Turning 44

I had my frequently-used and the more well-known cellphone (read official) shut down on my 44th birthday. Partly because I was on a holiday with my family and I did not wanted to be disturbed by official works; and partly because I suddenly did not know how to respond to people wishing me "Happy Birthday". My other cellphone (the older one) was, however, on.
The first reward for keeping it on came in the form of a a birthday wish from a 30+ spinster. Pleasant one! She has been a regular at wishing for past several years except probably one or two recent years when she was too preoccupied with family problems. The next one was, as always, a very old friend from my hometown. The next one was from my brother and the last one was from a recent friend. By midday I was tempted enough to put my first cell on hoping for more wishes. Immediately the phone rang; it was someone from my office asking advice on some official matter. I put the phone off the next moment. The day went on without any further wishes.
Growing older is a tricky business. Turning 44 is even trickier. The body sends in signals that the decay has set in, but the mind refuses to leave the wicket. My spinster friend (actually she is friend of my wife) says 44 year old male are the ones best avoided by women in the office. They are considered dangerous; experienced but bored by monotony and are looking for opportunities and excitements. My brother says, 44 is when the obvious question pops up - Family, house, car secured; what's next? Another journalist friend (female of course) says, turning 44 is like approaching a target, a destination - the anxiety of almost reaching it makes one nervous, the way one gets jittery while approaching a landmark, like a half-century.
It seemed the world has not much of a good opinion about 44 year olds. Does everyone thinks the same way as my brother and the friend? Does they would think the same way about a 50 year old? Well, how will it feel to be 50? Or for that matter, 60? May be 70? I did not bother much to think how did it feel to turn 44. In fact, I could not. I was more occupied with the thought how my father was feeling that day. He has turned 76 on the day because we were born on the same date 32 years apart! I wanted to ask him how does it feel but did not. I was sure he was not thinking about himself. He was looking at me and wondering how the days had gone by; the way I was looking at my five-year-old son and thinking how the days went by.

Mongoose and woman

An woman in a small Indian village had a pet Mongoose which was very fond of her toddler son. While the woman attended to her daily chores, the Mongoose used to play with the toddler.
One day while the woman was busy working, the Mongoose was playing with her son. Suddenly a snake appeared from nowhere and attacked the toddler. The Mongoose put up a brave fight to save the toddler and killed the snake.
When the woman returned the Mongoose went running to her in excitement and in expectation of reward for the great service that it had rendered. It could not communicate in words but tried with gestures to explain to her what happened. The woman could not understand but was terrified to see blood in the mouth and body of the Mongoose. She thought that the Mongoose had eaten her son. Out of sheer anger she immediately killed the Mongoose.
Seconds later she found her toddler unharmed and a dead snake nearby. She realized what might have happened and started crying.
This is a story from Upanishad. The morale? Never rush to conclusions.
I think we need to bring in a slight change in the morale of the story. Apart from the teachings for humans, there is some morale lessons for the Mongoose too.
Never try to communicate to those who risks misunderstanding you. Rather than the woman's failure to take decisions logically, it was the failure of the Mongoose to communicate with the woman. What do you say?

Berserk

Aul or Ale was a brew much liked by the Vikings. After consuming a bucket or two of this brew the Vikings would head fearlessly into a battle - often without their armour or even shirts. The fact is that 'berserk' means 'bare shirt' in Norse.

Mind your P's and Q's

Ale is traditionally ordered by Pints and Quarts in England. So, in old England when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own Pints and Quarts. The phrase "mind your P's and Q's" is believed to come from it.

Honeymoon

It was not easy to be father of the bride in ancient Babylon. Around 2000 B.C. it was the responsibility of the father of the bride in Babylon to supply the groom with constant supply of 'mead' - a honey beer for one month after the wedding. Since they followed a lunar calender, this one month was called 'honey month'. Today's honeymoon is actually a leftover of that tradition. It's a different matter that the responsibility of the father of the bride has changed. Wish, I was in Babylon in 2000 B.C.

Mother

It actually rained last night!

