Vakil's Musings

Paattiyamma for President!!

2007-06-16T13:08:00.000+05:30

The race for the post of the President of India is certainly hotting up. Those of us who watched the news channels on Thursday night or read the newspapers yesterday would have been surprised to find a Pattiyamma (“Grandma”) staring back at us!! Yes, this Pattiyamma is the official candidate of the ruling coalition at the Centre – Smt. Pratibha Patil (Shekhawat)! The Shekhawat angle has apparently been introduced to please the Rajasthanis as the other likely candidate is the Vice president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat! Either way there would be a Shekhawat as President seems to be the idea. You can read the news about her nomination here and here. My first reaction on seeing her was that she would make a nice Paatti and certainly wouldn’t be my choice for President. Before all of you get your daggers out and call me an MCP, let me clarify that I have no issues with a woman becoming a President and on the contrary, I’d be the first person to welcome it. But when we get down to specifics, I can’t think of this lady except as a Paatti and certainly not as a President.

Infact, the ruling coalition seems to be banking heavily on the “first woman President” tag to see its nominee through. First woman President or not, the fact remains that many of the parties constituting the present ruling coalition have been the ones vehemently opposing the introduction of 33% reservation for women in Parliament and State legislatures. So, this is not going to change anything and it’s just yet another gimmick of our netas.

But honestly, how many of us have heard of this lady before this week?? I came to know that she was the Governor of Rajasthan only after she issued some statements couple of weeks back when there was a confrontation between the Rajasthan Government and the Gujjars. To her credit though is the fact that she has been with the Congress party throughout and hasn’t changed to the colours of any other party to suit her priorities. In this era of horse-trading and floor crossing, that is certainly a plus. But still, this doesn’t qualify her, in my opinion, to become President of India. Is it unreasonable to expect, that the President must be a person whom we have atleast heard a little about??

The comment left by one reader on NDTV that we would be having our first “rashtra-patni” sums it up quite well! I would say we would be having our first “rashtra-paatti” :-)

Hell-met!!

2007-06-04T23:51:00.000+05:30

Yes, that’s what most people, who were forced to buy helmets and use them in Madras, seem to think they are. Those of you who are not living here should know that the state government made it compulsory for all those travelling by two-wheelers (bike-riders as well as those on pillion) to wear helmets from 1st June. While the state government had been dragging the issue for years, its hand was forced by the Madras High Court which passed strict orders directing the government to implement the rule. A couple of writ petitions were also filed by some good samaritans before the High Court in the fag end of May as a last ditch effort to prevent implementation of the rule, but the Court refused to budge. Expectedly there was a mad rush to buy helmets on 31st May and those selling them, literally made hay while the sun shone.

As 1st June dawned, there was literally a sea of helmets on Mount Road, a scene which I hadn’t seen before. The police were also present in strength in quite a few roads implementing the rule with gusto and slapping a fine of Rs.100 on anyone found without a helmet! However, as the day progressed their attitude seemed to ease up a bit and they let off people with a stern warning and advice to wear a helmet in future.

It was quite evident that a majority of the two-wheeler riding population wasn’t happy with the new rule as there was quite a bit of cribbing. It must be noted that yours truly, for once, did not crib, having been used to wearing helmets for the past several years!! Nevertheless, one could understand their feelings considering the fact that we have such pleasant sunny weather throughout the year. Evidently, a lot of people did not stop with cribbing and had also pleaded with the Chief Minister to consider not enforcing the rule strictly! After considering such pleas, the Chief Minister in his birthday-eve message said that wearing helmets as per the Court order should be treated only as a necessity to safeguard lives and that its enforcement, in no way, should cause hindrance to the public! The people certainly took the message in the “right” spirit and there was a marked reduction in the number of helmets seen on the roads from Sunday!! The police also seem to have taken the hint and clarified today that it was optional for women and children riding pillion to wear helmets!

But if one looks at it carefully, most people concerned with the rule are happy about the turn of events. The state government, by implementing the rule, has duly complied with the court order. The people, though they were set back by a few hundred rupees for purchasing the helmet, are happy as they know that the rule wouldn’t be enforced strictly and they can continue going out not wearing helmets. The police are also happy as this would give them the option of turning a blind eye or enforcing the rule, as and when it pleases them. Certainly opens up yet another revenue stream for them! As for the helmet vendors, they are the most happy as they were the biggest beneficiaries as they’ve sold the helmets, whether people wear them anymore or not. Last but not the least, we come to the Court. They must be happy, shouldn’t they? After all, the rule was certainly implemented by the state government and what more could one expect from a people’s government?

Breaking rules and breaking news!

2007-02-15T15:56:00.000+05:30

Being quite vetti (jobless) at home, I have a lot of time now to watch TV [should not be construed to mean that I do it all the time :-)]. Switching on the TV day before in the afternoon, I found most of the Indian news channels uniformly showing one particular news item as ‘Breaking News’. The news in question was Lalu Prasad Yadav’s in-laws travelling ticketless in a train in Bihar! The news by itself didn’t come as a big surprise to me as Mr.Yadav has been running Bihar as his own fiefdom throughout the time he or his wife has been in power. So, his in-laws travelling ticketless while he is the railway minister in a First A/C coupe isn’t big news at all. That being the case, I was wondering if this particular news item warranted being hyped up as breaking news across all channels. Come on, haven’t we got any other news worth reporting – news, which is really “news” and not just hype?

Now, look at it from the point of view of the in-laws of Mr.Yadav. Hundreds or even thousands travel ticketless day in and day out. In fact, you and I could also have done it at some point in our lives :-) Its just their misfortune that they got caught and they also happen to be related to the railway minister. And in Bihar, I am told that people having reserved tickets usually find someone else occupying their seat. So, is it such a grave offence warranting reporters scurrying to a small town in Bihar to “cover” the news?

Apparently there’s a huge change in the way news is reported these days especially by the visual media. The sad trend seems to be to sensationalise everything and anchors/reporters seem to believe in being ruthless and holding a trial by the media and passing judgement. News seems to be analysed from the point of view of TRPs rather than their actual newsworthiness. Sad state of affairs in my opinion…..

When I picked up The Hindu yesterday morning I was half expecting the incident of the ticketless travel to be in the headlines. Mercifully, they didn’t seem to think it headline news and relegated to a small column in one of the middle pages. I guess they still believe in reporting news rather than selling hype!

An evening at CCD!

2007-02-07T23:24:00.000+05:30

An evening at CCD (Cafe Coffee Day for the uninitiated!) yesterday turned rather interesting than expected! Being as jobless as I am, I was driving around the city on my bike and taking in the sun, when I had the sudden brainwave to meet a couple of friends at CCD in Ispahani Centre. For the sake of brevity we shall refer to them as A and N.

We were comfortably seated in the couches when the menu cards, one pink and the other maroon, were made available to us. Soon it was time for us to order and N began by asking for Iced Caramel in the maroon card, but the waiter (don’t know if its appropriate to call them waiters!) pointed out that he can only give her a Caribbean Caramel on the pink card! The only difference between the two was the price, the one N wanted was priced at Rs.45 and the one he offered to get was priced at Rs.75!! N tried pointing out that both drinks were the same and how there could be any differential pricing but the waiter stood his ground and said he could only get the higher priced one. Not wanting to shell out a higher price, N grudgingly had to settle for a less palatable drink :-)

In the meanwhile A, who had been studiously going over the menu card(s), came up with her order – a samosa and a chocolate crumble! Hearing this, both N and I tried convincing A about the inadvisability of ordering samosa in a place like CCD but in vain. In due course, the samosa arrived, infact there were two on the plate and A began eating one. N who was looking rather wistfully at the other samosa decided to have it herself and that’s when the trouble began. After a couple of bites, N began making a close examination of the contents of the samosa and came to the conclusion that the samosa was burnt! A careful comparison with the other samosa (a small sample of which was made available by A) proved that she was infact right and the samosa was, indeed, burnt!

Having concluded thus, N then called for the waiter and brought the matter to his notice. And the immediate response she got from him, left us all rather stunned for a moment! “We don’t make the samosas ma’am, we get them from outside”, was his reply! But N was not one to be cowed down by such replies and argued that whether they made the samosas or got them from outside, they can’t sell burnt samosas to customers. A chipped in by showing her samosa and pointed out the difference in colour between the stuffings in the two samosas to prove the point. The waiter who had become quite jittery by then took the samosa back with him for an inspection by his higher authorities. After prolonged discussions with his colleagues he came back with the samosa and his verdict, that the samosa was not burnt! This led to more arguments from A and N but he once again stood his ground and pointed out that it was peas stuffing and its appearance is as it should be! However, he couldn’t come up with any satisfactory answer when we pointed out that the stuffing in A’s samosa didn’t look the same. He suggested that the stuffing in A’s samosa was aloo and hence looked different! N then came up with the brilliant suggestion that he should get her an aloo stuffed samosa as well, which left him quite baffled! In the end, however, N got no replacement for the burnt samosa which left her rather miffed and rightfully too.

