Month: November 2024

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Tyger Tyger Burning Bright

I am a great one for trivia. If trivia contests were an Olympic sport, I would have certainly won many a medal for India. If you don’t believe me, ask my well-informed wife, who keeps benefitting from the esoteric nuggets of information that I share with her. Just a few days back, as I was getting ready to go to the bank, I recalled an interesting fact that I simply had to impart to her.

Even as she didn’t stop going about her silly chores, I asked her whether she had heard of the Wasika Office in Lucknow. Suddenly she was all ears, though she pretended to continue ironing some clothes. “This Wasika department in Hussainabad doles out pensions to the erstwhile nawabs of Awadh. Well, not the nawabs; but the progeny of the nawabs and the progeny of the progeny. There are more than a thousand such pensioners—wasikedars, as they are called. They draw wondrously meagre pensions from the government that range from just one rupee to a few hundred a month.”

I waxed eloquent about these descendants of the nawabs who converge with ancestral pride to collect their pensions—trifling amounts that are less than the cost of travel to the pension office. Still they come from near and far to celebrate the nawabiyat coursing through their veins. But they can’t survive on past glory alone, so these latter-day nawabs have other pursuits and professions—from pulling rickshaws in the by-lanes of Lucknow to running successful business enterprises in India and abroad. Many might be modest clerks and bus conductors and tailors and paanwalas; but on the day they come to receive their pensions, they doll up in smartly starched chikan kurtas and sherwanis.

My wife was clearly not impressed by my vast store of information.

“Are you even listening?” I asked irritably.

“I am listening, stupid,” she said calmly. “You are a retired old man with nothing to do, but I am a homemaker and homemakers never retire. You can afford to go on prattling about nawabs and pensions and other such nonsense, whereas I have work to do. I don’t have all day. Nor do you for that matter, if you want to reach the bank in time.”

“I am waiting for Gopu,” I said. “We will go together to submit our life certificates. You know that to continue getting our pensions, we have to inform the bank in November every year that we are alive and kicking and have not yet kicked the bucket.”

“I do so wish you would not mix your metaphors. And also that you would not mix with people like that no-good Gopu!”

“His name is Gopu, and not ‘that no-good Gopu’,” I remonstrated.

Gopu arrived just then and I appealed to his good sense to convince the little woman that knowledge about the nawabs and wasikedars was essential for leading a perfect and happy life.

“So what is this wasikedar poppycock?” he asked.

I then had no option but to educate Gopu. About the nawabs, the starched chikan kurtas, the paanwala who you would never suspect of being a nawab and the paltry royal pensions.

“But I thought it was us who got a pittance as a pension,” he asserted.

“Isn’t it amazing,” he continued, “we were fortunate to get the best paying government jobs 50-odd years ago and our pay was Rs400 a month. It seemed unlikely then, but we hoped to reach the pinnacle of our careers by the time we retired and dreamt of getting the highest government pay of Rs3,000! Strangely, while our salaries, and then our pensions, increased many times over, our level of poverty has remained almost constant.”

“Well, it’s not that bad,” I said, “We do get handsome pensions.”

“Certainly,” said my friend. “But the government takes back a third of it as income tax! And don’t forget the GST. On an average, you and I pay around 20 per cent tax on everything that we buy. Therefore, the government takes back more than half of our so-called handsome pensions.”

I had to agree with that. The little woman chipped in. “Considering that this guy’s main expenditure is on petrol and whisky, he pays yet higher taxes. Probably more than 60 per cent!”

I looked at Gopu disconsolately. “That is so true! I wonder if it is really worth all the bother?”

“Are you suggesting that we don’t go to the bank to give the life certificate because the pension is peanuts?” he asked.

“It certainly is peanuts! But don’t the descendants of the nawabs come to collect a few rupees because the pension proves their royal connections? Similarly, we too need to rejoice our past sarkari connections. Furthermore, the leftover nawabs have additional means of livelihood, while we have nothing. Nothing at all! Not even a paan shop!”

Meekly, I left for the bank with Gopu to tender my ‘life certificate’ to prove that I am alive. The tiger may be subsisting on peanuts, but it is alive, dammit! Tiger zinda hai!

