Pickles and Bottles

Aaksfurd, Chaimburs and Suppuramani!

prasadhms — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 02:17:36 +0000

As a kid, I grew up (Huh? How obvious is that now?!) in an officer’s quarters…before you picture my dad to be a uniformed civil servant on a green scooter from the canteen and my mom’s maiden name to be ‘jasbinder jolly singh’, let me clarify its the state’s housing board staff quarters we lived in and I just chose to call it ‘officers quarters’ to place a challenge on who can deny my dad was not an ‘officer’ (in the context of this post I should be saying “aapeesurr”). Well I just whooshed (word credit: my daughter’s “Genie in the Bottle”) to the next tab on my browser and got the dictionary meaning of the word “officer” and it reads as “One who holds an office of authority or trust in an organization, such as a corporation or government.” See…I told you dad worked for the Government (“guverrmentu”) and hence on dictionary grounds he was indeed an ‘officer’. Ok…now what? Will you beat me up for calling a staff quarters as officers quarters?! No…right?! So…ya…we used to live in a quarters that was actually someone’s brainchild in the department who had to build carsheds for the VIP residents of the 8 storeyed Tower Block in that area and when they built the car sheds they found it had a roof (Oops! Really?!) and maybe to insulate the cars from the heat of direct sunlight they built rooms and created houses on top of the carsheds. Well the mystery remains unsolved if the sheds came first or the houses? Whatever it was…I now love to imagine that the guverrmentu wanted its aapeesurrs to live on the first floor…like the luxury of house on stilts…and hence built the houses first and then saw empty space under them and decided to give it away as carsheds for the poor affluent neighbors! Coming to think of it…I think coz the quarters were built on the banks of the Cooum that was known for notorious flooding activity during monsoons they gave us house on stilts!! Will explore that on a different posting later. So whether that brown haired big-belly uncle thought we lived on top of his car or whether I thought that poor uncle’s car lived under the shelter of my little red tricycle…that is not the context of this post! Its about one thing that came closely associated with living in that neighborhood…the ration shop (“rayyshun kadai”) that was and is still there…and the monthly ritual of going there to stand in the queue…of course with no mobile phone or ipod distractions but just the undiluted entertainment of Meena-ma, Lavanya-ma and My-ma discussing family matters…well remember mega serials had not become part of families yet then! While am generally awestruck by the nostalgia the thought of that place gives me now…I am amazed at the literary contributions we’ve done as Chennaiites even by then…my all time favorite “Krisnaayil” just doesn’t stop intriguing… depending on the socio-economic profile of the sayer it was either called ‘krisnaail’ or the well-read-full-style ‘krishhnoil’ or the wannabe’s ‘krishnaail”…I grew up thinking it was actually Krishna’s Oil that came in big barrels and it was used to burn things and it smelt aweful or awesome depending on your attitude towards substance abuse! Just when I came to terms with the imagery of krishnaayil, I was introduced to “paamaayil”…now where did that come from…well I was too young and innocent then (yes I was!) to etymologically decipher it and link it to Pamela Anderson! Hmm…I need to googlify to check if she was popular in India of the 80s…but even if she did why in the world would Pam let herself be associated with cooking oil?! Well! Whatever…we used to go to the raysshun kadai where they sold krishnaayil and paamaayil that we had to buy in the baatill and if the bags were heavy you could always take a rikshaa…and those to me were the earliest contributions Suppuramani and Kumaare made to the Oxford and Chambers of Ingleesh in India! (See how I ended that with an Incredible India! effect?! Hehe!)

Will pickle again!

