Hail Emperor Akbar!

Many of us would remember our school days with a tinge of nostalgia.  The days, when we, as school boys were carefree and life was great fun.  Well, some of the days were not really that good.  The bad days in school would be when we were asked to complete homework by the next day on a topic which we knew nothing or little about; we had to read the entire chapter or lesson in detail to undertake the homework; or when we were asked to stand up on the bench for apparently speaking to the boy seated next to you, while the fault was entirely of the other boy.  The other boy who actually spoke to you first would get away, while you would get caught while whispering back to him on his query or laughing at some joke the boy had cracked.  If you argued with your Teacher that the entire fault was with the boy sitting next to you, the Teacher would increase the quantum of punishment and the other boy would become your sworn enemy for betraying him and giving him away.  Well, the life of a young boy in school had its own peculiar impediments.  Who would know it, other than the young boy himself who had experienced it first hand.  Ask any young boy, if you don't believe me!

There were other times, when as a school boy, I wondered, why were we asked to memorise a complete poem and recite it in front of the class.  When the poem was clearly printed in the text book, what was the need to memorise and recite the same poem, once again.  If one made mistakes in reciting the poem, the whole class laughed.  When it was the other students’ turn to recite a poem and they committed some mistakes, we laughed louder to make them understand what the ‘shame’ part of it meant.

In the mind of a young school boy, ‘grown-ups’ were almost always a source of envy, because they did not have to attend school; they only had some office job to attend, where they paid you handsomely in return.  You could buy any number of ice creams or chocolate treats with the money earned and no one would dare question an adult on his choice of purchases. As a school boy, I always felt that the boys were at a disadvantage, compared to the ‘grown-ups’, who had everything going for them.  Of course, now as a ‘grown-up’, I feel differently; life as a school boy was the best of times, in one’s life.

I am reminded of an incident when I was in 4^th or 5^th standard; the class Teacher had asked us to enact a drama for the ‘School Day’ function.  One of the boys in our group took the initiative.  He knew the story of Emperor Akbar by heart and he had suggested that, we stage the drama of Emperor Akbar.  The boy who had taken the lead, wanted to play the main role of Emperor Akbar.  Most of the other boys in our group had no objection to this, as none of us had any experience in staging a drama.  Moreover, the boy who was to play the lead actor was taller and well-built, compared to the other puny little boys in the group.  One fine day, we all arranged to meet at the home of the lead actor.  The home of this lead actor, had an open porch in the front of his house.  This place was quite convenient to stage our drama rehearsals.  I had, albeit, reluctantly agreed that my role would be that of guard who would stand in front of Emperor Akbar’s throne.  My role had very few sentences to recite; hailing the Emperor, whenever he appears on the stage and announcing the name of the visitor to the assembly.  I had to loudly announce at the top of my voice, ‘Hail the Lord and Master, Emperor Akbar’ or something to that effect.  My role was to always remain as the main guard and attendant of Emperor Akbar.  I was told that my role is important as I would appear in every scene, whenever Emperor Akbar took centre stage.  I felt pleased when I was told this.  My role did not need much rehearsals, which was a good thing.  I did not have the patience to read through the drama scripts or dialogues and mug them up, word by word, at rehearsals.   We had prepared dialogues sheet, actor-wise, by writing down the dialogues on a page in the school note book.  Each actor had to memorise his part of the dialogues from the pages torn out from the school note book.

The rehearsals for the drama went on for almost a month.  We would diligently meet every week end, at the lead actor’s house and stage some part of the drama rehearsal.  I don’t remember we ever enacted the entire drama in one stretch.  The rehearsals were always in bits and parts.  After enacting a few scenes, we would soon get bored with the drama rehearsals and sneak out to play, Cricket.  We were more interested in playing Cricket rather than enacting the drama rehearsals.  All the boys in the group were of the outdoor type and excelled in physical sports rather than displaying dramatics skills at school functions. We, however, assiduously practiced the drama rehearsals, though we were not sure how the drama would be received by the audience.

We were asked by the school Principal to stage a dress rehearsal with the basic props required for the stage, including dresses to be worn by the characters.  We had arranged to rent out some dresses for the characters in the drama.  A decorated chair was arranged for the throne and I remember that I had taken out some flower pots from my home to be kept before Emperor Akbar’s throne.  There were more number of drama entries to be staged from participants of other classes too.  The school Principal, had agreed to watch the dress rehearsals of all the dramas, before giving his approval of the final play/drama selected to be enacted on the function day.

