The "Auto" graphy of my First Car

Like Mahatma Gandhi's autobigraphy is titled "The Story of My Experiments with Truth", this blog may be called an "auto" graphy with the title "The Story of My Experiences with my First Car" My first car was actually a second hand car. In 1980s when I bought it, the term used car was not in vogue. It was a black Fiat , produced perhaps in late 1960s and was one of the last batch with doors on both sides opening from front to rear , fit to be graded as a vintage car. Though called second hand, I am sure it must have passed through several hands as the RC book showed may owner names. To avoid being cheated by touts dealing in used cars , I took the help of a friend to test drive and certify its health and roadworthiness. The price was settled at Rs 18,000. I did not know driving and my firend volunteered to teach me driving .As good leaarner I picked up the rudiments correctly and in quick time and within a week my friend was satisfied that I could drive on main roads without him by my side. I got my two wheeler driving licence upgraded to driving automobles, thanks to some over friendly RTO agents . The only thing I could not get over was taking my left foot off the clutch pedal while driving. This habit resulted in a comic episode when I could not drive the car up the small gradiant of the Gharware bridge in Deccan Gymkhana area in Pune.The car started sliding down backwards and both my daughter and son gotting trying hard to push it up the bridge.. Like most proud owners of newly acquired cars with limited driving skills and even less knowledge of automobiles and traffic rules, I was not deterred from taking the family on frequent round rips from home to home city without parking anywhere . This is because I could not for my life master parking in narrow parking space between two vehicles. In my opinion, parking needs different skill sets and training. The car showed great propensity to consume petrol in tens of litres frequently as well an insatiable thirst for water in its radiator. My ascribed this to age of the vehicle and need for an overhaul of the engine. Then one day it happened what I dreaded not to happen in my driving life. Taking a practice drive alone one afternoon close to my home, the "Leftist" leanings of my car resulted in its hitting the barbed wire fencing off the road and it stalled with engine running. I left the car on a "as is where is" basis, walked back home and phoned up a nearby garage. The car was towed home with its left side mauled beyond recognition of what might it have looked like earlier. An estimate of charges for removing dents, straigtening and painting was submitted to me by the garage man. He gave me the option to consider reconditioning of the engine and other major work like brakes,suspension system etc right then since the car needed all these items too attended. My wife on her part suggested body repainting of the colour of the car with something other than black as she was convinced that black colour was the reason of the accident. I was firm in asking the mechanic to repair only the effects of the accident and that I would take up other items later in due course. Nonetheless, I asked him for a tentative quote for all the repair work including engine recondtioning etc . He mentioned something of the order of the price I had paid for buying the car. Next day I visited the garage to see if the work has been taken up. I did not find my car . When asked about it, the mechanic showed a heap of parts of an automobile engine spread on a tarpaulin sheet saying they have been dismantled from the engine of my car for repair/replacement and refitting . When I remostrated that he had no business to start these major jobs without my consent, he said that since he had no immediate work on hand for such major repairs he had better started the work on my car. After all one day or other I had to get the same done. I protested threatening to report to the police and insisted that he gave me the car back with engine refitted . He agreed to do that and quoted refitting charges payable by me! I had to agree to an astronomical figure for all the work except body repainting . For my misfortune all this happened when the DoorDarshan was featuring a comedy serial Waghle ki Duniya . The main character was one Mr. Waghle who was the victim of cheating at the hands of others. Many of my friends who knew my story of my first car called me Mr. Waghle

The Treachery of TRP The TRP debate is timely.The Times of India in its report says “The entire TRP system that underpins over Rs 25,000 crore worth of TV advertising is riddled with serious vulnerabilities and challenges. A tiny and skewed sample of 44000 homes for a viewership of 84 crore, outdated survey data, regulatory changes –and, as the ongoing scandal has highlighted, scope for manipulation through bribery “, the TRP as a metric for measuring viewership is flawed has become highly questionable. The stakeholders in the system are the advertises, the ad agencies, the media i.e. TV channels and last but not the least, the customers of products and services advertised. In the case of customers, however, data is captured on the duration for which their TV boxes were kept switched on for particular TV channel(s), while no data is gathered on the time spent actually on viewing the programme(s). I am amused at the naivety of the ad industry into believing that their ad spends in English language news TV channels fully serve the purpose of advertising i.e. to help recall the product advertised in the minds of the customer while making a purchase decision. Most viewers feel annoyed by their interrupting occurrence repeatedly throughout the transmission which perhaps tend rather to anger than evoke interest The viewer is bored and compelled to change to another and lo it is an ad break there too !.. So, the audio is put on mute mode till the news anchor's face, which looks equally bored, appears. Another reason for muting the sound byte in ad is its relatively higher decibel level. For these reasons it will not be incorrect to say that TV advertisements in India are counter- productive.