Feeling rather shortchanged by the attitude of the waiter, A and N decided to vent their anger through a feedback form! The waiter attending to our table was quite helpful in pointing out that the feedback form was available along with the bill, thus subtly hinting that the bill was, as yet, unpaid! A promptly filled up the same and pointed out the “defects” in the samosa that was served and the general attitude of the staff. N, in the meanwhile, decided that she should add her five paisa worth in the feedback and asked for another feedback form. Apparently this was the first time that two feedback forms were requested by people in the same table and the staff seemed to be quite ill equipped to deal with such an emergency!! Hectic parleys seemed to be happening between them regarding the same with no solution in sight! Frantic waving of hands by the three of us and polite “excuse mes” to passing waiters didn’t produce the required form either and at one point of time, no waiter was willing to look anywhere in the direction of our table! After a lapse of almost 10 minutes, the feedback form was finally furnished and N had quite a bit to write on that rather small piece of paper. Having done that we decided that it was time for us to leave, which view, the staff in CCD seemed to endorse as well. On our way out, we passed an elderly gentleman looking rather intently at the samosas and puffs on display and said a silent prayer for him :-)

P.S: The whole episode was quite amusing when you look at it as a spectator, as I was :-)

Margazhi maasam, Kolams and Kutcheris...

2006-12-28T21:25:00.000+05:30

Margazhi maasam (or the month of Margazhi under the tamil calendar) began about a couple of weeks back. Margazhi is considered quite holy and temples generally register brisk attendance during this month! Margazhi evokes a lot of childhood memories in me especially of getting up very early in the mornings and having a bath, reciting Thiruppavai and going to the nearby temple of Lord Venkateshwara (or Perumal Kovil, as one called it). While getting up early and reciting Thiruppavai weren’t things which I did out of choice, I did goto the Perumal Kovil rather willingly. Before you jump to the conclusion that I am very religious, let me clarify that my motives in going to the temple were entirely ulterior. I hardly remember having paid any visit to the Lord and praying before Him during such visits, the purpose of my visit being solely the prasadam which was on offer, hot pongal, sundal and the like :-) Of course, things have changed a lot over the years. I don’t even remember when was the last time I recited Thiruppavai or went to the Perumal Kovil for prasadam. However, there is a raging war going on at home these days between my dad and me, as he seems hell bent on brushing up my Thiruppavai proficiency!! Promptly at 5.45 every morning he’s been playing a Thiruppavai cassette at very loud volume so that the whole neighbourhood seems to wake up to the divine compositions! As of now, we are still negotiating as to what is the optimum volume at which one can play music so early in the mornings!

Margazhi also means kolams and people seem to kind of get into a frenzy about them during this month. Those of you who have known me here would know that I don’t take kindly to kolams and that they evoke strong feelings in me. And as if to add insult to injury, some neighbourhood newspapers have even announced Kolam drawing contests!! Hence I have strictly resolved not to venture early in the mornings on my bike atleast till 7AM during this month. However, much to my dismay, I now find that a lot of young girls and women who are interested in exhibiting their artistic bent of mind through kolams are quite lazy and don’t seem interested in getting up early in the mornings (which is standard procedure laid down in the manuals!) for drawing the kolams. Instead I find that they draw these kolams late at night around 10 – 11 PM before going to bed. This leads to a situation where I’m now at serious risk of getting ambushed on my way back from work!!! Don’t you think that is quite unfair to me? ;-)

Margazhi also means the Kutcheri (music concert) season in Madras, which is quite unique to the city! The city abounds in Sabhas which vie with one another to catch the patronage of the rasikas. The Kutcheri season also enables the Maamis to display their kanjeevarams, benares silks and the like!! Nothing like flaunting your newest Pattu podavai with a superior look in your face! The Kutcheri season also sees the mushrooming of canteens outside the sabhas and more often than not, the crowd in these canteens is much more than the crowd inside for the kutcheri!! Nevertheless, the season definitely whets the appetite of the connoisseurs of classical music! While I endeavour to catch a few kutcheris every year without much success, the score has been much better this year. Though I missed the first week of the season because of that plague called work, I did manage to catch three kutcheris so far during the second week! It is quite a different world at these kutcheris with long winding alapanais and thani avarthanams interspersed with “sabash” and ‘baley” from the performers as well as the audience!! Though tons and tons of newsprint have been used up this year in reporting the kutcheri season, it is quite sad to see that the audience interest is definitely on the wane. While the big names do bring in the crowds, the concerts of lesser known artistes hardly see any attendance apart from the office bearers of the concerned sabha and family members of the artistes! I sincerely suggest that a lot of people who waste their time drawing kolams and generally being a nuisance to the public, can spend their time in attending such concerts and enhancing their musical knowledge :-)

Being the last post of mine for this year, I’d like to wish all of you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year!! I shall be back to torture you all with more of this crap in the coming year :-)

Of jersey cows and free colour TVs!

2006-11-23T23:44:00.000+05:30

An article in The Hindu entitled “Till the cows come home” caught my attention today. The article explains how the decision to give jersey cows to poor farmers in Vidharba is causing more harm than good to the beneficiaries. Apparently both the State and Central Governments have hit upon this novel idea of giving “relief” to poor farmers in this drought hit region which has seen a huge number of suicides! It appears novelty alone was the criteria in mooting such a relief package. The fact that these farmers are already starving and may not have the money to feed and maintain these animals seems to have been lost on the officialdom! The sheer reality as one woman points out is that the cow eats more than everyone in her family together!! Just shows how short-sighted our beloved Netas can be when it comes to “serving” the people!!

Another issue which has been on my mind is our Chief Minister’s free colour television scheme. While I must admit that I did make fun of this election promise as another gimmick, our CM has certainly proved me wrong. Being the cynic and critic that I am, I still can’t admit that this was entirely done with the welfare of the people at heart. After all, we do know that the undisputed No. 1 TV channel in tamil is owned and controlled by our CM’s kin. All other channels vie only for the second spot. And it certainly won’t do any harm to the No. 1 channel if every household has a colour TV, would it? What more, it has such a huge viewership that the demand for the channel is, as students of economics would put it, inelastic! And it comes as no surprise that the channel has decided to become a “pay” channel from December!! So, is the decision to give free TVs a welfare measure or is it a very clever decision to boost a family business?? Your guess is as good as mine ;-)

P.S: I know there isn’t any relation between the distribution of cows to poor farmers and the distribution of free TVs. But while the article on the cows made me sad and angry, the issue of free TVs has an indirect impact on me due to the fact that I have to shell out 12 bucks more on my cable TV bills from next month! Now, ain’t that unfair? ;-)

P.P.S: I admit this is a rather ordinary post even by my standards. Those of you who don't like it may kindly say so by leaving a comment. And those of you who do like the post may also leave a comment! Come on, I'm quite desperate to hear from you all :-)

An exciting day at Kumbakonam!

2006-09-29T06:44:00.000+05:30

A trip to Kumbakonam yesterday turned out rather eventful! The trip was for the purpose of attending the Annual General Meeting (“AGM”) of a century old institution which was being managed by our clients. Since some trouble was expected from a rival group of shareholders (supported by the ruling party), we were requested to be present, just in case. As it turned out, our presence or absence made no difference!

While a colleague and I disembarked from the train at 7.30am hoping to receive a ceremonial welcome, we were whisked away rather unceremoniously straight to our client’s office! Though we were a bit miffed at this treatment, the reasons for the same justified it in full.

It appears that the rival group had gate crashed the registered office of the company and the venue of the AGM in the heart of Kumbakonam at 5am and taken over both places! About 1500 men belonging to the ruling party, most of whom were drunk and armed, had taken residence at the meeting hall! The registered office premises was also sealed by them! Further, the Chief General Manager of the Company had also been abducted from his residence at 2am and taken to an unknown location! All this was done with the active connivance and support of the local police. Obviously, owing allegiance to the ruling party does seem to have its perks!!

While the AGM was scheduled to commence at 10am, by 6am our clients were certain that they would be voted out of office as they were not so daft to go to the meeting hall and get lynched. And so they found themselves illegally thrown out of office by a brutal show of muscle power!

Though I did have an intuition before we left for Kumbakonam that both of us would get beaten up if we attended the meeting, I never thought that things would turn out as they did! After a quick breakfast and shower, we sat down to draft a civil suit to be filed urgently before the district munsif court on the same day. That the typist whose services were made available to us kept typing “injection” for “injunction” every time did not make things any easier!

If we thought that this was enough excitement for the day, we were sadly mistaken. While we were on our way to have lunch we had to pass very close to the registered office of the company and we spotted quite a few hooligans patrolling the streets in the vicinity even then!! We retraced our route and skirted around the place eventually. More events unfolded in true filmi style as the local vakil we had engaged to represent our clients suddenly developed a mysterious illness and declined to appear for us. Few more vakils who were approached by us also politely refused to represent us. In the end we had to bring a vakil from Thanjavur to appear for us!

By the time all this was over, it was evening and we were quite exhausted and getting back home safely was the only concern in our minds. We both heaved a sigh as the Rockfort Express left the Kumbakonam railway station at 7.30pm! Quite enough for one day…….

