Month: March 2025

Posted on

The Cruellest Season

I hate Delhi in all its seasons.  I hate it in summer because of the scorching winds and temperatures in the high ‘40s. I hate it in the clammy winter with its smog and freezing cold. But, above all, I hate it in the wedding season, with the noisy processions, traffic holdups and assorted miseries. 

In peak wedding season, even fairly antisocial people like my wife and I receive invitations to a whirl of functions, sometimes as many as four in a week. This number isn’t too large, considering that on some so-called auspicious days as many as fifty thousand weddings take place in a single evening in Delhi. 

Earlier we got letters or simple cards inviting us for weddings. But now we get bulky folders with pullouts and several sheets and QR codes and even meal tickets for drivers! Each invitation presents a profound conundrum for me and the missus. From simple mysteries like: ‘Who are these people?’ and ‘Why have they invited us’ to more complex dilemmas – ‘Should we attend or not?’ ‘Should we give cash or gift something to the newlyweds?’ ‘How much ‘shagun’ would be appropriate’?’  And for the missus it is often an existential stumper, ‘What should I wear?’

I meticulously respond to every invitation. I make a note in the calendar and always warn the missus a day ahead that on the morrow we have a wedding to attend. And I prepare as if for some battle. I get my good suit ironed, seek out the bright red pocket square that goes so well with it, polish my shoes and, on the appointed date, I am ready much before my planned departure time. But the missus, born and brought up in Delhi and quite familiar with the laid-back attitude of the natives, leaves just then for the beauty parlour. She returns an hour later, by which time I am fretting and fuming because we are getting late. When at last we leave, I am usually seething, and she is sullen because of what she terms as my nagging.

We drive through the evening smog in hostile silence, which is broken only when we reach the wedding venue. “See, smarty-pants? We are the first to arrive!” says my annoyed darling. 

My assertion goes unheard – “We are on time. Everyone else is late. Again!” 

Having reached early, I have to park in a remote dark corner.  As a matter of principle, I never entrust my fourteen-year-old Maruti to a valet service. I don’t want some scamp masquerading as a driver to scratch the paint on my as-good-as-new car, even though it is just one year away from the Supreme Court mandated euthanasia.

No matter whose wedding it might be or where it might be – from shabby community halls to classy luxury hotels – there is an eerie predictability about the events that follow. The moment we enter the venue, we are ambushed by a photographer. Since neither he nor his sidekick know our unimportance, we presume he clicks us for some sneaky purpose. It could be to identify us as the culprits if some thief pilfers a silver spoon or someone filches a wedding gift. 

Our mugshots taken, the old girl and I bash on to the ‘stage’ but must join a serpentine queue of guests waiting to bless the couple and dump whatever gifts they are carrying. This queue isn’t just a line – It is a test of one’s patience, bladder control, and one’s ability to indulge in small talk with complete strangers who have nothing in common with them – except an invitation to the same wedding. We finally reach the dais, where the newlyweds stand with a rictus of a smile. The proud parents of the groom or the bride (we never know which; not that it matters) wear a fatigued, bemused expression and are too polite to ask us who we are. I start to mumble something about love and togetherness to the new couple, but we are pulled and pushed into position for the obligatory photograph and then jostled off the stage by those waiting behind us. 

The rest of the wedding reception is a familiar blur. Heavily made-up matrons with coiffed hair kiss the air above dowagers dripping faux diamonds; portly men slyly pull their jackets closer to hide bulging beer bellies and nubile fashionistas display vast expanses of alabaster backs – sufficient to land a helicopter on if needed. Unidentified brats, wearing improbable bow ties, chase each other, screaming and shoving and pushing, causing a doddering uncle to drop his chaat-papri in his wife’s lap. And all the while, instead of the dulcet notes of a shehnai, we are blasted off our feet by bhangra music blaring from the amped up DJ.  

After tolerating the torture for an eternity, my wife and I slip out inconspicuously, eager to return home.  We reach our car only to find that it is hemmed in by cars of other guests who are nowhere to be seen. So we sit and fume in the dark for an hour or more, bickering and quarrelling till we, once again, resolve never ever to stir out from home in the wedding season. 

Posted on

The Learners Will Inherit the Roads

I used to love to drive in Delhi! The broad smooth roads, with well-laid out footpaths and cycle tracks, made every drive a glorious experience. As the years passed, I graduated from a Lambretta scooter to a Fiat 1100 to a Maruti 800, then quickly to a Zen and several years later to a Swift Dzire, till I reached my current Maruti Ciaz. The roads of Delhi, meanwhile, deteriorated from being the smooth cheeks of you-know-who of Bollywood to the smallpox-pitted face of that character actor of the same celluloid vintage.

