The Flight of separation. -095-

The Madame of my house is a veritable busy bee. Home, children, friends and strangers-cum friends had her undivided attention, always with a helping hand or a few words to console.

Thus Mr. Alexander Graham Bell (posthumously) started playing a key role in the activities of her beehive. In the monthly bills, the calls made by me worked out to a meager 2%.  When I brought this to her notice, she pulled out the phone bill and showed the column under fixed monthly rental charge +service tax on net payable and did some exclusion mathematics. By this manipulation she proved that my percentage has doubled to 4%. What a humbling experience, in computation!

The time came for a cell phone (I don’t know who is credited with the invention of this midget) and a cautious first step was taken to go with a pre-paid plan as a pilot project and later switch over to post-paid plan. I failed to understand the full significance of the move at that time. The Pre-paid cell phone is like a metered taxi –shows usage charge and current balance and the post-paid gets you the amount due by SMS.
The post-paid service providers must have taken a leaf out of BSNL’s practice of postponing the surprise attack to a fixed date in a month.

The previous logic of my wife in excluding the fixed rental charge + service tax on net payable, took to vanvas with two bills clubbed in to one (BSNL users only). The other service providers might have allowed her to use a different kind of logic – lucky I was sticking to BSNL and one mesmerizing logic.

The cell phone in the hands Madame caused spectrum ripples to generate route for revenue out go and enlarged her circle of friends.  I have to thank Madame, even under this spectrum swamping, for keeping my name in the phone memory and God for restricting the Englishmen to just 26 alphabets!

She later added a broadband service on the land line to go international - Skype & Googletalk waiting in the wings!

The cell phone became a conjoined appendage on her person.  Short Messaging Service will not do for her, as the discussions could be lengthy and vocal presentation certainly has an edge. If any one of us happens to travel – she emulated IRCTC’s follow your train facility or “wherever you go our net work follows” slogan of a cell phone service provider. To make use of the free calls, the land line and a comfortable chair with a foot rest was all she needed. The broadband connection, increased the number of out going calls as she sought web site addresses or had to alert friends to watch  a live streaming or for down loads ( a U tube, I tube or a Y tube!) .

So habituated to the convenience of a cell phone, her recall mnemonics started fading and had come to a stage where land line numbers refused to surface in her mind. The poor Bell’s instrument could only look on speechlessly at the cell phone – as it only required the name to get connected.

I felt relieved from the sessions of analyzing my share of the pie. The pie chart looked more appealing to her than the histogram (midget high) and line graphs (my line keeping company with the X-axis. She prudently feigned loss of interest in all the forms of graphical analyses.

Then out of the New Zealand’s blue sky, her brother asked her to come ‘down under’ to Auckland. Not forgetting me, he invited me too to make the trip. The ever ready woman said ‘yes’.  I had to decline owing to prior commitments. By hind sight, this happened to be a blessing in disguise – I now got the opportunity to describe her predicament with a cell phone not having an international roaming facility.

In a week of hectic preparation, personal things were packed, Couriered visa application was filled, and an air ticket was blocked for the onward flight. Her younger brother, residing nearby, was coordinating all the paper works. To let her friends know-  calls were made, directions obtained, travel tips (including making phone calls) and dollar exchanges rates –using  the communication network available on hand-land line, net and of course the cell phone!

Here is a small interesting episode – the new cell phone bought for this occasion failed her. When I offered mine as a substitute, she reluctantly took it, saying she had to get used to it anew -as if it was different in the case of a brand new cell phone. Unquestionable logic! I did some ground work to get a new SIM card for making international calls. She had planned to complete the formalities 3 or 4 days before the onward journey. A slight delay in the visa processing provided her with an opportunity to visit the ashram of her guru. By that time she retuned, the passport & ticket were waiting, so also the Christmas holiday. The service provider did not get the statutory 72 hours to activate the SIM card – ‘the wherever you go we follow” slogan and her dear cell phone deserted her inside our national border itself.

Her younger brother saw her off at the air port. Though I did not accompany her to the airport, yet I could easily visualize how she managed her passage through check-ins, immigration and boarding the aircraft – sporting a pleasant smile, seeking information and guidance, making friends all through these formalities and stopping short of meeting the pilot. Once on board, the cabin crew getting a non-troubling passenger would have walked the extra meters to extend all the help. Only one thing I was not sure about was- ‘whether she felt those little butterflies in her stomach and the hard mass of uneasiness welling in the chest cavity and stopping teasingly at the throat’ during the take off and landing to complete the first leg of her flight.

