Sorry aunty

A friend's 75+ year-old mother broke her hip the other day. Here's how.

She was at Solapur station, walking along the platform to catch a train. A young man suddenly leaped through a gap in the wall and ran across the platform, intent on catching his own train. He slammed right into my friend's mother. She fell on the platform and her hip broke.

She was in terrible pain. The person with her managed to get her into a car and took her to the hospital, but she says it was an excruciating nightmare. She is now at my friend's home in Bombay, recuperating.

And what of the young man?

He looked down at her, said "Sorry aunty" and rushed to catch his train.

Feeling neighbourly

So I have a neighbour on the first floor.

We were leaving town one morning a few weeks ago. Before departing, I had to make a quick trip to the nearby corner store, to pick up some small thing that we needed for the trip that I now can't recall. When I got downstairs, I realized I had forgotten my wallet at home. I called upstairs, my son put the thing into a plastic bag and flung it from the balcony.

Just before he did, I thought to myself, what if it falls on the first floor chhajja (parapet), the only one that projects out far enough between our flat and the ground? What will I do? Well, gag me with a spoon, that's exactly what happened. The wallet-in-a-bag fluttered down and landed on that chhajja, right outside the window of this neighbour I mentioned above.

Things happen. Anyway, I got whatever it was that we needed using some cash I had in my pocket. As we were leaving, my wife knocked at this neighbour's door. When he opened up, she told him what had happened and asked if she could come in, lean out their window and pick up the wallet.

"No", he said. "Go find a ladder and climb up from outside", he said.

She looked at him open-mouthed, astounded by this inexplicable crassness. "Thanks for your help", she said.

(Then she stepped across the landing to the other first floor neighbour's door, knocked and asked if she could come in, climb out of the window onto the chhajja and retrieve the wallet. "Of course, of course," he said. A minute later, she had the wallet).

Neighbourly feeling. We have it in droves.

So I'm trying, every time I meet the man who suggested the ladder, to thank him profusely for helping.

Cover, not water

All right, I didn't win. I got a honorable mention, which is better than 98.5334% of you out there, I bet. Take a look here and see for yourself why I'm inordinately proud of myself.

And lest you harrumph in scorn, I did win the thing about a year ago. Oh yes I did.

Roadrunner: Amazon

My book Roadrunner: An Indian Quest in America has been "available" on Amazon for some months. I use those quote marks because it was priced at a ridiculous $80. I could not figure out why they were selling it quite so cheap ... or maybe I mean expensive.

But things have changed. It is now available on Amazon for a more reasonable ~$30 (well, after $80, $30 sounds reasonable to me and it better sound reasonable to you). So if you're in the US, or in France, or on Wallis Island, go take a look here and order hundreds of copies for yourself and everyone in your acquaintance and on your assorted neighborhoods and mailing lists. (In India you can buy your hundreds using the "Buy Roadrunner" link in the column to the left of these words).

(Various country-specific Amazon sites also have the book similarly listed).

Radially speaking

Is it any surprise that the Radia tapes involve her speaking to such media stars as Prabhu Chawla, Vir Sanghvi and Barkha Dutt? Only if you cling to the somewhat benighted view that media folks are somehow removed from the rest of the country's impatience with ethics.

Why benighted? Because I know of people in the media who:

* use other journalists' writing, with or without massaging it slightly, and pass it off as their own.

* use other journalists' ideas in their writing without a qualm, and certainly without attribution.

* watch TV during a breaking news story, then write up a "first-person" account of the story.

* write about issues -- like the demolition of slums, for instance -- without once visiting the places where those issues play out.

* when asked by readers to clarify something they have said, angrily accuse the readers of being unable to read properly.

There's more, yes, including things I've done that I'm not proud of. (OK, none of the above).

Not only have the things I listed happened without much of a murmur, there have been plenty of others who have defended this behaviour. Not only that. Far from being punished, some of this behaviour has actually propelled people to stellar heights.

So I wonder, why are we so outraged by the Radia conversations?

***
Postscript 11pm Nov 30: I just watched part of the discussion on NDTV where Barkha Dutt was questioned by four journalists about what has happened. I think she made a strong case to say that yes, it was at best an error in judgement to have spoken to Nira Radia, but no, by no means was it corruption. So while I won't change the sentence above that mentions the word "ethics" -- there are ethical issues there too -- I will say this: I believe her.

I believe she demonstrated during this discussion a degree of integrity that few journalists achieve -- certainly none of those I alluded to in the bullets above.