 

Tambrahms: Where to find them?

My earlier blogs on Delhi’s Madrasis, Chembur Mama and The Dilemma of Chembur Mami were mostly based on my observations and some imaginary situations. The characters belonged to the generic group called Madrasis which even today continues to serve as the collective noun of South Indians living away from Madras. It was merely coincidental that these characters also happened to be identifiable as Tambrahms, a contraction for Tamil speaking brahmins primarily living in Tamil Nadu though many have now migrated to other States and countries.

I did not realize that if one wanted to know about Tambrahms, Tamil Nadu is not the place to go to look for them. That State has only a few of them left residing there and in some inconsequential sense.

 The place where they have migrated in significant number and counted is the adjoining State of Kerala. Thus within the Tambrahms, there is a distinct sub- group hailing from Palakkadu called Palakkadu Brahmins (PB), who have distinguished themselves  with great success in fields like  business, corporate management, IT   government service, fine arts, etc,. Though the late T.N.Seshan, a Palakkadu Brahmin himself once said in a light-hearted and self - deprecatory comment that the Palakkadu Brahmins excelled as “cooks, crooks and civil servants”.

The PBs are scattered all over in India and abroad that a writer once wrote that they are “neither here nor there or everywhere”.  The old story that the first humans to set foot atop Mt.  Everest and the Moon were greeted by a Nair from Kerala offering them tea from his stall already established there raises the doubt whether the Nairs followed the Palakkadu Brahmins or vice versa to immigrate to far off lands. However, wherever the PBs have gone, they have shown a strong instinct for holding on to their traditions and also adopting the most modern development in technology. Poojas like Bhagavati Seva and Saastha Preethi with sumptuous Saddhya are the hallmarks of their social life whether  Mumbai or Melbourne, Delhi or Dallas. The conversational gambit when one PB meets another for the first time, “Naan Palakkad Akkum” is the passport for the acceptability of membership of the community.

A good amount of reading* is available about when and why the  Brahmins migrated from adjoining Tamil Nadu to Kerala and especially to Palakkadu. There is also insightful writing on the Agraharams they established in a cluster of 18 villages in Palakkadu, the most famous being Kalpathy.

It is typical of them to speak Tamil with a Malayalam accent and intonation which only reinforces their roots in Tamil Nadu as regards language, culture, and traditions. But some of the words in their dialect would mean differently to the Tamils. For instance, Vellam in Tamil is jaggery or flood depending on the context of its use while they use it to refer to water.  The word for magnifying the intensity or degree of anything for the PB is Bhayangaram but it is used in Tamil to describe something as dreadful.

Their abiding interest in classical Carnatic music is extraordinary.  The doyen among them, the late Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhaghavathar has left a great legacy of musicians after him. Some great vidhwans like Palakkadu Mani Iyer (mridangam), T.N.Krishnan (Violin), and K J Yesudas (Vocal) are household names.

The quintessential Palakkadu Brahmin (PB) is the  middle-aged, stocky, baldish,  veshti folded at the knee and with no upper garment. Punctilious to the core, he exhibits a no non- sense image saying precisely what he wants to be said and with no embellishments or finery of speech.  It is often mistaken by others for low degree arrogance.  But inside that exterior, there is the person of disciplined and healthy life and respect for traditions.

A leading Carnatic musician once mentioned to me the following anecdote. He was booked for a concert to commence at 6.00 P.M. in a temple in Palakkadu but owing to some logistics problem he and his accompanist artistes could reach the site only about 15 minutes before the scheduled time. Fearing some reactions from the organizers, he politely declined the hospitality of refreshments. , telling them that he would be happy if some warm milk is provided, say an hour after the concert began. The concert commenced and he warmed up to begin the alapana in raag  Kalyani , when a stocky person appeared from nowhere and in a commanding voice said “Bhaghavathare! Niruthum (Stop)”  The singer was mortally frightened and thought he might probably have struck a false note or so and that this man,  as a connoisseur, had observed and wanted to point out. He immediately stopped singing. The man came to the stage and  gave the singer the milk saying  “Paal Kettire, Indarum” (You wanted milk Is it not? Take it!) It was exactly one hour after the concert began.!