Falling in love again

The subject line of the message in the inbox released a surge of hormones in his bloodstream. The mail read, "Anonymous has left a new comment on your post". He was now trembling and breathing very fast. He hurriedly opened his blog while his hands were shaking. The comment from the anonymous reader was only two words - Love it.
Well, people do read my blog, he thought. But, who is this anonymous reader? Is it a He or a She?
Office was mundane, but he was happy. Nothing could interest him, though he was excited. His colleagues found him absorbed in his own thoughts and totally de-linked from his surroundings. He faltered many a time during the day, yet he was whistling.
Only a few days ago, he was telling his friends about the mid-life crisis, he was going through. An empty feeling inside; feeling unwanted, worthless; a life gone waste. He was depressed.
Today was different. He was imagining and creating the shape of his his reader – the anonymous one. Is she twenty-something or thirty-something? He was quite sure by now that it was a ‘she’. Or else why the comment would be so short, almost cryptic?
He was wondering if he would know her identity ever. May be she would post more comments in his blog in the coming days. May be she would reveal her identity one day. May be they would start corresponding directly through e-mail.
May be she is lonely, alone, single. And who knows she may start liking his posts so much that she would find it difficult not to read his blog even for one day. And then she may start missing him. How would she look - beautiful, average or sexy?
The long and exciting day wound its way finally to bedtime. He was collecting his thoughts lying flat on his back because he was too excited to go to sleep. He needs to calm down, relax and then try to go to sleep. It struck him suddenly like a bolt from blue.
His wife was besides him when he first opened the mail in the morning. In his excitement he had totally forgot her first reaction. She had asked naively, as if she was surprised, "Is it so that always a comment left in your blog is notified in your mail?" Why did she ask? Why was she surprised?
And then as sun slowly fills up earth with its light at the dawn, removing unknown darkness, making everything clearly visible, it became clear to him in an instant. She has been married to the man she loves for the last ten years and she knew him perfectly well to understand how happy would he be to know that people read his blog and like it. So, she left the anonymous comment on the blog and thought he would not realize it.
The racing bloods in his veins reacted to this dawn quite predictably and he became calm and sober now. However, he will not be able to sleep tonight. As a completely different set of hormones were released to his bloodstream, he realized he has fallen in love again - with the same woman with whom he had fallen in love sixteen years ago - his wife.

Children of the child

(This is for those who plan to be parents and those who already are and absolutely paranoid about the annual parents day at their offspring's school)

We caught a pleasant sight of Kabir dancing alone humming a Goanese song from a Hindi movie one day. One could make out the song only from the tune he was humming as he could not pronounce even a single word from the lyrics correctly. It was a nice pleasant surprise knowing him to be rather rigid when it comes to dance. He lacks the grace, balance and rhythm for dance. He did not inherited them and it was not built into his system. He had to labour real hard to learn simple dance steps when he was chosen for a group dance during the Durga Puja function in our neighbourhood.
Later, it transpired that Kabir was being trained in the school for a dance in the annual day function in his school and he was rehearsing himself. Two very different kinds of emotions engulfed us immediately. We were immensely happy to find him so dedicated towards learning to dance but was mortally afraid imagining what would happen if he was not found suitable and dropped from the dance.
Every passing day led to deepening of our fear as we saw him practising two different roles - one of a dancer and the other of a sailor rowing a boat. As the song was choreographed, three or four pairs of dancers would dance in the foreground while another set of three or four boys will hold oars and enact the scene of a rowing a boat. It was obvious that the less capable boys would be made sailors as all they would have to do was to move their oars. Mimi was afraid that Kabir would be made a sailor and she kept on nagging me to find out from the school. Instead, we kept on telling each other it was nothing even if he was not choosen to be a dancer; of course without believing at in a single word that we said. More than about us, both of us were worried about the psychological trauma that our son will go through if he was not selected for the dance.
The day before the annual day function, Kabir came giggling and jumping as he ran towards home once he was dropped by the school van. "Ma, Guess What! I was selected to be one of the sailors rowing the boat," he told his mother hardly capable of keeping his breath.
It was our turn again to be engulfed by two very different kind of emotions - relieved that he is happy; ashamed that we grown ups make life so complicated and difficult over issues so trivial which even a five-year-old does not bother about. Kabir tought us something so significant that we had, in a way, become the children of our own child.

Comedy

All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.
Charlie Chaplin, in My Autobiography (1964)




In my country a policeman is sufficient. And there is no need of Charlie Chaplin either(to make comedy with them). They are comedy themselves.

Words are not enough

Words are not enough. At times, they utterly fail us and leave us groping in the infinite magnitude of letters desperately trying to exactly and comprehensively find a combination of them to explain what we want the others to understand. You conjure up all possible combination of words, sentences and yet realize that it is not what you want to convey. You ask for divine help; you curse yourself; you feel like banging your head into the nearest wall. Yet, the words elude you. Finally, you settle for a line which is not even nearer to what you want to say but you console yourself with reason that it was the best you could fish out.
Have you ever experienced this? You did?
Have you ever tried touch!
Perhaps some kind of Uber text could only do justice to the messages that we send through possibly one of the oldest communication medium – the touch. It is always fascinating to observe people using touch to convey most complex of messages and express a lot of feelings including the most intricate ones. I have often attempted to translate those messages to written or spoken words and invariably found it almost impossible. The failures, however, drew me more closely to this – trying to fathom the language of touch.
My son cannot sleep without placing one hand under the body of his mother; just the palm of the hand, under the ribcage of my wife. He is only five-year-old. At times, when his mother is not around while he sleeps, he places the palm of his hand on my face. He cannot sleep without this seemingly peculiar obsession. I think it is his way of getting reassured and feel protected. It is his way of staying connected – even when he is sleeping. It may also be his way of saying something that we have failed to understand so far. But the communication is very strong; impossible to ignore, impossible to forget.
While still in college, a particular girl was the center of all our attention. This perhaps is a very common story. One of my friends noticed her smiling at him one day and he groped my hand in excitement immediately. He said nothing and I still do not know what he wanted to convey with that touch.
I became quite friendly with the same girl later on and on one occasion, while we were waiting for a bus one day; she gripped my hand only to release it a few seconds later. There was nothing apparent either in her face or in the surroundings that justified that touch. We never proceeded any further because both of us seemed to be not interested. I do not know where she is today, but I still cannot but help thinking what was there in that touch! There was a lot of communication in that touch and yet lot of confusion.
I have experienced hundreds of other instances involving people of both the genders having touched me in my life and successfully confusing me and unsuccessfully trying to convey something. Yet, I am sure they were all communicating something that was not possible to be conveyed with words. Nothing can be more communicative and at the same time more confusing then touch.

