Author: kcverma

Auld Lang Syne

It was the last week of December. The missus and I sat before the television, huddled around our old rusty electric heater which fools the truly desperate into believing they are enjoying the warmth of an open fire. The music from our condominium clubhouse sounded discordant. Quite wisely, the missus and I had decided to give the New Year’s Eve party a miss. We find the forced laughter and faux gaiety quite frustrating. The awkward chit-chat with barely familiar neighbours is always tiresome.

The missus nursed her cup of jasmine tea, while I gave my generous Remy Martin a thoughtful swirl in its balloon glass. Gazing into the middle distance, I observed in a pensive manner that another year was coming to an end.

“Darling,” I said ruminatively, “Another year is slipping away. Much too quickly. And what have I got to show for it? Zilch. Nothing. A big fat zero. Not a single feather in my cap. I have done nothing. I have achieved nothing!”

For emphasis, I added rhetorically, “What do I have to show for an entire twelvemonth that’s gone all too soon?”

I fell silent. Suddenly, I was afraid of looking back beyond last January. There was the lurking fear that the nothing of yesterday and the nothing of last week and all the nothings of the past year might just extend further back. Much further back.

My ever-loving wife consoled me. “What does it matter? You’ve done your bit, and more. There’s a season for everything, including glorious idleness. Beyond a point, every person must rest. The world won’t come to an end because you didn’t climb Mt. Everest this year. Doing nothing isn’t a crime. It’s the ultimate retirement blessing!”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I grumbled. “You have your daily triumphs – battling with the menials; making Bassa Ram the driver come in time and ensuring that the cook doesn’t spoil the broth.”

“Well,” said the missus with a wicked glint, “You could take over these burdens and have the profound satisfaction of ensuring that Phulwanti sweeps every corner of the room.”

I realised that my grumbling and complaining had put me on the edge of a precipice. Suddenly, the new year eve despondency had taken a dangerous turn, and I saw before me a fate worse than death. To keep Bassa Ram and Phulwanti in line is a full-time job and my wife was recommending I do just that to satisfy my ego!

Before the missus came out with some ghastlier prescription, I said, “My dear, you know my nature. I demand fanfares, parades, trumpets! Medals! And here you are – suggesting disciplining the domestics as the epic feat of the year? No! My achievements must be monumental. I must slay a few dragons! I must fly a spaceship! I must win the Booker! I must conquer the world!”

“You are indeed an old fool,” said the missus, “Count your blessings instead of chasing fantasies! Sometimes the greatest triumph is the thing you prudently avoid doing. True wisdom is knowing when to leave some mountain unclimbed. Inaction can be a greater victory than frantic activity. After a certain vintage, success isn’t about what you did, but gloriously about what you didn’t! So, shun the depression! Rejoice in the things that you never did!”

“How absurd!” I declared.

“But think about it – you’re already a master of masterly inaction. You did not even once advise me where to invest money. You didn’t bat an eyelid when our daughter dyed her hair that alarming shade of blue. You refrained from telling Bassa Ram the ‘proper’ way to park. You are blessed. You’ve run your marathon. You’ve broken a few things. You’ve fixed a few others. You’ve brought up two children who still answer your phone calls. Those are great achievements – more than many others can boast of.”

We lapsed into a companionable silence, mulling over undone deeds and unhit targets and other non-achievements. The missus sighed. I yawned. Down at the clubhouse, the music had cranked up to eardrum-shattering levels. The new year’s party was obviously gathering momentum.

“Perhaps we should pop down to the party after all,” the missus mused aloud.

Before I could summon my most horrified look, she giggled and answered herself: “Thank goodness we’re spared that nonsense.”

The clock struck ten. Outside, some overeager soul let off a premature cracker – bang! – prompting the neighbour’s dog to bark furiously at the invisible intruder. And just like that, the old year prepared to limp out without ceremony.

“This time, shall we stay awake till midnight to greet the new year properly?” asked the missus.

“What’s the fuss? It’ll just be another Thursday, disguised as January,” I grumbled.

So, we stayed put, the television muttering away like a disgruntled uncle. As I nursed the last of my Remy, a gentle melancholy settled in – nostalgia for the half-forgotten blaze of youth, a tender regret for the roads not taken, and the quiet acceptance that not every mountain is to be climbed. A warm glow of understanding slowly seeped into my heart – I realised that no year ever ends in a bang. It just whispers goodbye and departs, leaving you wondering where the time went. 

 AQI: 500 and Counting!

“But it’s a non-issue!” complained Binnoo, who is the self-appointed supervisor of our Friday discussion group. “Please don’t make a joke of our FourEss – the Samosas & Serious Study Set.”

We have this select group of residents of our condo that gathers weekly in the patchy park squeezed between towers 3 and 4, to examine major issues and have tea and samosas. There is never any formal agenda, and almost every conversation degenerates into Fauji’s rants about global hotspots. Brigadier Sharma, aka Fauji, struts like a peacock in his faded side cap with that lone embroidered star, twirling his handlebar moustache. He once appeared on TV as a defence expert and has not shut up since, droning on about Ukraine, Gaza Patti, and the South China Sea.

Following Binnoo’s outburst, we all looked at Fauji for a reaction. Fauji readily agreed with Binnoo. “Yes,” he intoned, “It’s a frivolous issue of no concern whatsoever. There’s no point in discussing something as vague as air pollution. It may be eternal, but it’s irrelevant!”  

With Fauji having spoken, we thought the matter was settled, but that no-good Gopu is such a disruptive element. “So maybe it’s of no consequence but do you all even know how fashionable it is to talk about AQI and PM2.5? Just for fun, let’s chat about pollution and choking and fudging AQI numbers and reduced lifespans!”

Fauji glared. Binnoo scowled. Bhatti, our resident fence-sitter who keeps flip-flopping, chimed in vaguely, “In the 1960’s, London used to have such thick smog that they called it a ‘peasouper’? And China, which has a much slower growth rate than our own viksit-ing Bharat, fixed the issue of polluted air in Beijing in just a couple of years.”

“But they aren’t a democracy,” sneered Sethi. “We can’t adopt draconian measures. After all, we must consider the interests of our voters and of those who finance our party. We must honour the will of the people!”

Everyone knows that Sethi works for the local municipal councillor, and he sees everything through the politician’s prism.  “So, let’s not waste time on matters about which nothing can be done.” For good measure he added, “Such discussions go against the charter of FourEss.”

Charter? I shot a baffled glance at Mazhar Bhai, who shrugged in answer to my unasked question, “Charter? We have a charter?”

“But we must do something about the smoke, the construction work, the motor vehicles, the stubble burning, the whatnots. It’s a national emergency!” said Gopu from behind his mask. His voice, though passionate, was muffled and Fauji elaborated for the benefit of everybody.

“Gopu wants us to do something. Being a Dilliwala, he thinks Delhi is the nation and the nation is Delhi. Haha! Gopu dear, even China would not have bothered about a minor irritant like pollution if it were not hosting the Olympics. It was merely because the sissies from Europe and USA made such a song and dance about murky air that China cleaned up Beijing.”  

Timir, the daft old duffer from upstairs, piped up idiotically: “Aha! That’s why Modiji’s gunning for the 2036 Games – to force a cleanup!”

Fauji told him to shut up. “If Modiji were concerned, he would have said something about the situation once or twice when he was visiting Bhutan. Or in South Africa. But did he? No!”

Just then, Basu shuffled in, hacking like a choked exhaust pipe. He has been coughing in a rather morbid manner these last few weeks. Between wheezes, he gasped, “This… cough… is from quitting smoking. You know, cigarettes… their filter tips… protect the lungs… very effectively.”

Kani Babu weighed in with his Bihari drawl. He reminded us yet again that he had written a prize-winning essay on global warming in 1965, and hence he is an acknowledged environmentalist and weather expert.

“The issue will get blown away with the ‘pachhiya’, the westerlies, in February, so why all this hoo-ha? Did Mota Bhai – which incidentally means Big Brother – refer to it even once while electioneering in Bihar? Has Bhupender Yadav, our environment minister, ever said anything about this so-called problem? For that matter, has anyone even heard the name Bhupender Yadav? Let me tell you, just the other day a senior party leader declared that cloudseeding, water sprinklers and air purifiers may be snake oil remedies, but they are great for the economy, while simultaneously generating employment. Great optics too!”

Soon our usual tea arrived, and silence prevailed as we started gobbling the hot samosas. But surprisingly, there were several extra samosas. Binnoo remarked that the surplus was because six members of our group had gone to Goa.

“Will you believe it,” he said, “Some alarmist doctors have recommended that people with weak lungs should leave the NCR for a few weeks. Those who could, have fled. Now, who wants an extra samosa?”

I eyed the surplus samosas, shoved my N95 mask aside, and grabbed two. But Gopu looked so forlorn that I felt compelled to offer him one.

“Gopu,” I advised, “No one is bothered a damn! In this season of mists and shallow breathlessness, why worry about lungs when samosas are on offer?”

“And pass the chutney.”

The Battle of Words and the War of Letters

As young adults we certainly used abbreviations and cryptic phrases. But MC and BC did not stand for the master of ceremonies and the era before Christ. These abbreviations stood for something else which, if said in full, would certainly have made our mothers make us rinse our mouths with soap. Once you have tasted soap, you do not want to taste it ever again.

Later, when we became parents and our kids were young, many of us went to the other extreme. Instead of using abbreviations, we started spelling out key words: i-c-e-c-r-e-a-m, c-h-i-p-s, m-a-r-k-e-t, g-o-i-n-g-o-u-t.  I really do not know how effective it was, because our three-year-old brat started demanding tee oh ef ef ee ee instead of a toffee! By the age of five, she was winning all the spelling contests in school, and my wife and I were left wondering whether we had been able to fool her when we said b-e-d-r-o-o-m.

Now, because of the brats of this brat of ours, my wife and I are having to relearn the use of letters and words. The grandbrats can spare no time to talk, but they can spend enormous amounts of time typing on their cell phones with two thumbs. I am all thumbs of a different kind, and I painstakingly tap out my reply with one index finger, using the special technique which I call ‘seek-and-kill’ typing.

Text messages in place of polite phone calls give rise to additional problems. Even for a simple ‘Hw ru?’ from my granddaughter, I need an interpreter. When I deciphered the greeting (with some help), I responded in the only way I know how: “By the grace of God, I am well and do not have much to complain about. I trust you too are keeping well.”

Her reply made no sense at all. ‘ROFL’ spells no word that I know of. When my kind interpreter expanded it to ‘Rolling on the Floor, Laughing!’ I was more perplexed. What was there to laugh about? I asked my granddaughter as much. The reply “OMG” also did not enlighten me.

BION, in my youth we always used full words – full, as in full – meaning the full form of the word and with its correct spelling. We certainly used some abbreviations that had devious origins in Latin or Greek and often had a period as an inseparable component: viz., et al., etc. Some even had two periods: for e.g. e.g., a.m., i.e. p.m. We considered it acceptable to use ‘OK’ for a host of situations. Some people maintained that OK was the shortened form of ‘Ol Korrect’, but our teachers never considered it at all correct in written submissions.

FYI, we used LOL to convey ‘Lots of Love’. We never texted CYE because there was no e-mail. If we wanted to express gratitude, we said “I thank you.” It was acceptable to shorten it to “Thank you!” The still shorter “Thanks” was a standoffish acknowledgement, when you wanted the other person to clearly understand that while he had done something nice, it was NBD and did not merit the full “Thankyou”.

From such elysian heights, I have descended to such shameful depths where I now accept a “Tks” or even a “Tku”. Thanks to the grandbrats, I now accept “U r Osm” as a compliment. I understand that TTYL means my granddaughter will talk to me later, and I reply – ILY. But I cannot reconcile to getting a mere ‘K’ as a substitute for okay in a text message. It makes me wonder how much time the sender saved with this contraction. I have comprmised on splling wrds with mssing vowels and even zany spellings such as gr8, which I never did b4. This combination of letters with digits is against the natural order of things as ordained in the Bk of Gn6. I have compromised on conventional use of verbs, of sentences that have no complement and, wondrously, sometimes not even a subject! But I am yet to get used to that most cardinal of sins – the use of transitive verbs without an object! DGMW, but I do not enjoy and cannot approve. Like that!