Over the years, driving in Delhi became a torture for me because of the potholes and misleading signage. I feared the large number of lunatics speeding recklessly as if their daddy owns the road. I was terrified by the truck and bus drivers who are congenital disregarders of traffic signals. My blood boiled when some rowdy nouveau riche overtook from the left, his big car rocking like a boombox. I became neurotic about the traffic jams on the Gurugram road. I had nightmares about being the victim of road rage or getting shot in a parking dispute. 

Last year, things came to a head when a brat who was scarcely out of kindergarten almost rammed his behemoth into my humble Maruti. The close shave left me shaken, and I resolved to hire someone else to risk his life driving for me.  

So we got Bassa Ram aka BR, who has proved to be a godsend!  He knows the roads, lanes and bylanes of Delhi like the back of his hand. He can reverse the car for a mile and a half and squeeze into the tightest parking spots. Above all, he is as uncouth as any trucker and can curse louder and faster than anyone on the roads of Delhi since Sher Shah Suri constructed the grand trunk road. It is BR’s capacity to cuss, rather than his driving skills, that for the past year has given us the greatest sense of security while commuting. 

With the advent of BR, I almost completely gave up driving except for short sorties to the neighbourhood shopping centre. Then, a couple of months ago, BR needed long leave to attend a wedding back home in his village. In the normal course, during his absence, I would have driven the short distances for petty chores, and we would have used taxis for the odd trip to Ghaziabad. BR would have returned from his village with a box of sweets for us and status quo ante would have been uneventfully restored. But that was not to be, because Sudha, a dear friend of the missus, invited her to a kitty party. I offered to drive her there, but she refused.  

“Where will you wait? I don’t want you hanging around in Sudha’s house, ogling other people’s wives, and I won’t tolerate you waiting in the car outside, just to make me feel guilty.”

I then suggested she take a cab, but that only annoyed her. “Why should I, when there is a perfectly good car sitting in the driveway? You are to blame for this sad situation because you never taught me how to drive!” 

So all of a sudden it was my fault! In our small world even the slightest ruffling of feathers causes violent storms; therefore, before our disagreement escalated to hurricane level, I thought it prudent to capitulate.  

“I am sorry my dear,” I said. “I will start teaching you tomorrow.”

Next morning, I pasted a large ‘L’ cut from red paper on the car windshield, to warn other drivers that a learner was at the wheel. The wife and I then set off for lesson number one. I tried to explain the functions of the brake, accelerator and clutch but the missus was too impatient.  

“Just teach me how to drive! Don’t give me a lecture on automobile engineering, dammit!” And with that she turned the ignition. The car lurched forwards and shot into a shallow ditch by the side of the road.

After that, we both simply sat there, with steam billowing from under the bonnet and oil leaking from the engine below.  

“You don’t even know how to teach!” she burst out. “You are useless.”

And that was the end of her car driving lessons. Nevertheless, I let the red ‘L’ remain on the windscreen because the missus could change her mind, as she often does. She never did, but I discovered a miraculous phenomenon over the next few days. When I drove to the bank or the veggie market, other drivers gave me a wide berth. Even the boldest of pedestrians did not try to test my reflexes. Motorcyclists, who earlier zipped past from the wrong side, now slammed their brakes when they saw the learner sign and my grey hair.

I jubilantly realized that they were all scared of getting hit by me!

Now, even after BR has returned, I feel quite comfortable driving – armed as I am with my grey hair and the red ‘L’ on the windscreen. Who knows, other vehicle drivers might even start making space for me to park? Who knows, I might even altogether dispense with the services of BR?

Posted on

Born to Die

Life was uncomplicated when I was young. If we did not have something, there was no fear of missing out. If we did have something, it was ours to enjoy, cherish and safeguard. For ever.

We never threw away a toy, a watch, a radio set or any other possession merely because it became old, or a newer model was available. If something did not work properly, we fixed it. If it broke, we repaired it. We were expected to value everything till the end of time. Thus, if the strap of a chappal broke, we changed the strap. If a pen stopped working, the ink cartridge was changed. One bag saw me through seven years of schooling, with no more than three trips to the cobbler for repairs when it got torn.

Most products lasted for years and years and sometimes even generations. Long ago, my mother owned a pair of scissors on which was etched, in Urdu, the legend ‘Dada Kharide, Pota Barte’. Translated, it meant that the scissors were good enough to last for three generations or more. In that age and time, any person who had the impudence to suggest that his product had an expiry date, or worse that obsolescence was built into it, would be called a swindler and a crook. Today, we are inured to the manufacturers of expensive telephones informing us matter-of-factly that their product will stop working after a certain date. Imagine the outrage if one fine morning the Rolex company were to declare that all their watch models older than five years would stop working from next Monday!      