And I think too that there's a case to be made for questioning the propriety of publishing material without asking the people involved for their explanations/reactions.

The stump stays

There's one of those skywalks in place outside Bandra's suburban railway station, on the west. (The one on the east was the city's first). It soars high above the crowds and traffic and takes you straight out to SV Road, where you descend steep stairs into the crowds and traffic there.

While it was being built, a thick concrete column was erected right outside the ticket office. It supported the structure of the skywalk as it was being put together. It was placed in possibly the most congested spot in that entire area, a serious inconvenience for commuters rushing in and out of the ticket office. But since it was for future convenience, commuters put up with it (not that they had much of a choice anyway).

When the skywalk was completed, the builders began destroying this column. I remember going to buy a ticket to Churchgate one afternoon, walking past some workers hacking at it with pickaxes. I remember thinking to myself: "I hope I'm wrong, but I'll bet anything they'll leave a stump of the column there."

Well, I wasn't wrong. If you go to Bandra station now, months since the skywalk was completed, you'll find the stump, perhaps five feet tall. Half destroyed, useful for nothing at all except as a continued inconvenience for commuters rushing in and out of the ticket office.

We build spectacular sealinks. We won't remove rubble. Your tax rupees at work.

Roadrunner: Business India

Someone I know well was flipping through an old copy of Business India a couple of days ago, before throwing it away, when a photograph made her stop flipping. "That looks like Dilip", she thought. And indeed it was. I had no idea either.

There was a discussion around my book Roadrunner at the Bombay Gymkhana in mid-September. My old friend Pankaj Baliga introduced us, Rahul Bose read some passages from the book, and my good buddy Dinesh Mirchandani belted out several songs as only he can. I didn't know someone from Business India was there, but that someone went off and wrote up a short report which appeared in the October 17 issue of the magazine.

It's a nice photograph. It shows off my yellow shirt, and reminds me of the message I got from another good friend who couldn't attend, right after we were done that evening: "I bet you wore your yellow shirt!" Well, now I can't even deny it.

Thanks once again to Pankaj, Rahul and Dinesh. As also to the indefatigable lady who did the organizing, Reena Agarwal.

Here's the report.
***
Travel tales

Book lovers at the Bombay Gymkhana met at the library last month to experience the US through the eyes of an Indian traveller -- author Dilip D'Souza, who discovered "old cultures and new concerns in a country which is both revered and reviled." D'Souza was in excellent company with Rahul Bose, who flew in especially for the occasion, to read a couple of interesting, and his favourite passages, and Dinesh Mirchandani, who provided the musical interludes. Pankaj Baliga opened the proceedings and introduced the author. D'Souza, who has written three books to date, was at his unassuming best, recounting the stories of his travels.

Roadrunner: An Indian Quest in America is dedicated to a little bird with a long neck, which he accidentally killed when it suddenly ran across the road plumb in front of him. The journey was loosely planned, almost as though he drove where his car would take him!

His travels were revealing, little stories of the people he bumped into along the way, who were very open and accepted him; after all he had schooled and lived there for 10 years. They were simple yet poignant stories -- bikers in Dakota who he thought were ferocious, but discovered many of them were grand-dads and grand-mums, old and mellowed.

His travels, just about the time of the end of the Bush administration and the coming of Obama, revealed the author's fine political perceptions. "Obama, who earlier had a groundswell of support, faced serious opposition as a community organiser -- a pseudonym for 'black'," says D'Souza. "Americans had become more intense and loud about politics, which was a change from my school days there!"

Another time

Thoughts on an anniversary, my guest post on Kafila is here: Memories of another time.

Comments welcome.

Behind their backs

In the middle of yet one more temporary blogging slowdown, here's a puzzle: what's the picture above about? Where's it taken? What's going on? What's the significance of 767 in the top right corner?

***
Someone got this right! It's the daily "Teer" in Shillong, where archers gather and shoot arrows for a fixed time at a target. The number of arrows that hit the target are then counted -- 767 in this case. The last two digits of that number, 67, become the winning number for the day, and people go off and collect their winnings.

A definite Shillong delight. Check it out when you're next there.

Set the bar high

Forgot this. The November-December issue of HouseCalls magazine carries one more in the series of essays I'm writing for them. I'm not sure what's going on with their online version, so the essay is appended below.

Comments welcome.

