On Raans

Last night we went to a little eatery called Persian Durbar, in Bandra West. There were four of us and the mission was to eat a preparation called Three in one Raan, which essentially is roasted leg of lamb.

We ate and ate. And ate. And couldn't finish it, there was that much. I loved the delicate smoked flavor and the no-nonsense presentation. After a post prandial phirni, I reclined on the settee and reminsced.

I've wanted to eat Raan for a long time but never managed to get the three other like minded people needed to finish one portion of it. Till yesterday that is.

I've eaten a similar thing before. In Spain, of all places. And curiously, as part of an airline meal.

We flew from Madrid to Barcelona and they served us a little Paella rice with a small piece of roasted leg of lamb.

It was delicately flavoured and quite unlike anything European. I wondered if it was the Moorish influence. Arabic, perhaps. Or Numidian.

The stewardess, upon being asked what it was called, delivered five thousand Spanish words on the subject, the gist of which, since I don't speak that lovely language beyond saying Gracias (which is pronounced Grathias for some reason), escaped me.

I went around Barcelona looking for something similar but never found it. Not surprising, I guess, since my enquiries comprised of the English words "Leg", "Lamb", "Roasted" and a lot of nimble mime movements. Several of the waiters to whom I presented this performance looked at me anxiously. The missus, who was accompanying me, kept imploring me in Konkani not to make an ass of myself. With sadness, I abandoned my quest.

And it would have stayed abandoned had it not been for the fact that on the flight back, we were served the same thing again! This time, I went around the city of Madrid in search but alas in vain. If that city roasted its lamb legs, they kept it from outsiders.

The missus observed that conventional wisdom had it that the Raan in Spain stayed mainly on the plane, but I felt I would have found it had I only known Spanish better.

My teachers day anecdote

Teachers day just came and went and like everything else these days, was celebrated on twitter. Some reminisced about the good teachers, others about the bad. I couldn't help remembering our old Drawing Master.

We had many good teachers who did a fairly decent job of educating the bunch of us. There were a few who were spectacularly bad of course, but they were largely ignored. Some were fairly funny. But Popat is one chap I will always remember.

Popat wasn't his name, of course. His name was  Sule or Patil or something - escaped my memory for the nonce - but we used to call him Popat for reasons long forgotten. Popat means 'parrot' in Marathi, but it also slang for the, er, pee director or baby maker as the lads are wont to describe it.

Popat used to teach us drawing and was actually a very good artist. He was also very committed, come to think of it.

Drawing class in the pre-Popat era involved drawing very formalized representations of 'scenery'. This used to consist of three mountains, one sun peeping out from between mountains 1 and 2, a river emanating from between mountains 2 and 3, a house consisiting of 1 door, 2 windows and a sloping roof. The real freedom came in the foreground where people could draw as many boys as girls as they liked, though most of us stuck to one each, carefully drawn to resemble alien beings.

Popat was an artist, however. He hated these three-mountain sceneries with a passion. He would ask us to draw anything we liked.

"Draw something you have seen. Draw your desk", he would tell us. "Or draw your pencil box."

But the bunch of us, brought up on years of three-mountains-one-sun-one-river, couldn't understand any of what Popat told us. We continued to draw three-mountains, to Popat's despair

"What is your favorite animal", he asked a boy, randomly. Prahalad his name was, I remember. Aka Palli.

"Donkey" said Palli, to the great amusement of the class. Back then, certain words were the pinnacle of humor. You only had to say "donkey" or "monkey" or even "mad" to send an entire audience into paroxysms of laughter. Palli had cracked one such immortal joke.

"Alright, then, draw a donkey" said Popat, unfazed.

Palli dug around in his bag looking for his English textbook because we had a story in it about a man and his son taking a donkey to the market, and it had several illustrations. Palli's plan, sound chap that he was, was to copy the animal from one of those illustrations.

"What are you doing?" asked Popat

"Sir, looking for a picture of a donkey, sir" said Palli who, while perhaps a tad low on deductive skills, had the sterling character and honesty of Abe Lincoln.