On the day of the dress rehearsal, we were all called on to the stage to display our dramatics talents.   We staged the play of Emperor Akbar in the presence of school Principal, although during the play, some parts and bits were totally forgotten by the drama actors.  There were some awkward silences and few slip ups.  We were all told to speak in a loud voice as there was no microphones on the dress rehearsal day.  I clearly remember that I had shouted at the top of my voice, hailing the Lord and Master Emperor Akbar; my voice had boomed through the empty hall.

We, the actors of the future, were all waiting with bated breath for the Principal’s final approval, which was to be announced the next day on the school notice board.  When we did not see the name of our drama on the notice board, we were all crestfallen.  All our efforts in enacting the great drama of Emperor Akbar had gone down the drain.  We did not have the resourcefulness to meet the Principal again to put forth a request for reconsideration of his decision.  After seeing the plays of other classes staged as part of dress rehearsal, we knew in the heart of our hearts that, our play simply, did not measure up.  We were disappointed that the careers of all the budding actors of our drama had come to a premature end.  Hail the Lord and Master Emperor Akbar! 

A great party indeed!

The weekend supplements of many newspapers carry the news and photographs of the people having great parties in upscale hotels and restaurants or pubs; the photographs of some of these people holding a drink in hand or swinging away their blues on the dance floor, set me thinking.  What could be the reason that newspapers spend so much of resources on publicising the news and photographs of the partying men and women.  Many of these people partying hard are not even celebrities like movie actors (well, who doesn’t adore cinema idols!) or cricketers or some sportspersons (famous for their exploits on and off the field!) who need attention and publicity for their survival.  Seriously, do the newspaper editors really allow these rubbish materials to be published; fortunately, or unfortunately, it appears so!

Going through these news snippets in question, I saw that one of the photographs mentioned about the partying exploits of some DJ or RJ with their band members in tow.  The families and friends of such wonderful people would, of course, love to read and feast their eyes on the jovial camaraderie of their kinsmen/friends in the newspapers. If, on the other hand, these people are unknown to the readers, what interest would these news and photographs generate?  Don’t you think, reading snippets of partying information of unknown shenanigans or looking at some random photographs is sheet waste of time.

Made me wonder, who would benefit from the published news/photographs of some people having a nice time in upscale restaurant or pubs.  May be some of these partying people are wannabe actors or professionals in their respective fields who bribe the newsmen and photographers to publish them to further their careers;  Or is it that the newspapers need some juicy titbits of information for the financial survival of their newspapers;  Or the upscale restaurants and pubs would pay the newspapers handsomely to get publicity for their businesses; Or could this be some remnant colonial practice left behind by the aristocratic (or is it autocratic) British genteel customs.  We would never know, unless the newspaper publishers or the concerned newsmen spill out the truth behind this practice.

Whatever be the reason, it stuck me that if I were to visit one of these upscale restaurants or pubs during an exciting evening with my lovely and graceful partner in tow, maybe we could be lucky enough to be photographed and published in a popular newspaper!  Oh, dear vanity!

Short Pants - the sartorial statement!

I have always wondered how the fashion trends in men’s clothing department has evolved over the years.  Time was when, during my boyhood days we were sick and tired of wearing shorts or half-pants (as we called them, then); we wanted to grow up fast so that we could start wearing trousers or pants (as we used to invariably call them); what can I say, the shorts have now come onto the fashion scene with a bang; not only for young boys, but for men of all ages!  Older the man, more his new-found love for wearing the shorts.  I recently saw an old man, touching eighty, I would say, wearing beautiful chequered shorts and lovely beachwear T-shirt too.  He looked really smart with Nike sports shoes and a walking-stick swinging in his hand!  Shorts or half-pants, so to say, has really caught on, with great aplomb, in the minds of style-conscious men; young or old, alike.  It is considered the new-age ‘cool thing’ for men, to be seen wearing shorts!