For families on the cusp of the middle-middle and upper-middle classes, cars were the ultimate validation of the belief that every effort must be made to repair something before it was junked.  Middle Class car owners in Delhi knew that corner shop in Bhogal which specialised in retreading tyres. Chunnu Mian, who ran his poky little workshop behind the Jama Masjid, could refurbish any broken shock absorber. And the Janata Batterywala in the lane behind Moti Cinema in Chandni Chowk sold the best reconditioned batteries this side of the Khyber Pass. The Gen Y and Z shall never exult in that rush of dopamine when a dead engine comes to life after you, your brother and the neighbourhood chowkidar push-start the car on a wintry morning. No one will talk to these generations knowledgeably about ‘reboring’ the engine, about oversized pistons, about universal cross joints or about the use of soap solution as brake fluid –  because they replace the old car before it is not even half old.  

When life was uncomplicated, refrigerators, air conditioners and scooters were once-in-a-lifetime purchases, the same as cars. Appliances such as sewing machines, ovens, irons and washing machines lasted for years and years and were called ‘consumer durables’. We had a table fan at home when I was a child which, years later, I took to my college hostel. Had some burglar not stolen it, I would probably still be using it today, sixty years on. Even items with a defined lifespan lasted longer than they were supposed to. Wall calendars lived beyond the years – as covers of books, framed as pictures or pasted on windowpanes to block the sun. 

Sadly, nowadays things are born only to die. It is no longer a question whether something will die. It is a question of when. To increase sales, manufacturers deliberately shorten the lives of their products. Sometimes these become obsolete with the arrival of newer models and sometimes due to nonavailability of key components. Consumer durables no longer endure. Television sets and microwave ovens self-destruct almost immediately after the expiry of their two-year warranty, and appliances like vacuum cleaners and geysers refuse to abide with us. Clothes that were deliberately stitched a size too big so that a child would wear them for two or three years are now discarded in a few months because of changing pret lines.  Earlier we ate anything that was not visibly spoilt or smelling to the high heavens. Now we look for a best before date. Even honey is marketed with a shelf life of one year, and salt comes with an expiry date!

The plumbers of today junk a whole faucet fitting if it leaks, rather than trying to repair it. In contrast, their fathers used cotton thread and zinc oxide paste before sheepishly suggesting that a new tap be bought. Not to be left behind, the electricians now visit our homes as if they are senior consultants rather than maintenance guys. They grandly announce the fate of various things – every fitting or appliance that might be defective is sentenced to death, to be replaced with a new one. The modular concept ensures that no effort is ever made to repair any electrical or electronic gizmo.

We certainly live in an evanescent age now, in which nothing lasts. This age demands that everything old must be discarded, to be replaced by the new. This philosophy has been gradually extended to all spheres of our existence. Pens. Watches. Shoes. Jackets. Tables. Computers. Cars. Houses. Maybe even relationships? 

Posted on

Budget Blues of a Different Colour

“What is Caprolactam?” asked the missus as we settled down before the TV.

“Capo Laktum? Never heard of him. Is he some old Sicilian friend of mine?”

“Caprolactam, stupid. Ever since I remember, every year taxes were increased on petrol, cigarettes and Caprolactam. But now I find no mention of the stuff.”

I made a mental note for myself. One of these days, when I am at a loose end, I must tootle off to the library and research why this Caprolactam stuff earlier found mention in dispatches but now does not. Occasional intellectual pursuits are said to be good for the grey matter.

The missus prattled on, “The Economic Survey makes everything look so rosy. I have a sneaky suspicion that all the figures are fudged.”

She declared this with such conviction that for a moment I thought she really understood what all the annual hoo-ha is about. I have never pretended to understand the Economic Survey or the puzzling numbers that go with it. Even then, for the little woman to declare that the statistics dished out were fudged was a bit strong. I said as much.

“Now, now my dear, maybe the mandarins in North Block occasionally do a bit of creative accounting, but to say that the figures are fudged is a bit strong, what?”

I must here inform those who do not know us that we—my wife and I—make it a point to sit before the TV every year at budget time. We follow all proceedings attentively, though neither of us has ever understood the monotonous speeches of successive finance ministers. The desultory thumping of tables in Parliament possibly reveals as much about our MPs. Nonetheless, the occasional sher-o-shayari, though hackneyed, lifts our mood. The antics within Parliament are entertaining and the booing and hissing provides variety in our humdrum retired lives.