***
At a party some years ago, I ran into a young woman, I'll call her B. She had attended the same school I had -- one of Bombay's best-known -- though we hadn't been there at the same time. When we found the old school connection, I looked forward to a few minutes trying to find common friends, or sharing experiences about the teachers: you know, just the usual when things like this happen. I even remember a couple of the guests asking if we had discovered any friends we had in common.

So I was stunned when something quite different ensued. B turned to the others present and announced: "But you know what, I was a misfit there. See, my family is from the lower middle-class. This school really catered to Bombay's elite."

I really should have had some quick-witted remark up my sleeve, but as ever, even weak ones came to me only weeks later. ("Yes, and my family all failed the 5th class").

But seriously, what an odd thing for B to say. For when she joined the school -- as she told us later that evening -- her father was a senior engineer in one of the country's oldest industrial firms, where he had spent several years. Five of those years were as an expat in Iran, the whole family in tow, leading a project there. After returning to India, they settled in the firm's tasteful housing colony in a Bombay suburb. When B later graduated from school, she travelled to the US to get a degree from one of the finest liberal arts colleges there.

This was hardly the profile of somebody who belonged to the "lower middle-class" in India. I mean, if B thought her family was "lower middle-class", either she had not the faintest idea what that term meant, or I'm the Queen of Easter Island.

Which I assure you I'm not.

Still: for me, this raised two interesting questions.

The first, and bear with me while I use a few figures: What do we really mean by "middle-class" anyway?

Consider: a PTI report from last year said that India's per capita income -- what the average citizen of this country earns in a year -- "doubled in 7 years to Rs 38,084". That's just over 100 rupees a day. Of course it was much lower when I met B, but for now, let's use that figure.

If the average Indian -- the Indian more or less in the middle of India's economic scale -- earns 100 rupees a day, do you qualify as average? I know your answer is no. I'll bet good money that none of this magazine's readers takes home that little. Well, how many Indians do you know who earn 100 rupees a day? Few or none, I'll bet. And yet if that's the average, there must be many millions who earn even less. By itself this is sobering: I'm hard-pressed to name anyone from below that level, even though they exist in great numbers around me.

Still, how then should we define the middle-class? One way: mark out a band that stretches above and below the 100 rupee line. If you fall in that band, you're middle-class.

But think of this: Even in 21st Century India with its cars and cellphones and Swarovski crystal, the very state of being educated, and at an American university, means you likely belong to the upper reaches of the income spectrum. Maybe not the stratospheric reaches, but up there anyway, far above the per capita income mark. Truth is, you and I are firmly part of India's upper-class. Yet think how many of us see ourselves instead as firmly middle-class. (Don't you?)

And what of B's lower middle-class claim? Well, do you believe her father belonged below that 100 rupee line? Neither do I. Enough said.

My second question: what's wrong with being elite?

Why would B, an articulate young woman, want to deny Indian realities as they apply to her? Why would she seek to pass herself off as what she isn't? Because to her, being seen as elite is somehow undesirable. Much better to belong to a lower rung on the economic ladder. Whether this is political, or somehow fashionable, I don't know. Whatever it is, she wants to wear that hat.

But really, what's wrong with being elite? I haven't a clue. Yet I'm always surprised by how many people fling the word about as if it is an insult. I'm surprised by how many people try to make out, in convoluted ways that defy reason, that while plenty of people around them are elite, they themselves are anything but.

Though I shouldn't be surprised. For reasons I've never followed, generations in this country grew up suspicious of wealth, assuming that the rich, by definition, are immoral. "Must have made his money illegally," we sneer, if a little enviously. I'm sure it's true in some cases -- remember Sukh Ram and Telgi? -- but to make of that a blanket generalization? And if that's what so many of us think, what does it do to our perception of ourselves? How many of us will willingly admit that we are rich?

Yet the way to look at being elite is this: In any society, some people rise to the top. Sure, you hope they use legitimate means to get there, not stepping on others. But by itself, simply being at the top carries no shame or guilt. There is no reason for those who are up there to deny being up there.

In fact, the point about being elite goes well beyond recognizing how misplaced this kind of shame is. Every functioning human society needs elites. They drive change, lead revolution, dream new dreams, carry out research. Believe me, I am not being even slightly condescending or facetious when I say that these things cannot come from the hoi-polloi, the aam-janta. Societies need leaders, by definition, and they will find them.

There's no shame or guilt there either.

Besides, elites are also signposts of achievement, and in being so, they are beacons for their fellow citizens. Whether in entrepreneurship or teaching or innovation or something else, the elite among us set bars that others strive to leap over.

