Tag: Life

You know how you start to write a letter and automatically start to address the recipient as ‘Dear’? I’ve always pondered about that. Sometimes, I’ve written ‘Dear’ to folks I could not whole heartedly call as dears. In fact there have been a few where my imagination drew a blank at even trying to imagine anybody else doing so.

A case in point: There was once this man to whom I had to address a letter. He was a Deputy Sub Registrar of something in a government office in India. As is the practice, I had to use the opening “Dear Mr So and So”. But believe me, never have I found a man less dear to me in all my life. It may have been the fact that I witnessed the man at his bossy best. He was man-handling a sorry looking sallow faced peon without actually touching him. How is that possible you ask? Well, the man’s legs were squeaking under him and his knees were positively quivering with emotion, not to mention the stuttering and the silent unshed tears. He had a patchy pendulum like motion going. His body seemed to oscillate with the frequency of the deputy to the sub assistant head registrar’s tone of voice. If those aren’t symptoms of being manhandled, I don’t know what are. I asked somebody nearby what the row was about and he answered that “Saar” being an important person was entitled to get angry at peons like this. Apparently, the great power and responsibilities of being a sub deputy assistant registrar or whatever he was, was too much for the man to handle, and he was therefore entitled to behave in this appalling manner.

What I would have liked to do was address the fellow as an “Egotistic procrastinating shirker” (I had requested for something five times already, and had nothing to show for it other than carbon copies of my own letters.) The peon in question told me it is not a good idea to draw his attention to that fact – I had written a loving letter enclosing copies of all my previous letters and rounded off with polite sarcasm by asking him when he would be able to consider my repeated requests. Which was why my heart went out to the peon. He knew the man and his habits, and he had evidently saved my letter from being ripped apart in anger and the shredded peices joining the breeze on a hot day.

Dear Sub Assistant – my foot was my general feeling then.

So, it isn’t with too much regret that the practice when it comes to emails has shifted to the more informal ‘Hi’ – I don’t mind saying hi. with ‘Dear’, one had to use the superlative for folks one really considers dear. So one uses ‘Dearest’ for dear folks and ‘My dear dearest’ for dearest and it was all most confusing.

I would like to see the reaction of the s.a.d.registrar when the peon hollers a ‘Hi’ at him and asks for something to be done.

I don’t remember being an infant. I suppose most people don’t. But given my preferences now, I am not sure I would have enjoyed being the infant me. Well obviously, my parents tell me I was a happy baby, but I am just wondering. Let me tell you my reasoning…

Some people do it for economic reasons – it is their job, they get paid for it. Nothing else could make it worthwhile, especially if one has to do it everyday – day after day. So, they torture themselves and do it anyway. The night watchman waiting for something to happen in the still of the night while his eyelids are stretching themselves to see how much further it has to travel to close completely. It is a tense moment, another second for the eye to close completely when the sub-conscious, with that quirky permanence, reminds him of his duty and his neck jerks in that ungraceful manner and pulls the eyelids open again. There is little chance of conversation to help things along unless he chooses for his conversation the very person he is looking out for; a thief. I feel strongly for thieves too. It must be pretty rotten waiting with sleep gathering around them for the right moment to strike and then find a pesky night watchman jerk awake in the nick of time. I digress.

Anyway …. I have professed my love for the nightly snooze a good many times on this blog. I’ve sacrificed the restoring quite a few times – but I cannot pretend to love those long hours that stretch mercilessly through the night with a Production issue. I am not fond of interrupting my slumber by jerking awake. Yet, the call of duty is a tough one and I rise and shine … well rise dully and shine rather desultorily.

But infants have none of this. There is nobody paying them to keep awake. Not to be harsh or anything, but the world around them will function a lot better if they do sleep. Yet, you find these night warriors the most willing of folks to keep awake. They think nothing of going to that state of near sleep and plucking their eyes open. When sleep seems inevitable, they do what night watchmen cannot do. They cry themselves hoarse and awaken not only their senses but everybody else’s too.

Maybe the psychology of the thing to not do things asked of us starts early. When folks ask us to sleep, we don’t. When they ask us to remain awake, we’d like more than anything in the world to sleep. As for the adult me, I can do a straight 12 hour stretch anytime you ask me to – quite the obedient one what?