P.S: The events of the day came in quite handy for me to break my long hiatus from blogging! I am off on a vacation for a week and hope to see all your comments when I get back :-)

Up close and personal with a bee!!

2006-08-28T23:43:00.000+05:30

Yesterday was Vinayaka Chaturthi and Pooja was performed as usual at home. Having finished a rather elaborate lunch yours truly ventured out around 2.30pm to meet a friend in Mylapore. Half way through while I was near Malar Hospitals, Adyar, things took a turn for the worse leaving me in a lot of pain and agony!! In hindsight this could actually have been a curse from Lord Ganesha on his birthday for speaking ill of his miracle of drinking milk!!

To get to the fact in issue, while I was cruising along on my bike at about 60kmph another object was cruising in the opposite direction at two or three times that speed! The object in question was an insect, more particularly a bee! While both of us were thus cruising along, our paths inevitably crossed resulting in the bee inflicting a murderous sting on me just under the right eye!! What more, the bee was quite intent on gouging my eye out! Now, before all of you jump on me with the virtues of wearing a helmet while driving, let me clarify that I was, indeed, wearing a helmet! But I always have the visor open about an inch at the base for air circulation. And as luck would have it, the flight path of the bee seemed to be directly in line with the gap between the helmet and visor!

Going back to the narrative, there was a big tug of war between me and the bee with the bee initially having the upper hand as I had to slow down and park the vehicle with one hand. Thankfully, it being a Sunday, the road was fairly deserted. Finally I managed to wrench the bee out, only to realise that it had left behind its sting! Then began the agonizing pain and the face began to swell up alarmingly within seconds! Managed to finally turn the bike and drive upto the nearest hospital where they managed to extract the sting out. By the time they managed to inject a dose of anti-histamine (anti-allergic) in me, the damage had already been done with a hugely puffed up right side of the face and worse still, I broke out in red coloured spots all over the body!! If there was a human equivalent for a spotted leopard, then I would have certainly qualified as one! Finally I managed to reach home around 4pm, only to shock everyone at home by my appearance!

The anti-histamine began to take effect late in the evening and the spots disappeared thereafter. But the pain remained, with me wincing every time I blinked my eyes. Repeated application of a cold compress throughout the night helped bring down the swelling a bit by this morning! I have never had great opinions about my looks and don’t venture to look at the face at close quarters except while combing my hair and shaving. But it’s really quite surprising how the very same face becomes most desirable to look at when something goes wrong with it! I kept looking into the mirror almost every five minutes whole of last evening, much to the amusement of my mother :-)

This is how it looked on Sunday evening! The one on your left is actually the right eye :-)

Things are much better today with the swelling reduced a lot and the face now resembling that of a boxer with a black eye after a rather stiff bout! Managed to go to court as well, though I did manage to draw quite a few stares. In fact I could have actually played out a childhood fantasy of playing one of the characters in Treasure Island by wearing a shade over my right eye like Blind Pew :-)

To put things in proper perspective, the insect kingdom and I have always shared a love-hate relationship. The insects’ love for me and my hate for the insects!! Insects seem to have the knack of sniffing me out wherever I may be! Before the advent of mosquito mats and vapourisers, Tortoise coils and Odomos were my saviours!! Odomos, unlike its present avtar, used to be sticky and greasy and made you feel like buttered toast! However, despite such shortcomings, it has saved me from many bites and stings!

Thus, in the final tally, I guess I should be happy that things haven’t gone worse this time and I did manage to get the accursed bee off before it could do further damage. I understand that the honey bee when it stings a mammal leaves behind its barbed sting and thus loses its life in the bargain. The bee, on the other hand, would have gone with the satisfaction that it had caused sufficient damage to keep me in discomfort for at least a few days!

P.S: I did not actually get to see the bee properly and I have proceeded under the impression that it was a bee after all, only on the evidence that it had left behind its sting. Hence, to clarify things, you may substitute the word “insect” for the word “bee” wherever it appears in the foregoing paragraphs as I do not want to incur further wrath of the bee kingdom by levelling accusations against them without proper evidence. One sting is more than enough for me :-)

Of Gods and their miracles!

2006-08-24T23:26:00.000+05:30

Miracles have always been part of life in India and the Hindu faith abounds with stories of miracles that have happened. With millions of gods in the faith, one would naturally begin expecting such miracles to happen every other day! So, it wasn’t really surprising when idols of Lord Ganesha started drinking milk in several parts of the country this week!! This is nothing new as the same phenomenon occurred around the same time of the year in 1995. As is happening now, at that time also, people flocked to temples to spoonfeed Lord Ganesha :-) While scientists explained that this was due to surface tension, people were steadfast in their belief that the Lord himself has descended upon earth to drink milk!! In fact a cobbler (in which city, I don’t remember) showed that his cobbling tools also “drank” milk, thus ridiculing the idea of any miracle! This created quite a furore at that time! The staunchly religious pointed out that if surface tension was the reason, then why did Lord Ganesha drink milk only now and not all the time? Not an easy question to dismiss, I must say :-) Having been a science student at high school, I sided with the scientists and gave physics lectures at home, which wasn’t well received by folks at home! Unfortunately, I have since bade goodbye to science and its principles and this time around, I strongly believe that this is a miracle and nothing else :-)

This brings me to an interesting question as to how far people are ready to go in obliging the gods if these miracles become a routine affair. Hinduism, one must appreciate, has a god for all seasons and all reasons! And each of those gods expects us to please them (read worship!) in some form or other. The most common form of worship is to make offerings, which may be either in cash or in kind. The cash is generally used to maintain and run the places of worship. The offerings in kind are given back to the devotees as Prasadam!! Now, if all the gods were to take the cue from Lord Ganesha and decide to demand their “pound of flesh” literally and have the Prasadam for themselves, would we still be inclined to continue making offerings as we do today?

Another “miracle” which occurred this week was sea water turning “sweet” at Mahim beach in Bombay!! People have started taking sea water home and have started consuming it as well!! Thankfully, nobody seems to have been affected by this, thus reinforcing the theory that it’s a miracle! And as usual, the non-conformists attributed this to the heavy rains recently and pointed out that sodium chloride levels which used to be about 10000 ppm (parts per million) have come down to 500 ppm! These people seem to have no other job than establishing theories on anything and everything. But the believers have come back strongly asking why the water turned sweet only at Mahim and not in other places when there has been rain everywhere! The non-conformists must accept the fact that we Indians have always, and will always continue to, have something called “faith”! And miracles are just the reminders for us to keep the faith :-)

P.S: To clarify, I'm neither an atheist nor am I deeply religious! I tread the middle path :-)

Thanga Vettai!

2006-08-19T23:38:00.000+05:30

Thanga Vettai (which literally means “Gold hunt”) is supposedly a popular game show telecast every Saturday evening in one of the tamil channels. The USP of the show is that the participants are divided into two teams and are rewarded with certain specified number of gold coins for every correct answer at the end of each round! The coins in respect of questions which were answered wrong or which were not answered at all are reserved for the audience who are asked a “prize” question during the show! The lure for the yellow metal seems to have propelled the show to top the TRP ratings! Although this show has been on air for quite sometime now, I hadn’t got an opportunity to watch it until today. Apparently, I started watching in round 3 which comprised of 10 questions. Each team is allowed to choose the question to be asked of the other and if they don’t answer, the first team gets a chance to answer it! Some of the questions and the answers given would indicate the level of intelligence required for participating in the show:

Who wrote the book “Wake up India”?

Team A: Jawaharlal Nehru
Team B: Shakespeare!!
(The book was written by Annie Besant!)

Who was the third person along with Bhagat singh and Sukh Dev who was awarded death sentence?

Team A: Pass
Team B: Subhash Chandra Bose!!

Cleopatra was the queen of which country?

Team A: USA!
Team B: Pass

Who was the first woman governor of a State in India?

Team A: Pass
Team B: Indira Gandhi!!
(Sarojini Naidu!)

What is the capital of Sikkim?

Team A: Pass
Team B: Pass

I was expecting them to answer the last one as Madras or Bombay but mercifully both teams passed the question. At the end of the round, the anchor was quite embarrassed as neither team had answered even one question right!

In India, games of chance are not permitted and that is one of the reasons why you find a disclaimer at the bottom of all contest forms that it is a game of skill and not a game of chance. I am sure the producers of this show have also made the same disclaimer and stated that this is a game of skill. Going by the answers given by the participants, your guess is as good as mine as to whether it is a game of skill or chance:-)

Its Friendship Day!!!

2006-08-06T13:03:00.000+05:30

The first Sunday of August is celebrated as Friendship Day every year and it falls on August 6 this year! I have always been rather skeptical about these special days and have dismissed them as cheap tricks of greeting card companies!! But somehow I have made a lot of new friends in the last couple of years who have made quite a difference to my life. And it is only just that I dedicate a post to all of them.

Some of my best friends are from my school days who have stood by me in my worst times and have been so kind to me, despite the fact that I have avoided them for several years!! Then there is Cibi who is a really good friend, despite the fact that he is a colleague (My views on why colleagues cannot make good friends will feature in a separate post!).