Yet while striving, some use the bars themselves to thrash the elite. In his excellent little book In Defence of Elitism, William Henry discusses a strange period during the 1992 US Presidential campaign between George Bush (the senior Bush), running for re-election, and his challenger, Bill Clinton. Bush's team had begun whispering certain things about his opponent. Not unusual for high-stakes political campaigns, of course. But about these particular insinuations, Henry writes these lines:

[President Bush's] import was twofold: that Clinton was too smart to be President, a notion that gets weirder and more disturbing the longer one looks at it; and that the electorate ought to vote based on envy and resentment towards their betters, an appalling onslaught made surreal by Bush's own status as a senator's son, prep-school smoothie, Phi Beta Kappa at Yale, and "self-made" oil millionaire -- via a company he launched with money borrowed from his rich uncle.

Fine, you think, even if this was an incumbent President, he was a politician intent on winning an election. What else can you expect from someone like that but surreal arguments? Not much. But no less surreal to me, in light of the life she had led, was B's appropriation of a lower middle-class cloak.

No less surreal, too, was the exchange I once had with someone who pronounced that studying subjects like English Literature or the pure sciences "only satisfies the intellectual idle curiosity" of a few. Therefore, he asserted, India "should not support this study with money extorted from the masses."

What a strange idea, right down to those words "idle" and "extorted."

Because a state that scorns research and intellectual curiosity, that thinks elites deserve contempt and resentment merely for being elite, is a society headed for destruction. Nothing less.

One Pol Pot took that lesson to its logical conclusion. In Cambodia under his monstrous Khmer Rouge regime of the late 1970s, the resentment turned into genocide that particularly targeted the elite. His cadres, one paper reported in 1978, had "orders to carry out the most thorough-going terror of the 20th Century … to kill all the high-ranking military people and non-communist intellectuals."

Implementing those orders for three horrific years, the Khmer Rouge slaughtered two million Cambodians, over a quarter of the country.

Put that insanity down to a fear of the elite.

Go after them

Despite plenty of other things I need to do, I've been listening to a few of the famous tapes. Just a few so far, and I'm not sure I will listen to them all. Or want to, for that matter -- there's been a lot of fluff to wade through before getting to the more telltale nuggets.

Some initial reactions:

There's something unsettling about listening to conversations that the participants assumed were private. Something unsettling about the easy way so many people talk about the ways of power. It's not surprising. Because if you stop to think about it, like it or not this is how politics must always have proceeded -- and will always proceed -- in a vast diverse country. But it is unsettling nevertheless.

But for me, the most disturbing moment so far is the casual, almost throwaway way that two women speak about instigating the Shiv Sena to attack business rivals. Here's a part of their conversation:

"You're going to have the Shiv Sena after you next."

[Chuckling]

"That's what's going to happen, because they went after them, so you're going to have the same Shiv Sainiks coming after you saying you can't do that."

…

"I'll see how I can use the other group to get a message across to Uddhav, in order to say ke go after them instead."

[Chuckling]

"I'll tell them to tell Uddhav to go after them."

There's also a reference to how "both sides" have paid the Sena.

You have to listen for some ten minutes to get to it, but it's there in this tape. It's there all right, this exchange that is as clear a commentary on Indian democracy as you can get.

Not a tall order

Hindustan Times today (Wed 17th) carries an essay I wrote regarding thoughts I've had of my father, JB D'Souza, in the wake of this Adarsh scam: It's Not a Tall Order.

Comments welcome.

***
Postscript: Here's the text of the article as I sent it to HT. There are a some small changes they made (two that I wish they hadn't). Also, I called it "Return to Quaintness".


The first time Jairaj Phatak made me think of my late father was a couple of years ago. As Bombay's Municipal Commissioner then, he announced that he would stick to a 1966 GR, stating that all official communication would be in Marathi. Fine, good decision. And what about people who don't understand Marathi? In a Hindustan Times report ("Now, only Marathi in BMC", June 7 2008), Phatak said this: "It is simple, the script is the same as Hindi".

I was elated. For I realized that contrary to any previous impressions I might have had, I actually understood Konkani, Nepali, and Sanskrit, for all of which the script is the same as Hindi. Not just that. I also realized that I understood Spanish, French, Irish, Gaelic, Welsh, Italian, Polish, German, Latin, Turkish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, Flemish, Afrikaans, Malagasy and several more languages, for all of which the script is the same as English. (Which I understand).

Simple as that. No, actually I wasn't elated.