I have had to compromise on punctuation marks. Oh, in our time we had so many! Not a single new punctuation mark has been invented since Wren and Martin romped around without diapers. We used punctuation to clarify meaning, organise sentences, and indicate pauses. But the way they are now used (or not used) is a whole new ball game. Asterisks and exclamation marks were never so overburdened! And the innocent period, used to indicate the end of a sentence or thought, is often ignored altogether! A text message with no period at the end keeps me in suspense! I am certain there is more to come! But sometimes nothing

Emojis have added an intricate dimension for misunderstanding communication. What I initially imagined was a man crying his heart out was actually a person laughing so hard that he was in tears. IDK that the person trying to hold up the sky was saying “Whatevs”. And AFAIK, the two hands seemingly folded in ‘namaste’ were a high five. Confusing, no? So why use symbols and icons that make communication so disruptive when words are available?

TBF, besides TMI, there is just too much emotion conveyed by the newfangled texting methods. Even casual acquaintances send messages with XOXO at the end, which BTW means ‘kisses and hugs.’ These days, strangers blow kisses, paste hearts and float cupids ever so casually. Long ago, when we wrote letters, the most emotional phrase a man would ever write was ‘Yours affectionately’. A girl could be excused if she ended her letter “With love”. In our letters, there would never ever be an X, let alone an XOXO. To a man, X meant an adult movie and, to the more discerning, XO meant a finer class of cognac. A girl rarely, but never casually, appended an X to a dear one. A bold girl might indeed put her lips to paper, leaving an ever so faint impression of a kiss, but only if she wanted to convey everlasting commitment.

IMHO, by writing less we sometimes say things we never intended and sometimes we fail in saying what we want to, notwithstanding the whole lot of smileys and frownies at our command.  Maybe Daphne du Maurier, George Eliot and Charlotte Bronte could still teach us a thing or two about spelling and writing. Their words, carefully chosen and gracefully arranged, carried weight and clarity that no string of abbreviations or emojis can match, IYKWIM. BFN.

Moderation is the Key

Most people do not believe me, but I am a moderate man. Moderately lazy, moderately ugly, moderately fat and moderately allergic to mirrors that reflect this truth. I am also moderately deaf to the sales pitch of sundry fitness gurus who promise six-packs before breakfast and immortality by dinnertime.

Yet, over the past few months, a faint, mocking giggle has been emanating from my bathroom mirror every time I attempt the heroic act of pulling in my stomach. A routine blood test revealed that I was cruising dangerously close to the red zone of a thing called ‘F&PP Sugar’ and its evil twin, ‘kolestrosomething.’ I tried to ignore the reports, but my friend Gopu, that walking wickedpedia of half-baked advice, cornered me. “Lose weight, yaar,” he whispered. “Start with a fitness tracker. Order from Ammajan ki Dukan.”

Two days later, Amazon delivered a box so sleek it could be mistaken for a cigarette case. Inside was the tracker, a glossy pebble of promise, and—believe it or not—a CD. A CD! My laptop laughed so hard I had to restart it twice. After three hours of clicking, swearing, and an accidental Zoom call to my dentist, I managed to register the gizmo. The app then interrogated me with all the suspicion of a prospective mother-in-law: age, weight, stride length, pulse rate, samosas consumed per week, zodiac sign, and whether I snore more at night or during my siesta. The app assured me that this violation of privacy was essential to ensure “optimum effort for maximum performance.”

Having spent money on the tracker, I felt oddly compelled to use it. I slipped on the wristband and thought that, instantly, I would be twenty-five again—until I looked down and saw my belly protruding as always. Undeterred, I set out on my maiden ‘power walk’ around the colony. Dogs barked, aunties sniggered, and a cow gave me the slow, judgmental stare reserved for sinners. Forty-five minutes later, I staggered home, convinced that the calories I had burnt had earned me a pint. The tracker disagreed. Calories burnt: 87. Reward: one Marie biscuit. Plain. Not even the chocolate one.

The wrist-dictator soon took over my life. It buzzed like a wasp every time I sat for more than eight minutes. “Sedentary Alert!” it screamed via my phone. Goals climbed: 7,000 steps a day, 8,000, and then the magical 10,000! One night, past my usual bedtime, I found myself marching around the dining table, muttering “eight thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight…” while the missus made a video recording for “amusing the granddaughters.”

Emboldened by my step-count supremacy, I invaded the kingdom of superfoods. Kale, they said, was the elixir of champions. I bought a bunch and loaded it into a blender that cost more than my first car. The result was no great surprise. It was a green, rubber-like goo which the Nutty Professor would immediately recognise as a cousin of flubber. The green potion smelt of sin and wet socks. I pinched my nose, gulped the concoction, and waited for my biceps to sprout. Nothing! Except an evil-tasting burp emanating from some place where a six pack should have been.   

Quinoa was next. The packet promised miracles, being ‘the ancient super-grain of the Incas.’ As prescribed, I boiled, seasoned and buttered it and then took a bite. Immediately I understood why the Incas died out as a race – no one can subsist, let alone go forth and multiply, on that garbage!

Yoga class was touted to be ‘beginner friendly.’ But the room was packed with human origami—twenty-year-olds folded into complicated shapes and designs. I, in my XXL tracksuit, attempted Downward Dog and achieved Hunchback Hippo! The instructor, a chirpy young thing named Tia, cajoled, “Feel the stretch! Feel the stretch!” All I felt was my spine go crack-crack-crack! I realised that more stretching could be fatal and I made good my escape from Tia, the yogini.

The gym was the final frontier. Machines gleamed like medieval torture devices. I mounted the treadmill with the swagger of a cowboy. Speed: 4 km/h. Duration: 45 seconds. The belt flung me disdainfully into a stack of exercise balls. I bounced, rolled, and landed spread-eagled under a poster of the Great Khali, who seemed to taunt: “Shabash!”

Desperate for inner peace, I downloaded a mindfulness app. I sat in padmasana—or, more accurately, an ardha-padmasana, because my knees refused full cooperation. The voice soothed: “Inhale brightness, exhale tension.” Bliss lasted seven seconds. Then my wife walked in. “Arre, what is this now? Imagining you are Baba Ramdev?”

I shushed her. “I want to find enlightenment!”

She snorted. “Enlightenment? You can’t even find your socks unless I help you!”

That did it. It was the final straw. I ripped off the tracker, hurled the kale into the neighbour’s compost, and fed the quinoa to the pigeons. I cancelled my gym membership and wrote a nasty goodbye to Tia.

I am now back to moderate sins: evening strolls at the speed of a trotting snail, dal-chawal with a moderate amount of ghee, and a moderate single malt that whispers sweet nothings to my liver. I don’t care if F&PP Sugar and kolestrosomething throw tantrums, or the mirror giggles wickedly. I will remain a moderate man and salvation, I have discovered, lies in moderation.  

kcverma345@gmail.com

 The Bullshit Detector

“You don’t know how to use ChatGPT?” Ekya asked incredulously, her eyes as wide as saucers. “Nana, everyone uses AI. I even got Waldo to help with some of my class assignments.”

I must have muttered something daft, because my granddaughter launched into a sermon that would have made any preacher blush. “Stop fretting about costs, Nana! These AI engines cost billions to cook up; but the apps? They are absolutely free!”

Before I could protest, Ekya commandeered my ancient laptop and performed some digital wizardry. In minutes, my screen was cluttered with icons—Claude, Bert, Yolo, Gemini, Waldo, and… Grok? The names sounded like the guestlist for a dorm party, with Grok hailing from some remote galaxy.

I jabbed at the Grok icon, half-expecting a puff of smoke. Instead, a rapid-fire text appeared on the screen. “What do you want to know?”

Oh, Grok, you poor, naive genie! My mind is a convoluted labyrinth of unanswered questions: “Does God play teen-patti at Diwali?” “When will politicians stop fooling the public?” “Did that little girl whom I met in wonderland love me?” “Will the air quality in Delhi ever improve?”

But no; I played it safe. “Grok, what’s two plus two?”

“O Master, it’s four!” the genie replied, instantly.

“Brilliant,” I deadpanned to Ekya. “That’s exactly what my 50-rupee Palika Bazaar calculator says. Tell me, is this AI thingmajig just a fancy abacus?”

“Nana!” Ekya wailed, “Ask something smart! Something that needs logic and analysis. Something that is really, really rocket science!”

“Logic? Analysis?” I scoffed. “So, this AI only works for stuff divorced from reality, eh? Fine, let’s give Grok a real challenge.” I took charge of the keyboard and typed with all seriousness: “How do I build a bullshit detector?”

The computer went berserk, with Grok spewing advice as if it had had several cans of some energy drink. It instructed me to “be a discerning listener” and “watch for red flags” and “synthetic inputs.” It threw in some technobabble about “synohaptic alternate truths,” and “bio-feedback algorithms” concluding with a limp, “Truth is slippery, but tech can help you grab it.”

“Grok, you dimwit,” I typed, “I don’t want to be the detector. I want a gadget to do it for me!”

Again, there was a digital tantrum and scads of advice. Grok suggested a hardware configuration with software loaded for awareness of deep fakes in the post-truth era, capacity for critical thinking, source verification, evidence consistency, fallacy detection, and bias identification. It also churned out a blueprint for a wearable device, complete with audio alarms and a buzzer. This sent me scavenging to an e-waste dump from where I gathered bits of circuitry, dodging stray dogs and two bleary-eyed vultures. Back home, I created the Bullshit Detector of the Future, which I named BSDF2047.

Calibration of the gadget was easy. I fed it a potpourri of nonsense: political speeches, election manifestos promising free unicorns, and Instagram reels of Bollywood actors with digitally enhanced sixpacks and other assets. For extra spice, I tossed in Reddit threads on Trump’s tariffs and the entire script of Baron Munchausen. Ekya insisted that I add The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. 

Testing day arrived, and BSDF2047 performed meticulously. It emitted a discreet ‘tsk-tsk’ at a toothpaste ad on FM radio. It beeped indignantly at a TV advertorial peddling “miracle hair oil.” But then, chaos! A political party spokesperson flickered on the TV, and BSDF2047 let out a banshee wail, which was not even programmed into its circuits! And when I accidentally placed it on the morning newspaper, it screamed because of the front-page ad for ‘Luxury Flats in Gurugram.’

Soon I found that it was impossible to go anywhere with that bullshit detector because it kept sounding alarms. It detected bullshit attempts in TV news, discussions of friends and even when Bassa Ram, my driver, asked for leave. At a distant uncle’s anniversary bash, BSDF2047 let out a wolf whistle when aunty claimed she had made the dessert. It raised alarms, sniggered, howled or shrieked whenever anyone spoke a half-truth, white lie, or held out a political promise.

Gopu was thrilled. “Now let’s upgrade it to be a Bullshit Neutraliser! The Neutraliser will blast counter-narratives to shut up all nonsensical claims!” My wife, ever the visionary, suggested the creation of a Bullshit Avenger—a device that would ‘encounter’ any person spouting propaganda, asserting technical inexactitudes or taking liberty with facts.

With great regret, I realised a Neutraliser or an Avenger would shove me into perpetual conflict with the rest of the world. As it was, the BSDF2047 was driving me nuts with its ceaseless buzzing, tut-tutting and screaming. Out of sheer exasperation, I took it to the Lohawala Pul on the Yamuna River and caressed it one last time. “Over you go,” I whispered, hurling it into the abyss. “Find peace in the clean Yamuna.”

As it sank in the murky waters, BSDF2047 let out one final, defiant screech, in protest against my terming the Yamuna as “clean.” I swear I could see huge bubbles of indignation rise to the surface. Back home, I had to face a very miffed Ekya. “Nana, you lost your one chance to become a crorepati,” she lamented. “You could’ve made a fortune selling the BSDF2047 to every WhatsApp uncle in India!” 