Watching budget proceedings is also useful for putting down snobbish guests in snooty parties. The missus and I enjoy ourselves by casually saying things like, “I found the FM’s speech enervating. It could have been less facetious and more dextrous.” The hoity-toity elements are usually impressed because they have no idea what we are talking about. In fact, nor do we—but the hoits and the toits don’t know that!

This year too, as in the past, we sat glassy-eyed listening to the budget speech of the FM. I noted there had been no mention of Caprolactam.

“Did you notice there was no mention of an increase in prices of cigarettes or petrol?”

“Oh, don’t be stupid!” said my wife. “They keep increasing the prices of those throughout the year. They no longer wait for the budget muhurtham for that!”

Meanwhile, the minister droned on. There were incomprehensible amounts mentioned—hundreds and thousands of lakhs. There was the mandatory genuflection at the altar of electoral shibboleths like kisan, women and the downtrodden. There were references to the poverty line and a few hundred crores earmarked for painfully contrived acronyms. Agricultural income, as always, remained beyond the ambit of taxation. But this sadly is of no interest to me because I have simply not been able to grow cabbages on my balcony.

I was deep in thought about cabbages, when my wife poked me in the ribs.

“Aren’t you listening? Why must new schemes be announced year after year, without any mention of what happened to the similar sounding scheme announced last year? Every year we are told that the tax regime is being rationalised. Can’t it be done in one go? Why must there be this never-ending tinkering? Why must the wheel be invented anew every year?”

I did not know, so I said, “I don’t know.” People often don’t realise that it takes courage to say you don’t know something if you don’t know something.

“I know you don’t know, stupid,” said the love of my life.

Soon the minister came around to the income tax proposals. Even as my better half was whooping with joy, I was suspiciously looking for conditional clauses, back doors and booby traps. Bitter experience has taught me to look beyond the headline grabbing lollipops, because on closer examination lollipops are often not lollipops at all but merely sticks. The devil lurks in the small font. The bigger the devil, the smaller the font.

The day after the budget, Bassa Ram, our driver, greeted me in the morning with a wide grin. “Sahib, you’ve been given a tax bonanza! Now you must pay me more.”

“I have been given nothing! It’s just that I will be, hopefully, robbed of less,” I said.

This cut no ice and Phulwanti, the maid, followed suit and demanded a raise from her memsahib. The matter would have ended there, but the dhobi who irons our clothes upped his charges by evening. Chhotu, who pretends to clean our car every morning, declared that he would work from next week on double the wages. The vegetable seller who comes around with his cart of wilted greens justified his exorbitant prices by the same argument.

The chimerical income tax relief will kick in only from next year, if it is not stymied by a new Income Tax Act. Till then, because of increased prices of vegetables, the additional money that the dhobi and Chhotu extort from us and the higher wages that we must shell out to Phulwanti and Bassa Ram, I am going to pay dearly for the middle-class income tax bonanza.

(THE WEEK – 16/02/2025)

Posted on

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

“Darling,” I said to my life companion of more years than I care to remember, “Do you think there is any correlation between pain in the feet and attending prayer meetings?”

“You really are a stupid old man!” said the light of my life. “Can’t you think of anything more bizarre so late at night?”

I kept quiet. If the wife calls you a stupid old man, it is futile to expect sympathy. But my feet had been killing me ever since I attended the prayer meeting that evening. After the missus switched the lights off, I surreptitiously massaged my toes. Next morning, my feet started hurting almost as soon as I slipped my shoes on.

In my slim and trim days, I had always believed that a civilised person should never wear anything other than Oxfords, with five eyelets for laces. Unfortunately, time, a bad back and doctor’s advice not to bend forwards destroy such arrogant beliefs. Perforce, I have had to change from Oxfords to moccasins, which I slip into easily without needing to bend down to tie laces. This is just as well because, with my waistline, I can’t see my feet no matter how hard I try.

The pain in my toes increased after breakfast, so I phoned my doctor.

“Are the shoes new?” he asked.

“Yes, they are,” I said, “But I’ve been wearing them now for more than a week without any problems.” The doc asked me to check if there was any swelling in my feet. “Some of your BP medication can do that, you know.”

I ponderously sank into a chair and stretched my legs out. As far as I could make out, there was no swelling, but I certainly needed a pedicure. Unthinkingly, I said to the doctor, “My feet are not swollen, but I need a pedicure.”

“What? What did you say?”

“Oh, nothing doc.”

For the rest of the day, I limped around, but by evening the pain was worse. At dinner, I conversationally told the missus that I was probably dying in instalments, starting with the toes, but her attention was focused on a gravy stain on the tablecloth. Wives are like that—always more concerned about damned spots than husbands. (Ask Macbeth!)