So why did Mr Phatak make me think of my father? Because my father, JB D'Souza, was once Municipal Commissioner of this great metropolis too. But not once did he say something like this. Perhaps the 1966 GR wasn't a bone of contention during his term, so let me put it this way: I cannot even imagine him saying something like this.

JB died in September 2007. He had a long and what he always described as a fascinating career in the IAS. Apart from his stint as Municipal Commissioner, he served as GM of BEST, MD of CIDCO when they began planning New Bombay, Maharashtra's Chief Secretary and finally Secretary in the Housing Ministry in Delhi. I list these not so much because they form an impressive record, but because he found most of those jobs all-absorbing, all-consuming. He used to say to us that what motivated him was hardly promotions and the like, but the chance to do interesting work while serving the public, and in so doing to earn the respect of his peers.

Now I am not one for singing the praises of my late father, and even saying as much as I have about him makes me squirm as I type, as it would make him squirm. But when Mr Phatak's name cropped up in the news about the Adarsh building scandal, he got me thinking about JB for the second time.

For among those who have been allotted flats in Adarsh is Kanishka Phatak, son of Mr Jairaj Phatak. Not that he's the only such. The Adarsh flat owners' list includes the children of DK Sankaran (like my father, once Chief Secretary of Maharashtra), Uttam Khobragade (like my father again, once GM of BEST), Ramanand Tiwari, CS Sangitrao, SC Deshmukh and PV Deshmukh. Apart from this bonanza for the offspring of Indian bureaucracy, I won't even mention the spouses of bureaucracy, the various defence officials, the politicians of every party, who own flats in this building. I also won't mention the various reports that spell out how various clearances Adarsh sought sailed through our otherwise notoriously sticky bureaucracy: for example, as Municipal Commissioner Mr Phatak was instrumental in allowing the building, originally meant to be six storeys high, to reach 31 storeys.

The bureaucrats in Adarsh will no doubt produce all kinds of explanations to show they did nothing illegal concerning the building. But they forget that that's hardly the point. When you are in public service, you are a servant of the people. You answer to the people. You answer to an old-fashioned notion called "propriety". That means you don't do things that will raise questions later. That means, yes, no favours for sons and wives and daughters and mothers-in-law, period. That means your primary concern is the public interest, period.

So in reading about Adarsh, what strikes me is the lesson my father taught well: being the son of a senior bureaucrat got me no favours. This was clear early, when he would not let his official car take us anywhere, unless he was in it travelling to or from work and we could be dropped off en route. There was the day when it poured as school ended. I found a phone and called him to ask if he could send the car to take me home. He said one word: "Walk." But I'll be drenched, I wailed. He said six more words: "You can dry off at home." It seemed cruel. But I was dry before he got home, and then I grew to appreciate and respect the example he set and it was not cruel at all.

When he died, The Guardian carried an obituary for JB. It had this line: "In the gigantic heap of pestilential and growing venality which passes so often for the Government of India, he was one … who remained, despite all odds, dedicated to the idea of public service, a notion becoming almost quaint in modern India's world of swashbuckling capitalism, the fast buck and devil-take-the-hindmost."

It made me proud, sure. But it made me yearn for quaintness once more: whether with flats in fancy buildings or with the language of official communications.

Driving Home: Jonathan Raban

Forgot to post this from a few weeks ago. The Hindustan Times asked me to review Jonathan Raban's new collection of essays, Driving Home. My review appeared on October 22, and you can read it here.

Comments welcome.

Went and flew

Flew two days ago from Delhi to Bombay. I have nothing against the airline we chose; I have flown it before and been fully satisfied. But this time the experience turned into a peculiar comedy of sorts.

Just before 1130, the monitor displaying flight statuses said "Gate Open" for our flight, which had been originally scheduled to leave at 1125. So we walked down to the relevant gate, where things looked chaotic. (Then again, most gates looked chaotic that morning). People were crowded around 2-3 uniformed officials, all talking in low, urgent tones. The officials didn't seem to be saying much. A few passengers pushed through the crowd and harangued the officials. I had no desire to add to whatever pressure the uniforms felt, so I got in the line and pulled out my book ("Being John McEnroe") to read while we waited.

One of the haranguers came back past me, telling a friend behind me that the PM was flying in, so "no traffic movements at all." Another came back muttering "bullshit cheapos" under his breath. I tried to stay patient, kept reading.