 Sad tale of gifts, gifters and a giftee

Whoever said, “Don’t hide skeletons in your cupboard”, must have been wary of the pre-Diwali cleaning avatar of my wife. Was it Socrates? Or our very own Thiruvalluvar? It doesn’t matter, because I ignored the wisdom of the sages and stuffed many skeletons into the darkest corner of my wardrobe. I figured everyone has got a few secrets to hide, right? Wrong! My wife, armed with a duster and a mission, flung open the cupboard, and out tumbled my shameful stash that I thought I had cleverly hidden forever.

My wife was inundated by an avalanche of shirts, socks and stuff. Shirts that would fit an emaciated teenager. Socks that a circus clown might wear. Neckties in fifty shades of regret. And a pile of still-gift-wrapped gifts. The missus shrieked as if she had stepped on a lizard. I rushed to collect the stuff and shove the mess back in. But the damage was done.

“What the heck is this?” she demanded, holding up two neon-green T-shirts with ‘I Love Pattaya’ emblazoned on them in comic sans.

To explain this disaster, let me backtrack. You see, I have always had to bear the burden of the love of my relatives and the generosity of my friends and neighbours. These three categories of homo sapiens express their affection through the ancient art of gift-giving. Be it birthdays or anniversaries, and even JLT, they unleash gifts upon me; stuff I wouldn’t use to clean my car. They bestow upon me shirts two sizes too small, T-shirts so loud they would force ambulances to swerve to let them pass, and gewgaws that are as ugly as they are useless. I have never mustered enough courage to toss these things into the garbage can for the fear that some gifter might get offended. So I hoard them in my cupboard like a shopaholic squirrel.

“What’s this?” my wife said, this time waving a shirt and pointing at the heap of other clothes at her feet.

I stammered, “Uh, darling, these are… treasures. Gifted by you and others. But I can’t wear them, and I didn’t want to offend you by tossing them out in the trash.”

“Trash?!” she roared. “This is the shirt I got you! And you call it trash?”

I braced for impact. “Look, darling, the shirts you get for me are the kind that would fit a schoolboy, but certainly not me. And this?” I held up an orange blazer, “This is so, so loud, for God’s sake! Why can’t you—and everyone else— buy something that fits? Or, you know, something I’d actually like?”

I’m not a fashion snob, but I have standards. I do! I won’t wear just any rag that is tossed my way, especially if it’s the wrong size, the wrong colour, or looks like it was designed by a retarded monkey with a crayon. Yet, as a considerate giftee, I can’t bear to throw away these tokens of love. Hence, the cupboard of disgrace.  

Some gifts sidestep the sizing issue. Socks? I have a drawer full, but I can’t bend down enough to put them on. Handkerchiefs? I’ve got enough to mop up a tsunami. Ties? Ah, the ties! I’ve got a rainbow of them, from that side of violet to this side of red. I never liked any, except one flamboyant silk masterpiece with an abstract pattern of butterflies. I wore it proudly until Gopu, my friend of many summers, smirked, “Nice tie, man. But those aren’t butterflies. They’re pole dancers in their birthday suits.”

I should’ve known something was off when my neighbour Sethi handed it to me after his Germany trip, giggling about Hamburg’s Reeperbahn district.

It is not just the gifts from my loved ones that put me in a quandary. There are the random, unsolicited gifts too—from events, conferences and weddings. I thought I’d hit the peak of absurdity when I got a faux brass plaque inscribed ‘Best Judge’ for refereeing a kids’ fancy-dress contest in our condo. (The winner was a four-year-old dressed as a cauliflower. I still have nightmares about that.) But no, the universe outdid itself at a shoe manufacturer’s daughter’s wedding. They gifted me a gold-plated shoehorn with the bride and groom’s names etched inside a heart. A shoehorn! For a guy who can’t bend down to wear socks, let alone use a glorified spoon to jam his feet into loafers. My wife, naturally, got an opportunity to mock, “Why not frame it and display it on the mantelpiece, alongside your Best Judge award?”

The problem with these gifts is they’re immortal and immutable. I can’t hide them for ever—my wife’s cleaning sprees will uncover the crime. I can’t throw them away, because someone or the other will witness my attempts at destruction of evidence. And I can’t offload them on Bassa Ram, my driver, because he has better taste than most of my gifters. Why must people complicate things? Cash is simple, universal, and fits perfectly in my wallet. Instead of turning my cupboard into a museum of ill-fitting clothes and useless gifts, why can’t my loved ones give me cash?

At least on this Diwali, let us keep it simple—let’s stick to cash!

kcverma345@gmail.com

A Sad Tale of Gifts, Gifters and a Giftee

Was it Socrates who said it, or was it our very own Thiruvalluvar? Someone certainly said, “Never hide skeletons in cupboards.” Even then, I had nonchalantly hidden mine in the cupboard, believing that everyone has a skeleton or two to hide. Unfortunately, my wife, hell bent on cleaning the house before Diwali, flung open my cupboard and all the skeletons came tumbling out. 

Even as the missus shrieked, several shirts, socks, many ties in their packing boxes, a bundle of tee shirts, and an assortment of packets tumbled to the floor. I swooped down on the miscellany of skeletons to shove them back into the cupboard. 

“What the … …?” exclaimed the missus. “What’s all this?” 

To explain ‘all this’, as the missus called it, I need to digress a bit. You see, I have always had to bear the heavy burden of the love of my relatives and the generosity of my friends and neighbours. These three categories of homo sapiens channelise their love and affection mainly into giving me gifts – as celebration, appreciation, obligation or JLT. No, they don’t exactly line up outside my house to dump them but, nonetheless, this business of gift giving is frequent enough to put me, the giftee, in a quandary. I am given shirts of wrong sizes, tee shirts that I would not be seen dead wearing and gewgaws that are as ugly as they are useless. I could easily throw away the unwanted items or give them to my driver, Bassa Ram. But I am a considerate and sensitive kind of bloke, so I never throw anything away. Perforce, I must stash away the junk out of sight in some disused trunk or cupboard. And if the missus goes around opening these, she has only herself to blame. 

“What’s all this?” repeated my wife. “Hey! I see here a couple of shirts that I bought for you.”

“Well,” I said defensively, “This is all the stuff that I have been gifted by you and others that I didn’t want to throw away. But I really have no use for it.”

“Stuff? Stuff?” Screamed the missus. “Do you realise that you are talking about shirts that I bought for you!” 

I had no option but to break her heart. “Look, dear, these shirts are much too small for me. And this one is so loud! I will never wear any of these. Why can’t you buy shirts in my size and of my choice? You and others buy clothes for me as if you have never seen me. The sizes are always too small for me.” 

I am certainly not fussy about what I wear. But still, I am a discerning dresser. I will never wear just any rags that might be thrown my way, especially if they are of unfortunate colours or wrong size or out of fashion. At the same time, I am also a considerate giftee. Therefore, whenever any gifter gives me a gift, I am reluctant to throw it away. Which explains the accumulation of skeletons in my cupboard. 

The only gifts that pose no problem as regards size are socks, handkerchiefs and ties. I have oodles of handkerchiefs, but how many can one really use? And socks? I no longer wear socks – my paunch does not allow me to bend low enough to put them on.  

As regards neckties, I have an armload and a half of them – ranging in colour from that side of violet to this side of red. I never liked any of them, except one flamboyant silk creation with an abstract pattern of butterflies. I liked it very much and wore it often. Till one day Gopu, my friend of many summers, said to me with a smirk, “That tie is indeed lovely. Have you had a close look at it? Those aren’t butterflies. They are pole dancers, and most of them are in their natural God-given state!” 

I should have guessed there was something fishy when Sethi, my neighbour, had gifted it to me after a trip to Germany and kept gushing about the Reeperbahn in Hamburg.

Like Sethi, there are others too who offload totally unsolicited, totally unexpected (and totally useless) gifts at functions and events like conferences and weddings. I thought I had hit rock bottom when I was presented with a faux brass plaque with the inscription “Best Judge” for judging a tiny tots’ fancy-dress competition in our condominium. But, while leaving the wedding function of the daughter of a shoe manufacturer, I was gifted a gold-plated shoehorn! The gadget had inscribed on it a heart, with the names of the bride and groom written within! I have no use for the shoehorn for the same reason that I do not wear socks. But it served the purpose for a taunt from the missus, “Why don’t you have it framed and display it on the mantelpiece, alongside your ‘Best Judge Award’?

The trouble with unwanted gifts is their immortality. You can’t throw them in the dustbin, and you can’t hide them in cupboards. You can’t even palm them off to housemaids, and the Bassa Ram’s of this world have too much good taste to accept those tawdry items. Why must people gift me things? Why can’t they keep it simple? Why don’t they give me cash? 

Grow Old Along with Me

As a kid, I hung around our neighbourhood temple – less out of devotion, more for the prasad. It was not a grand temple, but it certainly had the grandest pujari – who was addressed as Pujariji. He was an encyclopaedia of Vedic trivia and Sanskrit, who conducted the aartis with rare grace. He performed the ritual five times a day – starting with the Mangal Aarti at dawn to say, ‘Good Morning!’ and ending with the Shayan Aarti to say, ‘Good Night!’ to the deity. Pujariji fluently recited shlokas and flourished a ghee-fuelled lamp like a demented pyromaniac, while simultaneously translating Sanskrit to street Hindi for the benefit of us clueless kids.

Years later, this same Pujariji presided over my wedding ceremony, insisting that he be addressed as Panditji because he was wearing a different hat. As my bride and I circled the sacred fire, Panditji solemnly announced that every couple whom he had bound in matrimony had enjoyed lasting domestic peace and a bumper crop of kids. I protested, but Panditji told me to ‘Shut up!’ and not argue about the number of my future progeny while doing the Agni Pradakshina.

Now, five decades later, I realise that – like most things in life – Panditji was neither fully right nor fully wrong. The part about lasting domestic peace has proved (more or less) correct. The part about a bumper crop of kids, mercifully, has not. Over the years, the missus and I have settled into monotonous domesticity with few surprises and rare deviations. Our days mimic Pujariji’s aarti schedule, but with less ghee and more creaky joints. Our Mangal Aarti starts at a civilised eight am and not at the crack of dawn. She brews coffee strong enough to kickstart a coma patient, while I butter the toast. We eat in silence, skimming newspapers with headlines so absurd that neither of us consider it worth the effort to disapprovingly go ‘Tchh, Tchh’ about them. Why bother? The world has gone mad, and we have cholesterol to worry about.

Midday brings the Rajbhog Aarti, a glorified term for our humble dal-chawal. We spice our khichdi with memories of Nargis koftas from our youth, when our stomachs could handle ambition. After lunch, we nap – less a luxury, more a necessity. We combine the Sandhya and Shringar Aarti to flip TV channels, hunting for something – anything – watchable.

The Shayan Aarti is my specialty: it involves locking the front door, switching off extra lights, and ensuring that the microwave oven does not explode during the night. If Romeo and Juliet had made it to their 70’s, they would have probably traded sonnets for practicalities. Juliet might have said, “My love is as boundless as the sea, but my back’s killing me.” Romeo would have countered, “Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, but really dear, never doubt my arthritis.”

My wife and I keep it simpler. I say, “Turn around, I’ll rub this painkiller on your back.” She replies, “Hold still for your eyedrops.”

Then we sleep, no fuss, no poetry – just the quiet hum of a life well-worn.

Our island of domestic peace nearly crumbled last week. Out of nowhere, the missus dropped a bombshell: “Why don’t we love each other like we used to?”

I froze, with alarms going off in my head louder than a fire engine bell. She repeated, “You know, like once upon a time. Like fifty years ago.”

She was no doubt harking back to the time when I had a full head of hair and a six-pack to boot. Sadly, today, with my receding hairline, beer belly and dentures, no one will mistake me for a Bollywood hero. For that matter, she too is not a svelte size zero actress. We are no longer the lead characters; we are instead the ‘extras’, the stereotypical bumbling grandparents, starring only for comic relief.