The expected call from the stop-over, for change of flight, air port did not materialize – may be she did not like the phone booths or had nothing to convey on an uneventful flight except for occasional air pockets. Airborne again, she might have spent time in reading, conversing or by simply seeping it off. The altitude of nearly 10 km or the freezing cold hugging the speeding jet plane might not have been part of her contemplation – that much I was sure.

The minimum take off speed, stalling speed, landing gear folding and unfolding, outer marker on the runway, approach angle and maximum landing speed etc might not have crossed her mind. She always believed in a positive energy envelop that had been guiding her so far, feeling this guidance system to be superior to that of ATC, GPS and the ALS at the air ports. These thought might have made the jet plane too, to pause and think about it, frequently during the long flight resulting in a delay of about 2 hours over the expected time of arrival (ETA).

It was me who broke the international barrier first, with trembling fingers, ISD call rates & anxiety vying with each other- and called up my brother in law. He assured me that the aircraft is due for landing in an hour’s time and is getting ready to go to the airport. “The wherever you go we follow” slogan standing by my side- exhibiting its national spirit! The butter flies in my stomach were getting ready to go else where, but not yet. The butterflies migrated, after two hours when my wife spoke to me on phone. Wonder of wonder was not about her unaccompanied flight but how she could manage to keep away from the company of her phone, almost for 16 hours!

No need to say that she managed the return flight also equally with aplomb, and no doubt leaving a wake of friendship at Auckland – like a ship on the ocean. We received her at the airport, .En route home; she started narrating her ‘foreign experiences. I was mentally bracing myself for a more additional ISD calls here afterwards. My brother in law deftly averted tasting of the ‘forgettable feast’ I had prepared, suggesting a restaurant.  I concurred readily, though it might not have altered his decision anyway. I had this feeling- – whether his talents rivaled mine? Not to leave any bad taste in the mouth, I kept my thoughts to myself

Home again, she earnestly started calling up her friends.  The brief absence has increased the number of pending calls and I started worrying about the next telephone bill, which surely would be fighting for space in the flight corridors above Chennai – domestic or international. And how high will it be was the only question remaining in my mind at that point of time.

Dogg the walk.

The pet dog is clever to fully utilize the opportunities presented. Pavlov used lab animals to condition their responses to a set of induced stimuli. Disagreeing with this biased approach, the pet dog decided to present the other side of the coin (Rouble?). It managed to prove the same results on human beings (owners and their children) – with great effects!

The proud owners of a pet dog like to impress the invited or unexpected visitors with the tricks their pet is capable of performing. Both the owners and the pet have really sweated it out – owners trying to teach the dog and the pet trying to condition them.

The conditioning exercise starts like this. The pet, sensing the importance, chooses such occasions to be defiant, eyeing the tray full of cookies and savouries.

Under the Canine pressure, the owner feeds the eatables expecting a better compliance – as a face saving measure in the presence of a visitor.

In this Satyagraha, the tenacity with which the dog had tried, and failed in many such attempts, to condition the reflex of its master or Mistress deserves kudos.

It does this easily with the children as they are easy subjects to condition.  Any way they don’t like what the parents give to them as snacks, most of the times. As far as the dog is concerned, that is a rich feasting ground.Net result – slowly and steadily the pet dog begins to put on weight.

This is self defeating as the original intent of the owners was to take the dog out for a stroll – to fight their own weighty issues. They needed the dog as an excuse.

But the dog, probably, not wanting to appear as the odd man out, has also succeeded in the competition by putting on extra weight. Now it is not shy to walk out either with the Master, with a solid pot belly, or with the Mistress saddled with avoidable fatty layers.

The duo or the trio (on rare occasions), walking down the lane, presents an eyeful – the man pushing the air waves away with his pot belly and the woman creating a sonic wave of huffs & puffs.

This scene becomes more comical – when the man and the woman, suffering spondylitis choose to wear the collar band and are accompanied by the pet with its own dog collar!