Well….till little Tucky learns to sleep like an adult, I get to sleep like a baby every night.

Angry bird developers would do well to visit my home for a little practical demonstration of angry birds. There is one outside the home aiming his attacks at the home and there are several angry birds within swearing at the unfortunate bird outside the home. I know the situation makes ones head boil a bit, but all shall be clear in a jiffy. Here…

What does that look like to you? It looks like stained glass to me. But, when I look at a rose plant, and know that it is a rose plant, I will correctly guess the flower to be a rose. You know what I mean? The same analogy here. I know that is stained glass and maybe, that is why it looks like stained glass to my eye. I wish to give the bird a fair chance before judging it too harshly. So, if folks agree that it looks like flowers, I applaud the authenticity of the work, but deplore the fact that it should be flower patterned instead of a random modern art effect.

You see the bird that I have around my house seems to belong to a rather dim-witted variety. He (or She) comes everyday, pecks twice at the ‘flowers’, and finding no nectar blinks looking disappointed. Maybe, the learnings of its youth conflicting with real life experiences. We all have them once in a while. How your parents tell you that it is not okay to drink water out of a tap while growing up in India, and come to the US to discover that water from the tap is just what your Doctor prescribes for glowing health. Something like that. Mama birdie probably spent night after night telling stories of how she procured food and nectar. “Go for the bright colored flowers. They are the real stuff. You don’t want to spend time and energy going after the ones nature intended to be mere flowers, but did not endow with nectar.”

Hard to ignore this kind of ingrained birdic knowledge. Pretty sound theory for birds to pick up too. Yet this bird finds that his thorough application of these learnings yield nothing. Zilch. So, he (or she), pecks again – twice for luck each time. Then, the same thought process seems to surface – always with the same intensity and the same conclusion. I know the bird flies away for a bit, circles around and attacks from various viewpoints. How do I know? Because the silences are always approximately the same length of time and then ‘Peck..Peck’ followed by a scrapping of feet and a fluttering of wings.

I suppose he could try a different set of flowers around the place, but these are so strategically located. No need to alter one’s flying altitude – conveniently located at sparrow flying height. Brightest in the locality. It has all the factors going for it, except for being unnatural, and having a family swearing at repeated attempts to extract nectar from inside the house.

The only suggestion I have for dealing with the situ. may not be suitable: throwing a stone at it – just to get the bird to dislodge. But, birds are smart that way – they fly away, leaving the path clear to the stained glass window. I don’t think I have the time to deal with broken windows at sparrow flying altitude now given that the youngest bird in the house is also highly fascinated by the same windows, and spends his waking ogling at them.

Sometimes, inaction is the best action. I have decided to see how long it takes before practical experiences overtake theoretical application in birds.

Peck Peck – Got to go. Couple of things to finish in the next five peck attempts.

Evaluation is a solemn task and deserves to be treated as such. The father has not been called to use his rating, ranking and evaluation skills for sometime now and when the opportunity presented itself, he took to it like an elephant spraying water on himself on a hot day. His face lit up and his facial features shone with the light of sincerity.

He had a ready quip for all those interested – something about doing a task with complete sincerity or not doing it at all. The occasion was the culinary competition that the mother took part in. The competition was a fund raiser for the Cancer Institute Foundation. Once the judges did their part of the judging, the audience were called upon to weigh in. We were asked to rate the dishes on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest for every entrant. The announcer had barely finished her sentence when the audience made a beeline for the tasting extravaganza. While most people tasted a dish and rated it then and there; the father was studiously writing something on scraps of paper and screwing up his face with intense concentration. I asked him what he was doing and he said something about correcting a brilliant student’s paper first was always a bit of a disappointment (for the student) because one subconsciously compares different answer scripts in their minds and when one had seen a number of average answer scripts before seeing the brilliant one, one tends to award more weightage to the brilliant script, while if the brilliant answer script came up first, we naturally assume that the remaining will be comparable. My head swam a little at this point, it may have been the effect of the dish I was popping in my mouth to taste at the time, or the fact that I had listened to this philosophy once too many times – the effect of growing in a household filled with teachers. I decided to leave him to it, just telling him not to take his own sweet time about it, since they planned to use our feedback for judging by the end of the day.