But the old girl bashed on, regardless. “Tomorrow’s our 50th anniversary. What’s the most romantic way to celebrate it? But no gifts – they just pile up. We can’t eat out either; you get such awful gas. Why don’t we have a quiet romantic celebration?”

I fleetingly thought of ordering biryani and, even as my mouth watered, my mind saw me gulping fistfuls of antacids the whole night long. Sadly, romance after fifty years of married bliss is less about biryani and grand gestures, and more about not snoring too loudly. I racked my brain, and then I had divine inspiration.

“Let’s binge-watch your favourite soap opera all night!” I was quite certain Romeo would have never thought of such a romantic anniversary gift.

So, we binged! After the usual Shayan Aarti – eyedrops, painkillers, the works – we fluffed up the pillows, propped up the cushions, and sank into the couch. And we watched and watched her beloved saga of betrayals, garish weddings and women wearing unbelievably fussy jewelry. We watched in companionable and comfortable silence, till around midnight – when I dozed off, dreaming of Panditji and the aarti lamp swinging rhythmically. 

Quite suddenly, it was morning. The sun was streaming into the room, and the television was muttering away. I turned to the missus and said, “Happy anniversary, dear.” She smiled and, in that moment, we were young again, circling that fire, with Panditji’s voice in the background, promising us forever.

kcverma345@gmail.com

The Diwali Bonanza!

“You paid how much for this dhania patta?” I screamed when I saw those limp sprigs of coriander on the kitchen counter.

“Well, whether you like it or not, coriander is Rs 300 a kilo. These days you don’t get it for free when you buy vegetables,” said the missus, defiantly.

“No one buys dhania patta! Free dhania and a fistful of chillies are your birthright as a veggie’s customer! That vegetable vendor—what’s his name— Bansidhar? He should be jailed for daylight robbery,” I declared.

“It is not Bansidhar’s fault. That crook Trump has raised tariffs. There has been too much rain this year. The Bihar elections are coming. There was an earthquake in Afghanistan. That’s why the price of dhania has shot up!”

“That’s utter nonsense! You’ll believe any crap the Bansidhar fellow tells you. From now on, I will go to buy vegetables,” I said.

The following day, I felt the way Rip Van Winkle would have felt if he had woken up after twenty years in the middle of the sabzi mandi. The price of onions was sky high, and I wondered which Maratha strongman was manipulating stocks in Lasalgaon. The potatoes were expensive enough to have been directly imported from Idaho. And I could have bought two bottles of Hercules in the good old days for the amount Bansidhar was demanding for a kilo of tomatoes.

I discovered that Bansidhar was not the only one who had jacked up prices. Apparently, the whole sabzi mandi had felt the tremors of the Afghan earthquake! Bansidhar sniggered when he saw the look on my face. Presiding over his wilted cabbage and shrivelled pumpkins, he sang out gaily, “Sahib, with the new pay commission, you will get a lot more money. Why don’t you share the loot with us?”

I scowled and left the market without buying any greens.

On the way back, I was mentally making up excuses for returning empty-handed when suddenly Bassa Ram, our driver, asked “Sahib, what is a ‘fitment’?”

“The term fitment factor is used for fixing the revised pay after any pay commission award is announced. But you don’t work for the government, so what is it to you?”

“Nothing Sahib. But other drivers with whom I hang around have sarkari jobs. They say that some commissioner has come, and he will give fitment of three. Then their pay will go up three times. I was thinking that you should double my salary, at least.”

Now I had two awkward issues to broach with the missus. No veggies and Bassa Ram’s demand. I diffidently entered home and was considering how best to start a difficult conversation when my wife blurted out, “We will have to give Phulwanti a raise!”

“Why should we? The maid’s work has not increased, and she altogether skips coming to our house at least once a week.”

“Yes, but she said that because we are getting a bonanza before Diwali, we should increase her wages.”

“Who told her that we are getting a bonanza?”

“Hello, stupid!” said my wife. “Wasn’t the announcement made from the very ramparts of the Red Fort just a few weeks back? Phulwanti may be uneducated, but she’s not a fool! And, further, she said something about that GST thing and said we would be saving tons of money!”

“So, you don’t understand this GST thing; I don’t understand this GST thing, but Phulwanti does, eh?”

“Well, she keeps watching the television. The anchors have been shouting and screaming about the Gabbar Singh Tax becoming the Good and Simple Tax.”

So there we were—suddenly in the middle of a full-blown crisis. On the one hand were the rising expectations of the hoi polloi based on lofty but vague promises made by the inner party. On the other was our anaemic treasury, haemorrhaging because of payments to the proles. We aren’t exactly poor, but we aren’t so rich either as to go around distributing largesse to all and sundry. If ever there was a time for a husband-wife duo to work as a team, this was it. The little woman and I went into a huddle and decided to drive a hard bargain with the domestics, no matter how obdurate they were.

After haggling and negotiating and bickering for most of last Thursday, we reached an understanding with Bassa Ram. He agreed to a raise of one thousand from next January and a thousand more when, and if, I got a higher pension by the new Pay Commission. Phulwanti proved to be a tougher nut. She refused to cook or do the dishes unless she was given a raise immediately. Finally, she settled for a raise of five hundred. And my wife extracted a promise from me that I would never again go to buy vegetables.

Sadly, so far, I have not gotten one penny extra—not from an enhanced pension nor by way of any GST relief. The Diwali jackpot is nowhere in sight. But everyone believes I am rolling in wealth. It is therefore quite likely that I will become diwalia—bankrupt—before Diwali. All that I now want for Diwali is for assorted worthies to stop dangling carrots and promising me lollipops. The delusive bonanzas are injurious to my financial health.

 The Taxman Cometh!

When a terrible drought hit the land of Oudh in 1784, Nawab Asaf-ud-Daulah did not distribute free food to his starving subjects. Instead, he provided employment and got them to build the Imambaras in Lucknow. Among these, the Bada Imambara is best known, especially for its quirky labyrinth. This is the famous bhool bhulaiya – a maze consisting of passages and corridors, staircases, dead ends and pitfalls.

I am convinced that it was some descendent of the generous Nawab who designed the modern-day maze called the Income Tax portal. It is a wondrous creation, just like the bhool bhulaiya, with convoluted corridors, unexpected dead ends and treacherous pitfalls. The website pushes you on paths that you do not want to take, and then leaves you totally confused and lost. It serves a purpose higher than any bhool bhulaiya ever could, because it bridges the gap between the physical and the metaphysical. It tests your faith in the Almighty and teaches you spiritual tolerance. It also poses innumerable questions of an existential nature, ranging from “What is your PAN, TAN, XAN” to “Are you filing as Individual / HUF / Firm / ET / Other?” Sometimes the website is downright rude and calls you names in abbreviated form, like ITR, ERI, DSC and even an owteepee!

Last Friday, while trying to file my return, I got lost in the labyrinth of “Error 503: Service Unavailable. Invalid JSON format.” Suddenly I came to the crossroads of the ‘DTSV Scheme of 2024’ and ‘Download CSI File’ and got stuck on ‘eTutorials’. My respect for the IT johnnies went up several notches. They are truly edified blokes! By providing a tutorial they have acknowledged that their website is a bhool bhulaiya. Bravo! It takes courage to admit that you have mucked up and these tax walas have done so with such grace!

I had barely started my eTutorial when I got timed out. I logged in again and got timed out again. And again. And again. Since it was close to midnight and I was cranky and sleepy, I screamed at my computer for a good ten minutes.

“Why don’t you seek Gopu’s help? That no-good friend of yours fancies himself to be a tax expert and hands out advice to all and sundry,” said my sleepy wife, petulantly.

The old girl was right! I should have thought of Gopu earlier! He never tires of giving advice and he uses tax codewords for anything and everything. His vocabulary has phrases like “Where’s your 12BB”, “Have you got a 26QE” or “Have you reported speculative losses?” When I once asked him what 12BB was for, he enigmatically replied, “It makes the government slightly less suspicious of you.”

Gopu came by on Sunday to help me file my IT return. I confessed to him that I did not know the difference between FY and AY. I also admitted that I get frustrated by the taxman’s diktats that keep changing, exempting, altering, modifying, replacing, substituting or adjusting rules, subrules, footnotes and loopholes.

“Why do they keep changing the rules and rates and returns?” I asked Gopu. “Why the hell can’t they execute their improvements, simplifications and rationalisations in one go?”

“Just who do you think you are – some hotshot finance minister?” taunted Gopu. “Aren’t you aware there is a whole paper pulping industry out there somewhere, that thrives on outdated compendiums, ready reckoners, handbooks and collations of rulings of courts, CATs, BATs and ITATs?”

When we got down to business, Gopu had a good laugh at my pathetic finances. He declared that by agonising over my tax return, I was subjecting myself to a ‘financial colonoscopy’ without reason. He sniggered that this year we have till mid-September to file our returns because the income tax blighters scored a self-goal. They made their codes and forms so complicated that they themselves need more time to understand them! Very cleverly, and condescendingly, they have made it known that the date has been extended as a special favour to the taxpayer!

Gopu and I then spent a lot of time filling the boxes, columns and forms bearing numbers like 80C, 80CC, 80CCC and 80CCD (1). We wasted a lot of time getting timed out. But we certainly spent the most time with CII.h(50)H. With a misty look in his eye, Gopu said, “Earlier there used to be Delta(TH)C9 too, which was loads of fun. Sadly, because of changing laws, one can’t have it now.”

Later in the evening, when we got thoroughly confused, we decided to give up and live to file another day. “You know, Gopu,” I said, “The government may have the sovereign right to snatch my money, but I resent the spin that is given to this extortion. I am told that I pay taxes for my own good. But actually, I’m financing freebies for assorted freeloaders, for which some modern day Asaf-ud-Daulah will take credit. Can’t I stop paying taxes altogether?”

“Well, there I can’t help you, my friend,” said Gopu, getting up to return home. “Not for nothing is it said that death and taxes are inevitable. What people like you should accept is that death is simpler. And kinder. And quicker.”

kcverma345@gmail.com

 

 

The Smothering Instinct and the Witches’ Brew

There are many minuses and pluses to the children moving out of the nest to fly on their own. The house suddenly feels empty and too quiet. There is no one to help search for my misplaced spectacles. If I drop the TV remote, I have to myself stoop to the floor to pick it up.  A big plus is that because of those two extra rooms, my wife and I manage to keep out of each other’s hair. I now have a whole room as my study in which I pursue my hobbies! The missus has commandeered the other vacant bedroom for mysterious activities like power yoga and Zumba drops. 

There is, however, one aspect of this broodless existence which is very distressing – and that is the absence of a beneficiary of my wife’s mothering instincts. She used to lavish tender loving care on the brats but, now that they are gone, I often become the hapless target of all the TLC. Please understand that my wife is hardly the Sati Savitri kind. You know the Sati Savitri I am referring to, don’t you? Sati Savitri is the six-sigma standard of virtue and devotion that all Hindu women are exhorted to achieve by becoming all-sacrificing, self-effacing, husband-caring creatures. But even as the missus pooh-poohs this concept of the ideal wife, she does not remain totally immune from the cultural influences of the ecosystem she lives in.

These compel her to fitfully stifle me with overwhelming affection and enforce random restrictions for my betterment. Thus, the command, “Never leave home without a cap in winter” is accompanied with the Hukum Nama to never use my cell phone in bed. And there are other fatwas. Don’t eat more than two eggs a week. No red meat. No samosas. No jalebis. No this. No that. And, above all, no medicinal nectar in the evening. And no salted peanuts!

To be honest, though I would never want the missus to know it, even with her bossy ways and recidivist maternal predilections, life with her is sufferable. But it becomes truly insufferable when I fall ill; as I did recently. It is then that her mothering instincts become all-powering smothering instincts.

For the six or seven days that I was laid up with fever, I had to suffer extreme care which only a wife can inflict on her husband. My dear missus is the brand ambassador for big pharma, as also the greatest practitioner of Ayurveda this side of Kerala. She has mastered the Unani and homeopathic systems and could teach a trick or two about Tibetan medicine to HH the Dalai Lama’s personal physician. In addition, she has a compendium of home remedies as long as her arm. So besides suffering the fever, body ache and the burning sensation in my eyes, I had to submit to whatever slings and arrows outrageous fortune and a multidisciplinary medical regimen threw at me. The different schools of medicine ultimately impinged upon my happiness in the form of a wide array of tablets, potions, unguents and miracle-rubs.

