The Economics of Indian Industry.

The Economic Times in its today’s edition has carried the excerpted version of a recent speech by the RBI Governor, Mr. Raghuram Rajan. He has said that in India we have many sick industries but no sick promoters. This sentence took me back to my own speech some 25 years ago when the IDBI Bank in Pune asked me to speak on the sickness of the small scale industry in and around Pune. I did a small personal survey of about six small scale industries in the Bhosari Industrial Estate in Pune which then were not doing well. They were mostly fabrication units or foundries started by engineering graduates with the assistance of Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation and nationalised banks. Their profitability was eroding year after year and the owners blamed it on the irregular orders and delayed payments by their customers, who were the big industries in the Pune industrial belt. I noticed that while their company’s balance sheet was in the red, the individual owner’s personal lifestyle was improving. For instance many of them had, at best, a two wheeler to commute when they started their business. Within a couple of years, they bought a Maruti 800. Another couple of years saw their buying an air conditioned car and booking/ buying a flat in main town Pune. In seven to eight years’ time , most of them had taken a holiday tour to some foreign destination. All this while, their units were going down and down. I could only conclude that financial impropriety on their part was the reason and when I mentioned this in my speech, the audience, mostly bank staff and some small scale unit owners, were meaningfully silent.

In India, the PSU banks are the whipping boys of industry, both big and small. They get their project finance and working capital from the banks and as the RBI Governor says, without any rigorous contractual obligation. When the going is good, they forget to return the loan and interest but siphon away the profit for meeting personal gains like higher commission and perquisites. And when the going is tough, they bemoan the need to service the debt and ask for rehabilitation packages like capital restructuring and loan re-scheduling.  And we have had always a government ready to oblige them.

Delhi's Madrasis

   Till about the early sixties, New Delhi was just a central government city, except for a few corporate offices along Ramlila Maidan from Delhi Gate to Ajmeri Gate, a stretch of about a mile and half long road called Asaf Ali Road, and some shops big and small in Connaught Place and Karol Bagh. The inhabitants of the city were mostly government servants living in government quarters located within in a circle of about two miles radius from Gole Market. The high ranking Government servants like Secretaries, Joint Secretaries etc.  Lived in aristocratic bungalows in Lodi Estate, Queen Mary’s Road, Aurangazeb Road, Ashoka Road etc. while lesser rank officers like superintendents etc.  lived in smaller bungalows  on Talkatora Road, Mahadeo Road, Baird Road etc.   Low ranked officials like Assistants and Stenographers lived in smaller quarters consisting of an open veranda in the front, a small front room, one or two bed rooms, a store room and kitchen. The latrine in most quarters was away from the living rooms and kitchen at the end of a court yard at the rear side.

    The quarters were in blocks called “Squares” named after British monarchs and  viceroys  like Edward Square, Hastings Square, Cornwallis Square, etc. with an occasional Indian name like Ganesh Place, Ranjit Place. The difference between a Square and a Place lay in their shape; the Sqaure had four rows of quarters, one each on its four sides while the Place had quarters only on three sides, the fourth side being the boundary road, like Reading Road (now renamed as Mandir Marg). What intrigued us as children was that the squares were mostly rectangular , two long parallel rows of quarters  on two opposite sides and two short  parallel rows on the other two opposite sides

     In this great city there lived the “Madrasis”- a collective noun invented by the North Indians for all people who came from the south of the Vindhyas. Almost all of them were government servants with some essential service providers like school and music teachers, vadhyars (religious pundits0 and cooks. With many Subramanians and Ganesans, distinction was made either with reference to the Ministry where they worked or in the Square where they lived, like Finance Subramanian, Defence Ganesan or Wilson Square Ramasubban and Lawrence Square Sivaramakrishnan. If two Sethuramans were in the same Finance ministry, then the distinction was based on the Wing/ department, such as Expenditure Sethuraman versus Controller of Capital Sethuraman.  Another distinctive clue was their pass time or leisure activities like Bhajana Samaj Krishnan or Karnataka Sangeetha Sabha Ramamurthy and these persons had high titles like Additional Secretary, Joint Secretary Etc. in their respective organisations... And in addition, there were also nick names given and recognised by the whole community like Bonda Srinivasan, Typhoid Krishnamurthy, and Driver Devarajan and so on.

    When it came to their career in government, all Madrasis earned the unenviable reputation as honest, sincere, hard- working, efficient and with absolute integrity. The price that was paid for such appreciation of work was the neglect of leisure time happiness on holidays with family and friends. Many of them would have spent decades living in Delhi but not had had time to v see the Kutb Minar, the  Red Fort,  Purana Kila and other historical monuments which abound in Delhi .Their Annual Confidential Reports grading them as “Outstanding” were confidentially and individually leaked to them by their superior officers. They would then confidentially tell their wives! There was this joke about a Madrasi junior officer once getting reported by his senior Punjabi officer that he (the Madrasi) often “slept in office” - a remark considered as adverse in his annual confidential report. When he remonstrated to the senior officer about this, the latter told him that he wanted to highlight the fact that on several days the Madrasi officer had worked very late hours in the office almost till the early hours of the next morning and was thus compelled to sleep in the office itself in the absence of a bus to go home at that hour. ! Similarly another Madrasi officer’s work was graded as “far from satisfactory” by his senior Bengali officer. He later explained saying that the work of the junior was exceptionally good and the grading category “satisfactory” did not adequately describe the quality of work which was several notches high!!