By the time I had made my way to the end of the line, he was midway through – weighing and pro-ing and con-ing no doubt. This was the mother’s entry for the competition. Reluctant though she was, I went ahead and registered her name and she pulled off an admirable dish.

The father was asked to stay away from the kitchen and further told to keep all jokes regarding the dish and what he thought of the mother’s ability in the kitchen to himself. Therefore, he decided to show solidarity to his wife when it came to the audience judging round and came beaming around to her after he had evaluated every single entrant.

“You know? Objectively speaking it was your dish that I liked the best taste-wise….” he said still looking rather proud of himself. “I ranked you first in the whole lot!”
He received a smile from his bride, and his face became happier still.

“You mean, you gave her a 1?” I asked incredulously.
“Of course….” he said, and cracked another joke about his knowing his wife’s worth in the culinary department always, but competitions such as these served to remind him, and chuckled good humouredly to himself. The poor man, I could not have helped him – it was too late. Thine loving eyes of his bride were piercing him with arrows other than what Cupid would have used.

Being quick on the uptake, he said, “What?”
I then proceeded to illuminate him that what he had been asked to do was rate the dishes on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest.
“You mean rate, not rank?” he asked looking worried.

I nodded. Suddenly, it all made sense. The comparative brilliant paper philosophy, the noting down everything and then ranking them 1-10. Since there were more than 10 teams, he even seem to have applied dense ranks.

It was like watching a balloon deflate before your eyes – the smile waned, the look was worried, and the expression sombre. He had the haunted look of a man who had more than dinner at stake. I sympathized with him and patted him gently on the arm. Luckily for him, the mother was selected to go on for the Finals in spite of his ..er.. ‘help’, and he revived a little on hearing this news.

Well…there is always a next time….

I normally ignore marketing calls or deflect them with dexterity. But one day, I got stuck. I was feeling particularly lethargic after a largish meal and sitting out in the garden thinking of this and that – you know musing on life. One of those rare days that life awards you, and in this weakened state, the telemarketer caught me. The hound.

He told me I might die any instant and that by not insuring my life for an additional amount, I am doing my family a grave injustice. It seemed a bit unlikely. I mean, I was sitting under some very large trees, but there did not seem to be much of a storm about to dislodge them from the soil and crash them on me just then. Moreover, I told him I already had insurance. It did not seem to deter him. He just went on, about how it would cost me nothing, and all I had to do was die. I didn’t like the strain of this talk, and told him I wasn’t interested. He increased his level of whatever-it-was he was trying to do, and I increased the strength with which I resisted his efforts. Neither budged, neither gave in. We circled each other at that perfect stance that boxers reluctant to throw that first punch do. Our words were our punches, though I cannot claim to infusing any sort of variety into my comebacks. They were all variations of “No thank you, I am not interested right now.” As you know there are only so many ways one can say that sentence, and my patience was starting to wear thin.

I could not use the technique of not knowing the language, since I had already explained in perfect English that he was being a relentless hound, and he would be better served if he diverted his energies elsewhere. Finally, when this fellow refused to give up, I asked him with all the remaining reserves of energy left in me, if I could ask him a question. I felt him gloat on the other end. Finally. He had elicited my interest, and now all he had to do was close the deal and get the fat commission check and go home basking in his triumphant glory.
“Do you like dogs?” I asked.
“Yes…” he drew out his response. Unsure and wondering where the conversation was going. The very effect I was going for. Serves him right – he isn’t the only one who can gloat.
“So, as long as I am polite, you will not relent is it? Is that how it works? Because if that is the reason, I can just say something rude about dogs and end this conversation for both of us right now. Quick and painless…”

Do you know what he did when I asked him this? He chuckled and giggled like a pup caught in the act of chewing the carpet. I have already called him a hound and compared him to a puppy, so I find it a bit unfair to compare him to any other animal now, but I am sorely tempted. At least he had the decency to hang up soon afterward, but left me wondering for a few minutes. I mean what a job to be trained to make otherwise polite people impolite?