Well, ruminating on my boyhood days, I had felt, rather ashamed of being seen, wearing shorts in public; I was ever so eager to enter manhood, mainly to show off wearing full length classic terry cot pants and growing a moustache (or rather, start the process of shaving).  I remember, I was so embarrassed of buying half-ticket in city transport buses.  I used to persuade my parents to buy me full ticket in buses; more than anything else, to feel the pride in being called a man, rather than a boy eligible only for half-ticket.  As a young boy, when travelling alone in buses, I was stealthily buying full ticket, away from the prying eyes of my parents; though, I was entitled to half ticket, according to my age, then.  When I asked for the full ticket, during those half-pant days, the bus conductor, used to look me up askance, weighing the options, whether I was eligible for half ticket or full ticket; but finally, the conductor used to issue a full ticket; giving in to the profit motive of the Bus Corporation!  In those days, the bus conductors had a way of assessing the boys’ ages, based on their attire; whether the boy was wearing half-pants or full pants.  Full pants warranted a full ticket and half pants were eligible for half-ticket.  It was that easy!  I don’t know, how it is, with the present-day BTS bus conductors.  It may not be that easy, considering that most men wear shorts or half-pants as their casual attire. Or else, do they even have half-tickets now, I am not so sure!

It was standard attire with the villagers of those days, to wear striped shorts; with a pocket sewn on the inside to keep their currency notes safe.  These striped shorts were made of pajama cloth material and all the village tailors were wonderfully skilled at stitching the pajama-based custom shorts.   I am not sure, if this village dress code was confined to South Indian States alone or was used widely in all other villages of India.  Striped shorts combined with inner vest (or banian, if you will) was a regular attire for village men.  Recently, when I passed through some of the villages, I could observe from the road-side that these village men too had radically evolved into wearing vibrantly fashionable shorts and colourful T-shirts.  It appeared to me, that the India I knew, had changed; had indeed, moved ahead on a swift path; fast catching up with the wealthy nations, at least, from a sartorial perspective!

Considering the current fashion trend in men’s casual wear department, young boys of the present day need not feel ashamed of wearing shorts or half-pants.  Most of the men’s population is wearing them too; men of all shapes and sizes; loving the comfortable and trendy short pants.  It may not be too far-fetched to assume that in the very near future, we may see most Indian men wearing shorts and T-shirts to their work places and offices in lieu of the formal shirts and trousers.  The only downside of older men wearing shorts, is the amply visible hairy ankle, which may not be such a pretty sight to most people, after all!

An order of ‘Vegetable Platter’

Life in Kuwait had its unique blend of myriad experiences; while some of my experiences were downright amusing, others were distinctly, distasteful.  There was an anecdote that made me clearly aware that we were outside India.  Normally, it felt like we were living within our own home country; considering, that there was a large expatriate population consisting mainly of Indians and a lesser mix of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Filipinos.  Since we were staying in a part of the City that was predominantly populated with Indians, we never had a feeling that we were far away from India.  Further, the Bank I was working for, though Head Quartered in the Middle-East, had a large sprinkling of Indian employees; more so in the Audit Department, that I was part of.  Other than a few Arab and Lebanese nationals, all of my other colleagues were Indians.  Moreover, the predominantly Indian part of the City, where we had set up our residence, had popular Indian Restaurants (which included an Udupi Restaurant, a few Gujarati and Punjabi Restaurants; all of which, mostly served vegetarian fare).

I was (during the time of this anecdote) still new to the country, having lived there just for over a year.  My wife and I had been invited to attend a new year dinner party hosted by our Audit Department.  The dinner was mainly to celebrate the declaring of year-end bonus to all the staff of our Department.  The dinner was arranged in a nearby downtown Lebanese Restaurant (named Mais Al Ghanim) which had been in existence since 1957, or so; and was popular for its regal ambience and Lebanese cuisine.  Many of the middle-easterners flocked to this restaurant for the variety and quality of the choicest Arabic dishes, the restaurant had to offer.  As soon as we entered the Restaurant, we saw some of the loyal patrons smoking hookah, blowing multi-hued smoke through their mouth and nostrils; and there was a royal look about the Restaurant.  We were impressed with the choice of the Restaurant for our annual dinner.