So much for customer care…

prasadhms — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 01:37:03 +0000

I was on an international flight last evening and like most of my flights there was something interesting to capture on this one too. I was flying with a friend and the seats in front of ours was occupied by an old South Indian couple…one of those who’ve probably seen the world and old enough to expect shoes to be polished to a shine even if it was a suede! The knot in the story was tied way before take off when the stewardess walked around to mark the vegetarian seats and did so rightly for the two where the couple sat. Guess they’d marked themselves as vegetarians during the booking of their tickets. The marking was over and the pilot got off with his job of lifting us off the ground…I often have this imagery of Hanuman lifting Sanjeevani mountain when the pilots lift the metal bird up! Then the most awaited “feeding the fanatics” scene opened out. Trolleys being pushed, food trays being passed, drinks being poured and aluminium foil being crushed. The trays landed on the couple’s tables and then it was “Lights Camera…anddd Action!”. Our old gentleman with the beret and his partner who had pushed her sleeping blinder to her forehead to check out the food…blew their fuse over the food that was served. We thought the reason for the furore was probably the serving of chicken vindaloo in place of mutter aaloo! But the issue was apparently the absence of rice in their dish…as the fight with the crew captain continued, my friend and I watched with a giggle after taking a ‘sneak preview’ inside our dish and found rice there! Hey hold it…we were not being rude by holding the couple’s packs with us…every other person, I could peep over, including the couple’s son had rice in their dish but not the couple! While a simple replacement of the dish would have diffused the situation, the guy who was “negotiating” was reasoning large enough for the whole world and the elephant to hide behind! He gave up…the couple gave up…when the decibel levels interfered with the flight’s radio transmission system! Eating continued but the embers will still glowing…ready to fire up anytime someone touched it! And yes…the food taste was good / bad enough to trigger it all again! This time the complaining was about the taste of the food…and boy! did the old couple look like school kids complaining about the boy in the front bench who stamped their white canvas shoes before assembly time! Guess the issue still was the absence of the rice and not so much the taste…one of the ladies probably caught this and figured out the best way to shut down the telecast was to give them the rice! And lo! came packs with rice and the telecast toned down to an ‘understanding grumble’…an empathetically toned “you know the food while we flew from chennai was so good…” to the lady who gave the rice dish…and here came customer care at its best…the lady listened to the couple and with the ‘sincerest’ face and puckered up lips she could manage at that altitude, she said…”hmm yes ma’am. we will fire the chef! we will definitely fire the chef! bad…very bad!” . As she was in front of the couple and we were staring right into her face, from behind the couple, she had to do all of this while battling distraction from two men and their guffaws in response to the ‘care for the customer’ exercise she was into…and how everyone except the couple knew that she really dint mean what she was saying…Phew! “Fire the chef?!!?” Give us a break! Situation diffused and smiles returned…well that bit of exaggeration did help indeed! So much for customer care…

Will pickle again!

Pigeons in the Rain…

prasadhms — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:36:05 +0000

God never wrote books. Who said so…maybe every single life form was authored to be a book each. If you can imagine the Earth as one of the many shelves that some carpenter made for God, am sure you can imagine every life form as a book on it for you and I to pick up and read. Though we walk with, through and between these shelves everyday, guess we walk so fast that we don’t quite notice the books, leave alone picking one up to read. I took a pause this morning and noticed a nice little book titled “Pigeons” that had fallen off the shelf and turned to a page titled “Pigeons in the Rain”… – It was 7 in the morning and the day was breaking beautifully with the sound of houses in my silent neighborhood waking up to a nice and slow Sunday and the first rays of the morning sun peering through the clouds that were leaving for the day after their night shift. Just when the last of clouds was about to leave, someone had an idea like a colleague on a Friday evening suggesting beer, and the clouds gathered up and put on their party wear and picked up their big rain mugs and said Cheers! And their revelry caused their mugs to splash and spill and it came down as rains. I walked up to our balcony under the pretext of saving my shoes from the rains and let the rain drops splash on my face and fingers, looking around to make sure my wife and daughter were not watching me. What could be funnier to them than watching a bald head reaching out to the rains! As the revelry intensified, bigger and heavier drops fell down from the sky. Well guess thats the point when the thin line between fun and trouble is crossed. As big drops pelleted the trees and buildings, a flock of pigeons took off from a building…about 40 of them at the same time. This is the point where the lessons began. Some pigeons flew random and across, looking for the right spot to hide or maybe just dancing in the rain…some quickly found a sun shade to hide under…while some continued to fly in panic. There were 3 pigeons that flew up to the parapet wall of the terrace and perched themselves there and stood in the rain…not moving a bit even when the drops came down heavier. There were 3 more that found a small pipeline attached to the wall and perched on it in the most awkward and painful looking way and tried to find shade by moving closest to the wall and almost becoming part of the wall. The natural slant, if any, of the wall above them is all that would save them…and that again not for long, but just until water starts running down the wall. I leave it to you to read that again and interpret it any which way you want by relating to things that we do in our lives.