I have also made lots of friends online in the recent past! I have been fortunate to meet and get to know some of them in person like Raaga, Wooster, Jyotsna, Bala, Teena Thomas, Kalpana, Sushmaa and a few others.

Then there are those like Teena Dubey, Deepa, Vidya, Anna, Susmita whom I know through their web pages / blogs and with whom I have been corresponding through mails / chats.

There are also those like Kanakku Madam, Yadhvi whom I know through their blogs and their comments on my blog!

Apart from these, there are also several others whom I have not mentioned here but who are my good friends nevertheless. This post is for all my friends to whom I just wish to say this – Thank you so much!!! All of you mean a lot to me and have made a difference to a life, otherwise made terrible by a pessimistic and cynical mind :-)

Happy Friendship Day!!!

A new look!!!

2006-07-23T23:49:00.000+05:30

A change of template to reflect my present mood! The bench above is the place I'd like to be right now! Solitude is what i need.....won't be too greedy and ask for Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 years of solitude but a year of solitude will be more than welcome!

Being technically challenged, the change of template was made possible thanks to the expertise of Susmita!!! Much obliged Ma'am :-)

P.S: You can scroll down for the usual crib of the week!

Of statues and our obsession with them!

2006-07-22T09:53:00.000+05:30

We seem to have an overwhelming obsession with erecting statues, be it Kannagi or Sivaji Ganesan. The entire length of the Marina is dotted with statues (not to mention the ones at various road junctions) though most of us don’t even know who they are! The statue of Mahatma Gandhi gets a wash once a year on 2nd October and that of Bharathiyar on his birth anniversary! The rest of them are not so fortunate though. They had their one moment in the limelight on the day when they were unveiled (with much pomp and fanfare, I’m sure) and have been forgotten ever since.

An 8-foot bronze statue of Sivaji Ganesan was unveiled on his 5th death anniversary yesterday in the middle of the busy Beach Road (Kamarajar Salai, to be precise) opposite Queen Mary’s College and just before Radhakrishnan Salai junction! The statue has been mired in controversy with a case being filed in the Madras High Court objecting to the place of its erection. The High Court did not grant an injunction but asked the State to approach the Supreme Court and seek a clarification as to whether the State was violating an earlier undertaking given to the apex court that no permanent or temporary structure would be put up on any main road. As usual, the state government pointed out that the undertaking was given by the previous regime (who had obviously not taken the present regime into confidence) and have now approached the Supreme Court for clarification.

Unlike our earlier obsession with the Kannagi statue, the truth behind which was revealed here, I do think that our Chief Minister’s interest in unveiling the statue of Sivaji is quite genuine! It is an admitted fact that they have been the thickest of friends and Sivaji had given life to the fiery dialogues penned by the Chief Minister. And Sivaji certainly deserves to have a statue. But what miffs me is the fact that the entire statue unveiling was turned into one huge party affair with the entire road dotted with party flags, posters and cutouts, showcasing the strength of the party. What more, the function was organized in the peak hour at 6.30pm resulting in heavy traffic snarls! Though we are all for erecting more statues and functions for unveiling them, the government would do well to remember not to put the general public to hardship as they are in power today, only because of us.

But I should not be so critical of these minor things….Who knows, they may even erect a statue for me in the near future ;-)

End of Supreme Court adventure!

2006-07-17T09:49:00.000+05:30

A trip to Delhi last week turned out a lot better than I had expected it to be. It was for the same case before the Supreme Court for which I had been going there since April. The trip, however, began as usual with a delayed flight on Tuesday afternoon. This left me rather fuming and fretting since I was quite hungry. The flight finally took off around 2.20 and landed around 5.

The weather was quite wonderful and there was a light drizzle when we landed which continued throughout the night and the next morning. This was quite a contrast to my earlier visits when it was blazing hot! The evening saw us drive a long way to Noida for a meeting with a senior counsel to brief him about the case. The drive was quite scary really. While I’m quite amazed each time I land up in this city to see such wide and smooth roads, it also seems to encourage very rash and reckless driving. Even for a person like me who generally drives very fast, it was quite unnerving. There are so many cars on the road and each seems to compete with one another in weaving through traffic. One particular Santro next to our car was driven by a young girl who seemed to have a firm belief that she was Michael Schumacher’s sister!! And if her car had a voice, it would certainly have cried out loud, as there were dents on almost every possible place on the car!! The only place free from any dents appeared to be the roof!

The next day at the Supreme Court turned out really well for us. We had gone there with the sole intention of getting an adjournment but the Court had other ideas and they actually decided the case in our favour! Yes, these judges at the Supreme Court actually seem to frown at adjournments, which every lawyer assumes is his birthright! Now before you start congratulating me on the success in the case, I must admit that I had nothing to do with the result and if any credit should be given, it must go to the judges for disposing off the case speedily. Walked around the Supreme Court a bit and ventured into court halls at random as this could very well turn out my last trip there…

Managed to meet another online friend of mine for the first time and she was nice enough to spare more than two hours for me in her busy schedule!

The return flight was in Indian Airlines and as usual the dreaded air hostess mamis were in-charge. The flight scheduled for 8pm took off promptly at 9! The flight proved quite eventful as there was a heated exchange between some passengers and the cabin crew in the Executive Class!! While most of us were craning our necks to see what the commotion was all about, some of those in front ventured into the executive class to mediate!!! I actually wanted to go up and pat those fellows who had the courage to give those air hostess mamis a mouthful but was restrained firmly by my boss!! Finally landed up in Madras at half past 11 and was surprised to find it drizzling here as well!

Breaking News!!

2006-07-11T08:18:00.000+05:30

I’m out of the yellow room for good!!! Those of you who are aware of how a so-called vaastu expert had made life miserable for me at office would be happy to read this news. And those of you who are wondering what this hype of yellow room and vaastu expert is all about, can get the details here. I have now moved into a room which can be described as a quarter-pink room!! It simply means that only one of the walls is pink and the rest are all white! But what’s important is the fact that I won’t feel I have jaundice all the time!

And to celebrate this new found liberty, I went off on a mini vacation last week! I set out to attend a friend’s wedding in Dindigul and landed up in Ooty after the wedding!! What followed was two and a half days of absolute bliss. The weather was just awesome and I returned back rather reluctantly on Sunday.

It appears that nobody except a moron like me goes to these hill stations all alone! People were either coming in with their entire family or they were there as couples, most probably on their honeymoon. Everyone, right from my cab driver to the hotel receptionist to the guide I hired, was surprised that I was all alone. Coming to the guide, he was a fellow who kept showing me the same places where everyone were going. Being an avid reader of the “Road less travelled” column of the Hindu travel supplement every week, I wanted to see some of those places. But this idiot refused to take me to any of those places saying those were not places visited by people! But that was precisely my point. After half an hour of futile arguments with him, I dropped him and decided to be my own guide. Turned out really good as I ended up seeing some lovely places without any of those crowds! And of course, I finally got to see a sparrow after a very long time! I don’t remember seeing it in Madras after my school days and that was a long time ago. Now you know that I did a lot of bird-watching too ;-)

Decided to board the toy train from Ooty to Coonoor and got myself a second class ticket. The only difference between the second class and first class was that the second class seating comprised of wooden benches and in the first class, they had cushions! And the fare was Rs.6/- for second class and Rs.63/- for first class!! It appears that the honeymooning couples were not aware of this secret and most of them got themselves first class tickets. They had probably expected a separate coupe for each of them, like in the regular trains, so they can get a bit cosy! They were in for quite a shock when they found other couples in the compartment and what more, the second class compartments were rather empty!! Disappointment was writ large on their faces. The train journey itself was really wonderful! Of course, you do feel slightly uneasy initially when you peep outside and look at the train while on the move because each compartment is swaying in opposite directions and is likely to topple off any moment! But then again, you take strength from the fact that the Nilgiris Mountain Railway has been running for more than 110 years and they have had very few mishaps!

Two incidents really stand out in my mind as far as this train journey goes. The first incident was when the train came to an abrupt halt in the middle of nowhere after honking the horn consistently for sometime. The reason for this was revealed after two minutes when the train started moving again. On the side of the track were two little kids waving at us with a wide grin on their faces! It appears they had crossed the track suddenly. This was the first time I have seen a train stop for pedestrians without a signal! The second incident happened at the Coonoor railway station. When we reached Coonoor there was already a train waiting on the platform which was on its way from Mettupalayam to Ooty. Our train kept going past the station and stopped near the level crossing. When we were wondering where we were supposed to get down, the train started moving backwards! Yes!!! The train actually went on reverse gear and stopped next to the waiting train. We were made to get down (or rather jump down) and then get on to the platform by walking across the waiting train! On a closer inspection I realised that these trains have engines at both ends. But I can never forget the initial shock of seeing a train going on reverse gear!

Finally, I got back to Madras on Sunday only to find it blazing hot. Worse still, I’m now nursing a miscellaneous number of aches and pains in various joints and muscles thanks to the exertions of the past week! I am now in the process of trying out the efficacy of the nilgiri oil that I had bought in Ooty :-)

And I’m off to Delhi again on Tuesday!!