"No, no, no looking at picture bicture. Look at my face and draw a donkey" said Popat.

I laughed out loudly. Even back then, I had a particularly irritating laugh. On that day, it had the opprobrious quality of poking fun at a teacher. To make matters worse for me, I was the only boy in class who laughed. This was unusual because I was usually slow on the uptake (TFC - short for "tube with fucked up choke" - was an occasional nickname) but that afternoon I had chosen to be the Mister Quick

Popat froze.

Realising what he had just said, he pulled me out of the desk in an instant and whipped my butt with a cane that was standard issue to teachers back then.

This didn't bother me all that much because one, we were used to this kind of stuff and two, that being a day I hadn't done reams of homework, I had, in anticipation of an attack to the gluteal region, strategically inserted one of our wash-basin turkish towel napkins into my undies, which took the sting away. I was more worried about the note he wrote my parents, a note saying that I was a very bad boy, though he left out the real reason for this assessment.

I hesitantly gave the note to my father, a busy doctor who, though never given to flashes of temper, could get a little irritated if shown too much foolishness. Dad was having his breakfast.

"What's this?" he asked, with a frown?

"Our drawing sir is angry with me because I laughed at him"

'Why did you laugh at him?"

"He said 'Look at my face and draw a donkey'"

To my relief, his face broke into a smile.

"Hmm. Don't do this again"

He signed the note and that was that. Popat, luckily for me, got promoted as supervisor of the primary section or something, and went out of my academic life for ever. And we happily continued to draw the three-mountain scenes, steadily improving over the years.

The Problems with being an alleged humorist

I wrote this post, hit the publish button, read thru it, got existential doubts, deleted the thing, which by then had made it to the reader of @sandeip who told me, on twitter, that it wasn't all that bad, and that I had written worse. This persuaded me to republish it except that like the ass that I am, I didn't have a copy. This was provided by @sandeip, culled from his reader, and HE is the guy you have to blame for having the following inflicted upon you.

The missus calls me an alleged humorist, for a variety of reasons.

Her primary  one is that, in her opinion, I am never funny. Not intentionally, anyway. She rarely if ever finds any hilarity in my kind of humor. Especially the word-play kind.

"Hmm. So Dr. Spooner was suspicious of his wife's hair-dresser because he parted her hair."

"Er, yes"

"Meaning Dr. Spooner thought he had hearted her pair."

"Er, yes."

"Dr. Spooner being the one who said things like 'he went up the hill pantless and breathing' when he meant to say 'he went up the hill breathless and panting'?

I nodded.

"Droll."

'Droll' is missus speak for 'haakthoo', as you might have gathered.

Not that she's Bob Hope or anything herself. I caught her gossiping with one of her friends about another friend who had recently purchased a vineyard which she (the other friend) endlessly crowed about. As it happened, the vineyard seemed to  be having a run of bad luck with the crop.

"She had a unsatisfactory  yeild, I hear" said the friend.

"You must have heard it on the grape whine" said the missus and the two tittered along for a good ten minutes. I pointed out the sadness of that joke with a long, dejected stare at the two but they didn't seem to notice it.

The kids are equally bad. In addition to trying me out as a sounding board for all their silly jokes, they also tell me some of the grossest, most embarassing jokes ever told by 14 and 17 year olds to their greying father. It doesn't help that I am usually slow on the uptake.  

The silly ones are bad enough. Splattered across these blog posts are several prime examples but new ones keep coming all the time.

"Annie, why did the chicken jump from the back of one buffalo to the other?" 

This when I'm going through a lengthy mail from a customer reprimanding me for tardy delivery in fairly juicy language. But my kids are not easily shooed away.

"Ok, why?"

"To get on the other's hide."


Not to be outdone, the younger one piped up.

"Annie, why did the chicken go from one nagging woman to another?"

This seemed a bit unusual. I was intrigued.

"Why?"

"To get to the other chide."

"Guys, please. I'm trying to get some work done here."

"Annie, what is a panty raid?"

"What!"