I came in to start this post and stepped out again to check on the pigeons as the revelry softened a bit…I found that the 3 bravehearts on the terrace were not to be seen, the fellas who found the sunshade had moved on to another one, while the fellas on the pipeline were still there, this time fluttering their wings to counter the slipping that was happening with the wet pipe under their feet. The chapter ends here. All I know was it made good reading and its upto the reader to interpret and make senses. But there sure is some big meaning behind each of these acts that other life forms orchestrate for us or maybe for themselves.

Will pickle again!

Clips on the Clothesline

prasadhms — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:55:32 +0000

I remember it used to be a ritual for mummies in the 80s to spread out washed clothes on the clothesline outside home while chatting up with aunties next door. Makes me wonder how they co-ordinated their timing and schedules without Orkut and Facebook and Google Latitude! Well the bigger ritual was that of taking that basket of clips to put on the clothesline and to collect it back and bring it back when the drying is done. It used to be fun to take charge of the clipping and collection activity when it rained, but not when Spiderman was on television! In fact one had to count the clips while collecting and report back to basecamp on anomalies if any!

Where have the clips gone?

Looking back…makes me wonder what value does a clip have when its not on the clothesline…and why didnt we just leave the clips on the clothesline when we weren’t drying clothes…a.k.a…not using them? Maybe clips were then pricey and hence had to be kept safe from prying eyes and hands! Or was it plain discipline of keeping things clean and tidy, that mummies were trying to pass down to progeny? Or was it just another ‘I dont know why…’? Coming to think of it, CDs and goggles are today left in cars when given for service, shoe racks are left out when families go out of town, restaurant tips are getting bigger, we dont wait for Diwalis to buy that new blue shirt and black trousers, cobblers have become a rarity, friends can take my car out for a spin (as long as they top up the tank!), old clothes often go to charity and not turn into ladles and steel plates anymore…and yes clips are left on the clothesline when not in use. A clipping sign of a progressive civilization I guess!

Will pickle again!

When it rains…err…it rains…

prasadhms — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:06:37 +0000

Its mid-August and the monsoons are still dodging Chennai. Not that I follow seasons and complain when they dont go by the calendar…but I sure am one of those people who, when in school, was taught to request the rains to go away bcoz some unknown “little johny” wanted to play…who cares if Johny played or not…why cant I just say “I want to play…” and let to choose if I wanted the rains to be around or go away while I play?!

A rainy drive on East Coast Road

Rains simply meant…waking up to the smell of wet white shoe polish and damp socks on a Monday morning…after a night of sleeping with the canvas shoes next to the pillow in a vain attempt to let it dry under the fan…then when you finally get ready and in the first step out of home you put your leg into that puddle of water that you so wanted to dodge…and end up with a wet brown patch like the one that Gorbachev had on his head…and then the 20 mins cycling to school with a unisex-flowery-designed raincoat. And yes not to forget that fiat car that caught you at the corner outside school and blessed you with a holy shower of mud and water straight from the road and you land in school expecting empathy from “PT Master”. How I wish teachers, including that PT guy, were made to wear whites with canvas shoes on Mondays…just to know how humanly impossible it was to land in school without being sprayed upon! And who would understand the anxiety and ulcers that came along with the excitement of Diwali…yes anxiety caused by dark clouds and cyclone announcements from that news aunty who occupied two-thirds of that poor 12inch TV screen that flickered everytime mom switched on the mixer grinder…remember the announcements that came from the kitchen…“Mixie poda poren!”…and you are expected to be prepared to lose the next 20 seconds of TV time! Like pilots announcing turbulence when you are about sip that free cognac that the hostess gave! Back to Diwali…painful indeed to be all dressed up and geared to blast the blow out of the neighborhood with that hard-fought “1000-wala”…and to see the rains come down smack in time! I can now imagine how happy moms and dads would have been to see that the brats finally had to take a break and let them watch those special Doordarshan shows which looked like live telecasts from a marriage hall with the amount of flowers they managed to squeeze into the screen! I prayed…just like you did…for the rains to go away…for little me to celebrate! Wonder if kids today go through those emotions that my generation did…maybe if it rains on Diwali this year they will get onto Twitter and Facebook and take that mindless quiz on “Which Diwali sweet were you born to be?”…or join that world-changing group titled ” The Relentless Movement to rename ‘Diwali’ as ‘IdliWa’”…or to leave a message in the status bar reading “Rains #$%@ed my Diwali…yours?”!…and yes mom doesn’t have to announce her “Mixie-poduraen” act anymore! We’ve come a long way…now lets pray for the rains to continue!