P.S: There may be no relation to the title of this post and the contents inside. But that’s precisely what you can expect in this blog…..random and disjointed scribbles of a disgruntled and demented vakil :-)

Of kolams and why they should be banned...

2006-06-28T23:17:00.000+05:30

Many of us have seen Kolams in front of houses in Tamil Nadu. For the uninitiated, Kolams are decorative designs drawn outside homes using rice powder. These designs/ patterns are similar to rangoli minus the colour. You can read more about kolams here. The general idea behind drawing kolams seems to be to give a pleasant welcome to anyone who comes home and rice powder is used so that ants may feed on it. Of course, these days independent houses and street houses have given way to apartment complexes and so the practice of drawing kolams is dying. So much so, that those of you who know how to draw kolams may even get a pat on your back by the custodians of Tamil culture!! However, I did discover this morning that the practice has not altogether died down (much to my peril!) and there are some folks who still do it religiously every morning!

Before I go into the details, you must know the procedure to be followed before drawing a kolam. The ground is swept thoroughly to make it as smooth as possible. Then you take water in a bucket and holding the bucket in one hand, you start splashing the water in a semi circle. Those who are health conscious mix cow dung with the water before splashing, as cow dung is believed to be a disinfectant!! After splashing the water, you sweep the floor again to remove any excess water that may be stagnating. Now the ground is ready for you to show your creativity and draw the kolam.

Ok, here is what happened this morning. I was woken up (rather rudely, I must say) by my mother this morning at 5.45 and was asked to go on an urgent errand to my Thatha’s place couple of kilometers away from my place. Reluctantly I ventured out on my bike, driving with half open eyelids which were drooping all the time! I have to pass through a slightly narrow road and I just about noticed a Qualis parked on the side of this road at a distance. But just as I passed this Qualis something hit me very hard and suddenly I found myself dripping wet all over!!! It took me a couple of seconds to realize that someone had actually emptied half a bucket of water on me!!! And it was a miracle that I didn’t lose my balance, as the water was thrown with some force! But by the time I stopped my bike a few metres away and looked for the culprit, she had very well made her escape. The only remnants of her presence were the freshly watered and swept ground and a pot full of rice powder!! While I waited unsuccessfully for a couple of minutes for the person to turn up and apologise, it appears she preferred the safety of her home! So, I got back to my bike and continued my journey and this time, my eyes were wide open!! Now you know why I say kolams should be banned!!

And as if to rub it in, soon as I reach my Thatha's place, he asks me with a mischievous grin if it rained only on me and my bike!!!

P.S: Some of you may point out that I was not affected by the kolam per se but only with the lady throwing the water on me. But the fact is, but for her wanting to draw the kolam, she wouldn’t be watering and sweeping the place, would she?

Lord Macaulay and his address...

2006-06-22T16:38:00.000+05:30

Got this forward from a friend today. This is supposedly a part of the address of Lord Macaulay to the British Parliament in 1835. If this were true, I think he did succeed in his attempt!! Incidentally Macaulay happens to be the author of the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Contract Act and several other legislations still in force in India! If this is another hoax, then its been rather cleverly done!! infact, those of you who can read tamil can actually find a discrepancy (albeit a very minor one) with the english text following below!!

Lawgical?

2006-06-18T21:52:00.000+05:30

If you are wondering what the title means, I should clarify that it was the title of a piece written by another blogger, Yadhvi, recently! In short, she had written about how little the common man knows about law and also the fact that students are not taught even the basics of law at school. I read that post and just made a silly comment as to what vakils will do, if everyone starts learning the law. But the truth of that post dawned upon me when a young girl came to me with her problem couple of days back.

Here was a young, confident and well educated girl, employed in an MNC and one would think that she would have been a lot more sensible that she had been. She had invested a huge amount of money through a leading stock broking firm a couple of months back. It appears that the persons who were in-charge of her account had taken her for a ride and invested the money without her knowledge and lost it all in the recent stock market crash! She had been so naïve as to believe them totally and had no clue about the whole transaction. And she kept asking me “isn’t it illegal to do this? Isn’t it illegal to do that?” all the time. One must appreciate that merely because something is illegal it doesn’t deter people from doing it. While one understands that she was emotionally upset having lost all the money and can sympathise with her, what I did fail to understand is her total lack of knowledge / information regarding the whole transaction and she merely expected the law to help her!! She hadn’t even taken the trouble to open the correspondence she had received from the stock broking firm all along! Though she did make a few phone calls asking them not to trade in her account, there would be no proof of such calls actually having been made.

Most of us I’m sure have experienced trouble with our mobile service or credit card bills. It’s excessive billing in the case of mobile phones and lots of hidden charges in the case of credit cards! Many of us take the trouble to call the toll free helpline and wait for ages only to hear someone in a call centre answer our questions unsatisfactorily and finally vent our anger at them. While it may make us feel good temporarily it serves no purpose as the call invariably ends with “can I help you with anything else, sir? thank you for calling _________, have a great day”, leaving us more frustrated than ever! But not many of us take the trouble of putting all this in writing and sending it to the service provider. While we may be in the age of instant communication, the law still gives more weightage to the written word than other modes of communication!

The following two latin maxims would summarise the position

Ignorantia facti excusat, ignorantia juris non excusat - Ignorance of fact excuses, ignorance of law does not excuse

Leges vigilantibus, non dormientibus, subveniunt - Laws come to the aid of those who are vigilant and not of those who sleep.

Law is just common sense but is couched in such tedious language that most people are intimidated by it. But it is in our own interests that we should acquaint ourselves with some of the basic provisions of the laws which we may come cross! We are better off that way rather than being ignorant and then blaming the law for not helping us. Further it would also help us in avoiding long drawn litigation and unnecessary legal expenditure. To repeat the quote of Mr.Bumble in Oliver Twist “the law is an ass” and it can be beaten and bent as we choose!!

P.S: I know that what I set out to write and what I have written are totally different things but somehow this is the best I could come up with. Pardon the mediocrity……

Legend of the Kannagi statue!!

2006-06-12T18:45:00.000+05:30

Some of you may have read my previous piece in which mention was made of the re-installation of the Kannagi statue. A colleague of mine had always maintained that our Chief Minister’s obsession with the statue had nothing to do with tamil culture and it was a lot more than that and related the story behind the statue! However, I had refused to believe him at that time. Today he brought me the issue dated June 19 of Outlook, which carries the same story he related to me!! You can check out the story here. I’m quite convinced that the story is true. I shall let you draw your own conclusions about the legend behind the Kannagi statue…

Much ado about nothing....

2006-06-03T23:12:00.000+05:30

It’s almost a month since the elections were held with much fanfare in Tamil Nadu. TV channels and newspapers vied with one another to grab our attention (and also increase their ratings and circulation!) with opinion polls, exit polls and a host of other polls as well. And now we have a new dispensation in place, one which is “new” only in the sense that it is not the same one which was there for the past five years! Other than that we all know the present government and its chief quite well!

A new government would inevitably bring with it some changes. Since Tamil Nadu has the unique (or dubious!) distinction of swinging between the two Dravidian parties (since 1989!), we have been subjected to quite a bit of this change!! Undoing what was done in the previous regime seems to be the favourite pastime of successive governments. The first victim of such change invariably used to be the route numbers of our beloved PTC buses!! The ADMK always preferred suffixes like “V”, “J” and “R” to the bus numbers! The DMK, on the other hand, seemed to prefer prefixes, which were invariably “A” or “B”! Understandably, the bus commuters were a much harried lot. The worst goof up was made by the DMK government in 1989, soon after it came to power. They decided that, instead of renumbering the buses it would be better to renumber the bus stops!!! Most bus stops were either marked as “A” or “B” and some important stops alone were marked “AB”! All buses would carry boards in front marked “A” or “B”! Buses marked “A” would stop only in the stops marked “A”! Likewise for buses marked “B”. Both the buses would stop at the stops marked “AB”. The confusion arose because the same bus route would carry the boards “A” or “B” and Murphy’s Law works very well in such cases! Invariably, when we were at a stop marked “A”, buses marked “B” alone will go past us! After a lot of hue and cry was raised, this system was withdrawn in a week or so (if I remember right) in favour of prefixing the bus routes!!

It appears that both these parties have lost interest in renumbering buses in recent times and have now shifted their attention to the Kannagi statue!!! If you are wondering who this Kannagi is and what’s all the fuss about her statue, you can go here and here. The facts, in short, are that there used to be (and there is now!!) a statue of Kannagi on the Marina which was removed by the previous ADMK government in December 2001! The reason given was that a speeding truck had damaged the pedestal on which the statue stood. Karunanidhi, who was instrumental in installing the statue in 1968, termed this a challenge to Tamil pride!! He further alleged that the statue was removed for vaastu reasons! While a lot of hue and cry was made, the statue continued to gather dust in the government museum!! Expectedly, when the new DMK government was sworn in last month, Karunanidhi promised to reinstall the Kannagi statue in its “rightful” place. And true to his word, the statue was re-installed at the Marina today, being his birthday! While one is happy to glance at the statue when passing by Beach Road, one fails to understand why a government would spend all its time and energy in this, soon after coming to power, when there are numerous other issues concerning the people. Of course, Tamil “pride” was at stake, wasn’t it? If you ask me, Tamil pride has taken a severe beating after the way in which these two parties have been conducting themselves when they come to power bickering over silly things and going on a witch-hunt!