"There it is. In your inbox. The subject of the mail from Victoria's Secret. Join us in a Panty Raid."

So it was. It's a long story, but has an entirely honourable explanation. But when you are caught flatfooted like that it can be awkward.

"Annie, why does Victoria's Secret send you mail?"

"Will you boys leave me alone?" I shouted in exasperation

"Annie", said the lad in a sad voice, "you know your problem? No sense of humour".

Short notes - The Missus on Coffee

Coffee is something the missus is extremely particular about. She's from Mysore, and in Mysore, coffee is drunk strong.

When I, wuss from Bombay, first had Mysore coffee, I had to close my eyes and hold my hands over them to prevent my eyeballs from popping out. Third parties advised that nothing of the sort would occur but it was a long time before I removed my hands off them.

The third parties were right. Nothing happened. But the main party, the party of the second part, hereinbefore and hereinafter referred to as 'the missus' was, with singular lack of tact, laughing her booty off.

What fascinates me and will eternally continue to do so is the way every Mysorean, when ordering coffee at a restaurant, tells the waiter "Solpa Strong Madiri" ("Make sure it's strong, dude") regardless of how strong the restaurant normally makes it.

Bombay restaurants, on the other hand, have no concept of strong. Indeed, they have little concept of 'coffee' for that matter.

I don't know if I've told you my favorite Udipi restaurant coffee anecdote. Forgive me if I have.

I went through a black coffee phase when I was convinced that if you wanted to show how classy you were, you had to have black coffee without sugar. This wasn't a problem at the Cafe Coffee Days and the Baristas but it mildly  boomeranged at Udipi Vihar Restaurant, Goregaon West where I once asked if I could have a black coffee.

"Can you give me black coffee?" I asked the chap.

"Yes yes".

Bombay is the bastion of capitalism and this is a fine example. The first response of a Bombay business is "Yes" to whatever the customer asks for. I have known shops to tell me they have whatever I asked for, its in the go-down and someone's getting it and actually the shop assistant would have run across the road to another shop and purchased the damn thing. Saying 'no' to a customer is unthinkable.

He came back a couple of minutes later, evidently sent with a flea in his ear, by the chef.

"How do you want it made?" he asked me.

"Just like you make your regular coffee, just don't add milk or sugar" I replied.

"Theek hai" and buzzed off inside only to return again and ask in a sheepish sort of way

"The cook wants to know if you want coffee powder in it"

The missus, who was with me, had a hearty laugh and later observed that no Mysore waiter would, even on the pain of injury, ask a thing like that.

"It's blasphemy, dear. "Do you want coffee in it", it seems. In the old days, people would be flayed for such things. Only in Bombay can this happen"

The missus actually had good reason to feel animosity towards Bombay coffee.

Here she is, on Bombay coffee and why it infuriates her:

"When we were married and the mandatory uncle-aunty visiting was happening, word had gotten around that I drank only kaapi. Naren and his entire clan are resolute tea-drinkers. And the worst kind of tea drinkers, I might add. You guessed right. Masala chai drinkers. Anyway, as I was saying, the clan would faithfully attempt to make coffee, but their technique was severely flawed. You know how we make coffee down south, don't you? A good half a cup of strong decoction, a spoon or two of sugar and a little milk, just enough to get the decoction to a buffalo-after-bath brown colour. 

Well, in Bombay, the procedure is to boil a quart of milk liberally sweetened with sugar and, I shudder to say this, cardamom. If Mysoreans were Japanese Samurai, which they arent, mercifully, they would have committed seppuku in droves upon being told about the practice of adding cardamom to coffee.

And the worst of it is, they don't add physically add coffee to the milk when they make coffee. I'm serious. The Bombay guys' idea of adding coffee to milk is to put some coffee powder on a saucer and use a mirror to direct its reflection into the milk. After a couple of minutes of this, the milk acquires sufficient coffee flavour for the Bombay guys. Five minutes, if they want to make it really strong."

Thank you Sheela. Your views are greatly appreciated.