A slight breeze shook the tree overhead and I scrambled indoors. I didn’t want to tempt fate just yet.

We bolster independent decision making. I know … you think these are mere words? In our case we have proof. The television in our household has taken the philosophy straight to its heart . The television now decides for us when and for how long we get to watch television. The one thing it lacks is finesse. When cutting off our viewing, it does so rather abruptly and rudely. It just goes BLEEP accompanied by similar cursing from the viewers and sits there smirking at you.

This behavior on the part of the television has been viewed as base treachery by the husband, who regards the TV with a fond affection, having spent many fruitless hours in its company. He simply cannot believe that when it has received so much attention, it should flip out in this uncouth manner. When simple things did not work, the husband resorted to the one thing software engineers are comfortable doing to televisions. He gave it a well aimed whack on its backside. He claims to have seen the mechanic in his locality as a boy doing the same to radios and tape recorders with amazing results. I personally think the first one was delivered in frustration and passed off as scientific nudging.

Anyway, that seemed to work for a while, but the TV now seems blaise about even this and refuses to start up again till it finds a time convenient for it.

In other news, there has been considerable excitement about a tooth fairy visiting the house. The daughter exclaimed loudly and bursting with excitement that the tooth fairy gave her EXACTLY what she wished for. I must mention that the tooth fairy from Amazon.com has been hiding in the closet for more than a month now waiting to give the gift.  The daughter’s tooth shook and shook, till it finally fell off one day. The historic event happened in her school and they were sweet enough to give her a tooth case with the precious tooth to place under her pillow for the tooth fairy.

Since tooth fairies are this intuitive and give you exactly what you wish for these days and considering the husband seems rather forlorn with the television’s continued apathy towards his state; it may be good idea to knock out one of his teeth one of these days just to see what he’d get. There is one problem though, the tooth fairy seems rather petite and bringing in a TV might not be possible. Wonder if they have any baggage restrictions. Hmm….

I don’t like to think of myself as an opportunistic girl, but then I thought, if I am actually encouraging an all-night revelry with his friends involving beer, wine and other variants of OH compounds; I might as well get something out of it. You know for being the understanding, accommodating spouse simply dripping with the human milk of kindness and all that. I am referring to the World Cup Fever that gripped most Indian households in the past week.

The husband made plans and backup plans just in case something interrupted (Gasp!) the match telecast in between – he had it all sorted out a few days in advance. I must tell you he made no plans for our stay on our honeymoon,  and sat up calling random hotels late into the night the previous day begging and pleading to put us up, but that is germane to this issue. The India Vs Sri Lanka match is the point here.

Patriotism aside, I said, “If India wins the World Cup, I want you to get a gardener who will bring some level of order to the backyard.” The back yard looks like the ecosystem belonging to forests, the plants die and the cycle of life blooms in wildflowers and weeds. I personally would have liked for it to have some trails too, but there is no place for trails. Not to mention the dried leaves from the neighbor’s giant tree that shakes itself and deposits around 3 metric tons of dried leaves in my garden every year. The problem is the garden is not big enough to have someone come in regularly and clearly too much for me to manage on my own. So it wilts and throws me looks of disdain every time I pass by. I wince and strengthen my resolve to have the “situation rectified”, and there matters stand.

“If you don’t call a gardener, I shall rake the leaves myself today.” I added for good measure. The husband has had a good Indian upbringing with regular doses of guilt as part of his diet and things like this did not seem to deter him.

“I will call the gardener.” he repeated.

“Yes….but if you can’t find one, I’ll do it.” Still nothing. The stubborn mule.

Well…I’ve had training too, and did not retreat. In fact, I kept upping the dosage till he backed off and said, “Okay…if I can’t find a gardener, I’ll rake the leaves and make the garden look like one.”

So far, I have only seen elephants throw mud on their heads, but if Dhoni can shave his head for the World Cup, the ardent supporter of the Indian Team for the past 3 decades can surely throw some mud over his head. *Insert Evil grin*

Update: The garden now resembles Dhoni’s head – bald and clean!