My wife also insisted on taking my temperature every fifteen minutes and cast aspersions on the ancestry of the thermometer for refusing to show any decrease. So, she got one more thermometer to check the temperature in my armpit. She would have got yet another one, but I told her that there was no question of going further South to take my temperature as they do for infants.

The vilest treatment was the special concoction that the missus so carefully prepared according to some secret recipe. She called it ‘kadha’. I called it the witches’ own brew. It may not have had among its ingredients the traditional eye of newt, wool of bat and fillet of a fenny snake but it certainly tasted as if it did. For all seven days that I had fever, I was subjected to extreme care and attention and a six-hourly dose of kadha. 

My wife’s ministrations included waking me up several times at night to inquire solicitously whether I was asleep.

“No, I am awake, now,” I would confess each time.

“Don’t you worry”, she would say. “You’ll be able to sleep soon. Sleep is the best medicine. Go to sleep!”

Sleep indeed worked its magic, and I have now been fit and fine for the past ten days. 

Fully recovered, I have taken up a new hobby. I have started keeping notes about techniques that I will use to look after the old girl when she is next down with the flu or some other bug. So far, I have jotted down only a few random tips. One is to tell her that for a quick recovery; she must keep silent from morning till evening. Another is waking her up in the middle of the night and asking if she would like a cup of tea. Yet another is to make her sit up all afternoon, breathing only through her mouth. I feel these remedies are good for starters. I am certain that by the time she next falls ill, I will have compiled many more adoring therapies that will be as effective as the kadha she cured me with.

kcverma345@gmail.com    

  Dr. W.H. Atsapp MD, MRCP.

‘Kaff! Kaff! Kaff!’ I coughed.

Then I tried my raspy cough. ‘Khak! Khak! Khak!’

It sounded good; but would it be good enough? So, I attempted a deeper cough. ‘Khoff??  Khoff!!’

‘Khoff!!’ Ah! Much better! It sounded so deep.

A nurse came running. “Sir! Sir! Sir! Are you alright?”

“Yup! You could say I am fine now!” I said. “I thought while waiting to see the doctor, I would practice how to cough. Haven’t you seen the WhatsApp post which advises that if you have a heart attack while you’re alone, you should cough till help arrives?”

The nurse looked at me suspiciously. “Sir,” she said, “You are in the Amrit Maths Hospital. If you have a heart attack, help is right here. But please don’t cough like that. You sound so infectious!”

“Then why don’t you speed up my appointment with the doctor? I am so bored,” I said sullenly. That worked. I was ushered into the doctor’s chamber immediately.

“So? What’s your problem?”

“I’m not certain, doc. My symptoms are of subglottic stenosis, but it could be tracheomalacia.”

“Huh? Which fool said you have this condition?” laughed the doctor. I coldly informed him that it was the Internet’s diagnosis of the choking sensation I had been experiencing since morning.

The doctor asked me to loosen my tie, open the collar button and take a sip of water. Immediately, the relief was miraculous! “You might have given me temporary relief,” I declared. “But you haven’t treated the underlying illnesses. I saw a Facebook post about a patient who was given only temporary relief, and he dropped dead while going home.”

“Rubbish! Never heard such claptrap!” said the opinionated physician.

To me it was clear that this doctor had not kept abreast of the latest advancements in medicine and dietetics as so extensively discussed in social media. On the other hand, I have absorbed all the wisdom and knowledge about diet and health on Facebook, WhatsApp and microblogs. I saw no point in wasting time with that ignorant quack and returned home.

My never-ending study of the vast store of medical knowledge available on my cell phone shows that people above sixty must be careful about their exercise and diet. I am seventy plus, so I am hyper-mindful about my health and have been searching for a reliable doctor. But, to my horror, I have discovered a disappointing and all-pervasive ignorance in the medical fraternity. For instance, one guy who called himself a cardiologist did not even know that water from the river Hamza, which runs beneath the Amazon in Chile, will cure any heart ailment without surgery.

I need a reliable doctor because I have tried many diet and lifestyle changes recommended on social media, but I never get the right results. As advised by WhatsApp, I tried breatharianism, which required me to absorb energy from the air and sunlight. But after just one day without food or drink, I almost fainted. Another YouTube clip warned that quinoa is no longer fashionable, and senior citizens must switch to chia seeds and cordyceps sinensis. I feared that cordyceps was some vestigial dinosaur, but I was relieved to find from the Internet that it was merely a Himalayan fungus. I gingerly checked its advantages and side-effects. Unfortunately, at my age, the benefit euphemistically listed as ‘improved vim and vigour’ was just another irritating side-effect.

Google Guru advocated a diet of unprocessed foods, washed down with twelve glasses of water every day. I had to give it up after just one day because, between my trips to the toilet, I didn’t get any sleep that night. And the next morning was a sorry tale by itself. An influencer recommended the nightly routine of a turmeric-kale smoothie, feet-on-pillows and a detox stretch. It was guaranteed to prolong life and release my inner alligator. Sadly, all that I got was an evil-smelling pillow. Another Instagram Guru recommended matcha, the Japanese green tea, which I drank by the gallon, along with raw potato and bitter gourd juice. I also tried a smoothie of zucchini and ash gourd pulp. All tasted awful! Aloe Vera and Tulsi extract was horrible. The mess I left in the kitchen was worse and did not improve my wife’s mood. All that juice sloshing around inside of me did not improve mine!

There is so much conflicting advice on the Internet. Eat nuts. Don’t eat nuts. Get roughage. Avoid roughage. Gobble beans and lentils. Avoid proteins. Eat greens. All veggies are packed with pesticides.

Being thoroughly conflicted, I have temporarily withdrawn from many social media groups. This has given me time to introspect and finetune my own teeny-weeny regimen for good health – a mix of exercise and diet. I guarantee a miraculous rejuvenation if you regularly raise a glassful of aqua pura (+) from tabletop to chin level. This is good exercise for the wrist, forearm and biceps. Simultaneously, munch on salted peanuts, which provide protein, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. The mastication keeps your face looking young, and you will never need Botox. The weightlifting and nut consumption can be done at any time of day, but they are best done together – when the Sun is over the yardarm.

kcverma345@gmail.com

My Fifteen Minutes of Fame

It is kind of fashionable these days to assert that this thing or that thing has not been done in the past seventy years. In keeping with this trend, I hereby declare that never in the past seventy years had I been asked by anyone to hoist the national flag at any function. Yet, there was no dearth of opportunities; after all, Republic Days and Independence Days come around with clockwork regularity. There are sports meets and founders’ days and whatnot parades too. But never, not once, had I been invited to unfurl our flag!

Even the ‘Har Ghar Jhanda’ campaign was hijacked by the missus, who made it her personal tamasha by flying the flag at the end of a curtain rod and poking it out from our balcony. She manipulated the support of Phulwanti, the maid, and Bassa Ram, our driver, by promising them a bonus. No wonder they gathered around and cheered while she did the honours.

I would have forever remained a virgin in the matter of unfurling flags, had it not been for the residents’ association of our condo. This organisation honours old residents by inviting them by turn to lead the Republic Day and Independence Day celebrations. This last August 15, I was the one chosen! 

A week ahead, the president of the association visited our home to formally invite me and to brief me about the program. He informed me that after I hoisted the tricolour, the children would sing Jana Gana Mana, and I would need to say a few words. Very patronisingly he added, “If you don’t know the national anthem, just move your lips.” The pompous bloody ass! 

After the association representative had left, my wife smirked, “You don’t look impressive. The flag should be hoisted by someone smart.”

“Let me guess. You mean someone like yourself, right?” 

“Well yes. ….. But the thought hadn’t struck me till you mentioned it,” she said, ever her modest self. 

“I’ll look smarter than you ever could, if I wear my black bandh gala. Where’s it?” I asked. 

“That old thing? You haven’t ever worn it in the past twenty years. It won’t fit, silly. Moreover, you will look ridiculous wearing a woollen suit in August!” 

On my insistence, however, the next day the little woman dug out the old button-up coat and trousers from the big trunk in which she stores woollens for the summer. I tried the coat on, and it was not a bad fit. If I pulled in my paunch, I could almost close all the buttons. The trousers were fine too, provided I did not close the belt hook. I would have to, however, avoid sitting down, otherwise the consequences would be drastic.  

“Please air these for a day or two, so that the mothbally smell goes away,” I instructed. 

I searched out my black Oxfords and was chagrined to find them covered with mould. I dispatched Bassa Ram to the mochi to get the shoes polished. Then I spent many hours writing and rewriting my speech. I monitored the weather too, checking the meteorological forecast four or five times every day. I did not want anyone (the missus) or anything (clouds) to rain on my parade, either figuratively or literally. Notwithstanding a yellow alert by the Met department for the whole week, it remained bone dry. And for Independence Day, the Met department categorically promised me a bright sunny day. 

On the 15th, I woke up bright and early and reached the saluting base even before the chairs were arranged or the dhurries laid out for seating the kids. I waited impatiently, gloating over how smart I looked in my black bandh gala – even though it still smelt strongly of mothballs. Soon everyone gathered – the residents, the elders, the children. The whole world was looking at me! With a flourish, I took the flag rope and gave it a mighty tug. 

And then it happened!

It was as if I had deliberately pulled out the drain plug of some celestial bathtub, because the heavens opened up. It started to rain, not just raindrops but a torrential downpour!

My spectacles fogged over, and the halyard slipped from my fingers. I lunged to grab the rope, which made one coat button pop off. More devastatingly, I heard my trousers tearing at the back.

The children cheered and clapped wildly – whether it was for the unfurling of the flag or the ripping of my trousers I will never know. The deluge intensified.

I stood there under the flagpole, in my drenched woollen bandh gala reeking of mothballs and my trousers split at the back. Water trickled down my neck to the inside of my collar. Puddles were collecting in my shoes, making my toes go squishy-squashy inside my socks. My wet spectacles allowed me to see the world only through streaky patches. I felt bedraggled and totally overwhelmed.

Then I looked up – and there was the tricolour; soggy and limp from the rain yet valiantly waving in the breeze! I heard the voices of the children uplifted in song. My heart then swelled with pride and joy, and I joined the children in lustily singing the National Anthem!  

kcverma345@gmail.com

I Seem to be Losing Everything!

Our home is probably located at some dreadful space-time discontinuum, through which malevolent extraterrestrials slip through with consummate ease. They come in their spaceships or riding on their unicorns and create havoc in my life. I am absolutely certain about this, but the missus does not believe me. I have never actually seen any Martian or Jovian or Venusian or whatever they might be but, deep down, I know. I know because it is they who make my things disappear, or they slurp them up into their flying saucers, only to regurgitate them later. And a few they suck back again into the vast unknowable.

It was the small things that first aroused my suspicions. You know – small things, like my car keys vanishing from the key rack and reappearing in the egg tray of the fridge. Or my aftershave dematerializing from the bathroom and rematerializing ten days later, lying in a corner of my wardrobe. Or my back scratcher disappearing and then peeking sheepishly from behind the computer two days later.

These irritations could have been ignored, but I had to take serious note of the aliens’ mischief when I brought out my hardware box to fix a nail in the kitchen. The hammer was missing! Not just that; there were other things grievously wrong with the tools. The missus accuses me of being the ultimate fusspot when it comes to my toolkit. Maybe she is right, because I like the screwdrivers to be arranged according to size, the pliers to be fitted in their places and the spanners lined up just so. I believe all tools have feelings and can be easily offended if not placed in their assigned positions. Everyone knows that the tools are hierarchy-conscious, and crimp pliers will never accept a position lower than nose pliers. Yet their positions were reversed! Upheavals on this scale could only be the handiwork of extraterrestrials.