Palakkadu Iyers, wherever and whatever they are, do the community proud  

*The Saga of Kalpathy - The Story of Palghat Iyers , M. K Das

The Brahmins of Palakkad - The Palakkad Iyers . K.V.Narayanamuthy 

Agraharams - Wikipedia

Why I love English

Why I love English

I do not say that I am aa linguist. As pre-indepedence born, I quite well anticipated the 3 language policy and confined myself to learning Tamil( my mother tongue), English (the medium of instruction in schools upwards class V) and Hindi ( most of my life was spent in Delhi and other non - Tamil speaking cities. However, I am  drawn to love English a lot more than the other two languages. I find several oddities  in its usage in  written and spoken forms. 

For example, one finds  words and their antonyms used together in conjunction for emphasis. On the other hand, some words and their synonyms are used in opppsition or as alternatives. Singular and plural forms of the same word are employed simultaneously. You might find other unique features if you research a bit.

 Take words like up and down and back and forth. Though they respectively imply vertical and horizontal movements, they can be used one for the other. For instance, if you are the boss and a junior has committed some mistake. You are in a rage . 

You have the choice of pacing in your room up and down vertically(!)  or back and forth hrizontally . 

You want to  give him a dressing down left and right and ask for his explanation  in black and white.

You may now and then join the staff in their picnics but they know that you are not one of those give and take guys.

 You narrate to them your early life struggle working day in and day out for the company, splicing the story here and there with juicy details of your bosses.

  

 Words like useless, meaningless and harmless connote the absence respectively of use, meaning and harm. But priceless does not mean no price or free .(!) 

 The dictionary defines the adjective full (double use of l )  as holding of any thing that its limlits will allow . But when used in combination with words like beauty , use and harm,  there is only a single  l. Does it mean that these words are with a lower degree of their respective  quality ?

Statisticians have matured from yearly comparisons to say year on year growth and repeat time and again

I have more or less conveyed what a great language English is to one and all

Delhi’s Madrasis - Then and Now

In October 2014 I wrote a blog titled Delhi’s Madrasis, based mostly on their life and style during the 1950’s. A reader then suggested that I write a sequel to that as Delhi’s Madrasis - Then and Now. This is an attempt in deference to that suggestion

My living in Delhi ended in 1978 after nearly 28 years as student, employee and family man. Thereafter I have visited that city many times mostly on official business and sometimes fulfilling family commitments. However, I continued to observe the life and living of the Delhi Madrasis only the Tamil speaking group because of my limited exposure to other linguistic groups like Keralites, Andhraites and Kannadigas. However, for many North Indians, it is still Madrasis without any geographical or linguistic distinction and some even think that most “Karelis” (read Keralites) are Christians!.

The Tamil population in Delhi is around 10 lakhs today while it was only some 60000 in 1980. This exponential increase is both on account of increase in the size of the city itself as well as the increase in Tamil immigrants. The city in my days was defined by the areas under New Delhi Municipal Committee and Delhi Metropolitan Corporation and included what is now called as Lutyens Delhi and other Government colonies like Lodhi Colony, R.K. Puram, Moti Bagh , Sarojini Nagar and other non-government settlements like Karol Bagh, Patel Nagar, Lajpat Nagar, Jangpura , Munirkha, Naraina, , Pankha Road . Today Delhi covers the entire National Capital Region and includes far- off satellite townships extending up to Haryana and UP where too the Tamil community has settled in huge campuses like Alaknanda, Vasant Kunj , Rohini, and NOIDA. However still lakhs of them live in slums and JJ colonies

In its composition, the Tamil community in Delhi today is a mix of government servants living mostly in New Delhi and its surrounding areas and employees in corporate sector both in high and lower positions. In government and corporate offices, old Madrasi names like Sambasivan , Vaideeswaran etc. are fewer while other names like Ilango, Manivannan, Kathiravan, etc. are commonplace reflecting a shift to Dravidian names.
To quote Narain Ganesh ( TOI dated 15th Sept 2002) “So what’s an average Delhi Tamilian or DTam like? It is a wide range from the vibhooti-kumkum sporting dhoti clad Karolbagh veterans to hanky topped disco damsel boogying till the wee hours, to suave corporate honchos. Most Tamils, however, fall somewhere in between, adding value to corporates, media groups and the art world”.