At exactly noon, someone announced the departure of our flight. Many folks milling around suddenly snapped to attention and joined the line. We showed our boarding passes and clambered up steep stairs into the bus. When it was bursting with passengers, it moved. At walking pace -- I am not making this up -- we meandered all the way across the tarmac to an aircraft with a smartly-coloured tail. When we neared, I noticed passengers streaming out of the plane. It had clearly just landed and was still offloading passengers.

So we waited. From where our bus stood, I had a good view of a moving ramp being used to load baggage belonging to Delhi passengers like me onto the plane. From a cart, two handlers put a bag on the ramp. Then another. Both moved angularly upwards. At the top, one was stopped by the lip of the aircraft's baggage compartment door. The other bag bumped gently into this one, then just as gently toppled off the ramp and fell about 15 feet to the ground below.

In quick succession, seven more bags did the same slow-motion toppling act. Like a Marx Brothers film. I didn't know whether to be amused or angry. In between, I did see my own bag making the ascent, and somehow it didn't fall. My bottle of home-made chutney would survive.

Eventually, we climbed the steps into the plane and found our seats. Within minutes, the hostess asked us for our boarding passes. There were three others who had the same seats as us, assigned to them. This turned out to be a common complaint this morning: up and down the plane, people were finding folks sitting on their assigned seats who had been assigned those seats too.

The staff took some time to sort all this confusion out. In between one man who was escorted to a free seat suddenly balked and began shouting: "Yeh koi tarika hai seat badalne ka?" ("Is this any way to change my seat?") He refused to sit down unless he was given his originally assigned seat, now taken by someone else also assigned to that seat. The airline official explained that the flight could not leave unless he sat down. Eventually he sat.

We left the gate at 1305. An hour and 40 minutes late.

On the ground in Bombay, we were standing at the conveyor belt waiting for our bag to arrive. Before the belt started moving, a uniformed head poked through the plastic strips at the end and asked my 11 year-old, standing nearest to the strips: "Yeh [the airline name] hai, na?" ("This is [the airline name], right?")

Which, all in all, seemed like an appropriate coda to an oddball flight experience.

***
All right, you sharp-eyed dudettes and dudes will have noticed that I excised the airline name since I first posted this. Just that I'm not interested in any possible lengthy wrangles.

Tweet bulletin: DEL

Sitting at Delhi airport two days ago for a few hours, waiting to catch a flight, I opened up my laptop and began to tweet about what I saw around me. A fun experience, all told. For you poor souls who missed out on my tweets of wisdom, here they are, tweaked a bit but all in one place. Perhaps they add up to a snapshot of the airport, circa late 2010.

***
At Delhi airport (when was it last called Palam?), because I couldn't get tix to travel my preferred way, money- & otherwise: train. Too bad.

Couple opposite, 40-something, blue bag across both their laps, sharing earphones, satisfied smile on their faces as they bop slightly to music.

Headline today about how Delhi has the most obese kids. Looking around, it's true. Not one kid has zipped past who is not plump at best.

Ad nearby for VW Vento asks readers to "Turn on Your Bluetooth Now" to get messages about the car. Are there really people who would do so?

Guy sitting beside me is staring fixedly at a newspaper ad for a slimming program, specifically at the bust marked "36" that's the major feature of the ad.

I mean fixedly.

Another guy opposite gets up to go to his gate; before picking up his bag he bends forward, then backwards, and then sticks out his stomach. Now gone.

I haven't understood why the PA system announcing flights operates in continuous mode: adds to the noise yet it is hard to understand. Useless.

Two Kingfisher hostesses traipse past stylishly in high heels. Behind them, their male colleague slouches along, as different as possible from ladies.

Every time I hear "Appa" I look around. But it's not my kids, who are buried somewhere in the bookstore.

They have been instructed to ask every 10 minutes for "Roadrunner", thus suggesting to the owner that it is a hugely popular book. Will it work?

Shamefaced admission: I had never heard "Waka Waka" and "Waving Flag". Really. I figure I'm the last man alive who could make that claim.

But at the kids urging, I watched Waka last night and Waving Flag just now. Loved them both. What energy, what style.

Woman behind says to another woman behind, in Marathi, "We just went to Sikkim and it was so hot there!" Was it? I don't know.

What a delight airports (and stations, and malls ...) are if you have the time to stop and watch the parade of humanity pass.

Here comes a European-looking lady wearing a hat nearly identical to the one I'm wearing, except with a string around her neck. Mine's better.

Boy, and now she's made a beeline for the seat next to mine and has sat down! (Bust-picture-starer has vanished).