     The institutions that united them were The South India Club, The Madrasi  School, The Karnatak Sangeetha Sabha, The Vaishnava Siddhantha Sabbha, The Saturday Bhajana Sabhas, The Navaratri Golus and of course the Irwin Road Pilliar  Koil and the adjacent Hanuman Mandir and the Baird Road Kali Koil. Apart from mutual family visits, inter family communication was through the Tamil Vadhyar group to which the families belonged when a Sastrigal of that group came to announce the important religious events of the month and collect monthly subscription. Integration with other communities was next to nothing for most of the Madrasis although they collectively enjoyed the confidence of the Punjabi grocers, clothiers and other shopkeepers who gave them credit facility liberally without a question The Madrasis however privately made fun of the Punjabis’ English pronunciation like    meyerment for measurement, lier for lawyer as well as bad grammar like “Mehra don’t even Know English”.   Little did they know as to how many times the Punjabi traders took advantage of the Madrasis ‘confusion between “Dhed” (one and a half) and “Adhai” (two and a half).

    Among the uniting institutions mentioned above, the Madrasi School occupied a predominant position as it was here that the children of all Madrasis irrespective of the status of the parents, whether a Joint Secretary or an Upper Division Clerk, or the child of a Sastrigal or a cook, came for studies. Those were days of no dress code or uniforms and yet all children studied in an environment of equality and fraternity .The teachers,  both male and female, were exceptionally devoted to their profession, took  avuncular interest in each student  and were  kind hearted . Till the fifties there was only one school at Reading Road. Even when there was no bar for students from other regions or linguistic groups for admission, the Madrasi School remained exclusively a Tamil school. Ironically, when it became a multi branch Tamil school in its name in the sixties, called The Delhi Tamil Education Association School (DTEA), it has now both students and teachers form other parts of the country.

  

     The Madrasis were a powerful group in the Central Secretariat. Their network was strongly knit and mutually helpful. Any special treatment or facility in AIIMS, Safdarjung and other government hospitals were arranged by the Madrasi Jt. Secretary, in Health Ministry, while his counter- part in Civil Supplies Department took care of additional allotment of sugar and maida for weddings. Acquiring of land and construction of the many temples in the sixties and seventies in New Delhi was mainly because of the initiative and strength of this group which at one time had the Hon’ble President of India as Patron. . Even the introduction of Leave Travel Concession for visiting home towns by Central Government Servants and their families was said to be the brainchild of some Madrasis in the Home and Finance Ministries. They quietly introduced the main condition that the home town should be at least 400 kms away from Headquarters so as to benefit the South Indian employees!   Not only did the Northerners feel  jealous, the Punjabi booking clerk oh the Northern Railway felt further injured as he had to book the onward journey to a home town like Kattumannarkovil  by the shortest route and had no clue as to which of the two routes from Madras Egmore, the chord line or the  main line, was shorter. 

     Most of these Madrasis have retired by now.  Many continue to live in Delhi in DDA and other housing colonies in the faraway Dhwarka and Mayur Vihar and their post- retirement activities and interest are confined to within these areas mainly centring the local temple.  Some of their sons and daughters, the next generation Delhi’s Madrasis, took the Madrasi School – St. Stephen’s College route to qualify for induction into the All India Services and other Allied Services while others have become doctors, engineers, lawyers and accountants. The Old Students   Association of DTEA Schools with branches in Chennai and Bangalore is their social network apart from Facebook.

We Are Like That Only

The HUDHUD has gone leaving devastation behind in coastal Andhra and Odisha. Vishakhapatnam has been worst affected with telephone , internet connectivity and electricity all cut off, nearly all trees uprooted, buildings blown over, crops and cattle dead and thousands rendered homeless. The authorities are doing their best in relief and rescue operations and to restore all utilities and services affected and bring normalcy as early as possible. Thanks to our improved forewarning system of typhoons and cyclones and the government’s preparedness for evacuating thousands of people to safe buildings and the role of agencies like Disaster Management groups, the casualty has been only 29 persons, tragic still as it is. Let us wish the people of Vishakhapatnam God- speed rehabilitation .But have they responded to this calamity with a sense of endurance and virtuous behaviour? Read what a TV Channel has to say about the situation in Vishakhapatnam two days after the Hudhud.

“As Visakhapatnam tries to limp back to normalcy after the destruction caused by Cyclone Hudhud, there is a mad scramble for food, water and fuel in the affected areas. The situation is tense with people stopping trucks, mobbing relief officers and looting supplies.

The police have been resorting to lathi charge to disperse the mob. The city is facing acute shortage of water, food, fuel and other essentials.