The otherworldlies caused more mysterious disasters. An unlikely victim was the washing machine, which is otherwise a docile young thing. It sits quietly in the utility area and remains well-mannered as long as it is regularly fed some detergent and its lint catcher is tickled occasionally. Yet, it started eating my handkerchiefs and socks – sometimes one and sometimes both. The missus refused to believe me when I complained that I could never find any socks to wear.

The strange ones also enticed my wristwatches to start playing truant. I have four of them and I always line them up on my dresser. But now, occasionally, one or the other decides to disappear for a couple of days, only to reappear with an embarrassed look. My favourite one has been missing for a week. I have checked under my bed, behind the sofa cushions, and even in the dog’s litter box (and the dog looked affronted!). Nothing! I am fully convinced my watch has been abducted by a small green alien and sent to some horological Valhalla. The missus, sceptical as ever, believes I left it at the swimming pool.

The aliens have started targeting even my cufflinks. My collection of fancy cuff wear has dwindled to a solitary pair, and I am loath to wear them lest they, too, attract the evil eye of the strange ones. However, the most susceptible to the extraterrestrials’ pranks are my spectacles and reading glasses, which keep disappearing and reappearing with exasperating unpredictability. I suspect that the otherworldlies have also taken a liking to my whisky because I frequently find the level of the amber fluid to be much lower than it ought to be.  Sometimes the extraterrestrials get adventurous and start playing games even with me! At night they hide one of my slippers under the bed and I need to awaken the little woman to find it when I need to go to tinkle.

Curiously, the aliens seem to be as scared of the missus as I am. Thus, while they take the most atrocious liberties with my keys, socks, spectacles and slippers, I have yet to witness even a single instance of their fooling around with the missus’ belongings.

The missus does not believe me when I blame the aliens for all the troubles that have been visiting us. ‘You are losing it!” she says.

Quite fed up, I blurted out last Sunday, “Then how do you explain these happenings? We don’t have a butler. Everyone knows it is the butler who does it. It would have been so convenient if we had had one. I think we need a deep knowledge of quantum mechanics or an understanding of the paranormal to explain all that has been happening to my socks, my keys, my handkerchiefs and my watches!”

“Shut up, you stupid old man! Don’t you know it’s just your absent- mindedness? You’re losing it!”

I can only stoutly deny that I am absent-minded. Yet lately, my wife has started looking at me in that peculiar manner which reflects her deep concern. So far, I only had problems battling the conspiracies of the little green men, but now the missus seems to have become paranoid about my health. She keeps mumbling, “He’s losing it! He’s losing it!”

I am so, so worried!    

kcverma345@gmail.com

Wheelchairs and Miracles

“They are sending that Tharoor fellow for the phoren bijit. Surely you know as many big words as he does, no?” asked Misser Ji, my neighbour.

“Well…” I responded, “It would be splendiferous indeed if for some idiosyncratic reason I were chosen for the peregrination. I would have gasconaded about that ad nauseum. But the littlest cogitation will amply bespeak that Dr Tharoor’s sesquipedalian and discursive skills are unparagoned. He is a magnolius choice.”

“Eh? Whatever. But boss, you are an excellent negotiator! Didn’t you persuade that chaatwala who sits outside our condo to serve seven golgappas per plate to residents, instead of six that he gives to ordinary customers?”

I had to admit that the golgappa negotiations were among my greatest diplomatic triumphs, yet I wondered if such an achievement alone was sufficient for someone to be selected as an emissary of Bharat. Misser Ji and my other neighbours were certain that it was. It is this unwavering loyalty that makes the otherwise insufferable life in a condo worth living!

Fortunately for the izzat of our condominium, an American friend invited me to New York to his son’s wedding at about the same time that Shashi and others were gallivanting around in those parts. I was elated, yet apprehensive because of the horror stories I had heard about the inefficient Indian immigration authorities and security staff.

The day to leave arrived soon enough, and I was happy when check-in and other formalities at Delhi airport were done quickly. The only unpleasant bit was an argument between the airline staff and a shifty-eyed man with a bulbous alcoholic’s nose, who demanded a wheelchair. Bulbous nose looked half my age and seemed fit in body and mind, though he claimed he could not walk. Anyway, I forgot about him once I boarded the flight and started enjoying the long journey to America. Halfway to New York, I noticed that a miracle had occurred! Bulbous nose was traipsing down the aisle for cadging a beer from the cabin crew!

On landing at JFK, I thought that, unlike the inefficient Indian authorities, the US immigration and customs would welcome me to the Big Apple with alacrity and whoops of joy. Alas, that was not to be! The immigration hall was packed, and I joined a serpentine queue that seemed to have no end. Meanwhile, I saw wheelchair passengers proceeding past separate immigration counters. Bulbous nose, with a smirk on his face, was among the first to get cleared. Standing in the long queue, I fretted. I fumed. I waited. I waited a lot more. I finally cleared immigration after two and a half hours! When I left the airport terminal, I was tired, irritated and close to fainting. 

My stay in the land of the free and home of the brave was highly enjoyable, but there is really nothing like one’s own country. So, when it was time to return, I danced gaily into Terminal 4 of JFK, quite certain that while departing the emigration formalities could not take long. Check-in was prompt, and I was courteously invited to the Air India lounge, which I was told was near the departure gate. I had arrived almost two hours ahead of the expected boarding time, so I had visions of myself lounging, so to say, in the lounge, with nary a care in the world. I imagined myself guzzling Air India single malts, while waiting to be invited on board like a Maharaja!

That feeling of euphoria lasted for all of ten minutes – the time it took to walk from the check-in counter to the security area. Here, a long queue stretched from one end of the concourse to the other and then looped back on itself several times like an evil anaconda. The line moved sluggishly in fits and starts, and I could finally clear security after an hour and a half. I also noted that there was a separate queue for wheelchair passengers, who went through security in a jiffy.

I wended my way to the Air India lounge, hoping to get at least a bite before boarding commenced. On entering the lounge, I saw the same bulbous nose, standing near a wheelchair, helping himself to what looked like his third scotch and soda. When he saw me, he sank down in the wheelchair and winked. 

On landing in Delhi, yet another miracle took place. Bulbous nose bounded off like a greyhound the moment the aircraft doors opened, without needing a wheelchair! By the time I reached the immigration counter, he had disappeared, and I could visualize him grinning away as his Uber carried him home. It took me twenty minutes to clear immigration in Delhi which, compared to JFK, was not bad at all.

Misser Ji and other neighbours hosted a party to celebrate my ‘successful phoren bijit’. Asked to make a speech, I shared my most valuable learning. I said, “Always ask for a wheelchair at the airport. Then you will breeze through all formalities. If anyone makes nasty comments about the sprightly steps you take once you clear immigration or security, just hold up a bottle of ordinary water. And loudly declare ‘This water is from Lourdes! Miracles do happen!’” 

 An Old Dog Can Learn New Tricks

Newlyweds start the day by murmuring sweet nothings. Those past the seven-year-itch exchange polite greetings in the mornings.  Couples nearing their silver jubilees rudely grunt ‘good morning’ to each other.  

But what about those close to their golden jubilees? Well, they simply continue the argument from the night before!

“Everyone has a right to a pet peeve! Why can’t I keep nursing my grouse?” I asked the missus, continuing my rant from dinner the previous night.

“A peeve about pets is fine, but you can’t remain peeved about dogs! Why can’t you make some effort to make friends with them?”   

My wife and I are empirical proof of the thesis propounded by the ancients of the Indus Valley.  Or maybe it was the Sumerians who did it. Or the Incas. Whatever. But we are proof positive of the postulation that a dog lover will always get married to a dog hater!

The missus has always loved dogs; of any shape or size. From the common German Sheperd to the snooty Shih Tzu. Also, any mongrel of any description.  She loves even the Pekingese, though she readily concedes that most have a nasty temper. She calls dogs ‘people’ and claims that one can often communicate with them better than one can communicate with their owners! She often claims that dogs are more human than humans. And she keeps urging me to try to make friends with dogs.

Me? I hate dogs. All dogs. Hounds, terriers, retrievers, spaniels – the lot! Living in a closed community with shared spaces, shared lifts and shared corridors makes me hate them more. I would have been quite content to be hated back by the beasts but the dogs, being stupid, love me! It might be only to spite me, but I am often drowned in the overflowing milk of dog-kindness. My neighbour’s Labrador, a monster of an animal, is the ultimate doofus of a dog. It has taken a special fancy to me and tries to give me a hug each time we meet. It places its forelegs on my chest and goes “Huffa…. huffa ….huffa….” in my ear, dribbling gallons of saliva down my shirt front. Yuk! 

My loathing of dogs is a mature and rational response. They are restless creatures. They bark randomly at all hours and incessantly in the dead of night. The phantom sprinkler and mystery pooper have a preference for the corridor on our floor. Like the Magi, they bring gifts for us and leave them at our doorstep, right next to the milk bottles and morning newspaper.  Then there is the irritating tyre irrigator, who prefers my car over others. 

It pains me to see perfectly sensible people leave home at the crack of dawn on the diktats of their dogs. I find it revolting that the woman in apartment 17 C keeps thirteen dogs in her two-bedroom apartment. I am annoyed when I see dogs wearing pajamas and booties. I am disgusted by the owners who ‘baby talk’ with animals. I get angry whenever I see the neighbourhood Aunty feeding biscuits and milk to stray dogs. My wife declares that I need to view dogs more kindly and appreciate the lady for being charitable. My stated position is that I would agree, but only if charity were spelt b-a-r-m-y.   

These detestable animals have also destroyed my faith in fellow human beings. At a meeting last month, I tried to persuade the Residents’ Welfare Committee to install CCTV cameras in the common areas to name and shame irresponsible dog owners. Instead of getting support, I was ridiculed for raising concerns about nonissues!

When I tried to win the sympathy of my wife, even she sidetracked my demand. “Do you know, these days it’s a great compliment to be called a Golden Retriever Man? You are my Golden Retriever Man!” 

“Are you nuts?” I asked. “Which man in his right senses would like to be termed a dog?”

My wife changed tack. “Do you know that during the Pitra Paksha when we pay homage to our ancestors, a key ritual is the feeding of dogs? This helps to protect the house from enemies and removes the problems that arise due to Rahu and Ketu.” She rounded up her plea with her usual advice to me to make friends with dogs.  

I would have gone on hating dogs for the rest of my life, but something happened a couple of weeks ago which has made me seriously consider my wife’s advice. About ten days back, for the very first time, I spotted this beautiful Afghan hound, almost the size of a small pony. The dog was out for a walk with its Australian owner, who has recently moved into our condominium. The golden hair of the dog and the long blonde tresses of the svelte owner made a really pretty picture! Each time that I now see these two, I think that I should indeed be more friendly with dogs. Or at least one of them. And its owner too! It should be easy, considering that my wife thinks I am a Golden Retriever Man. 

(Pass)Words Fail Me!

Have I ever told you that most of my problems arise because of the missus? Well, they do!

You see, I had a moustache. One that I have fondly kept since last year. Nothing spectacular. Not like Salvador Dali or Hercule Poirot. Not even like Terry-Thomas. Unlike a handlebar, it was an unambitious and unremarkable moustache – lying on my upper lip like a fat, contented caterpillar. For some obscure reason, the little woman got it into her head last month that I did not look dashing enough with that moustache.

“At my age I don’t want to look dashing,” I said in my defence.

“Okay,” she said, “By all means, don’t look dashing. But at least try not to look stupid! And that thing on your face makes you look terribly stupid. So just shave it off!”

She kept badgering me until finally I shaved it off last Sunday.

I felt quite naked without my moustache. Nevertheless, I would have been satisfied with the Nunc et situ, provided the missus was satisfied for Nunc et semper. But she was not!

“I think you look more stupid without the moustache,” she said offhandedly at bedtime.  

The matter would have ended there, and, in due course, I would have grown my caterpillar again. But life is seldom as simple as we naively think it is, because Monday morning brought with it its share of surprises. The milkman saw me and burst out laughing. The maid came and for the two or three hours that she pretends to do the chores, she kept giggling silently.