Without further complaint, I went to bed with my painful feet. As I tossed and turned sleeplessly, I reasoned that either my feet were swelling or the shoes were shrinking. The swelling had been ruled out, ergo the shoes must be shrinking! I remembered that the salesman had said that expensive leather shoes gradually ‘grow’ to fit better. I decided to speed up the process, so at about two in the morning, I got up, wore the moccasins and crawled back into bed. In the morning, the missus saw the muddy streaks on the sheets and screamed at me nonstop for an hour. Wives are like that—always more concerned about dirty linen than husbands. (Ask Macbeth!)

I then turned to the two acknowledged ‘Vishwa Gurus’—Google and YouTube! I had no idea there was a global tight-shoe epidemic! Why else would there be so many videos demonstrating remedies for shoe enlargement? The commonest was something called a ‘shoe-stretcher’, but it cost much more than my moccasins. I tried other prescriptions, including polishing with peanut butter, applying quinoa paste and spraying cider vinegar, touted to be an all-purpose nostrum. I hung the shoes on a Neem tree. I left them out in the moonlight. I left them out in the sun. Nothing worked!

I then chanced upon an excellent treatment—A YouTuber inserted balloons filled with water in the shoes and placed them in the freezer of his fridge. Voila! The water expanded on freezing and stretched the shoe leather! I followed the demo meticulously, but two things went wrong. First—one balloon leaked, making the inside of the left shoe a soggy mess. And second—the wife discovered the shoes in the freezer! With a scream, she threw them out and spent the rest of the day ‘purifying’ the fridge. Quite wisely, I went for a long, long walk.

Finally, I decided to discard the almost new shoes. I took them to Pooranmal, the cobbler who sits on the pavement near our home. Rather than throw my old shoes away, I usually give them to him, and, after essential repairs, he gives them away to some needy person.

“But these are almost new, sahib,” observed Pooranmal.

“They are too tight. I can’t wear them,” I said sadly.

“But these aren’t yours! They are size 7. You wear size 8.”

I was taken aback. Size 7? I always bought size 8, so how could these be size 7? The only explanation was that my shoes must have got exchanged with someone else’s at the prayer meeting! Sorrowfully, I gave the almost new moccasins to Pooranmal and wended my way home. The only consolation that I have is that somewhere in the city there is some miserable sod like me, clumping around in shoes one size too big for him, believing that he is dying in instalments, starting with the shrinking of his feet.

(THE WEEK – 02/02/2025)

Posted on

One supercalifragilisticexpialidocious New Year!

Once Christmas is over, tension mounts in our home as the little woman and I start ticking off the days. We both remain on edge because we dread the coming of the New Year—a time when the whole world goes crazy and adopts resolutions. We, too, make New Year promises and our ‘list of past resolutions’ is very long and impressive. Unfortunately, we are complete failures at keeping them and our ‘list of resolutions not kept’ is equally long and equally impressive.

The resolutions of past years fall in four categories. Those that only I had to keep, like shaving every day; those that only the missus had to keep, like not biting her nails; or those that both of us had to keep, like meeting our friends more regularly. Sadly, at the end of every year, the report has always been: I did not. She did not. We did not. The fourth category is lofty, aspirational stuff—healthy eating, exercising, losing weight, saving money, watching less TV and similar wishful thinking. Without fail, all such resolutions are dead and buried by the middle of January, year after year.

The sense of failure was so acute that I started suffering from RMD—Recurring Mid-January Depression—a common malady among weak-willed people who see their magnificent resolutions shatter a week or two into the New Year. Being aware of my annual despondency, last year my wife advised me to keep things simple. “Why not resolve to do things that even an imbecile could? Like not leaving a damp towel in the wardrobe. Or not throwing your smelly socks under the bed. Simple stuff. Easy-peasy!”

I wasn’t too sure if the missus was deriding me or if she had some villainous hidden agenda, so I diplomatically ignored her suggestion. However, I secretly resolved to improve my writing skills by never starting a sentence with the word ‘however’ or ‘and’, nor to use short cryptic sentences and to use less exclamation marks! I also had a vicinal pertinaciousness to eschew pompous phraseology, no matter how supercalifragilisticexpialidocious it sounded. And by mid-January? Again… poof!

A couple of weeks ago, on New Year’s Eve, I once again sat morosely, thinking about my long experience in failing at keeping resolutions. The missus sat nearby, biting her nails.

“What stupid New Year resolutions are you going to make this time?” she asked. Somehow, her favourite word seems to be ‘stupid’ when she talks to me.