The Anna Hazare situation

Ordinarily, political imbroglios (sorry, but I've always wanted to use that word since I was so high and read it in a Readers Digest Word Power column. I don't really know what it means but it sounds kind of right and you probably dont know it either so we should be alright there) don't upset the harmony of our little home. I refer of course to the Great Lokpal Bill Drama, currently being aired on all channels except, bless their hearts, FTV.

We rarely have political discussions at home. The missus is more a bollywood person. And the boys are into cars and an obnoxious series on TV called MTV Roadies, which, as far as i can see, comprises solely of people abusing other people. But this Anna Hazare business is in our face so much of the time, it is impossible to ignore it.

The missus and I have views on the opposite ends of the spectrum. The missus is strongly for the Lokpal Bill Anna Hazare Version which, as far as I can see, involves spotting the corrupt, asking a select committee if they agree that the spotted person is indeed corrupt and, if they say he (or she) is, horsewhip him (or her).

Here's a sample scenario:

Investigating Officer: "Chairman, sir, respected members of the Lokpal and my dear friends, I have here a senior officer of the government who is corrupt"

Lokpal Chairman: "You don't say! Are you sure?"

Investigating Officer: "I am. You can bet your non corrupt ass on it"

Lokpal Chairman:  "And has he made lots of money?"

Investigating Officer:  "Crores, I tell you, crores!"

Lokpal Chairman:  "Say, Investigating Officer, has he salted it away in Swiss Bank accounts, do you think?"

Investigating Officer:  "Once again, you can bet your non corrupt ass on it, because you won the last bet!"

The Bloke under Investigation:  "I say, here, please, listen to me, it's nothing like that. Just a bunch of fabricated lies.."

Lokpal Chairman:  "Silence! You are corrupt! You do NOT have the permission to speak or say anything in your defence.  So, Investigating Officer, what do you say we do with this low-life?"

And so on.

I've oversimplified it of course, but the entire thing will firmly be in the Haroon Al Rashid territory. You know the chap. The caliph who was wise and summarily executed the wicked. I may be thinking of a couple of other chaps of course, in which case, please forgive me, but what I meant was that there doesn't seem to be much by way of legal process. What if the said select committe, god forbid, isn't as wise as Haroon al Rashid at all times?

As it turned out, the missus was incensed this afternoon, possibly for a different reason.  Actually, I think the reason she was incensed might be the fact that I had, unbeknownst to her,  a couple of beers at lunch (we had a visitor at work, what to do) and then drove home. I am strictly not allowed to drive if I've had a drink.

"Answer the following question in one word only" she said to me

It did not augur well.

"Yes?"

"Did you have beer at lunch?"

How do women find these things out?

"Answer me. Yes or no?"

"Er, yes"

"Are you out of your mind?"

This one was easier.

"Er, no"

"You drove. You know what a big no-no that is"

"It was just one pint" I protested meekly.

"They've arrested Anna Hazare"

This was unusual.

"He was drunk driving?"

"No, you idiot. Don't you watch news or get any information on your silly twitter feed? The government has arrested him because he wants to fast unto death. That's attempt to commit suicide. Punishable offense"

"Wow. The stuff must have hit the fan. What are they going to do now? The protesters, I mean?"

"They're planning to have a protest march."

"Where?"

"All over the place. There's one planned here, near Inorbit Mall"

"Protest march! What next?"

"I know Annie" piped up the youngster "they will have a protest April"

"Go to your room, Gautham. You have geometry tomorrow!" bellowed the missus and turning to me, added "it's all your fault. You encourage them to crack these pjs and that's all they do all the time. It's driving me nuts"

Anyway, the country's still seems to be holding itself together, despite the best efforts of the chaps in the government whom the missus refers to as "what the Reverend Spooner would call shining wits".

I really wonder what is going to happen. Perhaps a whiskey would help me clarify my thoughts.....

In which we go to a fashion show

It's been a dull week in Bombay. We did go for a fashion show, a jewellery based thing, but it wasn't much fun. I felt about as at-home there as a nudist at an HJS convention.