The pet dog enjoys unlimited affection and a rationed freedom, as a matter fact a prisoner in its own doghouse. A parole in the morning and possibly one in the evening is all what it gets, provided the owners are not out of station or it is not a rainy day. Like a lathi wielding policeman, they carry a stick to keep street dogs at bay.

The morning parole is spent in walking a few hundred meters, leading or trailing the Master – the Master to complete his exercise and the pet to attend to it's nature’s call.

The predicament of the Master at this time - standing guard, seeing and unseeing is a sight in itself or is he becoming self conscious to turn out in knickers, pushing sixties or seventies? A comedy of sorts for the onlooker.

The pet dog gets to walk a few meters during evening parole, leading or trailing the Mistress. It gets to hear plenty of neighbourhood gossip and little exercise.

One thing that is impressive about the pet dog is its name – Caesar, Tommy, Jimmy, Jackie, Tuffy, Lucy and the like.

Most often a pet dog, furious and all business, as a pup, grows into a timid creature, even afraid of its own shadow. Instead of being a protector more often it needs protection. How many of us had to pacify our pet during a rainy night filled with thunders and lightening?

The following might appear to be exaggerated a bit, but this is a true incident.

This happened during a morning walk. The master and the pet embarked on a walk, with a poor dead stick in the master’s hand.

The dog was leading for some time, then trotted alongside for some time and was trailing behind for some time, with the Master holding the reins.

This positioning depended on the presence of stray dogs in the street. May be it did not have such faith in its Master’s ability to shoo away the stray dogs, which always show an unusual interest in their procession.

A push cart loaded with vegetables was parked on one side of the road. Just about a meter from it, an overgrown bandicoot decided to scoot up to the middle of the road and planned to take a rest from the exertion.

With its canine sense, the pet smelt the presence and started taking evasive measures. Slowly it reduced pace, moved near the persona of the Master deciding to avoid a close encounter, with the stalled bandicoot. Finally it trailed behind its master.

Finally, it dug in its paws and applied the break. The Master did not even sense the tension on the dog’s chain or the resting bandicoot on the road.

The bandicoot held its further moves close to its rasping chest. That was enough of a morning walk and the pet decided to take matters in its own hand. It simply squat its bulk on the road forcing the Master to stop.

The Master then saw the object of his pet’s mortal fear. He looked around to see if anybody else will try to do something about the traffic jam. Vainly he tapped the stick on the road a few times.

The bandicoot cared a hoot and continued its squatting. Loosing patience and looking at his watch, the Master decided it was enough and getting late for the office.

He gave the signal for a U turn and the pet dog happily led him back home, all the way, sniping at a kitten and feigning at a scurrying squirrel. The Master, in his anxiety to get home for the ritual cup of coffee, failed to notice the lightning speed with which the dog obeyed his command with out whimpering.

This makes us wonder ‘Who got the best of whom’.

Retirement Benefits: -69-

Superannuation (or) retirement ensures some monetary benefits, encomia and a farewell party. The Star of the day feels sad as well as relieved. Sad: to start a new kind of life.  Relieved: from the hum drums of a long, mechanical life.

The euphoria of accomplishment lasts for a week. Then, one start’s the process of “coming down to earth”.

Here is how it happens:
Charity begins at home, which is the epicentre for this process.

The wife initiates the downgrading. As an office goer, the Retiree got first preference for news paper as well as breakfast. Priority over News paper remains untouched unlike that of breakfast.

The Retiree would not have felt belittled but for the way it was done. Wife says, “Can’t you wait for another 10 minutes; any how you are only at home?” First let me serve our son and daughter. They are getting late.

The Retiree wonders how in a week it is the son and daughter who are getting late. How was this being managed earlier!

Next, the son will come up and ask. “Pa, are you free?” with out waiting for a reply he will off load a list of things to be done. That list looks like a grocery bill of a five star hotel.

The Retiree feels hurt on being told indirectly that he is free and doing nothing. Thanks God that his son is yet to complete his studies. If the son is employed, it will feel like a double whammy.

In comes the daughter. She says, “Pa, I am in a hurry to finish this project; help with photocopying these references!” Daughter, you know, shows a little politeness. If she is an office goer the tone may have been different, who knows!!??

Don’t let out a sigh, there is still more to come in the way of the Retiree.

Months pass. Madame starts bossing over him on unfinished works. Yet, she goads him to take care of his health, which he has been neglecting that, under the pretext of important office work.

