to get a replacement,as it would look very odd whenever I smiled. "No fear," I said," I hardly smile!" ( Well, those were such days...may write about them sometime).

I have had another extraction, a couple of root canal treatments, some other dental treatments, and in this long list is tomorrow's root canal treatment. Not really back to square 1, as nowadays, one doesn't even know whether the dentist ( or any other doctor) is genuinely advising you or whether it is another ,"So what has she to lose?" attitude. The loss of money is their gain, so it figures first on their list of priorities. This cycle is going to cost me near about 25000/, and I have only taken the step because of the insistence of my daughters. Otherwise I would have resisted, saying what's the loss of another tooth or two!

Warning: Don't ever ask me how many teeth I have....I wouldn't tell you, even if I knew!

A Page a Day!

Write a page a day, advised Vinu, while we were mailing back and forth about my writing...Or not writing!.Yes, bro, shall try to follow it.
Had thought of writing about my  teaching, my love for it, my experiences with it, my missing it, etc., but by the time I got to this blog of mine( had to come through google search, as I had even forgotten what I had named it!) the train of thoughts changed. Having just served hot hot idlis and sambar to my husband, and with that cup of ghee sitiing prettily on the stove so that it could be served anytime in its liquid form, took me back years.......Might as well justify the name of the blog once in a while!
We had returned from Cochin, and settled down in Chromepet. One day, my parents decided to pay a vivit to my father's aunt, Kamali Chithi, or as we knew her, Purasawakkam patti. We tagged alsong, though my brother and I were the only ones to remember her or the times spent at Purasawakkam, before we relocated to Cochin.My three younger sisters had no memory of those days, but to me, the few years spent there, after we shifted from the ITC Colony at Ennore, were happy times to be recalled every now and then. Purasawakkam patti was a loving grandma, and loved us like her own grandchildren. The uncles, my father's cousins, thought very highly of us, and treated us like their own children. We used to rush off to their place whenever we had some free time, which was most times, considering there was no tv then, nor all these coaching classes that are a plague these days.
So we went for a visit after several years, and after the usual oohs and aahs about how we had changed, grown, etc, it was 'tiffin' time. A rava kesari was hurriedly made in honour of our visit, but what I remember so clearly is the not so unusual idlis. They were made in the olden style, the batter being poured onto the cloth lining on the idli plates. We had progressed to the stainless steel plates on which oil had to be smeared before the batter was poured on, and this was a strange sight to me. Then another old lady, some dependent relative of my patti ground the chutney on the flat grinding stone, and now everything was ready to be served!
Now is the point of this sharp remembrance....having placed the idlis in plates for us, and having served the chutney too, patti stated pouring a little ghee onto the idlis meant for us children. The heavenly aroma and the unique taste this gave to the idlis which were otherwise bi-weekly occurrences in most Tamil households have given a sharp focus to this memory of mine. Not only was it the first time for us, for a middle class family with seven members and a single earning member could hardly expect to have this kind of luxury..though ghee on our rice was an accepted thing. But they, my grandmaother and uncles, were not all that well off either. Already the ghee and sugar used in the kesari would have set them back a week at least on their ghee quota. But at least that could not be helped. When guests turned up like this, a sweet dish was made. Period.
But ghee on the idlis? A totally avoidable gesture...but the kind of  act that makes me, after 45 years, remember Purasawakkam patti whenever I make idlis but refrain from looking at  the ghee cup, picking up the til oil bottle instead!