A child

Everyone seems to be here with a purpose; apparently least bothered about the other person in front of him yet subtly watching his surroundings. The eyes of the magnitude of people betray the anxiety and apprehensions, yet gleaming with hope. Hope of making it to their destinations, taking that trip and getting near to the people or place they long for or may be simply accomplishing something they planned for.

The old man was sitting silently looking thorough the compartment window at the busy platform teeming with people. A young man of twenty-something was sitting opposite him bursting with childish excitement. He was also looking through the window, his eyes jumping over each of the faces on the platform as if to find out someone he knows. He was hardly looking at me. Even when he glanced at me there was a faint smile on his face but the look was vague. He looked right through me as if I do not exist.

He seems to be breathing in everything through his eyes – be it the tea vendor on the extreme corner of the platform or the wheeler stall owner near the window selling magazines and newspapers. He was not reading anything, nor did he appear to be interested in buying anything. But anyone watching him can feel that he was curious and immensely excited.

As the train rolled out of the station, the young man settled down to look at the scene outside rolling behind. Against all safety precautions, he was now stretching his hands out of the window trying to grab the air brushing against his palm. Suddenly he burst out in excitement and shouted, "Papa, see all trees are going behind". The old man said nothing but was smiling - the kind of smile you find on the face of an indulgent father.

Once we were outside the periphery of the station and the train has picked up enough speed to reduce the passing scenery in to a huge cinema screen, the old man turned towards me and gave a weary smile. I nodded in acknowledgment and tried to strike up a conversation.

He was going home with his son after staying in the city for more than one month. Our initial conversation was interrupted by the young man. “Papa look at the thing there, is that a cow?” I was surprised. It was also the first hint for me that not everything was alright. The young man was behaving too young for his age.

It was also very awkward for me. The young man was constantly shooting questions at his father, oblivious of my presence or the others in the compartment. And the questions were too fundamental to be asked by a grown up young man. While I felt an immense urge to ask the father whether his son was alright or not, I was totally at loss to formulate my question. I have already started to sympathize with the old man. The young man was behaving like a child. The mental growth of the son has clearly not been commensurate with his age. Was it in-borne or the result of some accident later?

The old man was, however, perfectly at ease. He was constantly smiling and answering questions with such fondness as if it was his six-year-old son asking him why the moon can not be plucked. How much psychological burden a grown up son with the mind of a child could be for a man nearing retirement? And what about the mother? Does the old man have any other child? Are they normal?

“Papa, I can see the clouds, they are black.” I was jolted out of my brood by sudden exclamation of the young man. As if on a cue, it started raining. He was looking at the raindrops lashing his hand with the eyes of someone who has seen raindrops for the first time. “Papa, will I be able to see the moon tonight?” the lovely young man asked his father. The father did not reply, he simply nodded in affirmative. The boy did not wait for his father to say anything either. He was too engrossed with the sight outside.

Curiosity got better of me finally and I took the chance to ask the question long being formulated by me to the old man in a hushed up tone so that the boy do not hear anything. “It is sad, I mean, to see your son. Such a lovely boy he is. Did you consult any doctor?” I asked the man.

The man turned towards me with the same content smile on his face and then replied, “Yes, we did. That’s why he is seeing the world through his own eyes for the first time.”


(This is a story developed from a brief e-mail sent by my friend Ajay Solanki from Mumbai; origin not known)

Males do feel pain

Australian economist Paul Frijters has put a price on happiness and sadness - emotions we considered invaluable so far. He studied about 10,000 people since 2001 to arrive at a calculation that says:
Marriage is worth about Rs. 13.87 lakh to a man and a mere Rs. 6.93 lakh for a woman.
Divorce makes a man feel he has lost Rs. 47.40 lakh, while woman feels a loss of Rs. 3.85 lakh.
Birth of a child gives a man Rs. 13.87 lakh worth of happiness, while woman gets happiness worth of Rs. 3.85 lakh only.
The death of a partner or child makes a man sad by worth Rs. 2.6 crore, while the loss is worth Rs. 56.22 lakh for woman.
Would you still say, "Mard ko dard nahin hota?"(The male does not feel the pain?)
P.S. Rs. 10 lakh = Rs. 1 million; Rs. 1 crore = Rs. 100 lakh.
(The above information is taken from December 4 issue of OPEN)