Of course, one mustn’t be too critical all the time. The Chief Minister has kept up with his poll promise and commenced the sale of rice at Rs.2 per kg from today!! So, give credit where it is due. It’s a different story that nobody knows how the economics of this scheme would work out. But since the Finance Minister of the country himself has assured that this scheme is workable, we must take his word on it. One sincerely hopes that he made that statement as an economist and not as a politician…

The Tamil Nadu government has also banned the screening of Da Vinci Code throughout the State ostensibly on the ground that they had received representations from various Christian groups and to avoid any law & order issues! To begin with, if they had received any such representation, it must have been a rather secret one!! While many such groups have been protesting in various parts of the country and have also moved some courts seeking a ban, there has not even been a whimper in Tamil Nadu! At least, the newspapers here haven’t carried any such reports. Or may be, if there were any protests here, the newspapers did not even think it fit to report them!! Having enjoyed the book thoroughly, I was really looking forward to watching the movie.... Having banned the movie, I wonder why they haven’t banned the book as well… May be it’s the view of the government that we in Tamil Nadu do not read books at all(at least the English ones, that is) or worse still, they consider a majority of us, not literate!!

An evening with friends, carnatic music and parathas!

2006-05-28T23:41:00.000+05:30

Yesterday was one of those really good days I’ve had in recent times. For starters, though I did go to office, I didn’t have much to do! Then I went and met a dear friend of mine, Jyotsna, who has come down from Bombay. She has been a real inspiration for me in recent times. I was meeting her for the first time in person and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My friend, Bala, and I went to a Ganesh-Kumaresh concert titled Xpressions at Narada Gana Sabha later in the evening. These are guys whom I’ve been following for the past twenty years or so and who have been principally responsible for my love for Carnatic music! Of course I have also had the experience of learning carnatic music (though I never appreciated it at that time). Trust me; this happens in almost every tam-bram household (or atleast, used to happen when I was young)! The moment a child is five or six, he or she is promptly packed off to Paattu class, whether they like it or not!! And so, I used to lug a shruti box to my teacher’s place three days a week! Later on, I decided to bunk one class every week and so, used to spend those days playing gully cricket, gilli-dhanda, goli and the like [though my folks believed that I was in Paattu class!] :) Finally, my tonsils came to my rescue and so, the Paattu class came to an end! These days if I sing, my audience seems to be, almost exclusively, of the four-legged kind! Hence, I’ve stopped singing for the greater good of humanity :) Nevertheless, I love listening to Carnatic music, especially the instrumental kind!

The concert began with a wonderful piece in Ragam Hamsadhwani, which really brought the whole audience to life. The next piece was on “anger” in Ragam Vasantha and was the one I liked most, probably because of my current state of affairs. The third one was a tamil composition by Gangai Amaren set to Ragam Dhanyasi, the lyrics of which weren’t to my liking. This was followed by Nagumo in Ragam Abheri and another piece in Ragam Kalyani, both of which were quite enchanting! At this point, some guy in the audience asked for rock n roll! Don’t know why he asked that in a carnatic concert but he must have been stunned by the response he got from the musicians! What followed was an awesome rendition in Ragam Bahudhari! Keith Peters in the bass guitar came into his own in this, as did Patri Satish Kumar on the mridangam and Arun Kumar on the drums! The evening ended with a lovely piece in Ragam Desh, which left us wanting for more! Ravichandra on the flute and Shyam on the keyboard provided good support, although Shyam seemed to be enjoying the music more than us all and was swaying quite a bit precariously perched on a stool and I actually expected him to topple over any moment!

While this concert would not have appealed to the purists especially since there was no long winded alapanais and in any event, they will never approve a carnatic violin concert with drums, keyboard and a bass guitar as accompaniments! However, this concert was introduced as contemporary carnatic music and it was just that, contemporary and carnatic! The fact that a majority of the audience comprised of youngsters only goes to prove that such concerts are here to stay!

Having written this far, I realise that I have actually been praising the concert (albeit pathetically!), which is nothing less than blasphemy in my philosophy of critiquing anything and everything. So, here goes…. To begin with, the concert started more than half an hour late. I don’t get the point in advertising a particular time when you do not have the intention of keeping it. The acoustics in Narada Gana Sabha is pretty poor and they would do well to revamp the whole thing. The audience also seemed over anxious to applaud and in their enthusiasm started clapping even before the piece was completed. Worst still, some of them chose to whistle as well! The most important grievance for me was the cameraman from SS Music. It appears that SS Music was one of the sponsors and so had placed couple of cameramen at strategic positions on the aisle. Unfortunately, one of these happened to be directly obstructing my viewing Ganesh, resulting in my craning my neck a lot to catch a glimpse. My friends know that my neck and I share a rather precarious relationship and this craning yesterday has left me very sore in the neck.

After the concert, we went to this place called Khana Khazana in Besant Nagar opposite Elliots Beach. They make some of the most wonderful parathas in Madras. The only drawback is that one has to sit on the pavement and eat or get a takeaway (which is what we did)! While we were waiting for them to get our orders, I saw a really pretty girl coming down to eat there. Of course, she was accompanied by two rather severe looking guys, either of whom would have got placed as bouncers in any of the pubs!! This girl looked quite uncomfortable at the prospect of sitting on the pavement and eating. Obviously she was one of those who didn’t approve of kaiyendi bhavans (road-side eateries!). Nevertheless, the two bouncers started cleaning the pavement in right earnest. I felt fairly sure that neither of them would have done any such cleaning at home but here they were cleaning the pavement with gusto!! That is chivalry, I guess :) By the time they were done, our orders had arrived and so we left.

Thus ended a very pleasant evening :)

Bengalooru and beyond........on vacation!!

2006-05-25T12:44:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: This is a rather boring account of a week long break! you read beyond this point at your own risk and peril :)

Went off on a vacation for a week which would explain the break from cribbing in this space! To tell you the truth, I just ran away from work and landed up in my brother’s place in Bangalore (Bengalooru as its being renamed!) late on 13th evening. The vacation began with my brother, sister-in-law and me going to Forum on Sunday afternoon for a movie titled “Darna zaroori hai”! As the title suggests, one presumed that it was a horror movie but unfortunately it is anything but that. At best it can be described as a pathetic attempt at humour. Those of you who have not watched this movie can take the hint and avoid going anywhere near the theatres in which it is playing and as for those who have had the misfortune of watching it, my sympathies are with you. Met up with two of my friends in Bangalore Central in the evening and chatted up with them and window-shopped a lot! Monday was also spent oor suthing (roaming around!) Bangalore and generally picking up lot of fights with the auto fellows!

A little about the autos in Bangalore now… while I have always believed that the auto guys in Madras are the worst, these guys aren’t far behind. To begin with they are very choosy about the places that they will go to and from around 7.30pm onwards, they start demanding for one and a half times normal fare. Most fellows don’t even stop to answer you if they are not interested in the place you want to go to!! So you just stand in the pavement and keep shouting the name of the place at the top of your voice like a hawker and hope that one of these guys would stop! Nevertheless, these fellows have to learn a lot more tricks to catch up with their Madras counterparts :)

As for the city of Bangalore itself (which they choose to call “Garden city”), I would rather refer to it as a city with a few gardens! It appears that somewhere in the process of development, they were faced with the choice of having either a city or a garden and seem to have opted for the city, at the cost of the garden! But it does have a lot more greenery than Madras. As for the traffic, the less said the better. In Madras I usually go from Thiruvanmiyur to Anna Nagar and back and then go to Courts in Parrys Corner or Nungambakkam and in between go to my office at Mylapore as well, all on the same day!! But nothing of this sort is possible in Bangalore, as a major part of your day is spent in the traffic jam. I actually saw an ambulance wailing in the midst of traffic one evening but making no progress. While the other motorists on the road did try to give way, they couldn’t do much thanks to the traffic jam. I just said a silent prayer for the person battling for life in the ambulance.

One other thing which one noticed is that the buses in Bangalore don’t carry any signboards in English and its quite an ordeal finding the bus which you need to take. The consolation for me was that my friend Wooster, who is a bangalorean, also doesn’t read kannada and so, has the same drawback as me in reading these sign-boards :) I had always thought that tamils were the worst language chauvinists but I have now revised my opinion! In fact I even saw a bus stop with everything written in Kannada except the words “Bangalore Forward” in English!! If that is the way forward why write that alone in English? Reminded me of some signboards I’ve seen in Madras with the inscription “Long live classical Tamil” written in English!!