Shortage of supplies have caused the prices of essential commodities to skyrocket with essentials like a bottle of water being sold for Rs 250 and a packet of milk for Rs 100. Power and communication networks are also down in many places.

"The prices are so high that common people can't afford things. The government is not providing all facilities," a Visakhapatnam resident said.

"The current supply has been given to dairy farms and the essentials. The government is trying hard to help. But it will take time to recover," another resident said.

Long lines are being seen at petrol pumps in Visakhapatnam. "So many petrol pumps are closed. They are covered in the black market actually," a resident claimed.

Much of the work of the NDRF teams is focused on trying to clear the roads so that essential supplies can come in. Long queues are also being seen at ATM booths and milk booths.
Amidst the chaotic scenes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Visakhapatnam to take stock of the situation on Tuesday afternoon. The Vizag airport has been reopened for relief operations but the city and 12 districts in Andhra Pradesh remain in darkness. 26 people have lost their lives in Andhra Pradesh and three have been reported dead in Odisha.”

What a low level has mankind sunk to in this hour of great challenge to its sense of forbearance, tolerance, sharing, mutual help and compassion. People are looting the relief materials meant for equitable distribution. Police is controlling unruly mobs instead of guarding the property whatever the cyclone has left behind. Our great retailers are missing no opportunity to profiteer instead of showing normal trade “dharma” of selling at normal prices till stocks last. And the public, starving and roofless, is beating their breasts and crying that authorities are not doing enough and soon.

As Indians we will never learn to calm and compose ourselves whether it is a natural calamity or a man –made event like the arrest of a leader. For, we cannot then get away with it saying that “we are like that only”

The Transformational Journey of N K V

Nacchhiarkovil Krishnamachar Venkatavaradan (NKV to friends) was how the letter from UPSC mentioned his name informing him of his appointment as Assistant in the Ministry of Commerce, Government of India and asking him to report for duty within a week. The Punjabi typist who typed his name in that letter mouthed the usual curse. When SKV received the letter, his joy sky rocketed, for he alone knew the hard preparation he had to make for the tough competitive examination. He was also happy because his high all India rank has earned him the posting in an important “economic” ministry like commerce and not in any unimportant department like “Department of Promotion of Hindi as Official Language”. The whole family of NKV was in cloud nine and what better way can there be than to perform an archanai (puja) in his name for the Thayar (mother Goddess) at the temple. This was followed by his old grandmother asking all of the family to sit on the floor as she, with her cupped hands full of chillies and mud from the street, performed the “Dhruishti Kazhithal”- a practice to counter the effect of evil eyes. The almanac was consulted for an auspicious date for joining duty and lo, the date was even earlier than the last date allowed in the appointment letter.

NKV had very little time to prepare for the journey like purchasing ready-made shirts, trousers, towels and undergarments, a pair of shoes, a new suit case and a thin mattress, bed sheets and pillows. Luz Corner in Mylapore Chennai where the family lived met all his requirements in one visit including a jar of lemon pickles. With the help of a cousin in Southern Railway Booking Office a second class sleeper ticket was also easily arranged in GT Express reaching Delhi just a day before the joining date.

On the D Day of departure there was a crowd of NKV’s relations at Chennai Central to bid farewell and in that one hour before the train steamed out, there was a plethora of advices and suggestions for living it out in Delhi. His mother was the most vociferous asking him to take weekly oil baths regularly, not to go to unknown places after dark and particularly not to visit his paternal aunt’s house in Karol Bagh since that lady was already jealous of her brother and now that his son is a government officer(!), it will only add to her jealousy. Father as usual was frugal with his words and asked him to not to spend unnecessarily and save to meet unknown expenses in a new place like Delhi. Athimber (sister’s husband) asked him to be moderate with his habits (NKV suspected that Athimber knew about his smoking and occasional imbibing) and enjoy his leisure and whispered in his ears, with a twinkle in his eyes, that Delhi had a lot to offer to bachelors, recounting some of his own experiences during his short posting in Delhi minus his wife.

Back in his reserved seat he lit a cigarette, (this was before smoking in train was banned) feeling elated, first to be away from all the protection of his close family and secondly at the prospect of an independent life in Delhi. He opened his pocket diary and checked the address of his friend Arul Doss in Munirkha where he will stay for a few days till he managed to find an independent accommodation for himself. The swaying of the train and the pleasant thought of sipping beer with Arul Doss by way returning the previous beers he has had with him in Chennai lulled him into a brief sleep.