The worst was still to come. When I decided to work on my magnum opus that afternoon, my laptop refused to recognise me!

I tried my left profile, then my right. Then again, my full face. But the disloyal wretch steadfastly refused to recognise its owner and master!

I had no option but to summon my computer emergency response team – Kim, my granddaughter! She is the finest Cert & Tech Support in the world and resolves all the gizmo related crises that I bungle into, be they related to my computer, cell phone, wi-fi router or our smartass television.

“Why are you freaking out, Nana?” Kim asked. “Just draw a moustache on your face and try again.”

Grandchildren certainly have a solution for everything! So, I raided my wife’s stock of cosmetics for an eyebrow pencil and drew a moustache on my upper lip. But the computer was not amused. Nor was my wife. Kim quickly ducked under the bed, thereby escaping being suspected of being the baddie in the Case of the Purloined Eyebrow Pencil.  

She emerged from under the bed only after the missus had blown over. “Let’s get back to work,” she announced. “Nana, besides facial recognition, you must have set some password for the laptop?”

I admitted that I had, but for the life of me I could never remember passwords, whether they were dates or numbers or names.

“Why don’t you jot down the passwords somewhere?”

“Because everyone warns against writing them down, duh?” I countered. 

“As if you have state secrets to protect!” she mocked. “Chalo! Let’s try birthdays first.”

We tried all the birthdays, but none of them were right. It was the same story with the anniversaries, with the date on which my daughter acquired Leo, the dog, and with the date on which I retired. 

We then tried names of all family members, but the computer did not budge.

“Nana, you might have used the name of some favourite person or character as your password.” So, on my prompting, Kim then tried several names of people that I admire.

“RichardFeynman? AlfredENeuman? JAlfredPrufrock? Who are these people? The names are so random, Nana!”

All the names failed. But I did learn that the word ‘random’ is the current favourite of the young generation.

Kim then set about resetting my computer login password. I don’t know how she did it but there was certainly a lot of sorcery involved. I sheepishly admitted that I was also locked out of my Facebook account because I had forgotten the password.

“Come clean, Nana. Tell me if there are other passwords you have forgotten.” Encouraged, I confessed that I had no inkling about the passwords of my email account and Digi locker. And for logging into my income tax account, the pension portal and Digi yatra. I also admitted that I have Instagram, Chat GPT and X accounts that I have never used because I could never sign in.

Kim sighed heavily and buckled down for more sorcery. After about an hour, she proudly informed me that now the passwords for all my accounts were as easy to remember as 1-2-3.

“That’s it. The password for all your accounts is Onetwothree! with a capital O and an exclamation mark at the end. Remember that, and don’t you ever dare do any net banking!”

Now, since Tuesday, I have been on my laptop; happily working on my book, playing solitaire, using ChatGPT, uploading stuff on Instagram and emailing my friends. Just now, Facebook asked me “What’s on your mind?” 

And I responded – ‘I think granddaughters are the nicest gifts of God!’

It’s Not Cricket

As I picked up the car keys, I made the mistake of telling my wife that I was going to the neighbourhood liquor shop for some beer. 

“Why? Don’t you already have enough?” she asked in a disapproving tone.

“Well, I do have a few cans, but this evening there are two IPL matches, and I have invited Gopu to come over. It’s more fun to watch with a friend.”

“That no-good Gopu? He’s going to guzzle our beer?”

“So, all of a sudden it’s our beer, eh?” I mocked. “Gopu is a good friend; I will have you know.”

But I spoke too soon – because that day Gopu almost put himself on my list of unfriendlies. Had he been a Facebook friend, I would have certainly unfriended him.

Gopu came by in the afternoon and we settled down before the TV to watch a lot of glorious cricketing action. The first match was between two teams – one wearing red and the other blue. The batsmen were in form, the beer was cold, the atmosphere in the stadium was electric, two friends were sitting in companionable silence. What more could one ask for?

Then the missus came and flopped down by my side. She joined the affable silence, but it was too good to last.

“Why are there so many advertisements?” she asked after a while. “They are plastered all over. The players’ caps, shirts, sleeves, gloves, trousers and even their shoes! There are advertisements around the boundary, the rope, the stumps and also on the grass. This is not cricket! There are ads even on the side and bottom panels of the TV screen.”

“Be reasonable dear,” I said. “The TV channels must make a bit of money, shouldn’t they? After all, we are getting the live telecast of all this lovely cricket absolutely free!”

But the little woman continued her tirade. “Just see the products advertised! They are largely gambling, tobacco and alcohol! It is so stupid. The government bans betting and then allows advertisements for these games of chance? I am horrified by these invitations to play poker and ludo online. It is nothing but gambling. And many children watch these matches.”

“Quiet!” I said sternly. “Let us watch the game. You are ruining all the pleasure of watching cricket for us.”

That is when Gopu decided to betray me.

“Cricket? Who says this is cricket? This is as much cricket as any WWF choreographed dramabazi is wrestling,” he said. “I have played a bit of cricket in my time, and our coach would have hanged us from the sight screen for playing cross bat. This IPL style of batting is much worse! Terming them as ‘paddle scoops’ or ‘periscopes’ does not condone the sin of playing those improvised shots. This is a ‘nautanki’. This IPL is certainly not cricket.”

I was taken aback by his vehemence. I had never seen Gopu so worked up!

My dear wife too went for my jugular. “If you are so darn happy with the advertising, I challenge you to buy me some Springkisser packaged drinking water. From anywhere. At any price!”

While I was trying to think of a suitable comeback, Gopu was busy scribbling something on the back of an envelope.

“Do you have any idea what obscene amounts these guys are paid? They are paid in crores!” he declared.

“Well, they deserve it,” I said. “They worked hard, didn’t they? Just look at the athleticism! Look at the level of physical fitness! Look at the skill – It is poetry in motion!”

“Yes, but there must be some sense of proportion. What these guys earn in one season of less than two months is many times more than the lifetime savings of a Cabinet Secretary or an Army Chief. There must be something wrong with a country in which a cricketer is paid twenty-five crores for playing a few matches; that too wearing coloured pajamas. Do you realize that the President of India would get this much money in salaries only if she remained in office for more than forty-two years?”

“The IPL has commodified not just the game of cricket but the players as well,” observed the missus, primly.

Gopu bashed on mercilessly. “The commentary is nothing but clichés and hyperbole. Every six is a ‘maximum,’ every catch is ‘miraculous’ and even disappointing games are ‘the best matches ever’. These commentators try to sound like modern day Sanjays, relaying the events of the Mahabharat war to a blind Bharat rashtra. But all that frenzy can’t be real. They have to be faking it!”

My wife chipped in, “It’s obvious that my dear husband will watch anything on TV, provided it can be used as an excuse for drinking beer. But you, Gopu? You don’t seem to even enjoy the game. Why do you people waste so much time?”

“Because we have nothing else to do,” we both said, almost in unison.

“You two don’t seem to be alone,” sniffed the missus as she bustled off to the kitchen. 

I am not too certain, but I think she added under her breath, “May God help this country!”

Customer is King! Perhaps. 

“The colder climes have their winters of discontent, but why must we have these summers of discomfort?” asked the little woman. 

“You don’t have to be so mordacious, just because the air conditioner is being temperamental,” I replied.  

“Stop using big words and get the damn AC fixed,” scowled the love of my life.  

So off I trudged to the  neighbourhood store, from where I had bought the air conditioner. The heat was as good as predicted in the yellow alert of the met department. 

“So, you mean to say that your AC is not working?” asked the helpful salesman, who just the other day had extolled the virtues of the lemon that he had sold to me.   

“Yes,” I said, because that seemed to be the most logical response. 

“You mean to say it has stopped working?”  

“Yes,” I said again. Succinctly. 

“You mean…” 

“My good man,” said I, interrupting him, “The air conditioner has stopped working. It has gone kaput. It has conked out. It’s defective, faulty, broken, inoperative, damaged, knackered out and ruined. Also busted. Gone kaput, or whichever term you fancy. Have I made myself clear?”  

“Yes, Sir. You have,” he said. “Ummm …. Did you try switching the AC off and then on again?” 

Instinctively, I knew I was dealing with a specimen of the laptop generation – the generation whose most advanced technological skills extend all the way to shutting down the Windows programme and restarting the computer.  

With great patience I said, “I have. I have also checked the MCB and put fresh cells in the remote control.” 

“Ah! In that case, there is nothing we can do about it. You will have to contact Customer Care.” 

“So, call the blighter who cares for customers!” I said.  

 “Sir, we are only the dealers. You will have to call Customer Care. The number is provided in the service booklet.” 

“But I bought the AC from you. You may be the dealer or the wheeler-dealer, I don’t care. You sold it. You fix it. In our time, shopkeepers sold only good stuff and if something malfunctioned, they apologized and got it replaced.” 

But the salesman was not interested in increasing his store of knowledge about business ethics of prehistoric times. He ignored me completely and turned to another customer, a potential sucker like me, on whom he would undoubtedly unload another lemon.  

I returned home and told the missus that it would take time to get the air conditioner repaired. For the interim, I promised to rig up our old watercooler by the afternoon.  

“Isn’t that just like you? You meet every step forward in technology by taking two steps back! I hope you remember the geyser you bought last winter which stopped functioning within a week? And then we used the old immersion rod heater the whole winter?”  

“Look,” I said irritably, “Don’t nag! I have work to do. I need to register a complaint about the AC and here you are babbling away about geysers.” 

I prepared for battle with Customer Care. I dug out the warranty document, the cash receipt, the delivery note and the operations manual. I kept two pencils, freshly sharpened, and a notepad by my side. Then I called the service number. A disembodied voice asked me to select ‘one’ for Hindi, ‘two’ for English – and then ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’ etc. for different types of appliances, their defects and probably even their TOEFL scores. I answered more multiple-choice questions than I have ever done in any examination. I was truly bewildered and needed a break to recover and recuperate.  

My second attempt at besting the digital labyrinth was marginally better and I meticulously answered questions like when, where and why did I buy the appliance and if it was still under warranty. After a while I even started enjoying it, because it felt like being in the hotseat at Kaun Banega Crorepati! I furiously kept punching buttons, and I thought I was doing a pretty good job, till mysteriously, without my realizing it, I was pushed out into a world of silence from that wonderland of discarnate metallic voices. Nevertheless, I was certain that at some sublunary-astral level I had managed to register my complaint against the delinquent air conditioner.  

The next three days passed painfully, with the old-fashioned water cooler barely able to beat the heat, and the missus perpetually scowling at me.   

On the fourth day, the security office at our condo gate called to inform that an engineer from Electronics World had arrived.   

“See! The engineer is here to repair the AC!” I trilled. 

The missus only scowled. Shortly, the doorbell rang. A weaselly specimen stood at our doorstep, mopping sweat from his brow. I welcomed him with a broad smile.  

“Khush Aamdeed! Khush Aamdeed!” And I gleefully ushered him like royalty into the bedroom – the bedroom with the dead AC. 

The engineer looked nonplussed. “I am here to fix the geyser,” he said.  “According to my work order, you bought it on the 5th and complained about it on the 10th of December last year. Right?”  

In dismay, I collapsed on the bed. Standing near the door, the missus continued to scowl.  

Worlds Apart 

There are defining moments in the lives of nations – like wars and famine and revolutions. There are similar moments in the lives of individuals and families – like the birth of a child, a wedding or moving to a small house after retirement. For the missus and me, the last shift to a modest three-bedroom apartment was indeed a reality check. 

While calculating the blessings of living in a compact home, we had sadly overlooked one important aspect. Our books!  Books that we have lugged around for decades across the country on different postings. Books of fiction, science, science fiction and verse. Books on cookery, crockery, crookery and worse. Books that we have read or intended to read. Books that we thought we should read but never did. Books that we have kept only because they were nice titles to flaunt – like the eight volumes of the Mahatma by Tendulkar (Dinanath Gopal; not Sachin Ramesh). 