She's reading a page on which I can see only these words "Owain mounted his horse". Not inspiring.

Everyone who pulls out a laptop in a place like this invariably looks around importantly as s/he does so. Myself no exception.

Hat lady just closed up her magazine and cackled loudly.

I wonder if the bookshop owner has got sick yet of kids coming up to ask for "Roadrunner".

Not far away, a man and woman are standing next to each other, talking on phones. As usual, I am convinced they are speaking to each other.

Why is it an article of faith that guys who pump weights simply have to wear ridiculously tight clothes? Do women go for this ghastly look?

Then again, *women* in tight clothes ... hmm. So why not men?

Man opposite me says into his handsfree: "Dude she actually called him gay! Now we can all call him gay! How stupid is that?" WTF moment.

Another guy opposite was reading a magazine with Ajay Devgn on the cover, and has suddenly slumped back and is fast asleep. Was it that boring?

I mean, seriously asleep. Someone just knocked hard into his knees as they passed, and this guy didn't move. Also how to pronounce Devgn?

Is it my imagination or are fewer and fewer women wearing saris these days? In this 1.5 hours here, I've seen three.

And this is your DEL airport tweet bulletin, signing off.

Another nugget

This news item left me baffled. It quotes someone I have met, corresponded with and think of as a friend, the RSS ideologue and now BJP spokesperson Tarun Vijay. In the wake of the melodrama over KS Sudarshan's pronouncements about Sonia Gandhi, Vijay says this: "We are giving a stern warning to Congress that if it continues with its violence and anarchy inspite of all clarifications by BJP and the RSS ... we will launch a nation-wide agitation to expose Congress on 2G Spectrum, Adarsh scam and CWG issues."

What's an outsider like me to make of this "you-scratch-me-I'll-scratch-you" pronouncement?

I mean, does exposing the misdeeds of people involved in these scandals really depend on what the Congress does or does not do in an unrelated matter? Surely there should be a "nation-wide agitation" on the 2G, Adarsh and CWG issues anyway? Is Vijay really suggesting that his party will only raise those corruption issues if the violence "continues"? What if he judges that the violence has stopped, will he then not launch his nation-wide agitation?

As ever, it's nuggets like these (and others) that help me form my own opinions about some things. They're not always particularly high, those opinions.

Shied away

President Obama's speech in our Lok Sabha touched a number of upbeat themes about the ties between the US and India, as such speeches tend to do. Good stuff, but not overly enlightening. So I read through his speech for signs of more hard-nosed rhetoric. Things to make us think a bit, if we want to.

I found two.

* "This is the bond that we share. It's why we insist that nothing ever justifies the slaughter of innocent men, women and children."

* "Faced with such gross violations of human rights, it is the responsibility of the international community —- especially leaders like the United States and India —- to condemn it. And if I can be frank, in international fora, India has often shied away from some of these issues."

Think about it.

Maybe then

A few minutes watching CNN-IBN tis evening reminded me of one reason I am so glad I don't possess a TV. The reduction of complex issues to simplicity, even simple-mindedness, is hard to swallow. And add on top of that the way panelists sometimes shout each other down -- indeed I am glad I don't have a TV and almost never watch this stuff.

This was a session discussing the fallout of President Obama's visit, and in particular the question of whether US-India relations were now "better" or "stronger" or some such than US-Pakistani relations. Rajdeep Sardesai repeated that Obama had said something about the US-India relationship "defining" the 21st Century and wanted the Pakistani guest to react to that. Didn't that itself show that the US was more interested in India than in Pakistan? One guest, a G Parthasarathy, said to the Pakistani guest that India has self-respect and does not go about with a begging bowl the way Pakistan does, and therefore he could not understand why this Pakistani was on the show, there should instead have been a Chinese man on.

I find this all nearly infantile. What does "defining the 21st Century" mean anyway, apart from just sounding nice? What else would we expect a visiting US President to say in public except mostly ego-stroking non-sequiturs like that? What does it say about us that we take it so seriously? (Consider, will we take just as seriously Obama's suggestion that "India has often avoided" speaking out about rights abuses in Myanmar and other countries?)

As for begging bowls and self-respect, this report from just a few months ago tells us about new World Bank financing for building transport infrastructure in Bombay. Why did we take this money? In fact, the World Bank and other foreign agencies have poured money into India for years for development projects. Does Parthasarathy so easily forget that?

Besides, what does it say about a nation's self-respect when we hold up innocuous pronouncements by US Presidents? (Remember Bush's I Do?)