I had tried my level best to wriggle out of it. "Jewellery shows are only for silly vain women" I told her, and then quickly added a "mostly, that is. Not you of course", when I realized what I had just said.

The missus was in an uncommonly good mood. Normally I would have got a real dagger-look for something like that but she just smiled indulgently.

"Silly vain women, it seems. That is so Coltrane! Typical of you. Anyway, wear your finest, my prince. Many pretty ladies will be watching you"

"Coltrane?"

"Saxist"

"Oh". Sometimes, carrying on conversations with her require nimbler minds than mine.


I put on the gentleman disguise and turned out rather dapper and spotless, by my standards, but the missus is a nit picker.

"You might consider zipping your fly. Remember Konrad Lorenz?"

{The said Lorenz, if you don't know the story (and a graphic one it is. If you're sqeamish, skippez s'il vous plait, as they say in French) was a biologist who studied birds. He used to feed a wild raven, for research purposes, with strips of meat which he would carry in his pocket. One day, after a biology department lunch with lots of beer, he decided to relieve himself against a wall in the garden. The raven saw this with eagle eyes (as Bobilli might have put it) and decided it was a strip of meat it wanted. The upshot of this was that Herr Konrad practiced celibacy for a long time}

"I forgot, re. You're looking stunning, by the way". A little oil never hurt anyone.

We trundled in at around 6 pm and I was pleasantly surprised to find a functioning bar dishing out the essentials.

"Don't even think about it" said the missus. "I haven't brought my drivers licence. You're going to have to drive back"

I sadly picked a fresh lime soda. "Haha" said the missus "you look like Socrates drinking the hemlock".

I ignored the barb and occupied my seat. The lights dimmed and the usual speeches were heard. A flowery one about the sponsors. An equally flowery one about the designer.

The spot lights came on and some extremely tall and thin women walked down the ramp to the accompaniment of music which sounded like two radio stations playing simultaneously, one being temple music and the other a trance track.

Their slendernesses marched up and down, pausing every now and then to pout at random people in the audience. Very nice of course, but with the sustained dramatic interest of a kabuki performance.

The missus of course enjoyed herself immensely.

The week that was

(Disclaimer - highly random post follows)

"Sigh", I sighed.

I find myself sighing a lot these days. Life, for some unfathomable reason, seems to have become so complicated. I am forever forgetting something or the other. Our watchman, who revels in being the harbinger of bad news, (had I been a medieval Mughal emperor he would long have been beheaded) had just called through to tell me I had a flat tyre. And I just realised I had given my spare tyre for fixing and forgotten to collect it.

"Sigh" I sighed again.

The missus, who was sitting on the sofa and reading her paper, chuckled.

"I am glad that you are able to derive mirth from my despondent demeanour" I said to her in my sourest voice, meaning it to sting.

"No, my sweet, I just remembered something the boys said"

"Why, what did they come up  with now?" I asked her. I realized too late that I didnt want to know

"The younger one calls you Sigh Baba."

"Sai Baba?"

"No, Sigh Baba. Because you keep sighing all the time. Haha! Isn't that droll?"

It was the saddest joke I had heard from a source specializing in sad jokes but I kept mum. I had just remembered I had a certain confession to make and I needed lots, LOTS of good humour at this moment. I would have sighed again but I resisted the urge.

 The problem was that I had answered our home phone on that fateful day. I normally don't, because the callers are usually random aunts who can speak for hours and ask uncomfortable personal questions when you least expect them to, and who want to speak to the missus anyway, but she was busy doing something in the kitchen and the phone kept ringing despite my best efforts to stare at it and make it stop.

"Pick up the phone, for gods sake!" she yelled from inside and I found myself talking to an uncle by marriage who told me a very complicated story about why he was in Bombay and embedded a "we're coming to your place on Friday" somewhere in it.

The missus normally debriefs me when I do something critical like answering the phone  but that day there was a temperature related chemical composition change in the carbohydrate structure of the rice she was cooking and it took me many stressful minutes to pacify her. Finally, we decided to tell the boys we were having Smoked Rice Burmese Style for dinner, which, and this is why I adore children and their unquestioning innocence, they accepted without a murmur.