Therefore, when we moved to the cramped quarters, our books overflowed from the shelves onto tables and chairs and to the floor. We had to place books on the bed and the dresser and even atop the fridge. But we still couldn’t reach a satisfactory arrangement for all the books – books written by Washington Irving and Irwing Wallace; by KM Munshi and Munshi Prem Chand; by Agatha Christie and Emile Zola. Sadly, we concluded that we would have to drastically reduce the number of books if we were to have moving space in our home. 

I asked our neighbours if any of them would like to take any books. None replied, except the taciturn weirdo from next door. He whispered through the wire screen that he would gladly take any Marx. I apologetically informed him that I had only The Communist Manifesto, which I offered to give immediately. He burst out laughing. “Surely you jest, brother. I didn’t mean Carl Marx. I meant Ted Marks!” His merriment confused my wife, while I pretended that I had never heard of the literary giant named Ted Mark. 

Months passed and we still needed to shuffle books around before we sat down for dinner or lay down to sleep. In desperation, I took all the popular fiction to a nearby school. The prim headmistress happily accepted the Enid Blytons, the Jane Austens, the HG Wells, the Conan Doyles and the Ayn Rands. Unfortunately, I failed to warn her that The Arabian Nights collection in six volumes was the unexpurgated version.  A week later, the lady indignantly summoned me to school and berated me for half an hour for trying to corrupt the unblemished souls of her wards. I couldn’t blame her. After all, the poetic lasciviousness of the Arabian Nights will enchant any adolescent! 

We then tried to leave the bestsellers on a bench in the park, with a note inviting residents of our condo to help themselves. While not a single Chase or Wodehouse was taken, the maintenance staff complained to the Residents Welfare Association that we were leaving trash across the countryside. The Association warned us against littering or clogging the garbage chutes and bins with our ‘junk’. Suddenly I realised that our books were proving to be more difficult to get rid off than Seyward’s corpse in Macbeth! 

As a last resort, the missus decided to call Nawab, the raddiwala  (also referred to as the kabadi), who buys scraps and waste for pennies in our colony and sells them for gold mohurs somewhere else to make his fortune. We segregated the books, retaining our favourites, the rare ones and others of sentimental value. With a heavy heart, we stacked the rest near the front door for the kabadi to take away.  

Nawab arrived and inspected the books. He also examined an idol of Tara that we keep near the entrance. I had purchased this exquisite piece on an impulse years ago, at a price that I could barely afford. But recently an expert in such matters had told me that the idol could now be worth a fancy amount. 

Tentatively, Nawab asked, “What is this made of?” and I proudly informed him that the idol was made of ashtadhatu, the alloy of eight metals. 

“Oh!” said Nawab, “Had it been plain brass, it would have fetched you a good price. It must be about twenty kilos, so at 300 rupees per kilo, I could have offered you six thousand rupees. But ashtadhatu….” and he shook his head disapprovingly. 

He then picked up a few books and declared that they were useless. “The page size is too small – I can offer only two rupees per kilo,” he said. He took another book and, while I cringed, he tore off a page and scrunched it in his fist. “See,” he said, “This paper is too old. It is unusable for making ‘thongas’ – the paper bags for loose merchandise.” Quite ruthlessly, he also wrenched off the hard covers of the library editions, declaring that he did not need cardboard.

Much after Nawab had left, I remained sitting in a chair near Tara, with the leftover books and a few torn hard covers strewn on the floor.  

“It seems what we consider priceless is actually worthless!” I said tearfully. 

The missus sitting beside me said softly, “Don’t feel downhearted, dear. The value of the same thing can be vastly different in different universes.” 

 kcverma345@gmail.com 

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Guess What’s Coming for Dinner

I have never been able to test the Bard’s theory that sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care, for the simple reason that I have never been able to sleep peacefully. Maybe Anne Hathaway took sleeping pills and made sure Ole’ Bill got his night’s rest, beguiling him into making barmy claims about sleeves and sleep and raveling. Sadly, I am always denied my beauty sleep by the endless tossing and turning of the missus, who obviously is a failure at knitting or crocheting or whatever one does to the raveled sleeve.

Let me explain. Last Friday, just as I was just drifting off after celebrating the advent of the weekend with three large ones, I was disturbed by the restlessness of my dear wife.

“What’s the matter, dear?” I asked solicitously. All those who might be ignorant of the perils of married life should note that every husband who wants peace at home must invariably address the better half as ‘dear’. Yes, it is mandatory – even if her restless turning has dragged you away from the edge of the most delicious sleep. 

“Nothing,” she said.

In the normal course, “Nothing” is an ominous answer, but my highly developed sixth sense told me that, at least on this occasion, there would be no sinister consequences for me.  

So, I asked again. Politely. After some time, she said, “I don’t know what to cook for lunch tomorrow. For more than an hour, I have been considering getting up and going to the kitchen to soak chana – the chickpeas that you like so much.”

“So go and soak them, dear,” I said.

“Yes, I would, but there is a lot of matar-paneer left over from dinner.”

“Then don’t, dear” I said, petulantly. “But stop wriggling and fidgeting and let me sleep!”

“That’s the trouble with you! You never help me in making important decisions. Don’t you know that the most difficult part of cooking is deciding what to cook?”

I then suggested brightly, “Let’s have that urad – chana mix, the one you call maa-chholiyan-di-dal!” 

“But we had that on Monday.”

“Then make idli-sambar for lunch? 

“There is no idli batter, stupid.”

“Okay. What about gatta curry – the one described by Jiggs Kalra in The Cuisine of Rajasthan.”

“Are you crazy? I won’t go to all that trouble to prepare lunch for just the two of us.”

We then both lay awake for a long time.

I would consider myself fortunate if last Friday were an isolated incident. But no! We have these affectionate exchanges very often because the missus is constantly bedevilled by vital questions about food. She grapples with these issues early in the morning (What will we have for breakfast?) and later in the day (What will we have for dinner?) She agonizes about tomatoes vs potatoes and okra vs cauliflower. She involves me too, though I never know whether I am being consulted, or I am required to merely listen to her loud thinking.

What does it mean if she says, “Egg curry sounds nice if one does not have to go to all the trouble of preparing the gravy?” Am I to agree or to disagree? Will I get egg curry for lunch? Or will the menu be boiled eggs simpliciter? Or will it be – surprise, surprise – burnt zucchini?

I have never understood the purpose of the missus’ endless gastronomic consultations. I think she questions me only to enrich her knowledge of trivia about my likes and dislikes, because it is only sometimes that my answers have any bearing on what I get to eat. I half suspect that her inquiries are expressly to ensure that no dish that I like is ever cooked at home.

Knowing that my reply to the question “What do you want for dinner?” is of no consequence, I sometimes remain silent. But the missus badgers me till I give some suggestions. Then instead of French fries, I get a soggy mess of tinda curry. Or worse; bitter gourd!

Since my reply to the question is irrelevant, I have learnt to save time by saying something – anything – very quickly. And then I stubbornly stick to whatever I might have blurted out, even if it is meat on Tuesday or out-of-season jackfruit. Sometimes my wife tricks me by giving fancy names to her creations. Fortunately, I am equally smart and see through the semantic obfuscations. At the end of the day, what the missus calls the Orcadian Clapshot is nothing but potatoes. And even if Julia Child might claim that cassoulet is an epicurean delight for the gods, one should remember that the main ingredient is beans. And beans are beans!

I shared my woes with Gopu today. “Does every household have similar problems? Do other couples also have such asinine discussions? Must husbands eat stuff they don’t like?”

With great sagacity, my friend replied. “No, every household is not like yours. In many of them it is the husband who does the cooking. My advice to you is to shut up and stop complaining. Eat your food quietly. Praise the cooking. And count your blessings!”

He might look stupid, but Gopu is indeed a wise man!

kcverma345@gmail.com 

Artificial Intelligence vs Natural Stupidity

“What is this chat jee-bee thing?” asked the little woman, without any preamble. Bleary eyed as I usually am early in the morning, I was in no mood to be quizzed. But the little woman has this endearing habit of reading the newspapers while sipping her morning tea and sharing tidbits about miscellaneous disasters. She believes that after this early battle inoculation, one can easily shrug off whatever slings and arrows outrageous fortune hurls at us later in the day.

“Eh?” said I. “Chat is what you get in Bengali Market, New Delhi. If you want really good papri-chaat, I recommend the lanes of Chandni Chowk.” 

“Hello stupid! Wake up! I said Chat gee-pee-tea, not Chaat!” 

“Oh, that is an AI thing. You won’t understand it,” I said dismissively, pouring a cup of tea for myself. After a few sips, I felt quite fortified to handle any slings and arrows that might be hurled by the missus. Okay, maybe I was not fortified; but I certainly felt twentified enough.   

“Is it a thing? Or a person or what? Some girls at the kitty party said that it is the new demon that has been let loose on humanity. One girl said that Modi Ji had gone to Paris to tame this beast.” 

I was surprised to hear that my wife’s kitty group discusses topics like AI. I was even more surprised to hear that the babushkas refer to themselves as girls. Well, so long as they don’t fancy themselves to be nubile nymphs, I said to myself. Aloud I asked, “Oh! And what else did the girls say?” 

“There was some talk of a new Chinese dragon. I suspect it was a joke because they said it was named Deepsh*t. Now, you’re ever so clever, so tell me about this AI thing.”

Even though I had yet not had breakfast, I was sweet-talked into educating the missus about artificial intelligence. 

“You mean that when my phone screws up my messages by changing spellings – that’s artificial intelligence?”

“Well, in a basic way. But there are other applications. Indeed, AI will soon be everywhere. We already have many examples of the technology of tomorrow. Are you aware that your washing machine can send emails to the manufacturer for troubleshooting?”

 “What?” said the missus, saucer eyed. “That’s so creepy! That machine sends emails behind my back to people I don’t know! Instead of washing, it’s showing our dirty linen to strangers?” 

“Well, you better get used to such things. Sophisticated applications soon will include evolved appliances. Your fridge would know when you were running short of butter and place an order for more. Your air conditioners would automatically switch on before you reach home. If you hold a doorknob, it will measure your blood pressure.” 

“All of a sudden, why do you sound like a vendor of AI?” 

“Oh no, I’m not!” I protested. “However, the age of AGI is here and soon computers will be able to make more nuanced decisions. AGI will result in better governance, a better society and improved quality of life. But the potential for misuse is tremendous. Just imagine, a computer might order a nuclear strike if it learns to think maliciously. Even at a mundane level, there are unknown dangers posed by polymorphic malware.” 

I confess I don’t have the foggiest idea what polymorphic whatever means, but one must impress one’s wife, no? Anyway, I rounded off my lecture by declaring pompously, “With great power comes great responsibility. We need to use AI capabilities in a judicious and ethical manner.”  

“Don’t you think you are being a bit patronizing? If AI is so bloody intelligent, it should become self-aware and be able to itself overcome all ethical dilemmas. It should also develop a conscience and then, before you know it, it will have likes and dislikes and petulances and quirky behaviour. Then it will itself decide whether the saintly X will use it or the unethical Y.” 

That left me speechless. I looked at the old girl with new respect. She had given the ethics debate a unique twist! I wondered which quality in my wife had deceived me earlier – her natural stupidity, her artificial stupidity or her artful stupidity? Or have I been underestimating the educating power of kitty parties?

But I still needed to make my point. “You mark my words; AI will certainly prove to be a Frankenstein some day!” 

“You mean Frankenstein’s monster, don’t you?”

“Yes, I mean Frankenstein. The monster.”

My wife tut-tutted. “Victor Frankenstein was the name of the guy who created the monster. The monster’s name was not Frankenstein.” 

“No, Frankenstein was the name of the monster,” I insisted.  

“You’re so wrong! Why don’t we Google it?”

“Let’s do better than a simple search. Let’s use DeepSh*t for a more nuanced answer.” And I typed in my query, ‘Tell me something about the monster Frankenstein’.  

Within a couple of seconds, the computer spewed out – ‘Frankenstein was not the name of the monster. Frankenstein was the name of the creator. The problem with you humans is that you so often forget who the creator is and who the creation!’  

Now that was a patronizing attitude!  “Stupid DeepSh*t,” I said and banged the laptop shut.