I hummed and hawed for a short while, but before I could think of a safe answer, she suggested, “This year, why don’t we resolve to do such things at which we simply can’t fail?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you could resolve to continue drinking whisky, but to enjoy it rather than feeling guilty. I could resolve to take a third helping of ice cream without needing to make some silly excuse. And so on. You get the general idea? There might be room for improvement, but must we improve? After all, there is something called self-acceptance! Why must we strive to become fitter, healthier, more spiritual or morally superior than we are? Why can’t we be us? To hell with New Year resolutions!”

I was nonplussed. Had she been snorting something that she shouldn’t have? Or was I hallucinating? She was suggesting ignoring our faults and brazenly disregarding the tradition of adopting resolutions for the New Year! Surely there was a catch somewhere! No wife lays a trap without purpose.

“So, what’s the catch?” I asked cautiously.

“None! There’s no catch,” she declared. “Look, we are both getting on in years. As we get older, we need to have the satisfaction of some achievement, even if it is some small victory. Why must we guarantee our own failure by adopting resolutions we can’t keep? Why must we lose weight or try to be culture vultures? Why must we be better organised and keep a clean house? Why can’t we resolve not to feel ashamed about being ourselves? Why shouldn’t we simply enjoy life?

And we resolved to do just that! We resolved to be ourselves and not feel guilty about doing all that we love doing!

We are now well into the New Year and life is delightful and so, so worth living! The missus and I have gorged on street-side momos and oily samosas like truant schoolgirls. We snack on chocolates whenever we feel like it. Twice or thrice a day, I take a few naughty puffs on a Habanos. Every evening, I savour the subtle notes of one of my single malts, while the missus lolls in a comfortable chair, eating pizza and admiring her nails. And we have joyfully and gleefully kept our New Year resolution so far—we have been ourselves and not felt guilty about it!

This New Year has proved to be liberating indeed! My advice now to the rest of the world is to start living! Don’t believe that faster-higher-stronger or that fitter-thinner-holier nonsense. All that is a mug’s game. Try the alternative—Be yourself! Be happy! Enjoy the New Year! Every year!

(THE WEEK – 19/01/2025)

Posted on

The Great Shaving Tamasha

In childhood, everyone is in awe of some aged relative—sometimes for reasons as corny as their remarkable capacity for belching or sneezing or snoring or passing wind. As children, we sometimes found the foibles of grownups delightful or amusing, and sometimes even disgusting. But all the quirky grownups and their kinks were memorable! I have had my share of idiosyncratic relatives, but the one who was outstandingly peculiar was a granduncle, whom everyone called ‘Baba’. The whole family has memories of his many eccentricities but, above all, he is remembered for what came to be called the ‘Great Shaving Tamasha!’

Baba had a tough beard, and he managed to grow the most bristly fuzz in just a day. In spite of—or maybe because of—this, he never shaved on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturdays and Sundays were in any case days of rest. The grand show was therefore mercifully confined to just thrice a week. The tamasha used to start early on the earmarked days, and the whole household remained in a tizzy for two hours or more.

Baba first marshalled the equipment and paraphernalia required for the ritual. A cot would be placed in the courtyard, with an ancient wooden stool beside it. Baba would then carefully spread a snow white towel on the stool and lay upon it a variety of instruments and unguents, including a shaving stick, a cake of alum, a shaving brush made from the hair of some exotic animal, a cutthroat razor and a leather strop, a safety razor and a glass and canvas contraption to sharpen razor blades, trimming scissors and, incongruously, a pot of ‘Afghan Snow’—which was a kind of moisturising cream used almost exclusively by ladies.

The last to be placed on the table was a folding mirror. With the forgetfulness of an old man, each time he placed the mirror on the stool he would inform all and sundry that his father had bought it in Paris at the end of the great war. No one dared ask which war, because, as everyone knows, there has been only one great war.

Baba would then holler for hot water, which would be brought to him posthaste in a jug by some minion. He would proceed to soak the brush for a good half an hour and order anyone passing by to get a fresh tumbler of hot water to soften his beard. All this while, he would sharpen the cutthroat on the strop, till it gleamed in the morning sun. By the time he was ready to shave, the water would have run cold again, so shouts for ‘Bittoo’ or ‘Kaddoo’ or ‘Chhotu’ would ring out, as he imperiously summoned one of the innumerable brats of the family.

An unnatural hush would descend on the house when the actual shaving ceremony was about to commence. Everything had to come to a stop so that Baba’s attention was not diverted as he started slathering his face with the ‘Erasmic’ shaving stick. Even the raucous crows that perched on the courtyard wall and incessantly cawed for attention fell silent and stared at Baba—tilting their heads first this way and then that. The battle to get rid of the stubble would follow; with Baba giving his full attention to the angle of his cutthroat razor so that he did not nick himself. If he did, which was often, he gave vent to a string of oaths, curses and blasphemies that made the womenfolk blush.