He was woken up by a six footer stranger requesting him to move a little in his seat to accommodate him. NKV was aghast at the temerity of that fellow to not only wake him but also ask him for the seat. Controlling the anger in him, he told the stranger that the seat has been reserved by him and therefore it was “his” seat. The man had a good laugh at this and said how any passenger could claim a seat as “his” seat when all that has been done was to pay an additional charge for the duration of the journey. He said something in Punjabi like nobody brings with him anything nor takes anything away with him. He asked NKV to please “adjust” for some time before he got to speak to the TTE for a seat. He further implored him to show humane consideration to an outsider who does not know the local language and asked NKV to put himself (NKV) in his place to consider what he would have done under similar circumstances. NKV was infuriated at this lecturing and shouted at that fellow for travelling without valid reservation which he said was punishable under railway rules and further causing inconvenience to a bonafide passenger which was punishable under law. The stranger said that he was sorry but at the same time helpless. Mercifully a TTE appeared at this time and after some confidential conversation and the fellow opening his wallet a berth was allotted to him in the same coach.

The stranger now lit a cigarette and offered one to NKV. This cooled down NKV and he shifted slightly in his seat to let the other man have a perch. The stranger told him that he was a salesman for a garments company and had been to Coimbatore on business. He arrived in Chennai from Coimbatore just in the nick of time to catch the GT Express and therefore had no time for reservation. NKV on his part mentioned about his outstanding success in the UPSC examination and how he got allotted to an important Ministry and asked the salesman for directions to Munirkha from Delhi station if his friend does not receive him.

It was evening time by now and the Pantry bearers started serving dinner. NKV asked for a dinner but was rudely told that he had not placed order when they came in the afternoon to book dinner orders. Fortunately a couple of idlies were remaining in the lunch box packed by his mother and NKV ate them. The salesman had spread his bedding on the upper berth and went out to return with another Punjabi speaking young man and both sat on the upper berth. A bottle of whiskey was opened and the waiter was asked to get some ice and paper cups. These provided, they had a whale of a time laughing and singing. When the waiter appeared to take their orders for dinner, they asked for mutton biryani and fish. The waiter said that only vegetarian meals can be rigged at that time and that too as a special case for them. They gave him the unfinished bottle of whiskey and a hundred rupee note and told him that when the train stopped at the next junction, he should quickly go out and get the food from the hotels in front of the station. The waiter was all smiles and whistled his way out.

NKV lay in his berth musing about the alacrity of the salesman in converting a foot- hold in the train into an allotted berth and the method and means employed to get whatever he desired for dinner. Though he did not follow a word of their conversation, he understood one thing; that, to command a situation one should not just be intelligent but one should be smart as well.

As a first step, he decided to become known as NKV Dan or Danny to friends!

The GT Express chugged on its long journey to Delhi.

Me - A Selfie

With the advent of the smart phone, selfies have become popular. They come very useful to social media addicts for changing their profile pictures almost on a daily basis. I know of a friend whose profile picture one day was a decent clean shaven face and on the next day it changed to an unshaven, grimaced and contorted face, not even recognised by his mother. Selfies have their other uses as well. You don’t have to stand any more before the mirror to decide if a pair of glasses suits you or not since you cannot store your mirror images for comparison. But with selfie facility all you have to do is to take two selfies, one with and another without glasses, store them and decide in consultation with someone if need be. Or to see if you look better with your right or left cheek to the camera. This does not necessarily make you a narcissist, deriving erotic gratification by admiring your own physical attributes.

I am however trying to use the selfie concept in a different sense. I am going to capture as it were some episodes or phases of my life in my mind’s selfie camera. Don’t confuse yourself into thinking that my narration is autobiographical.
The first episode which comes to my mind is my admission test in a Chennai School in the year of our Independence. I had been to a village school till my 4th standard and knew Basic English which in those days was taught from 1st standard. But the Chennai School’s question asking me to write any two proverbs in English foxed me as the word proverb was new to me. I had known pronouns as alternate words for proper nouns and therefore guessed that proverbs too must be the alternate words for verbs. I considered some verbs like sit, stand, run, walk, etc. and not being able to find any alternate words for them, wrote my definitive and conclusive answer “ There are no proverbs in English”. At that young age itself, I exhibited the traits of a researcher which came to my good stead later in life and career in academics.
Later while studying in higher classes in Delhi, I postulated the theory that a student would understand a theory, concept etc. more clearly not in the standard when he/she is taught, but later after going to a higher standard. For instance, the geometrical proof for the Pythagorean Theorem taught in standard 8 became clear to me only when I was in 10th standard. So also was the concept of market price and normal price in Economics, taught in school, becoming clearer after leaving school and when Economics was no longer my subject? Many others have confessed to me the validity of this theory in confidence.

Next, the selfie of my nose. Apart from showing a lot to be desired, it set me thinking in a different path. If you think that the nose is just an organ in the human face like the eyes, ears, mouth, etc., you have not understood its predominant significance. First and foremost, it juts out a few centimetre from the plane of the face. Unless you have a paunch, it is the first organ to enter a room. As an organ, it performs the same function of breathing in and breathing out and smelling in every person. So do the other organs with their assigned functions and they are more or less the same in shape and form in every person. But, like no two clocks would show the same time, no two noses look the same. What a variety of their shapes; long ,chiseled, bulbous, short, flat, stubby, up- turned showing the interiors, pinched ,twisted. In short, as many shapes as there are people on earth. Not only that, even in respect of the single nose of a person, the two nostrils are often neither symmetrical nor similar; one may me be lean and long and the other may be flared and flawed. In fact, it is the nose that characterises and classifies the races into Chinese, Greeks, Africans, Kashmiris and so on .( I would like do my second Ph.D. on nose if I get a girl research assistant with a well-shaped nose!). It is not for nothing that Blaise Pascal said “Cleopatra’s nose, had it been shorter, the face of the world would have been changed.

