An emotional rendezvous.

We'd fetched up at Nasik earlier than scheduled and I must thank the Indian Railways for making this possible. But I would be failing in my duty if I didn't mention the agony it caused Kannan, the in flight caterer, as many people who owed him money for his services had got off the train without paying him - some of them would have genuinely forgotten in the hurry to detrain while some others would have deliberately 'forgotten'.

The thrill that my uncle and aunt expressed, on seeing us, cannot be quantified but the emotions expressed is something that will always remain etched in memory and I'm glad that I could make it possible. The programme for the morrow was chalked out, discussed and the "golden couple's" endorsement taken before we went about our other routine stuff.

The walk, in the evening, was a much needed exercise though the streets were crowded, noisy and mad - the motorists, out here, are of a different genre altogether as almost all of them drove their vehicles with a gay abandon and seemed to be oblivious of the ilk called pedestrians!  

Onward to Nasik.

We're off to Nasik to be with Ramadasan kochachan and Sarojini chittamma, on the occasion of their golden wedding anniversary. Lekha and me had boarded the Mangala Express, this morning, from Ernakulam Junction and were joined by my sister, Rema and Achu, my nephew at Shoranur. The journey has been nice with the four of us sharing a four-berth coupe and it has been fun and games ever since we became a foursome. I must also put across our deep sense of appreciation and gratitude, to Biji and Roshan, who were willing to exchange their berths so that we could be together. They've agreed to keep in touch with us on return. Biji works for the Binani group and Roshan is a popular singer thanks to his performance in the music reality show 'Idea Star Singer' of season 2, I think. Unspoilt by success and a nice fella!

Ramadasn kochachan and Sarojini chittamma have three daughters, all of them well settled! The sad part is that none of them will be in attendance on their parents' special day. What they don't seem to realise is that they'd be missing a momentous occasion!

Back to basics.

I could finally make it to the dentist on an appointment, that was long overdue. If I were to say that I was busy and thus couldn't make it all these days, I must confess that I'd be fibbing and can be rightly termed to be a congenital liar. Suffice to understand that I hadn't given my dental management the priority that it deserved because of the simple fact that my pearlies did not give me any problem.

But then, at the back of my mind, a voice kept telling me that a temporary filling had to be substituted with a permanent one and by jove, that should have been done long ago. Since I'm scheduled to be out of Kochi, on a long trip over the weekend, I'd decided to take up the appointment without much ado.

Dr. Glence was assigned to dispose off my case and I did have a long wait of an hour, which cut into my evening walk time and irritated me no end. The kid in me was almost ready to throw a tantrum! Was it a case of the doctors choosing patients on whom the efforts required would be comparatively less? Soon, I was ushered into one of the treatment rooms where the 'toothy' - the naval slang for the dentist - and her assistant were waiting. Little did I realise that the 'Mac Murphy's law' was going to take its course immediately after! The chair in the room had a whole lot of problems in that two of the drills were erratic and to make matters worse, the water wasn't flowing out through the tubes which was mandatory during treatment.

The hospital management, alongwith the doctor and her assistant, ushered me into an adjacent room rather apologetically, where all the systems were working. And the young lady began her work on my dentures, pronto, which included scaling and restoration(the terminology that indicates 'filling', these days!)

The doc, meanwhile, found that I wasn't brushing my teeth right though I'd sheepishly added that the poor state of my teeth was because I puffed on a pipe periodically and smoked cigarettes, during other times when time was at a premium. She, then, went on to show the correct way to brush, on a pair of portable dentures and I must admit that her patient explanation apprised me of the mistake that I was committing, all these years.


Tailpiece.

I find that the process of learning is never ending and thanks, Glence, for your perseverance. It's back to basics!

I must say that you're a good toothy and will do well as you go along. May God be with you in all your endeavours and keep smiling!


  

Interesting happenings!

Dateline 04 Jul.


1. The greatest 'discovery' of our times.

Scientists at Switzerland's European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) have established that indeed there's what's known as 'God Particle'! Before I go any further let me provide certain clarifications, so that, I don't sound to be speaking an alien language!!

    (a) Margin of error. CERN has a 5-sigma result which means that the scientists are 99.999% sure that
         they've discovered a new subatomic particle.
    (b) Higgs Boson.
       