Will pickle again!

My cabbie does it again…

prasadhms — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 08:19:56 +0000

Just got back from a morning-evening business trip to Singapore. Had to take an early morning flight out of Singapore and hence spent the night trying not to sleep by doing a marathon session of Discovery Channel…it was bliss after being deprived of it at home where the only channels that hit the screen are the ones that my daughter approves and she obviously is years away from approving Discovery Channel as a ‘watchable’ channel. I was so thrilled like a child on a swing that the television was on full-blast until the person from the next room knocked on my door to ‘sshhh’ me down and he/she had reason to do so coz it was well past mid-night to be listening to Mythbusters from the other side of the wall! Fast forward to 4.45 a.m this morning and I was outside the hotel waving to a blue cab with a Chinese driver.

As I prepared myself for a good drive, my cabbie was annoyed by a truck loaded with construction workers that cut him and crossed the road and my cabbie said “must be Indian…!” and it indeed was an Indian! Then almost like an after thought he asked me “So…sir! Where do you come from?”…and partly embarrassed my co-countrymen’s act I sheepishly said…”Chennai” and then he was quick to continue the conversation with other questions that were meant to size me up before he chose the tone for the conversation. Finding that I was on business, he…in Matrix style…quickly loaded the ‘data chip’ in and started talking and I was once again happily encouraging him to give me a data filled talk. He spoke about the brain drain issue in Singapore causing the Government to stop releasing the annual figures of migrants, then about reasons why Singapore is not a great place to retire if you are working there and then some macro economics of how a 4.5 million population challenges new entrants in business as there is already a saturation of service providers in most of the industries and services. You gotta be bigger than the guys already in business or you will have to be shockingly different, coz the sample size to try and compete in an established space is just within that 4.5 million heads in the country! Good point indeed! Then we worked on some base figures of survival for a small business owner who sells roti-prata for a living. The space rental to setup shop in a residential area comes anywhere between 8000-14000 singapore dollars which when worked backwards meant the vendor had to sell 45 roti-pratas every working hour, assuming he ran the shop for 12 hours on all 30 days…and that would still earn him just enough to pay the rental and the overheads! Phew I once again thanked my liking to chat with the cabbies and this one especially when he bid me goodbye with a last bit of information that he has to pay a “Television Licence” of 110 dollars a month to entertain himself after a tiring day’s work. Hmm…I will never get tired of my cabbie chats!

Will pickle again!

Google as a second name…

prasadhms — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:15:46 +0000

I belong to the generation that went to libraries and painstakingly went through shelves after shelves of books on dusty racks and silently celebrated when the right book was found. And hopefully that doesn’t make me too old, as it was just 10 years ago that I did that. Yeah internet was still around but was beyond reach for a long time…the highest I remember was at a high-end internet cafe that charged something like 80 bucks an hour for ‘high speed’ internet with coffee and nice air conditioning. This parlour was tucked away silently in a dead-end street before music academy on Cathedral Road. It was considered cool to be seen around that place and obviously you had to save your pocket money to be seen there. The highest I remember one of my friends paid at that cafe was 400 bucks for having typed a long rediffmail which was then the in-thing. We still weren’t really using the internet to collect information or gather details for assignments. Guess it was more a matter of ignorance and not so much a matter of availability of content. We were, atleast I, was happy to be sitting at the library and seeking permission from the all-powerful librarian to photostat pages and sweat through the day when it was time to return the book and the book was not to be found in that shelf at home where I left it the week before! And all of that changed real fast and we said hello to “msn search”…and then I dont really remember when Google came home!