I conclude with a recent selfie. I am very popular in our Housing Society, among the women in particular, who all affectionately call me uncle. It led me to think that that even at my age I am a hero-like material till recently a young lady, of course with an exquisite nose, told me that my face reminded her of a lamb in her childhood home!!

Navarathri in New Delhi

It is Navarathri time now. I cannot help but recollect the Golus organised t at my sister’s home in New Delhi in the fifties and sixties specially a couple of comic incidents . Those days, New Delhi was essentially a government city with government servants in accommodation allotted in accordance with their rank and salary Therefore, the scale and size of the Navarathri Golu in South Indian homes reflected the status of the allotted person. Each year a make –do “Golu padi” (stairs) was constructed with empty trunk boxes by placing them one above another. Problem would arise when the trunks were of the same size and shape. The big “Razaai “box, - a must in all homes to put away the woollen blankets, shawls, coats, sweaters etc. during the non- winter months, was invariably used without removing its contents. Half of its lid’s breadth would be occupied by school/college text books like Wren & Martin English Grammar , Asquith’s Geometry, Hall & Knight Higher Algebra and spiritual books like Sampoorna Ramayanam by Anantharama Dikshitar ,forming the top mantle .The differences in the thickness of the books would be adjusted by note books of 40/80 pages. The lower mantles for the golu were the small tea tables, stools and planks supported by bricks, the entire structure draped with dhobi washed dhotis/ white bed-sheets.

The dolls were arranged on the stairs depending on their age and size. My mother insisted on including in the Golu, the pair of Marapachhi (carved dolls made of a variety black wood) which she bought in Tirupati many years earlier as well as the Tanjore Bommai, a chettiar (Bania) doll which would tumble due to uneven weight distribution. As a concession to modernity she agreed to the dolls of Mahatma Gandhi, Mary with child Jesus and Ramakrishna Paramahaamsa being placed with godly Ganesh, Sri Rama and Krishna dolls. The inevitable chettiar and chettichi pair as grocer couple was made to sell fruits and vegetables like oversized big slice of cut water melon, potato, cucumber, banana, pumpkin etc.

Being a school going boy and a new learner of cycling, I was assigned the job of delivering the typewritten invites for “haldi kumkum" to the Tamil homes in the Gole Market area. The invites were for a specific day(s) during the festival when the “prasadam’ would be special like home made barfi, and the inevitable “sundal” (a dish made of boiled gram/pulse), coconut, banana, betel leaves and scented nuts. On the other days, we would have an assortment of sundials collected from Golus visited by my sister and nieces. The sundals were mostly packed in “pottalam” (newspaper parcels) It was when my sister moved to a bigger government accommodation, that a permanent structural frame made of wood was constructed. This resulted in increased number of mantles and more thematic sets of dolls like dasavadaram, south Indian marriage scene and band players. There also was the “Kai Velai” (hand work)by the side of the golu-padi, depicting a village scene, with a railway station, stationary engine and coaches, horse drawn cart, pastoral fields( real grass) and a couple of paper huts. The background landscape was a hill of clay with a strip of aluminium foil to indicate a flowing river.

The list of invitees grew bigger each year as my sister’s husband (he was also my maternal uncle) received promotions and wives of his equal status officers got added to the list. The invitations were now printed and sent by book- post. On one occasion, one invitation was returned to us by the Post Office charging double the postage. The addressee did not receive it as it was under-stamped. though she promptly attended the Golu on the fixed day. She stated that although she had refused to receive the invitation, she had made a note of the date and time in her appointment diary!

On another occasion, a couple of hours before the appointed time for the guests to arrive, the serial lamps around the Golu padi failed to light up. There was no time to send for an electrician and so my uncle and I were summoned from our offices. We went behind the white sheet cover and inside the hollow space under the Padis and started checking for any loose connection. In a serial bulb arrangement, detecting the fault means checking the joint at each and every bulb with the wire and Murphy’s Law operates i.e. it is always the last bulb checked which is loosely connected. We were half way through when a group of invitees trooped in. We were inside the frame like sitting ducks neither speaking between us nor laughing aloud at the comedy of the situation. We stayed put there for some three hours as batch after batch of ladies came, as in a relay race. Adding insult to the injury was my uncle’s senior officer who accompanied his wife, asked about my uncle and my sister said that he worked late in office those days. The senior officer smiled at my sister’s bluff as he had granted my uncle permission to leave office early that day!!

The festival ended each year with all operations in reverse order and to the relief of the menfolk.