The upshot of all this was, as you guessed, I forgot to tell her that her uncle and his entire family were coming for dinner on Friday, which in a jolly little coincidence happened to be tonight.

"We have a few guests coming over for dinner....I forgot to tell you"

"WHAT! When?" asked the missus

"Tonight"

"TONIGHT! And you're sighing instead of telling me! Are you out of your mind? What are we going to serve them? Oats?"

"I don't see why not, if that is what I have to eat" I didn't say that of course. I just sort of stared at my toes.

"Who?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Who is coming?"

I told her. She appeared visibly relieved, said uncle being one of her jollier ones and the moment passed.

I further improved my standing by helping out in the kitchen. The missus makes a nice pudding which involves emptying one tin of Milkmaid condensed milk into two glasses of milk. I did this crucial step without so much as pilfering a spoonful of the condensed milk,excepting a little bit, to ensure the Milkmaid hadn't gone bad - and stirred it so competently that the pudding turned out delicious.

"I've heard you write a humour blog" said the uncle. Tell us a joke"

"Yes, yes, tell a joke" said the aunt.

Well, the uncle is an avid golfer so I told them the one about the lady golfer who complained to the greens committee that there were too many bees on the course and she had just been stung by  one.

"Where were you stung, madam" asked the secretary of the greens committee

"Between the first and the second hole" answered the lady whereupn the secretary said "Ah! A difficult place to treat".

It fell flat. The uncle just sort of harrumphed and the aunt looked intently at the chair.

Well, that's that. My week that was. Hope y'all had a better.

Life

I wrote this meaning to post it on google plus, it being private and all, and ironically, it kept disappearing from google plus. After what-the-effing exasperatedly for a while, I decided to have my revenge by posting it on the blog after all. Here goes

I'm quite enamored with this Google Plus thing. I had more or less stopped blogging because, well, I write autobiographical stuff and you cant really write autobiographical stuff without, well, being autobiographical.

What I mean is, I'm terrified of accidentally revealing stuff to the missus, or to her spies, stuff that we, the boys and I, take great pains to keep under wraps for all kinds of deep strategic reasons.

For instance, this evening, the lads told me a joke.

"Annie, Annie, you want to hear a joke?" one of them asked

"No thanks", I replied. I have learned it is better not to listen to these guys' jokes.

"Ok Annie, here it is", he continued, as if I hadn't said a word.

"I said I didn't want to hear it. I'm busy."

"Annie, why is a wonder-bra called a wonder-bra?"

"What!"

"Why is a wonder bra called a wonder bra?"

"Ok I heard it the first time. My 'What!' was an expression of incredulity that two Indian teenagers could actually contemplate telling jokes about wonder bras to their father. Its against Indian Culture."

"Annie, should it be 'Wonder bras' or 'Wonders bra' ?"

I stared at him incredulously some more.

"You know, you were explaining the other day how it should be Brothers in Law and not Brother in laws."

'Er, Wonder bras is correct", I replied, hoping that that would be that.

"Annie, so answer the question"

"I just did"

"No, the earlier one."

'What earlier one?"

"Annie, it is 'Which earlier one', not 'What earlier one'. Why are wonder bras called wonder bras?"

I gave up.

"Ok, you tell me"

"Because when she takes them off, you wonder where the tits went"

I stared at the lad.

"Where did you learn words like that?"

"Wonder bra? Heard it on TV I think. Don't remember"

"No, the other word"

'Which other word"

"Tits" I whispered.

And the missus of course chose that exact moment to enter the room. A bit like those farcical plays. Except that this is real life and I am likely to get my ears seared with some sharp rebukes.

" What this about tits?" she asked, using the sharp voice that is the harbinger of sharper things.

I gulped. A sort of darkness was beginning to envelop me. But the younger son came to rescue.