Requests increase from the son and daughter.  Slowly the daughter might start obliquely to refer to the Retiree’s free time (read you are idling)

Friends (who are yet to retire) also join, at this point of time to draw the attention of the Retiree, that he was enjoying life when they were still toiling.

Fellow Retirees form a different category. Morning walks or visit to parks would invariably centre on topics such as “That man is lucky, as he is happy in retirement”, “My family mistreats me and expect only the pension amount”, “my son and daughter emptied my bank account” or some such thing.

Back home, the treatment varies if the son is married and living with the Retiree. Now, two more hands join in the process bringing him down to earth more often.

This is how it goes:
Son gets the first chance and says, “Dad, will you switch off the TV now; your grandson (or grand daughter) has unfinished home work; help to finish it”

(or)

“Dad, will you let Varun (Vanitha) to watch cartoons now; you can see the re-telecast tomorrow morning” The Retiree wonders whether he will get the promised free time tomorrow!!

Not to be left out, the daughter in law also may give a helping hand.

“Dad, I will get you a cuppa (of hot steaming coffee), can you take these clothes to the launderer?” The pile of clothes needs a donkey to carry. The Retiree wonders whether he had become one!

Then, comes, the salvo from tiny tots. But you move up a level in the hierarchy of relationships.  “Grandpa, grandpa (affection & task is proportional to the repetitive title used) can you finish this simple sketch & colour it?”

The Retiree cannot understand this - if it is so simple why me to help? Then he understands that the sketch in mind needs the artistic talents of a Picasso (or) a Rembrandt.

The last straw on the camel’s back will be loaded by relatives. “In your free time, can you go to the Railway Station to pick up my daughter? I am little busy and she is coming with luggage”

Is he looking for a friendly but unpaid porter?” But the relative did not mind it and reminds the Retiree to be at the platform for so and so train & such and such time!

Not to be left alone, the general public also lends a hand. “Oh, old man, be careful on the road”. Auto wallah's, mobike wallah's, car wallah's, bus wallah's – for that matter any driver wallah will drive you mad by offering unsolicited advice.

What is the solace, then for a Retiree? There are some benefits like these.

• A Senior citizen’s tag.
• Concession on Rail Tickets.
• A separate cash counter, in the 1st week of the month, in some of the Nationalised Banks.
• Slightly higher interest rate on deposits (i.e. if the retirement benefit is still in his control).

I hear a murmur, from Madame Retirees. I leave it to one of you to narrate your story :)

Rat in the shoes. -67-

The Muser had two other friends (shift mates) in the Hostel. They were occupants of a room diagonally across and two such rooms away. They generally took part in extracurricular activities such as climbing, trekking and 3 show cinema stints.

Sreeni and Kumar always came together – the double antennae. They can ferret out buried information but they had no ulterior motive.

Satire and wit was their forte. This had an undesirable effect on some of the inmates. Wit & satire everybody liked but when used on someone else.

Needless to say the aggrieved person waited for his turn, in case he was not able to redirect one at them , his own brand of wit or satire then and there.

But for this minor infringement on personal sensitivity, they were gladly welcomed to be part of any group or activity. Though friendly, the hostelites did not visit the duo by going in to their rooms.

Somehow this culture had taken root and all the friendly discussions took place either in the mess hall or at the hostel entrance.

Friends gathered in a particular room if a music session (singing or listening) was on or for playing cards without stake. During festival times, the hostel wore a deserted look. The aftermath of festivals meant exchange of variety of homemade eatables.

After one such festival, Kumar came back with a pair of new shoes. It was a bit costly, on our salary (which in reality was a stipend). He displayed his shoes happily, must be due to the sheer joy of owning a pair of such shoes.

Days went by, and the hostel inmates smelled a malodour in the air. Many times in the past, such malodour had wafted through the hostel ambiance. More often, it turned out to be of chemical origin from nearby processing industries. The air clears after an hour or two.

But what perplexed the inmates, in the first floor rooms, was that the odour was persistent and gaining strength day by day. The odour cleared off in a week’s time, bringing relief to the inmates.

After ten days, that mysterious odour stared to waft again through the corridors like a “ghost who walks”. Within a week the odour was categorised as ‘mild to severe’. Finally, one of the inmates hailing from an agricultural family sniffed and identified the cause of odour – a dead rat.