The Menu consisted of largely non-vegetarian dishes, details of which, I did not bother to read nor even know.  The dinner gathering comprising families of my Audit Department colleagues; they were mostly non-vegetarians; excepting for three of us; my boss’s wife, my wife and self  One after the other, my colleagues and their families started ordering their choicest non-vegetarian dishes, having regard to their palettes.  We, the tiny vegetarian group, were just fidgeting with the Menu, unable to narrow down on the dishes to order.  My boss’s wife had some idea about a vegetarian dish named Baba Ghanoush which, she said, she had tried out earlier and tasted great.  Baba Ghanoush is basically eggplant blended up with lemon juice, sesame seeds, and a generous sprinkling of sea salt.  We went along with this choice, as we did not know much about the other vegetarian dishes (although, the details of ingredients were noted boldly in brackets, against each item in the Menu; however, the Menu did not specifically mention whether the dish was vegetarian or non-vegetarian).

It was the first time that we had savoured this dish, as an accompaniment along with Arabic bread (something similar to the Indian Phulka-roti); Baba Ghanoush tasted awesome.  In order to be safe, our colleagues advised us to just stick with this dish (Baba Ghanoush) and the ubiquitous, hummus; hummus is a vegetarian dish made with chickpeas, olive oil, sesame seeds, lemon juice and salt.  No food order is complete without hummus in any Arabic Restaurants in the Middle East.

Midway through the meal, my mind was in a whirl; how could I stay content with just Baba Ghanoush and hummus, while the rest of company were enjoying their choicest, tasty non veg food?  I had narrowed down on an item in the Menu named ‘Vegetable Platter’, which was without doubt a vegetarian fare.  Boldly in brackets, names of familiar veggies, like, tomatoes, carrots, capsicum, cabbage were clearly mentioned.  I discussed this with my vegetarian group and the other two, nodded.  We were, looking forward to a beautiful salad of fresh, finely cut aforementioned, vegetables, served in style with some dip.  I, promptly, summoned the Waiter and ordered the item.  Some of my colleagues were looking at me with mild amusement; I did not get what was the joke.  As usual, I was a little dim-witted.  I patently ignored their amused looks and waited for the order to be served.  After a while, the Waiter gingerly placed the ordered item on the table in front of me.  Many of my colleagues could not contain their merriment; their laughter echoed through the Restaurant.  In front of me was placed a large basket, containing complete and whole, un-cut vegetables in all its glory; shiny, wholesome vegetables stared at me; a large cabbage, a couple of huge tomatoes; a couple of huge capsicums; two or three large glowing carrots; each item of the veggie weighing about half a kilo.  I was flabbergasted.  I summoned the Waiter and asked him, what is the meaning of all this and how do we eat these?  He was unrepentant.  He calmly said, “Sir, this is the order you had requested, Vegetable Platter”.  Amidst the throes of laughter, one of my colleagues suggested we should take home the vegetable basket and prepare South Indian 'sambar' with the veggies.  We precisely did that for the subsequent few days!

Caffeine rush!

Coffee, traditionally has been served hot.  People all over, love to drink the hot beverage, savouring the aroma of the steaming, freshly ground coffee beans; with coffee beans sourced variedly from Africa to South America; to India.  Cold coffee, generally meant iced coffee and different recipes have been explored for people to savour and enjoy.

There was a time during my school days, when I used to love the cold coffee (or 'cooled' coffee, if you want to crunch the grammar); mind you, not the iced coffee variety, but simply the hot coffee preserved in a steel vessel for a few hours. Just to be clear, coffee meant the South Indian filter coffee added with milk and sugar.

School life then, to me meant, play in the school and more play outside the school hours.  Since attendance at the school was mandatory and some little home-work was unavoidable as part of the school life, I complied without demur.  What choice did we have?  As soon as the school was finished for the day, I ran home with my school-bag, dumped it in a corner; hastily changed my dress from the smelly khaki school uniform and was eager to rush out to play.  My playmates were waiting for my arrival from school. It was a mystery to me, how some of the boys had managed to arrive at the play field early, even before me.

Before I could hurry out of the house, mother shouts from the kitchen.

‘Hari, have your coffee before you go out to play’.

I run into the kitchen.  ‘Where is the coffee?’.

‘Wait a second, I will heat the coffee for you’.

I say, ‘No time for that.  Give me the cold coffee itself’.

‘What is the rush, your friends will wait.  Heavens are not going to descend.  Just wait for a few minutes, I will heat the coffee for you’.

‘No mom, give me cold coffee itself or else I am off, without drinking any coffee’, the ultimatum from me. Mother surrenders. 

‘Ok.  As you wish’.