"Annie was telling us about the white-naped tit and why its population is declining rapidly. It used to be endemic to India"

"Er, exactly. Ok boys, time to learn some mathematics. Where is the calculus text?"

And the moment passed. A moment best treasured in silence, as you would doubtless agree.

And yet, I have this crazy urge to tell someone. Which is why I like Google+ because hopefully no one will tell the missus.

My prescription for better security for the people - Worse security for the leaders

This is mostly a rant provoked by yesterday's dastardly bomb explosions in Mumbai and the general reactions that followed them.

In general, I thought the response by the citizenry was touching. People from all walks of life extended helping hands without a second thought. Typical Mumbai.

But the news networks made a pig's breakfast out the thing. They tried their level best to make it look like an enormous terror attack, and could hardly conceal their disappointment when it turned out it wasn't. Which, as Greatbong pointed out in his excellent post, is exactly what terrorists want. They would love to see their handiwork as something which has put life completely out of whack for Mumbaiites.

But a point like that is too subtle to cross the bone-brain barrier of the TV anchors and they went hammer at tongs at it. Somewhere along the way, someone seems to have figured out that no one was watching anymore.

So for the last 24 hours or so, the TV networks have been trying to mobilize anger. All day I've been watching TV off and on, only to find some citizen bubbling over with rage.

One guy I just saw, which prompted me to write this post, went on about how horrible the politicians were and how weak the system was, and how late ambulances arrived and about fifty other grievances which it occurred to me is exactly what the politicians want to hear. All true, of course, but completely non specific grievances. The more the merrier, you can almost hear them saying to each other. So everyone lets off their spleen against some nameless politicians, the anchors yell a bit more and within a day or two, things are back to normal.

But it just occurred to me, and I may be wrong here because I'm a doofus who is usually wrong about things, that the way to hit them, the politicians that is, would be to kick them in the nuts.

Not literally of course. To the best of my knowledge, elected representatives do not come equipped with testicles. I mean figuratively, in the sense that we should do something that would hurt them badly.

So what does Narendra Shenoy suggest? What? Eh? What? What?

Well, here's my idea. Not much of an idea but based on my fervent wish when stuck behind some idiot in the traffic who stops his car on a narrow road to buy a paan or cigarette unmindful about all the cars bunched up behind him and honking. And why is he unmindful of the honking? Glad you asked. That's because the honking is random. You know what I wish we could do? Go ..one...two..three..BRAAAAAAP everyone honks at the same time. You can bet your panty knickers he will jump out of his Govinda suit, giving you some well deserved mirth and possibly reforming his character.

But we don't do anything like that. We honk a few times, wait till the moron has finished, and shuffle along cursing silently.

This is exactly what the citizenry is doing at the moment of going to press. Making random honking sounds but waiting patiently to shuffle along behind the powers that be.

So, what is Narendra Shenoy's solution, you ask again. Well, it is this. I say take away THEIR security. Why should they get super efficient protection when you and I can be bumped off by any moron with access to some explosive and a cellphone?

With the exception of a few guys - the PM perhaps, the Home Minister, CMs of the states, but certainly not the animal husbandry minister or the minister for civil aviation, EVERYONE's security should be completely withdrawn.

I'm not heartless of course. We should give them a good-luck talisman. Perhaps a nazar suraksha kavach. And I'd definitely support the payment by the state of premium for a 1 crore pure risk LIC policy in favour of the elected representative's dependents.

And the thing is, and this is my grand theory, THEN we will see a dramatic improvement in the general security. Suddenly, police will start finding terrorists BEFORE terror attacks happen. Because if they don't their bosses are probably frontline targets.

Well, that's it. My big brain wave. Not much, I know, but I do believe that if all the angry citizens on TV ask for only one thing, the immediate removal of security for all but three elected representatives, things might just change. But like the honking story, it has to be done at the same time by everyone if it has to work. No nonsense about "we should have more checkpoints" or "we should have better intelligence networks". All those will come automatically. Just ask for complete withdrawal of all security for all but 3 elected representatives in each state, and 3 at the center. What's it going to cost you anyway?