This sniffing posed another puzzle instead of answering the earlier one. The questions that remained to be answered were ‘Where from the rat had come and where it breathed its last?, Why it should come here to die? Where exactly its demise had occurred? Why at a periodical interval?.

Among the hostlers, a few were inquisitive.  They took upon the task of finding the origin of odour as the sniffer’s theories had gaps in it. This inquisitive nature led me to think about the adage “Curiosity killed the Cat”.

The investigation started off by forming a search team. No corner was left out in search of the rat, in the ground floor. This was based on the assumption that the rat also could have lived in ground floor or in a hole in the ground around the perimeter of the hostel. At that time they did not suspect a dead rat in any one of the 20 odd rooms spanning across two floors.

One member of the search team, made an accidental discovery. The smell appeared to emanate from one of the rooms in the first floor. His nostrils picked up the odour as he was crossing over the corridor/aisle. He had a strong suspicion on the left hand side row of rooms.
He could not pin point the source 3 doors of the 5 rooms were ajar. He convened an emergency meeting with the search team to disclose his findings.
The team had some firebrands, who did not stand on courtesies when it came to business. The “sniffer” in tow, they knocked on all the doors and entered inside for a field study – like contestants canvassing for votes.
The first and second doors they knocked upon were clean. The team entered the third room (remember the earlier adage about cat getting killed), fought the stench and came out gasping for fresh air. They were in no condition to continue the search there after, hence abandoned it.

The real culprit for the putrid stench was the unwashed nylon socks soaked in excessive sweating of feet.
The search team was very happy on two counts - mission completed and the culprits (the satire duo) were nailed.

Next day, the Team cornered the duo (wit & satire) and sarcastically said “Having given a demonstration of what your wit & satire could do to a field rat, why not market this technique?”

The Investigation team presented them with a rat trap and a packet of rat poison. Wit and sarcasm had been paid back in their own coin.

Needless to say that Sreeni & Kumar vanished like a rat chased by a cat. The hostelites coined a new adage “curiosity killed the rat too!”

Fine Toothed Comb.

The Organization did research in hi-tech area and suffered the effects of embargo. Naturally, everybody in the Organization felt that he (or) she was engaged in Nation building effort. This sense of pride led to many funny scenes. We will revisit one such an incident.


The staff bus, common to mid-level to the last grade employee, came to a halt at the Security Gate. Since the feeling of nation building has rubbed on to their hearts also, vigorous checks were carried out, sparring none, at the close of work every day.

On a particular day this is what happened. A self-assuming officer boarded the bus at the gate, as security check was in progress at the back rows. Thinking that the security might not trouble him, as check at the front rows have been completed, he nonchalantly took his news paper out of brief case and started reading.

With a wide-angle vision the security guard has seen this gentleman taking a front row seat. He politely asked SAO to open the brief case for check. SAO tried to stall such a move by pulling his rank and lengthy lecturing. The security man was as insistent to complete the check.

SAO looked around eye-pleading support but none came his way. Yeah, every one had an axe to grind, including the security guard. Finally the brief case was very reluctantly opened up for check and the personnel sitting nearby the SAO could get a clear glimpse of the contents.

The security guard cursed his day; he too had caught sight of the few strands of hair on a fine toothed comb and a lunch box. He waved the bus on thinking “why much ado about nothing (or) the ado was about the nothing!”

East (or) west flight is best.

A particular gentleman had the habit of leaving the process facility suddenly, in a hurry, and this was noticed by the facility personnel on many occasions.

Initially they thought about it as of no significance. Then one day a brighter one among the dim-wits spotted a coincidence and told his friends to carefully observe the next time whenever the particular gentleman leaves the work spot hurriedly. Now many pairs of eyes were watching to confirm the coincidence.

After a month long vigil and cataloguing of the events they came to this weighty conclusion:
This particular gentleman was nervous to come face to face with a Task master and whenever the Boss arrived at the East entrance the particular gentleman took off through the West entrance to avoid being cornered and  managed to escape every time .

Years rolled by. The Task master got transferred to become a “nobody” and the escape artist managed to become “somebody” in the setup.

[The narrative though set in a specific environment , could have taken place in any private/ public sector manufacturing unit. This setting helps the reader spin their own yarn :) ]