What does it say about a nation's, and a man's, self-respect when we (and he) yearn only to be compared to what we ourselves perceive as the big boys -- China for example -- and not to Pakistan? It says the Pakistani guest was right: what Parthasarathy said only showed his own obsession with Pakistan.

The day we stop caring who compares or equates us to which country is the day we'll find self-respect. Maybe then I'll get a TV.

The Brahmin and the pump

In Mawlynnong, there's a Bengali family in the room next to ours in the bamboo guest house. At dusk, we hear him singing, so my wife goes over with a farmaish: Tagore's "Ami chini go chini". He agrees to sing it, but only if the rest of us come over too. So when I make my way there and introduce myself, the first thing he says is "Don't worry, I'm also Brahmin!"

I'm baffled by this.

Only after this initial foray does he tell me his name. And after that, he sings not just "Ami chini", but plenty of old Bangla and Hindi songs as well. I play along as best I can on my harmonica, and he offers me a swig from his VAT69 bottle -- I decline because scotch is my least favourite drink in the world -- and it's a lot of fun, but I'm still baffled. Even today.

Next day, we drive into Cherrapunjee, or Sohra as it's known. We stop to find a couple of medicines we need. A small pharmacy is open in the market, slender graying woman behind the counter. When I tell her what I'm looking for, she shakes her head slowly, almost sadly. She doesn't have it. But she asks where we're visiting from, then points across the road to another pharmacy, and simultaneously hands me a visiting card.

Only later do I find that it's not for the pharmacy. It's for a restaurant that serves "Indian and Chineese dishes". By way of providing an address, the card says "Near Petrol Pump (There is only one Petrol Pump in Cherrapunjee)".

That's a relief, the words in those parens. I was afraid I might have to, while possibly searching for this particular restaurant on some possible future visit, race frantically from petrol pump to petrol pump until I found it. No fear of that.

Anjali and Badu

Walking along one of Shillong's back roads one moist morning, it starts to rain in some earnest. Not heavy, but enough that everyone breaks out the umbrellas and the only people who don't are the four of us, caught in the rain without any raingear. We could keep walking, we won't get seriously wet. But we decide to stop for a biscuit break at a tiny stall near the Set Seven School, plenty of mauve-blazered girls and boys pouring in. The stall is run by a wizened woman who has just opened for the day and says tea will take a while to get ready.

I stand in her entrance and watch the world pass. I am entranced by how elegantly dressed all the young women are (the young men are in regulation grunge wear), and by the sheer variety of umbrellas that parade past. There are polka-dotted ones, frilled ones, one that's got a fanciful leopard print, checked ones, flowered ones … You see quite a variety in Bombay, but this exhibition seems on a different scale.

A Sumo stops in front of me and a young lady emerges: skin-tight jeans and open shoes, just enough shades shy of hot pink to be suave. She seems lost. First she steps toward the store on my left, then the store on the right, then back to the Sumo, then onto the road, then back to the Sumo again. I'm not sure what she's up to with this little gavotte, but eventually she prances off in her pink shoes.

When the rain eases, we press on. We have to find a taxi to take us to a place called Mawlynnong later in the morning. I stop beside a yellow Sumo, marked "All Meghalaya Tourist Permit" or some such. I notice there is already a passenger and am about to move on, but the driver stops me and nods his head to ask where I'm going. "Mawlynnong", I say. This occasions a spurt of chatter in a language that must be English because I can identify several words, but overall I don't understand him at all. Seeing my incomprehension, he whips out a cellphone and punches its buttons. "Calling Anjali", he says, and this I understand. Maybe Anjali is the boss who will take the fateful decision about taking us to Mawlynnong.

A rapidfire conversation in Khasi ensues. Then he disconnects and tells me, "you call Anjali and ask."

"OK," I say, "what's her number?"

"6-0-8-2", he says.

"That's all?" I ask.

"Yes yes, you call Anjali!" He makes to turn his ignition key.

"But this is not a phone number!" I exclaim.

"No no, not phone number, car number."

"Car number? But what do I need her car number for?" I'm perplexed. "Does Anjali have a phone number?"

"Yes yes," he says, and rattles off a ten digit number which I write into my little diary. Why didn't he give me that in the first place?

"And this is Anjali's number?"

"No no, Badu's number! Badu, Badu!"

He turns his ignition key and roars off.

Somehow I don't want to give my business to this Badu/Anjali conglomerate, if that's what it is. So I find another means of transport to take us to Mawlynnong.