In my time, the elders of the Tamil community were hard put to speak Hindi . I remember my uncle having difficulty to count beyond 20 in Hindi and would say” dho upper bees “for 22, while another relation was ingenious enough to ask for “gobar ka roti “for cow-dung cake! Though, in some families the children considered it fashionable to speak in Hindi at home. Today the youngsters speak fluent Hindi, however the accent is Tamilian like saying “Kaffer Market “for Gaffer Market!

I now find more women, particularly younger ones, wearing salwar and kameez than sarees. Other than those working in offices and schools, most women work as domestic help . It was so in my time as well,but the difference now is that they are not confined to working in Tamilian homes only but in other linguistic family homes also. Their ability to speak Hindi has widened the job market for them.

Culturally, the Tamils still live in their cocoons. The plethora of temples in almost every area where they live, is the place of congregation on festival days. . Malai Mandir, the temple devoted to the Tamil Deivam Murugan, is still the major attraction. On days like Thai Poosam etc., the crowd is huge with hundreds of “Kavadis”,like what it is in some famous Murugan temples in Tamilnadu. A notable feature is the number of persons from other regions and communities like Panjabis, Bengalis, and Marwaris coming to Madrasi temples. A cross cultural change indeed.

Other cultural units like the Bhajana Samajs, Music Clubs are still patronised by only a section of the community as during my time. “Rasikar Mandrams “of famous cinema actors like Rajini, Kamal, Vijay celebrate the release of films of their Heros. Murugan at Malai Mandir takes a back seat then.

Hotels and restaurants have have mushroomed, though many of them run by Udupi Kannadigas and Keralites. Likewise, Madrasa Stores selling typically south Indian specialities like appalm, vetrili, pakku, seeakai powder, besides other groceries also have come up in many numbers. Textile Stores selling sarees and veshtis, travel agencies to book train and air tickets are other ventures indicating the shift from employment to trade and commerce.

Integration with other communities through marriage was few and far between in my time. Now, it is not uncommon to find some educated and salaried Tamil boys and girls marrying spouses from other regions. After all who will not like to marry the intelligent, hard working, simple living Tamil groom/bride ?

Too Late to Lament

The recent decision of the CBSE to completely  delete chapters on federalism, citizenship, nationalism and secularism  from the political science curriculum of class 11 makes me jealous of the class 11 children. Where were  such helping School Regulatory Boards when I was in school saddled with heavy syllabus in almost every subject.?

Take arithmetic: In the chapter on ratio and proportion , we were asked to work out the proportion of water in milk after a dishonest milk seller went on adding equal quantity of water after each sale. Apart from the difficulty in answering, this encouraged  adultratration and dishonesty

In algebra and trignometry, it was all right to learn the formulae by heart and use them in solving questions.What was  the need to derive them from first principles?. Avoidable waste of time .

My problem in English was its grammar, particularly what is known as parsing of sentences. The different kinds of clauses and what word they qualified would have turned even Johnson to take to writing in Latin. It was no different in the case of Hindi where the verb determined the gender ! And in Sanskrit I dropped out in the second week of classes when I was told that the verb depended not just on the  gender but its number, tense etc. Grammar ,as I understood later in life,  is discipline but the best works in any literature pays not much respect to grammar. In poetry learning in all languages we were expected to not just paraphrase but to go beyond to describe what the poet had in mind writing that piece/stanza.

Free -hand drawing of maps as part of Geography and remembering dates and and quoting historians   in answers to questions in History were the other nuisense.

The present day school children are fortunate to have less load to study causing envy in persons like me 

Hinglish as she is spoke

Hinglish as she is spoke

The other day our Home Minister was giving an intrview in a TV Channel on the steps he has initited in Delhi to bring Covid 19 under control. The anchor asked "Can any body go to any hospital in Delhi to get the Crona TEST done?". The Minister said" Yes anybody can TASTE."
Likewise online orders and payments are OWNLINE and  when some
 News readers in TV Channels say a notoarious thief has been  RESTED , dont jump into thinking that he has ben given well desrved rest for all his nocturnal labours but jost only  ARRESTED.
Another pitfall for many is the cofusion between INCIDENTS and INCIDENCES so much so that when the news of INCIDENCES of police highhandedness is read what is meant are INCIDENTS
In Panjab , the first syllable is usually contracted when speaking in any language.  As a result MARUTHI  becomes  MRUTHI ,  KAROL BAGH as ROLBAGH and KAILASH  as KLASH.  A LAWYER  is a LIER. as many would say. It is Coronoa Virus these days and  LOCK DOWN is LOK DOWN , perhaps aptly since people (LOK) are indeed down in spirit