         (i) 48 years ago, British scientist Peter Higgs had first suggested that there could be a particle that
             confers mass. Scientists, till then, were grappling to explain as to how the solar system had evolved
             after the 'big bang' of gaseous and hot molecules in the universe, 13.7 billion years ago(known
             as the 'Big Bang Theory'). Without this particle, the universe would have been a formless soup of
             particles shooting around at the speed of light and hence, the intrigue!
         (ii) Satyendra Nath Bose, a contemporary of Einstein, worked on the sub-atomic particle moving by
              itself and hence, it was given the name 'Boson'.
         (iii) Nobel physicist, Leon Lederman, like the other scientists of his times trying to describe the
              frustrations, called it 'the Goddam particle' and the nomenclature 'God particle' came to be stuck
              with the Higgs Boson after permutations!
       
     (c) the experiment was carried out in the Large Hadron Collider(LHC) - a ring shaped tunnel of about
          27 kilometres long, deep underground near Geneva, where the conditions that existed at the time
          of the 'big bang' were simulated. It's the largest particle accelerator conceived ever!


My take.

I'm sure that this discovery will help science to ultimately unlock the mystery of life and come with a plausible answer to the vexed questions, 'which came first, the egg or the chicken?' or even 'is there anything like God?' or to put it in another manner, 'did God make you, me and the universe?'


2. The Air India Pilots are back to work.

 After 58 days of striking work, the AI pilots have returned without really achieving anything. The airline seems to have lost about Rs.650 crores and the passengers, unlimited - because the missed flights, the resultant agony/heartburn and missed deadlines, that they'd gone through, can never be quantified!

I was astonished by a pilot saying that thankfully the loss is only this much and it could have been over Rs.900 crores had they carried it over for another week. How insensitive and callous? What he and his ilk don't understand is that their gain can never be at the cost of their organisation's loss because it's just not sustainable! His grin will be a thing of the past if Air India were to pack up irretrievably from mounting losses.


My take.

To make Air India, financially sound and an efficient organisation, I'm of the opinion that its management has to be dynamic and proactive to the needs of the times. Privatisation is, perhaps, the best remedy!!         

Pakis at it again.

The Pakis are in New Delhi for talks at the Foreign Secretary level. Soon after their arrival, they go into a huddle with the representatives of the separatist groups - funded by them - like Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer etc, fully aware of the fact that it irks India.

They'd done the same thing in the past with scant regard to diplomatic propriety and without clearance from the Indian side, for such meetings. Why're the Pakis hell bent on embarrassing us and why do I get this impression that they're never serious in problem resolution, once they come on to the negotiating table with India? Their anti-Indian mindset, driven by their army, is the cornerstone of their foreign policy. But tending to be a failed state, with every system crumbling and bringing in a chaotic situation, should they be doing this? They should be more worried about rejuvenating the country with thriving institutions that would sustain their fragile and nascent democracy, so that Pakistan comes out of the clutches of the terrorists and fundamental groups. What India cherishes is a strong and healthy neighbour that genuinely pulls along with her to strengthen the South Asian region!

And what's the standing of small men like Geelani or Mirwaiz Umer among the people of Jammu & Kashmir when their unprincipled and diabolical stand about their welfare is all too well known? They've enjoyed the privileges of being Indians but mouth vitriolic language and stir unrest among the people of J&K against India, to stay in contention. What sort of human beings are they who do not care a damn about their countrymen?

The unholy nexus between the two is not very difficult to dissect. But what they do not realise is that they're never going to succeed in their endeavour.


My take.

Are we gluttons for punishment? Why do we tolerate shabby diplomatic behaviour from anyone, for that matter? Why can't we send the team back saying that we've suspended the talks because of their unacceptable behaviour?

And we need to expose the double game being played by Geelani and co, to render them irrelevant!

How simple things make others happy.

Chandradeep had come this afternoon on his routine visit. He seemed to be a worried man as his elder brother, Ramjit's son has not been keeping well thanks to a bad case of varicose veins. Ramjit and Chandradeep used to man the hair cutting saloon of my ship that I used to command. What was discernible was the closeness of the two brothers and the way they would compliment each other through thick and thin!

Ramjit's son requires urgent medical attention and so, he has called for his brother's presence during the  hospitalisation of the young man in the nearest city, which is around two hours by road from their village. Perhaps, a corrective surgery may also be required and the elder brother doesn't have the stomach to go it alone as he's extremely worried! Chandradeep wanted to board the earliest train - a biweekly from here to Gorakhpur - but his difficulty was to get a confirmed berth at short notice.