Moved on to Mysore on Tuesday and generally roamed about and landed up at the Jungle Lodge resort at K-Gudi – B.R Hills Wildlife Sanctuary the following morning!! What followed was one and a half days of absolute bliss. Living in a tented cottage with just the sounds of nature and a lot of insects for company was quite an awesome experience! The fact that there is electricity only for about 4 hours in the evening adds to the thrill. And of all persons, I meet another lawyer from Bangalore with her two kids in the resort! As she put it, we lawyers don’t even leave the jungle alone :) And as if to prove it, none of the predators ventured out in the open while we went on a safari!! Only the elephants were brave enough and made an appearance :) Nevertheless, I had a wonderful time and have memories, which I’ll cherish for long!

And here's a video clip of a herd of elephants

The return trip from K-Gudi to Mysore proved a lot more eventful than I had bargained for. My cab driver, on a sudden whim, decided to test the strength of the car with that of a stationary lorry and came out second best!! Thankfully, both him and me got out of the car unscathed but it was quite a shock for me! The car got badly damaged though. And much to my dismay, the cab driver was more interested in getting compensation from the lorry fellows than seeing if I was dead or alive! And I was so vetti (jobless!) standing on the road that I actually took a photo of the smashed up car!! Don’t know if I’ll get to wear a diamond crown ever, but on this day it appears that I did resemble a person wearing such a crown and got a lot of odd looks from passers by! The reason, I realized subsequently, was that my head was full of shards of glass!!

Went to a movie on Saturday at Inox alongwith Raaga and Wooster! The movie was Poseidon and I didn’t think it was great. Had lost interest in the movie quite early and so, indulged in my usual pastime of criticizing each and every scene, much to the discomfort of both my friends :) At the end of it, both of them were ready to wring my neck or massage my neck, as they put it :) The evening saw more mall hopping and window-shopping! I haven’t window-shopped as much as I did last week, ever before! The whole of Bangalore seems to descend on these ubiquitous malls during weekends, especially the ones referred to as “pretty young things”! Personally, I would rather leave out the “pretty” part and just refer to them as “young things” :) And as usual, I found myself the odd one out, as far the dressing goes!

Finally and rather reluctantly, I returned to Madras on Sunday. It was a week which I enjoyed thoroughly, a week without any work and totally cut off from the cyber world and most times from the cell phone as well! Wish this could be the routine and not just a vacation. Wishful thinking, I know :) And I do owe a lot of thanks to Raaga and Wooster and of course, my brother and sister-in-law for tolerating me for a whole week :)

Supreme Court again!

2006-05-11T00:27:00.000+05:30

Landed up in the Supreme Court again on Tuesday morning! It was the Indian Airlines flight at 6.40am and it was delayed as usual resulting in my boss and me just about managing to reach the court before commencement of proceedings. As it turned out we needn’t have strained too much to reach the court on time as our case was not taken up at all and our wait till 4pm was futile. Worst still, the case was posted for hearing on Thursday! I returned back to Madras the same evening (or rather it was midnight when I reached home thanks to yet another delayed flight) and I’ll go back again on Thursday morning. Quite the jetsetter I’ve become :P

The weather in Delhi was quite awful with temperatures hovering around 44-45C. It was quite humid as well, so I can’t complain that I didn’t sweat like I did last time :)

Coming to Indian Airlines (they call themselves “Indian” now!), I noticed that they seem to employ quite a few Mamis as flight attendants, who look at you with a stern eye like a school teacher, whenever you ring the bell!!! This is very much in contrast with the male flight attendants, many of whom are quite smart which seems rather appealing to the female passengers! Now, isn’t this a case of gender discrimination with respect to the male passengers? I was rather perturbed by this and induced my boss to get the client to book us in Jet for Thursday :)) And to those of you who may come to certain conclusions about the kind of person I am after this, I would like to clarify that I have always been, and will always be, a chamathu Tam-Bram boy :) I was purely making a point about the gender discrimination and you are to read this in that light :)

P.S: Those of you who have read my earlier post on Supreme Court would know that this is one of my cheap tricks to draw attention to my profession!! So, I will understand if you don’t leave a comment here :)

P.P.S: I know this is probably the most pathetic piece I’ve posted and to those of you who are getting more and more bored with my writing, I can only say this – the worst is yet to come :)

An uneasy calm and a decision to make...

2006-05-07T00:36:00.000+05:30

Campaigning for the polls came to an end on saturday evening! I’m sure most of us heaved a huge sigh of relief that the noise and mudslinging has come to an end. A period of uneasy calm would prevail on sunday when political parties would sit and analyse if they have done enough to entice the people! And in less than a week’s time they will also know if the campaign was money well spent or not, having employed film stars and all! As for us, the People, it is the time to sit and ponder over all that has been dangled before us in the name of election manifestos and separate the wheat from the chaff, so to say. But going from past experience, do we actually ponder and decide?? The answer seems to be negative.

In a democracy, people are powerless between elections. Election Day is the only day when we have real power in our hands and we seem to be so overawed by it that we mess up the whole thing and have to suffer the consequences for the next five years. Lets hope that we make a considered decision this time, despite the limited choices on offer!

Democracy, as my civics teacher used to say, is of the people, by the people and for the people.

Of the people – yes, we do elect one among the people.
By the people – yes, after all, we do elect them, don’t we?
For the people – this is the most difficult one to accept…….but lets hope that one day it becomes a reality!

a Photo ID!

2006-05-04T21:01:00.000+05:30

Got myself photographed for the elector’s Photo ID card recently. The whole exercise was done in a most unprofessional manner leading to quite a few amusing incidents. Prior to the issue of the ID cards, a door-to-door enumeration of voters was done and subsequently the draft electoral rolls were published. Many of us took the trouble of verifying the draft rolls and also made requests for corrections in the same, wherever necessary. Having done all this, one expected things to go smoothly at the photography session but in reality, it was anything but smooth.

To begin with, the intimation of the photography session was given to us just the day before. And contrary to press reports, it mentioned that the photography would be done only on one day at that particular centre. So, a friend and I set out on the appointed day to the centre, which happened to be a Corporation Elementary school, where the kids were yelling at the top of their voices after the teacher!! My friend’s endeavour to find out if the photography would be done only on one day or would it go on for a week (as per press reports) resulted in the following conversation with the persons in-charge:

Friend: Saar, photo innikku mattum thaan eduppeengala? (sir, will you take photos only today?)

Person checking our ration card: illa saar, oru vaaram eduppom (no sir, we’ll take for one week)

Then we go inside and my friend asks the same question to the fellow taking the photo

Photo chap: yaar sonna?? Innikku mattum thaan eduppom (says who? We will take only today)

Friend: saar, veliya irukkaravar appadi sonnarey (sir, person sitting outside says so)

Photo chap: yaar adhu? Ingey vandhu solla sollu (whos that? Ask him to come here and say that)

Friend now goes outside and relays the sentiments of the photo chap and then gets the following reply -

Chap outside: Veliya vara sollu anda aala, ingey vandu sollattum (ask that fellow to come out and let him say it here)

This was red tape at its best and my friend realized that this was becoming futile and dropped his efforts to mediate between the two.

Considering that even our neighbourhood grocer asks for a photo ID these days, the voter’s ID card is one of the best proofs that one could have. Thus it was all the more essential that all the details were correctly printed. Hence when we found that there were quite a few mistakes in our addresses, we requested them to correct the same. But we were told that this was not possible now and if we want to make corrections, we have to approach the corporation office. Having managed to get a couple of hours break from work, I wouldn’t be able to get time off for getting the photo ID done on another day. So, I just decided to get myself photographed and get the ID card with the mistakes.

If I thought that my case was worse, I was quite mistaken. The following instances would show why!

M, a neighbour of mine, had turned 18 in September last was quite elated about the fact that she would be voting for the first time. Unfortunately, both she and her mother were shown as aged 43 years!! Once again, they refused to change her age in the records and she posed rather glumly for the photo. Her enthusiasm for voting had come down quite a bit.

Worse still was the case of another person whose gender was shown wrongly but was told that it could not be changed! In this age, when sex change is quite a reality and we have even movies being made on transsexuality which are nominated for the Oscars, here was a case where this fellow refused to key in the correct gender. Another neighbour found that according to the voter’s list there were two other people living in his house without his knowledge and to add insult to injury, his wife’s name did not appear in the list! The best goof up of all was one where the name of a voter was printed differently in English and Tamil! I wonder whether he will vote in the name printed in English or in Tamil :-)

And finally, the quality of the photo itself left a lot to be desired. Most people couldn’t recognize themselves in the photos!! As for my photo, suffice it to say that it looks straight out of India’s Most Wanted list!!

Having cribbed enough about the photo ID cards, one must also look at the positives. How many of us have had the disappointment of going to the polling booth on election day only to find that some good samaritan has already cast our vote? I hope the introduction of photo IDs will bring down this, unless of course, those good samaritans have also obtained photo IDs in our names!!

P.S: This was written a few weeks back but I had forgotten to post it before!