The Chembur Mama

If you happen to see a white-haired man of about 70 years of age in the Central Avenue area of Chembur, Mumbai between Diamaond Garden and Chembur Rly. Station wearing “Veshti”, a loose fitting T Shirt with a US institution/company monogram and with a cloth bag in hand, you are meeting the typical Chembur Mama. The cotton bag is a recent adornment ever since A.P.Mani Stores started charging extra for plastic carry bags. Mostly hailing from Palakadu in Kerala, he has lived in Mumbai for well over 50 years, first in Matunga as bachelor and patron of South Indian Concerns ( popularly called The Concerns). After an arranged marriage with a “young woman well trained in household affairs” ( now Mami), he moved to his own flat “ 600 sq. One BHK” bought for Rs, 80000 with a loan of Rs 40000 from Govt of Maharashtra in a four storeyed building in the then developing Chembur. Today he is a senior citizen, retired from work and spending time with his children and relations. In spite of his long living in Mumbai, he has not picked up any Marathi. He is none the worse for it though as his regular business deals with Chembur vegetable shops, grocers and occasional jeweller all take place in Talayalam (Tamil spoken in a Malayalam intonation and accent). Even his asking for “kai vaccha banian” (banian with sleeves) has been understood by the shopkeeper.

When he first arrived in Mumbai in early fifties with his Matriculation certificate and 45/120 words speed in typing/ shorthand, he was grabbed by the private companies owned by Gujaratis and some British Companies with offers of jobs as typist. He later got a choice of as junior manager either in Sales because of his fluent English or in Accounts because of his numeracy skills.. The salary was modest and he saved enough to send home to his parents some cash. He recollects those sunny days, “Eight annas got you a breakfast of 2 idlis, one vada, one dosa with unlimited sambhar and fresh coconut chutney and a steaming cup of coffee in Rama Nayak's while a book of monthly meals coupons was just Rs 22. Transport to and fro offices in South Mumbai were in the Local suburban trains costing as little as 2 annas”. The children were born as he and Mami were careful to limit their number just to two or three keeping in mind the limited space in their home.

Now the children have grown: the elder son is CA, married and has moved over to his own flat in the adjoining Ghatkopar/Deonar, the only daughter is married and lives in Philadelphia with her husband. The younger son is an IIT/IIM product and works as a professor in Nothewestern University. Though the elder son asked the parents to move to his abode, Mami confidentially told Mama that the offer is not without strings as they would be made to baby-sit their grandson. She had had enough of grooming children and now wants to live without such responsibility. She wanted to be the queen of all she surveys which is not possible living with mattu- ponnu.(daughter-in-law). Mama, true to his wont all through his married and working life of never saying “NO” to the boss, quietly agreed. Mama’s Housing Society is now under redevelopment and he is expecting to move to his new 1.5 f.s.i. flat soon. They now divide their time between Chembur (temporarily rented flat), Ghatkopar and the USA.

Mama like most of his contemporaries is a simple man with clean habits. Long ago soon after his first job he was tempted to smoke once, choked and resolved never to smoke again. Drinking was considered a sin and even as a marketing man he entertained the clients but he sipped only soda. He has not missed performing Sandyavandanam even for a day. After retirement he has joined the Veda Classes to learn to recite the Rudram, the Chamakam and the Suktams. He performs all the rituals lie Amavasiya Tharpanam, Mahalaya Shradam and of course the two annual “ceremonies” for his departed parents. He visits the Subramaniya Swamy Temple in Cheda Nagar occasionally on festival days like Thai Poosam, Skanda Shasti etc. but the visit to Sri Ramar Koil every day is a must as it gives him the needed daily walk of about a mile or two which he says is good for both “body and soul”.

He is member of the famous The Fine Arts Society and attends, with Mami in consort, all its music programmes, dramas and dance recitals and thus makes up the average age of the audience as something 55+. On these occasions the 8.00 clock dinner at home is missed because of the medhu vada, uppuma, Kara baath eaten at the Society canteen during the “Thani Avarthanam” by the percussionists. (solo performance by the accompanying artists)

Family crises arise occasionally like when a year ago his professor son in USA announced his decision to marry his co-professor, an American of Chinese origin. After some initial unpleasantness and after many consultations and clarifications with his daughter and son-in-law in he consented. As he told his wife “it is wise to accept a foreign mattuponnu, rather than losing the son”. They attended the wedding and Mama is not tired of telling how the foreign mattuponnu took care of his amavasya tharpanam and the night “palaharam” ( light meal mostly of fruits / tiffin) during the few days they stayed in USA. after the wedding.

All said, the Chembur Mama is embodiment of peace within and without.

The Chembur Mami's Dilemma

The Chembur Mami is unique and can be spotted around Chembur Railway Station, Diamond Garden, The Fine Arts Society Building, Ahobilam/Shringeri mutts, Subramanya Swamy Temple in Cheda Nagar and the adjoining areas of Deonar, Ghatkopar, etc. Hailing mostly form Palakkad in Kerala, the Mami is middle aged and educated and happy running her home. Her ubiquitous presence in the Katcheris, marriage receptions and other religious and social functions in bright kanjivarams and dazzling diamond ear-tops and conversing in Malayalam accented Tamil, loud enough to be heard by others, is the only solace to the otherwise dullness of these events.