I could sort out his problem, without much ado, thanks to a few deft phone calls and Chandradeep was pleased as 'Punch' and was grinning from ear to ear. His genuine thrill at having achieved the impossible(?) gave one the impression that one'd put an entire train at his disposal!


Tailpiece.

Chandradeep gave me a thorough head massage with a small mechanical contraption that reduced his effort to a great extent. And as he was leaving, I could hear him hum a song from an old Hindi movie. I'd definitely made his day and it made me happy too.

And he'd be out of town for about three weeks, if the hospitalisation and surgery of the youngster go off without a hitch!

Getting to know Munshi.

After a week's stay with us, Kurup kochachan has left for Thiruvananthapuram where he stays with Gopeekrishna, his eldest son. I'd the privilege of interacting closely with him, be it within the house while he gently rocked himself on the rocking chair or while walking with him in the park in front of our building as part of his daily routine or in between working on my laptop, sitting at the foot of his bed.

I shall touch upon two stories from his life which relates to the beginning of his relationship with the two legends -  Paravoor Devarajan and PN Panicker.

Kurop kochachan, as I'd known him from my childhood, is a simple man with no ego hassles and is very friendly and outgoing. He has been an active player on the stage and is very talented. Paravoor, south of Kollam, boasts of two of its illustrious sons - the late Devarajan, the legendary music director of Malayalam films with a huge repertoire of evergreen numbers and Sivasankara Kurup, the actor covering a wide canvas of experience be it on the stage, movies or television.

(a) His tryst with Devarajan.

Born in an affluent family of Paravoor, his mother insisted on him being carried to the school, next door, by one of the domestic helps named Gopalan. And Gopalan carried out this ritual four times everyday all through young Sivasankaran's tenure in the primary school! It was when he joined the Kottapuram High School of Paravoor, that he came across the dark complexioned and extremely talented bard, Devarajan. They got along like a house on fire and on one of his birthdays, the bard presented him with a poem which began with the mesmerising words, 'Sangeetha jnanamo, bhakthivina sanmargamo....' And it was while at this school that Sivasankaran did his first play titled 'Sthreedhanam' and the role that he'd played in it was that of the heroine's!


After graduation, Devarajan settled at Madras and went on to attain his rightful place in the pantheon of Malayalam movies. Their friendship continued to flourish and despite Devarajan's repeated attempts to get Sivasankaran to Madras to take up a career in films, the latter found some excuse or the other to stay away as he was in search of a government job, which he got in the then prestigious 'National Book Stall' at Kottayam. In his words, it was his mortal fear of failure on celluloid that made him hanker for a job and then, try his luck on the silver screen later!


(b) Meeting up with his future father-in-law, PN Panicker.


It was while he was the secretary of the 'Kshetra Pravesana Vilambara Grandhasala' at Paravoor that he'd come across PN Panicker, for the first time and he says, with pride, that it was his handwriting that had won his future father-in-law's heart. In fact, for some reason when young Sivasankaran decided to stay away from the library, PN Panicker had gone all the way to his home and convinced his parents to send the youngster back to the library and that's what he did, eventually!


Sivasankara Kurup had heard that PN Panicker had good looking daughters and he'd fallen for my third 'ma'asi', Vilasini, whom he'd a glimpse of during one of his visits to their house. However, he'd to be contended with marrying my second ma'asi, Leela - simply because she was the next in waiting to get married after her eldest sister, my mom and in his words - she was equally acceptable and he'd no complaints! I remember that I was the youngest kid - and the only grandchild - to attend their wedding at the Ettumanoor Siva kshetram and enroute, we'd to switch cars as our's (the old Chevrolet with an inclined, flat tailboard) had broken down at Chadayamangalam in the middle of the night! I also remember vaguely that we'd arrived at our destination just in time for the wedding giving nightmarish moments to the bridegroom's family!!  

After marriage, Kurup kochachan and Leela kunjamma had shifted to the Panickers' house, then TC 804, at Thycaud adjacent to the gates of the Model School and the Intermediate College, at Thiruvananthapuram and it was one solid and happy joint family!

Tailpiece.

As far as I was aware, Kurup kochachan was an atheist who poo-poohed his wife's frequent visits to the places of religious worship. But I must hasten to add that he'd joined me once for my annual Sabarimala pilgrimage which he insisted was not out of any religious fervour but out of a desire to get a taste of the experience! So, Lekha and I were pleasantly surprised when he expressed his wish to have a miniature 'Ganesh' idol which we're only too happy to gift him one. I presume that the passing away of Leela kunjamma has made him a convert.