The brats in the home were too young to fully comprehend the profanities, but they were quick to pick up the words and tried saying them aloud when they were certain no grownups were within listening distance.

After the ritual was completed, Baba would finally leave for office and the family would heave a sigh of collective relief. Everyone’s blood pressure would return to normal; at least till the next shaving hoopla.

In a way, Baba was indeed the last of the Mohicans; the last of the imperious paternalistic generation. A generation whose timid descendants have been great disappointments—devoid of colour and imagination and bereft of any angularities and idiosyncrasies. My dad and uncles had no sense of drama and they shaved quietly, almost in a furtive hurry. If they nicked themselves, there was no fuss. They simply dabbed some aftershave, stuck a piece of tissue on the cut and meekly went off to work.

I am still more ordinary. I have greyed but I have no fuzz to show even if I don’t shave for two days. Moreover, I use an electric shaver—sans soap, sans alum, sans drama. My entertainment quotient is nil, and my grandchildren are deprived of the extravaganzas which enriched my childhood. I suspect I am an utter failure—after all, what is a grandfather good for if he can’t even create memories for his grandchildren?

(THE WEEK – 05/01/2025)

Posted on

Merry Christmas and All That!

“You have a shell-shocked car, but Hukum has a fine bum,” said the missus in a muffled voice.

I looked up from my newspaper and was startled to see her peering into my liquor cabinet. Right away, I had a sinking feeling. What if she discovers the sliding partition behind which I keep two bottles of some very fine stuff? Mercifully, she did not!

With her head still in the cabinet, she again muttered, “Hukum has a fine bum.”

Hukum Singh is the uncouth bodybuilder who lives next door and puts on coquettish airs whenever he sees any young lady. I was appalled that the old girl had noticed his preening, and even considered his derriere worth commenting about.

“What! What did you say about my car and… and that other thing?” I asked.

“You have a well-stocked bar but how come I can’t find rum?” she said—clearly this time. “Where’s the rum?”

For forty-odd years now, I have been trying to persuade my wife to have a drink once in a while. This ploy has, however, not worked till now. Those ignorant about the finer points of human psychology might not immediately grasp the deviousness, but my gambit is based on the cunning consideration that if the better half takes a drop or two, she is more likely to forgive her husband if he gets sozzled.

So, when I found the little woman searching for rum, my heart turned a couple of joyous somersaults.

“Why rum? Try that new whisky that Tony sent from Goa. Believe me, it’s really good!”

No, she said. She wanted rum, and not anything else.

“Try some Remy. It’s excellent.” But the missus would not budge. She wanted rum. Only rum.

Now rum has been my long-time favourite, but I had to sadly admit there was a temporary shortage and there was none in my bar.

“Not even behind the books on the top shelf? Or hidden among your socks in the wardrobe drawer?”

Oh damn! The missus had cottoned on to two of my secret stashing places. It was difficult to keep a straight face, but I did not betray any surprise. Still, I made a mental note to find some better hidey-holes for my strategic reserves.

“No,” I said apologetically, “There is no rum at home.”

“That is indeed surprising,” she said, “Considering that you often refer to yourself as Hercules or the Old Monk of Mokokchung.”

I ignored the jibe. “Look, why don’t you let me mix you a nice cocktail. Rum is not a feminine drink at all.”

“Will you get me rum? Or what?”

The “Or what?”—flung in my face like that—usually marks the end of awkward conversations. It means that I have tested her patience to within an inch of some precipice and the sensible thing is to now withdraw and, figuratively, slink off and hide under the sofa in some corner.

“I’ll buy a bottle tomorrow,” I said. But she wanted me to go and get one right then.

“There are just two weeks until Christmas! I want the rum today.”

I am pretty good at following my wife’s elliptical reasoning and chasing the meandering stream of her abstruse thoughts. But this time I was foxed because I saw no connection between rum and Christmas.

“I see no connection between rum and Christmas,” I mumbled. “I have heard of those bizarre gifts associated with the 12 days of Christmas, but I never imagined that I would give rum to my true love on the 13th day of Christmas!”

“You stupid man!” said the missus, “I don’t want rum as a gift. I need it to bake a cake. A proper rum-raisin Christmas cake!”

That solved the mystery why the missus wanted rum, but at the same time it raised the spectre of a burnt cake or, worse, an undercooked one. The little woman would beg off from eating whatever culinary disaster she created, citing her pre-diabetic status. That would leave me to have the whole cake and eat it too.