Down Memory Lane

Today, dear reader, I invite you to take a walk with me Down Memory Lane.

It must have occured to you, since you are the brighter sort of person, that 'Down Memory Lane' might be code for 'long boring yarn about the past from chap unable to find anything interesting in his current life'.

You would be right. Nothing of any interest has been happening to me these past weeks. The boys, now in their 10th and 12th, are glued to their books most of the time. They go to coaching classes too, which suck out whatever little free time they have left and the missus and I are usually to be found in the living room, holding hands or arguing about what to have for breakfast, or both.

And we take walks Down Memory Lane.

Life was fun when the kids were little. Their innocence. Their pranks. Their fights.

"Remember the time you guys went on a tiger safari?" asked the missus.

How could I forget it! We had gone to the Mudumalai forests near Mysore, where some species of forest lodge had been hired. It had a truly gifted cook, one Mani, who made the best 'kozhambu' (as I believe it is called) I have ever had and I would have been content to spend the weekend sampling his ouevre. But the powers that be, namely the missus, decided that we must go into the forest.

I was a bit reluctant because just the night before, I had gone with a few of her cousins into the forest. This was at 4 am and the idea was to see a tiger. The chaps who took us reasoned that tigers, subscribing to the old maxim that early risers get worms, good health and wisdom, would be about in droves and we would naturally get to see them doing whatever they do at 4 am.

All that happened was that I got bitten in many places by many different insects and for about 10 minutes, when I couldn't see anyone around in the pitch darkness, experienced sheer terror. Thankfully, the tigers were conspicuous by their absence.

But the missus wouldnt hear of not going. "You have to take the boys and get them to experience the thrill of wilderness"

'YOU have to take the boys? Why, aren't you coming?"

'Turned out that she liked the kozhambu too. "No, I'm worried about my spondylitis" The missus has a convenient spondylitis for occasions such as these.

Anyway, we hired a jeep and took a bumpy drive into the forest. All that we got to see for many a mile were deer, which are like the autorickshaws of the forest. They are found everywhere and run away the moment you approach them. The boys got bored and about 15 minutes into our safari, were fast asleep on my shoulder. Suddenly, the driver braked hard and excitedly pointed to a clump of shrubs. For a fleeting moment, I saw a leopard which, like most intelligent people do upon percieving that they are about to be inflicted with the company of Shri Narendra Shenoy, lit out of the place instanter. I woke up the boys "Look boys, leopard!" I hissed.

There was a bit of what-where-whoing on the part of the lads and by the time they could get their bearings, the critter had vanished into the woods. The boys went right back to sleep.

We saw a couple of peacocks, one of which was doing it's dance, and a HUGE bison, but the lads were not interested.

An hour or so later, we returned to our lodge. Mani had organized some river fish and was grilling them on an open fire. I forgot about my aches and rushed into the middle of the action. Missus had convinced Mani to roast some sweet potatoes and masalafied tomatoes, which were excellent.

We sat around a fire and got the kids to sing and dance. I was regaling the grown-ups with tales of my safari.

"We saw a leopard"

'Get out! What luck! Leopards are really hard to find. Are you sure it was a leopard and not some deer?"

"Of course we saw a leopard. Here, ask Gautham. Gautham, did we or did we not spot a leopard this evening?"

"No, Annie"

'What! Oh of course, he was sleeping. He wouldn't know"

'What about Vyaas?"

'Oh, he was sleeping too"

I could see the growing scepticism in their faces.

"Hmm", said the missus, "nice story."

"No really, we did see a leopard. Gau, you did see it's tail, didn't you?"

"Yes,amma, we did"

"Then why did you say you didn't?"

"I didn't say I didn't"

"You did"

"Didn't"

I felt the temples throbbing.

The older one piped up. "Annie, you asked us if we spotted the leopard"

"So?"

"We didnt spot it. It was spotted from before"

Aaarghh.

"Hahaha" said the missus."Run along, boys, time to sleep"

The missus smiled at this point in the reminiscing. And I decided I would pick up the old laptop and bang out a post.