Our Second Name

Ever since it came, it has refused to leave and is today all over the place for all reasons…be it to know who killed MJ or what happened last at the Big Brother show or tracking the solar eclipse or just to know who is Raki Sawant. Hope I got her name right…cos I was given a dirty look by my wife when I saw the promo on Star Plus for a show that apparently is a reality show about who is gonna marry this girl and I asked who the girl was. Guess its almost a shame to not know Ms.Sawant. I still havent Googled on who this Sawant is, but am sure am gonna do it once am done with this post! My sister who also happens to follow my blog had left a question about what are the other movies that Jeff Goldblum did other than Fly and ID4…and as much as even I know only these 2 movies…am gonna google on Goldblum’s movie list and post a response to her comment about the movies he’s done and how many of them were award winners and blockbusters and what a shame it is for her to not know those movies!! Well its ok…coz I’ve made Google my second name…just like you and the rest of netizens!!

Will pickle again!!

Blame it on Pepsi…

prasadhms — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:36:26 +0000

The net is abuzz with the release of the original video footage of Michael Jackson’s fire accident in 1984. The accident that happened due to a faulty timing of a firework fired up MJ’s hair and left him with 2nd and 3rd degree burns that required him to go under the knife for a cosmetic correction, which then pushed him to painkillers and then from there to the drug trouble that apparently put him to the final slumber. The ad film was for Pepsi – a Billie Jean tuned song composed for the ad that plays in the background with montage of the crew and MJ drinking Pepsi pre-concert and then rocking at the concert. The shot requiring MJ to walk down a stair on the stage when the fireworks were to go off behind him, went in for a 6th take when the firework misfired. Pepsi apparently paid a 1million$ compensation to MJ which he confirmed in an Oprah Winfrey show later. The ad went on air and was a major hit. People close to MJ now report that his life changed after the accident. Why this was never shared earlier is a different question altogether, but fact remains that the next time I see a Pepsi ad on TV the image of MJ walking down that stair with his hair on fire and doing his signature spin on stage unaware of the fire on his head will surely haunt me. But then everything was a choice to everyone involved…like I would guess what if they’d chosen not to go in for that 6th take…so its a choice that I have to let it haunt or just plain vent out the frustration of the media calling it “Sensational Video of Michael Jackson on Fire”. Well…R.I.P MJ…and lets blame it on Pepsi!

Will pickle again!

Blogger’s Block!

prasadhms — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:05:27 +0000

Been suffering from a ‘blogger’s block’ over the week and ended with a dozen DRAFT posts that will now end up not seeing the light of the day. It took an SMS this morning to clear the block and trigger the rattling. It was a not-so-short message from a number that my phone couldn’t recognize and that is no strange occurence anymore after the registration with the new DND facility…apparently a Do-Not-Disturb register where mobile subscribers like me can get their number in and seek immunity from unwarranted messages from unknown senders. The strange phenomenon is that the number of spam messages have multiplied manifold (to use a cliche) after getting on the DND! Aint that interesting? Now back to the message…it started off with a etiquette loaded “Dear Sir / Madam”…what nonsense! Did the sender mean I look so sexually confused that he / she dint know what to address me as? Or did they think that my mobile is attached to a street screen for publication of such messages to the general public where Sirs and Madams can read it? Halloo!! Its my personal phone and you are expected to know atleast my gender before you text me about your ‘personalized sauna belt service’!

Will pickle again!

Pictures speak a 1000…

prasadhms — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:32:35 +0000

I think I am finding a secret comfy zone in using pictures on my blog! I dont have to sweat to think of too many words or texty topics or spend time putting the post together! I’ve been snapping on my mobile while driving and while sitting around with people just to get the pics I can put on the blog and save a 1000 words. But…hmmm…I should also be writing…maybe I should do pics on alternate days…anyways thats for me to worry about. As for this post…we were out for dinner last evening with my sisters’ men and girls! The place was a new Hot Chips outlet on ECR and it looked like its been there long coz the parking was full and it was as noisy as the original Saravana Bhavan! People weren’t there to check out the place or try the food…they were there to eat…like we were! Like there are enough kids to open schools everyday…guess there are enough mouths and tummies to feed in this country…that you can open up a restaurant and be assured of a full carpark!! Dinky…my second niece was a sight to share…she ordered for parottas with kurma and the waiter said thats gonna take like ages to serve and her face fell and then the waiter was sweet enough to notice that and managed to get the parottas served as the first dish on the table where 10 of us were waiting…and her face brightened!! Bottling those moments for her to look back when she grows up…

My parottas arent gonna come...

Wait...I can see something coming...

Eeeehaaa!!! My parottas came first!!

Dinky…this one’s for you!

Will pickle again!