“Look, let us get ourselves a small cake like every year from the corner bakery. Why do you want to go through the bother of baking one?”

But the little woman had made up her mind. A rum-raisin cake and no argument about it. Quite desperate to avoid a fate worse than death, I blurted out, “Don’t you know, I have developed an allergy to rum?”

“Ah, is that so? Well, then, I will ensure no rum enters this house ever again,” she said in a grim tone, her lips pursed in a thin line.

My wife’s proclamation has now got me worried. If no rum is allowed in our home, how will I make my special eggnog at Christmas, the only drink that she allows me to consume in vast quantities?

We don’t have a chimney in our house and Santa stopped believing in me long ago. Nonetheless, I pray for a Christmas miracle and hope that Santa will come around one of these days with a gift for me, singing “Ho-ho-ho! Here’s a bottle of rhum!”

(THE WEEK – 22/12/24)

Posted on

Superman Bites the Dust

When my granddaughter Kim was about three, I often took her to play in a nearby park. Each time that we left home, her mother would ask, “Kim, are you wearing diapers?” And she, in turn, would ask in her cute lisp, “Nana, are you welling di-apples?”

“I don’t need to wear any,” I would say each time. Possibly for this reason, Kim thought I had superpowers and regarded me as a lovable combination of Superman and SpongeBob SquarePants. Since I had no inkling who SpongeBob SquarePants was, I did not know whether to be flattered or ashamed. But my granddaughter reassured me that SpongeBob was a friend, so I assumed that, overall, to be a combination Superman-SpongeBob was not a bad thing.

Besides the mysterious independence from diapers that I enjoyed, there were other things too that Kim was in awe about. She was impressed that nana was allowed to put ice in the bitter medicine that he had every evening and that he could drive a car. She was puzzled by the long hours that nana spent playing cards on the computer. She also wondered why nana and nani went for parties so frequently, even when it was no one’s birthday. Quite naturally, she regarded me as weird; but in a good way.

Time has this deplorable habit of passing by too fast and cute three-year old granddaughters become argumentative teenagers within a decade. Argumentative as well as rebellious! When Kim was a child, I could keep her entertained for hours by relating events from my childhood.

As every grandparent knows, narrating anecdotes to the young ones is actually creative retelling of the truth to arrive at an improved version of the past. My stories certainly made me remember the past more smugly. At the same time, they also amused dear Kim and convinced her that nana was “better-er than Superman!” Now Kim has grown up to become the quintessential argumentative Indian. She has also developed a robust sense of fair play and natural justice, marinated with healthy scepticism. This combination kills any hopes of mine to be mistaken for an extraordinary person. It is off putting when you expect your anecdote to evoke exclamations of joy and all that you get from a disinterested grandchild are indifferent ‘umm’s’. The ‘ooh’s’ and ‘ah’s of baby Kim have been replaced by ‘whatever!’ of the young teenager.

Once when I told her that we were made to bend over and got whacked on the rump in school, she was shocked. “But that is physical assault!” Then, even as I knew I should not, I shared with her the nugget of information that our school principal rewarded serious transgressions with ‘six of the best’. “You mean caning!” Kim asked incredulously, her eyes as big as saucers. “How could you tolerate such abuse? You should have sued your school!”

On yet another occasion, I regaled her with the story of how my cousin and I, both then eight years of age, had once undertaken an overnight train journey quite unescorted from Ajmer to Agra. Instead of admiration, all I got from Kim was a horrified gasp. She blurted out, “That is so random! That is child abuse. That is irresponsible parenting! You should have sued your mom and dad!”

She was livid when she first learnt that I did not have a cell phone of my own as a young boy. “Not having a cell phone of your own is an infringement of your fundamental rights. It is against the law! Haven’t you read the Constitution of India?” she screamed. She laughed loud and long when I told her that many of my friends and I had never flown in an airplane till we were in our twenties.

For all these reasons, the grown up Kim’s contempt for not just nana but for his whole generation knows no bounds. “What kind of wimps were you and others of your generation that you suffered all these indignities and deprivations without rebelling? Why did you not protest? Why did you not sue the whole world?”

I now realise that there are many aspects of my childhood that Kim can never reconcile with. Sadly, I am no longer friends with Kim, though she still regards me as weird—but certainly not in a good way. It is quite depressing to have to accept the fact that my granddaughter no longer thinks I am Superman. It is still more depressing to discover that I have lost that special superpower, and sometimes wish I were wearing a ‘di-apple’. Maybe if I wear a red coloured diaper on top of my trousers I would look more like Superman; and maybe that would also solve the problem of the occasional incontinence.