My mother transfers the cold coffee in a steel tumbler and pushes it across towards me.  I gulp the coffee.  The cold coffee tastes great; there is a lingering sweet, after-taste.  You see, as young boys we did not drink Bournvita or Horlicks or any other nourishing (does it really nourish?) beverages those days.  We simply could not afford them, I presume; although I was not worried or bothered about what we drank.  Play was much more important!  

In those days, in my home, in order to save on milk and sugar (you see, sugar was generally available in Ration Shops; and small, insignificant quantities were allocated to each family; some of the families used to buy sugar in Retail, where the price was double the cost of rationed sugar) coffee used to be prepared by mixing the filtered coffee decoction with milk and sugar only once in the morning and again once in the evening.  If one happens to be late to attend the family coffee-drinking session, the already pre-mixed coffee used to be re-heated in a steel vessel on a kerosene stove.  The coffee tasted of kerosene smoke sometimes when the stove exhibited an yellow flame. 

Coming back to my school days’ story, after gulping the cold coffee, I hurry out to join my playmates, who had already commenced the game, without me.  I was made to wait until the game, which was already midway in progress, had finished.  I was more than determined that from the following day, I would join the game early on; and was firm on having only cold coffee in the evenings. In the mornings, I purposely got late to the family coffee-drinking session by lingering on the 'teeth-brushing' routine; so that I could have my coffee cold.  From that day on, my determination had stayed intact, as I was hooked on to cold coffee, for a long, long time, perhaps, until I enrolled in the Pre-University. In my younger mind, cold coffee tasted great; and was the only way to consume coffee.

Back to the present, when I was narrating this incident to my cousin, he told me that he too had liked his coffee cold during his younger days.  I was surprised; was this a universal phenomenon in young boys of my generation or was it confined to only boys within my family?

Would I, perhaps, care to drink my coffee cold, now?  No, thank you; I just happen to enjoy the steaming hot cup of filter coffee served straight from the gas stove!  The caffeine hit first thing in the morning is the drug that stimulates the bodily functions!

The Portfolio Conundrum – Honey, it’s all about Money!

It is a bizarre experience to navigate the conundrum named stock market portfolio. Emotions run high and dry, during the ups and downs of the equity markets, especially if you have personally invested in equity and consider yourself a stock market fringe player.   The day the Sensex or the Nifty shoots up, your portfolio valuation shoots up sky high, it would be literally like sailing on cloud nine; no sooner, even before the celebration ends, the portfolio valuation would dip down to an abysmal low; so, would the mood of the player, be.  If one is into the stock market game, honestly, I think the person literally needs to be like the Buddha, to remain unaffected by the stock market volatility.

The stock market experts say, that we should not get rattled by the valuations; the highs and lows are integral to the stock market.  If these were just numbers and figures, I would just be fine; unfortunately, this is all about one’s finances.  Honey, it is all about money.   Stock markets, by its very nature is volatile.  The movement of indices depends on composition of the index and behaviour of the individual shares or stocks of the companies.  Many a time, the stock market indices would have shot up, but my portfolio would have gone down.  Vice versa happening is rare; that’s a mystery to date, which has no logical explanation. All this is perfectly understandable to the analysts or advisors. They have umpteen number of explanations on why the stock value is down or up; or why we should buy or sell a particular stock; or why we should hold or remain invested in the said stock. The advisors would never allow you to exit from the stock market, even though some of the stock valuations are down to a loss of, say 90%, instead they would advise you to substitute the stock with another winner stock from their recommendations’ stable.  They have an explanation for every damn thing happening to the stocks in your portfolio.

All of us have heard of stock market wizards; who have made billions, prime examples being Warren Buffet or our own Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.  My stock market broker/advisor has narrated to me stories of how people who have invested in the equity market and stayed put, have raked in Crores of rupees; rags to riches stories abound in stock market history. With this background, my expectations had been kindled, hoping for a very good return in staying invested long, in the equity market.  I have dreamt of wealth being created through the stock market game.  This, of course, has remained a pipe dream, till today.   But, “never give up, my friend”, says the advisor, (I wouldn’t call him my friend at any rate!) “the cusp of a breakout is very near; Sensex touching 100000 points may not be far off; you will get to be a crorepathi, one day soon”, says the advisor confidently. The fool in me, still believes in the pipe dream; however, I dare not take a peek at my portfolio, which has taken a huge dive in today’s market!