Conversant with modern gadgets like the cell phone and the internet and smart enough to negotiate for a better deal in the redevelopment of the flats in her housing society, she is the brain behind the family investments in gold (ornaments), apartments and stocks , in that order. Yet her identity is linked to her husband’s whose name is suffixed to the company he works(ed) for, like Godrej Mani, Ponds Seshan, etc. Modern though in most of her beliefs, she is prone to set the dress norms for her daughter with more liberalism than for her daughter-in-law. However, if the latter transgresses the norm, she would rather complain to Mama than talk to Mattuponnu. In this as well as in other matters regarding values and practices, the Chembur Mami prefers to remain old fashioned, but discreet enough not to voice her disapproval in the open.


Of late, the Mami is in a dilemma of sorts. Like most other Chembur Mamis, she too has seen the film The Dirty Picture (TDP) in the company of Mama and liked “Namma Chembur” Vidya’s superb playing of the difficult character of a misdirected film personality of the 80s, bringing in all the emotions of joy, success, frustration and anger. At the same time, some scenes where Vidya is seen in very intimate proximity to male actors is anathema to Mami’s views on morality and public behaviour. While Mami is proud about Vidya’s talent and has no objection to her taking to acting in films, though a rather unusual career for a Chembur Tamil girl, she expected that the roles were decent and good as in Pa and Parineeta. But what irked the Mami most is that in TDP, Vidya has thrown all decency of dress and public behaviour to winds. So, the Mami’s dilemma is: should she admire Vidya as in the past for her acting or should she condemn the actor for transgressions of the dress and decency norms.

For a change, Mama was asked for his opinion and he took a carefully considered stand saying that the objectionable scenes and Vidya’s dress in them were warranted by the character of Silk that was portrayed in the film. Mami is even more confused and so her dilemma continues.

The Rape of The Mind

I was distraught at the increasing incidents of rape in India and the attitude of the politicians and the police to dismiss them as either too few for a nation of our size and population or due to the overall degradation of morality in our society. Then I remembered an incident some years ago that concerns my friend Venu and which gives him no peace even today.

He was then posted as a junior manager in a bank in Chennai and was living in the lower middle class locality of Triplicane with wife and infant daughter. His home was a two- room portion in the ground floor of a two storeyed building in Bells Road and there were some four or five other families living in similar accommodation on the ground floor. One of the families was that of the middle aged Krishnaswamy working in a private company with his wife and four children. His eldest child was Saroja aged 15 studying in the 9h standard. There were 3 other families on the ground floor with some five or six children studying in various standards from KG to the 6th standard. These children, mostly girls, played games like pandi, etc. in the evenings while Saroja the oldest in the group being a spectator. The first floor was a single unit of 3 rooms, hall and kitchen occupied by one Devarajan working in LIC.

One day in May that year when schools had closed for summer vacation after announcing the results, Venu had returned from work early and found gaiety and celebrations in his building. A little girl came and told him that she has passed and she was followed by other children gleefully saying that they have all passed. He thought that he should give them some sweet on their promotion and shouted to the shopkeeper across the building to send some chocolates. He asked the kids to come one by one to receive the chocolate. He kissed each child as he gave the sweet and did not consider it improper as they were kids. All this while, he had not noticed Saroja standing some distance away watching the proceedings. When he saw her, he asked her about her result and she said with all modesty that she has stood first in her class and got promoted to the 10th standard. She was about to leave when Venu asked her to take a chocolate like the other kids. She hesitated in the beginning but ultimately came forward. Venu gave her the chocolate and involuntarily turned to kiss her as he did with other children. Saroja was aghast at this and mumbled something like what would others say if they came to know that a grown up girl like her had been kissed by an adult male. As she started to leave, Venu grabbed her and planted a kiss on her cheek. She gave him the angry look of an injured and defenceless girl subjected to an act of shame and with tears in her eyes ran to her home.

That night, Venu could not get sleep easily. As he closed his eyes the child-like and innocent face of Saroja kept on tormenting him. He was at a loss to justify to his conscience his kissing a teen-aged girl and felt morally weakened. He told his wife about the incident in the evening expecting her to assuage his guilt feeling and condone his act of kissing a girl as young as his daughter without any sinister intent.. He tried to convince her that he had not acted with any amorous intention towards Saroja. But his wife refused to buy this and chided him for behaving stupidly with an innocent girl. He sincerely prayed that Saroja would not tell anyone in her family or others and that things would be forgotten soon. He did not see Saroja thereafter for many days and even felt glad to have not seen her. The intensity of his guilt feeling lessened over time Mercifully, he received his transfer orders within a month and left Chennai for Hyderabad.