(THE WEEK – November 24, 2024)

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Lotus POTUS

You should visit us one of these days—there is so much excitement in our USA! No, I don’t mean the famous USA—the Ulhasnagar Sindhi Association of Mumbai. I mean the lesser-known Unicorn Society Apartments, where I live. We are a motley group of middle-class householders who have perforce given up our genteel dreams of living in villas and have instead bought the 2-BHKs and 3-BHKs that shady builders pass off as ‘refined living’. For those insulated against middle-class realities, ‘BHK’ refers to a bedroom-hall-kitchen set; even though anyone who calls that cramped living room a ‘hall’ needs spectacles. Or he deserves an award for creative writing!

But let us return to the excitement part. Again, for the edification of the ignorant, every housing society needs to have a residents’welfare association, headed by a president and a vice-president. Till now, the president of the Unicorn Society (POTUS for us) is Jai Bhai. We call him Jai Bhai ‘Dun because he was a lawyer in Dehradun. The vice-president is my neighbour Harish’s wife. She cackles like an old hyena, but her doting husband calls it ‘an infectious and joyful laugh’. Surprisingly, even with that laugh, she puts on airs because of her mixed ancestry, which includes English genes somewhere in her DNA chain. Would you believe that even as her mother had christened her Kamala—the lotus flower—she changed her name to Camilla? After sidelining Jai, she has been behaving as if she is Queen Camilla and not Camilla Harish.

The sidelining of Jai Bhai was predictable. While he kept insisting that he could manage the affairs of the Unicorn Society (US) quite well, everyone could see that he was getting old, and senile. He sometimes stumbled and mumbled and tripped and forgot what he was saying mid-sentence. A few weeks back, while talking to some residents, he even confused the name of Zilan Singh from the west block with Wald-e-Mir Puttan from the east block. This caused much amusement because the two are sworn enemies.

By the end of this year, new office-bearers are to be elected in our USA. With Jai Bhai being a lame duck, many people thought it was a good idea to let Camilla contest. She then selected Timir Wal to be the vice-presidential candidate. Contesting against her is Do Nal Ram, who was POTUS earlier. This loudmouth keeps saying he will make our society great again. So great! He has selected the one-book wonder, Vansh, to be his running mate. Do Nal enjoys much support in the south block because he keeps repeating that he won’t allow bachelors to rent houses in our USA.

Quite amusingly, he alleged that they eat meat so he would build a wall to keep them out! A few weeks back, a flowerpot fell from the terrace when Do Nal was walking near the east block. The pot missed his head but fetched him a lot of publicity. Initially some even speculated that he might sweep into office on a sympathy wave. But it soon came to be considered a joke when Camilla quipped that the pot could have fallen out of a coconut tree!

Tempers have been running high and all residents of our USA are aligned in two camps. One of the residents, Promilla Thapan, who claims to be a historian, suggested that Camilla and Do Nal should have a public debate. According to Promilla, the Licchavis of the ancient republic of Vaishali used to elect the Gana Mukhiya of their Ganasangha after hearing the candidates debate. She suggested that this practice could be also adopted by newer democracies, like Amreeka.

The debate took place, but it was inconclusive, with both candidates claiming victory. The residents accused both of twisting facts. Camilla accused Do Nal of hanky-panky and Do Nal called Camilla names and accused her of hocus pocus. He later suggested that she needed to have her head examined. After that the two vice-presidential hopefuls had a slugfest, but it was a damp squib, with no fury, no light and no sound. So Do Nal started dropping sinister hints about some ‘enemy within’. But many of Camilla’s group have been alleging that the only enemy is Do Nal.

As of now, Camilla seems ahead by a whisker, but she has the double disadvantage of being a woman and a ‘gora’. The POTUS has never, but never, been a woman. All the misogynist residents are uncomfortable at the thought that she will take the salute at the parade of security guards of our USA next July 4, which is the founding day of the Unicorn Society.

I really want dear Camilla to win because then, for the very first time, our USA will have a Lotus POTUS! Unfortunately, she faces accusations of hocus pocus, so she just might become the first hocus pocus lotus POTUS. Further, Do Nal Ram’s group is notorious for levelling allegations of electoral malpractices whenever they lose. So if Camilla wins, and Do Nal’s supporters prove their allegations, the focus would be on a bogus hocus pocus lotus potus!

THE WEEK Issue of November 10,2024