Two years later, he was in Chennai on official work for a week and was pondering whether he should go to his old Bells Road home to meet the Krisnaswamys. In fact, the urge was to see if Saroja would show any rancour when she sees him. But he did not have the courage to meet her. He rang up Devarajan the tenant upstairs and expressed a desire to meet him. They met at a hotel and after initial exchange of pleasantries, Venu asked him about the other tenants in Bells Road. Devarajan informed that while other tenants continued there, Krishnaswamy’s family has moved away without any forwarding address. Venu pressed for details for this odd behaviour on the part of Krishnaswamy. Devarajan with some hesitation said that for a month or so after Venu’s departure for Hyderabad, things were going normally when suddenly Saroja seemed to lose interest in everything. She fared poorly in studies and failed her 10th standard exam. She lost weight considerably and became pale. She ate less and less and very often seen to go into a kind of a trance, sitting alone in a corner. Her responses to others were muted. In the beginning, Krishnaswamy, like any middle class father, used the “samadhana, beda, dhanda “approach and when all these failed got her treated medically by doctors of all systems including sorcery. But nothing was helping Saroja and she became more and more moody and confined herself within the four walls of the house sulking everyone.

As it happens in small communities, the rumour mills started grinding. Tale after tale about the promiscuous character of Saroja did the rounds making the Krisnaswamys exasperated. Then a psychiatrist was consulted. It was then the truth came to be known. To the psychiatrist, Saroja recounted the incident of kissing and told him about how she felt shocked and totally defenceless on being kissed by an adult... She had been brought up under strict discipline by her parents and when an adult kissed her she felt she has been subjected to an immoral act and lost her honour. She shuddered to think about the ramification of this incident for her family if became known to the public. She started to believe that she had been wronged by Venu deliberately. She despised all men and their mean ways of lust and overpowering behaviour with women. She underwent days and months of severe mental torture. She soon lost interest in everything and even thought of ending her life but fearing the adverse effect on her family name gave up that idea. But while she narrated all her feelings, she stoutly refused to divulge the name of the person who kissed her saying that he was an honourable man with a family and some status in the society. The psychiatrist concluded that Saroja was in a schizophrenic seizure and suggested taking Saroja out to new surroundings amongst new people to give her time to recover. The Krishnaswamys therefore decided to move away from Chennai to an undeclared destination.

Venu was now even more hurt than before. He narrated to me the whole story and rued how the tragic outcome of his well-meaning gesture of a kiss of a young hapless girl torments him every now and then. I could not see any justification of his act since as a middle class person brought up in a puritanical family environment where even talking alone to a girl after her puberty is frowned upon, except to muse how even a small act of indiscretion can ruin the life of a young girl brought up in strict middle class discipline.

The Smart World

The concept of “smartness” in good old days was mostly attributed to personal qualities like quick wit and intelligence or stylishly dressed, such persons being called “smart”. Like my school friend Santhanam, when asked to indicate Newfoundland in our class room world map pointed out to some dot of a space two inches below Australia in the Indian Ocean saying that he newly found that place. We all thought he was smart but our Geography master was not amused and admonished him saying “Don’t be a smart ass”.

With the electronics revolution in the last century the concept “smartness” in devices has changed to mean their capacity to do many independent functions in addition to the main intended function. Thus came the smart card and the smart phone and now its extension, the Apple smart watch. The smart watch “apart from helping consumers send and receive messages, and post on social networking sites, can also monitor one’s heartbeat, serve as a pedometer, measure one’s calorie intake and facilitate cashless payments”.

The management gurus prescribed S.M.A.R.T. ( Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time bound) goals for organisations.

There is news that Mumbai’s Bandra –Kurla Complex (BKC) is to become the city’s first “smart district” by the end of this financial year. Under the Smart BKC project, five services will be provided- viz public wi-fi, smart parking, smart solar street lighting, a citizen portal or apps to spot utilities like reserving a table in a restaurant and video analytics based CCTV cameras to alert agencies about thefts or suspicious activities .Smart news indeed for Mumbai citizens smarting from the poor civic functions .If you ask me, Mumbai needs smart roads without pot holes.

I was curious if vegetables can be smart. I goggled and discovered the “smart potato, smart tomato and smart brinjal”. The first two are mentioned in the context of summer activities of kids and the third is mentioned for its the universality and good properties .

Next was my search for the” smart wife” in the belief that such a person does not exist but the following story dispels the belief. A man and woman were married for many years, even though they hated each other. When they had a confrontation, screaming and yelling could be heard deep into the night the man would shout, "When I die, I will dig my way up and out of the grave and come back and haunt you for the rest of your life!" Neighbours feared him. They believed he practiced black magic, because of the many strange occurrences that took place in their neighbourhood. The man liked the fact that he was feared. To everyone's relief, he died of a heart attack when he was 68. His wife had a closed casket at the wake. After the burial, she went straight to the local bar and began to party, as if there was no tomorrow. Her neighbours, concerned for her safety, asked, "Aren't you afraid that he may indeed be able to dig his way up and out of the grave and come back to haunt you for the rest of your life?" The wife put down her drink and said, "Let him dig. I had him buried upside down......"

The smart things of the future? Your guess is as good as mine.