Akshaya Tritiya

2006-05-03T01:04:00.000+05:30

Akshaya Tritiya is considered a very auspicious day wherein we invite Goddess Lakshmi into our homes and seek her blessings for everlasting prosperity and wealth. Although Akshaya Tritiya has been made really popular in recent times, most people wouldn’t know the actual significance of the day. Under Hindu mythology, Akshaya Tritiya is the birthday of Parashurama, the sixth avtar of Lord Vishnu and also marks the beginning of Treta Yuga. The word “akshaya” means that which does not diminish and thus the theory, all new beginnings made on akshaya tritiya would be everlasting. This year, Akshaya Tritiya fell on 30th April.

Until the World Gold Council came up with a brilliant marketing coup a few years ago, Akshaya Tritiya was quite unknown to us. However, it is now accepted by all and sundry that one must purchase gold on Akshaya Tritiya day at all costs!! This year too, jewellers came up with ingenious schemes to lure people to buy gold on Akshaya Tritiya day! Not to be left behind, the World Platinum Council came up with an advertisement extolling the virtues of platinum and calling attention to the fact that platinum was also referred to as “white gold”! Diamond merchants weren’t far behind in trying to extract their pound of flesh, so to say. Worse was to follow, when cellphone companies started offering discounts in gold purchases to those who bought a life-time prepaid connection! Thus, when one was convinced that Akshaya Tritiya was all about buying gold and other precious metals, consumer durables dealers like Viveks and Jainsons came up with the scheme of giving one gram gold coin free with purchases of various consumer goods! This, if one may say so, is totally against the “spirit” of Akshaya Tritiya!

On the D-day, the police literally cordoned off the whole of T.Nagar in anticipation of the crowds (and their vehicles!). However, they forgot to do the same in one another area which abounds in jewellers namely, Cathedral Road and more particularly the stretch between Stella Maris College and Woodlands Drive-in. Traffic on this stretch was quite chaotic on this day especially since most of upper-middle and upper class members of society choose to shop for their gold here rather than drudge along the crowded roads of T.Nagar. It appears that the lure for the yellow metal is quite strong despite the fact that gold prices shot up considerably [quite conveniently for the jewellers!] on the day before Akshaya Tritiya.

At the end of the day, most people were happy that they bought gold on Akshaya Tritiya and the jewellers were also happy that they’ve made a huge profit and the only person who seems to crib over the whole issue is Me!!!

Supreme Court beckons!

2006-04-27T08:20:00.000+05:30

As the title suggests, yours truly landed up in the Supreme Court on Monday morning!! Being every vakil’s dream to be there one day, I was quite naturally thrilled at the prospect!

However, the journey began with yours truly putting up a rather grumpy face! Of course, anyone would do that if woken up at 4am on a Sunday morning and bundled into a flight scheduled to leave at 6.40am. The grumpiness worsened when the flight was delayed by another 20 minutes after we had boarded it. Landed in Delhi around 9.30am and went straight to the Supreme Court Advocates’ Chambers to meet another lawyer and brief him about the case. Checked into Maurya Sheraton (oh yea!!) in the afternoon. Since you have raised your eyebrows, I must tell you that I have quite a few things to say about Maurya Sheraton (which warrants a separate blog post!), but to put it in a nutshell, it sucks and the “service” or whatever they call service is pathetic!

Reached the Supreme Court around 10am and had my first good look at it. Must have been staring at the building wide-eyed like a five year old staring at anything for the first time, as I was given the looks by the regulars! Nevertheless, I stared and stared until my colleague in Delhi literally attached himself to my gown and dragged me inside! Inside the court corridors it was the usual throng of advocates standing and gossiping. The only difference is that everyone was walking at a fairly leisurely place, the electronic display boards showing the case number which was being heard in each court hall, so very much different from the Madras High Court where we run from one court to another as if our whole life depended on it! But the court halls in the Supreme Court were rather small when compared to the ones in Madras.

We waited and waited and finally our case was called around 2.45pm. The hearing lasted for a period of about 45 seconds and the case was adjourned to next month. Felt really disappointed at that point. To say that it turned out to be a damp squib would be an understatement. Anyways, being a vakil, the last thing that I should be upset about is an adjournment. All in the game…..

I can also now go around saying that I have “appeared” before Supreme Court!! It’s a different story that my appearance before the court went without any notice. But who cares :-)

On a totally unconnected issue, Delhi was so hot like a boiling cauldron. The next time someone from Delhi complains to me about the heat in Madras, he’s going to get the whacking of his life from me!!

An evening at Mocha!

2006-04-16T15:42:00.000+05:30

Having been given the looks by all and sundry when told that I had not been to Mocha (on Khader Nawaz Khan Road), I decided to check out the place last evening with a couple of friends. To start with the place was overflowing and the crowd comprised almost exclusively of kids (yea, that’s what they were…..kids!!). A closer scrutiny of the dress sense of the guys indicated that I was quite out of sync with the current trends! Cargo trousers/shorts with a round neck tee, with a rudraksh mala and a baseball cap (worn reversed like Lleyton Hewitt) seemed to be the fashion for the guys!! And there was another one who wore a shirt which was a few sizes too small for him with half sleeves folded up even further. In fact, I was actually tempted to ask him if he had worn it when he was 10 :) Wiser counsels prevailed though! The intention seems to be to invite attention to the well toned muscles!! Reminded me of the times when some of my friends have poked fun at blokes from the country side wearing white veshti and shirt with the sleeves rolled up!! It appears that times have changed and what Mr.Muscles was wearing is the “in-thing”, considering the swarm of pretty young things around him! Another thing that one noticed is that use of the terms, machan and machi seems to be passé and its just dude and dudette these days!! As for the girls, suffice it to say that at the top, the necklines are plunging and at the bottom, the hemlines are rising!!

Moving inside Mocha, one is engulfed in a pall of smoke and is greeted by the sight of these kids in various states of trance (or feigning to be there)! The Hookah (or Sheesha, as they call it!) appears to be a big hit with the crowd. Many of the kids, who looked quite definitely under age to me, were enjoying a drag (The menu, however, claims that the sheesha is permitted only for those over 18!). One girl in particular seemed to be getting on quite a high, making me wonder if the hookah was merely a fruit flavoured one (as claimed) or something more than that!! Nevertheless, having taken in these “sights” and not wanting my lungs to give up on me, we beat a hasty retreat to the non-smoking section.

Inside, it is furnished like a scene from Arabian Nights. But the music that is played and the ambience don’t actually go well together. The service isn’t great either. The girl who served us was the most inept. Worst still she was wearing an apron one size too big and looked poised to trip over any moment and the cap she wore didn’t help either as it kept covering her eyes. May be she could have taken the lead from the dude outside and worn the cap like Lleyton Hewitt :) All said and done, she did have a great smile and certainly dished it out quite a bit!!

The tables, chairs and most things inside are up for sale and I must say they are quite pricey! One wonders, if we sat there for too long, they would have stuck a price tag on us as well :)

It was a rather amusing and entertaining evening nevertheless, one which was made enjoyable by my friends who kept up a non-stop banter. And most importantly, I did manage to remove the black-mark from my CV – that I had not been to Mocha, the most happening place in town :)

P.S: I tend to pay too much attention to detail and this ramble was probably due to that fault of mine!

April Fool!!

2006-04-01T23:12:00.000+05:30

It’s been promises galore these past few days. Well, what else could one expect when you have elections just round the corner? Let’s see, what are the things which are being promised to us this time!

Jobs for 5 lakh youths in the IT sector over the next 5 years [usually jobs alone are promised but this time even the industry has been promised…..shows how much we have grown in IT under the able leadership of Amma!!]

Rice @ Rs.2 per kg on ration cards and free gas stove to all poor women [this is the time-tested one!!]

Free colour TV for every family “for women’s recreation and general knowledge” [as if we have the most educative TV channels around!]

Waiver of all cooperative loans to farmers [just to show we care for the rural masses!]

Free electricity to weavers in addition to farmers [we are in the process of widening our electoral base!]

Monthly financial assistance upto Rs.300 to unemployed youth [I know quite a few people who are unemployed and around 50. would they qualify as “youth”?]

Establishing a ‘State Cable Corporation’ to put an end to monopoly in the cable network [but will they refund the cost of my set-top box??]

While I was wondering about all this, it was sheer coincidence that this old tamil song was played this morning (All Fools day!) on the radio!!

Yethanai kaalam dhaan yemaatruvaar indha naattiley?

[How long will they cheat in this country?]

The words in this song ring so very true, especially when you read these empty promises being made. While some of us are used to being played pranks on April 1st and being called fools, these politicians do that to us all year round and make us, look and feel like fools!! And yet, we keep electing them!!!

Colouring the walls....

2006-03-19T22:13:00.000+05:30

Come election time and our elected reps suddenly start remembering us! They shower us with so much love and affection that in a moment of weakness, on election day, we tick the wrong symbol and rue the decision for the next five years! This show of love and affection extends to even their painting our walls for us, although peppering them with colourful poll graffiti!! In fact overzealous party workers even “reserve” wall space several weeks before the elections are announced. And only during the elections, can we see our beloved Amma and Dr.Kalaignar sharing the same wall space!!

But why am I writing about this?? Well, yesterday’s Hindu carried a news item showing Corporation workers removing poll campaign material from the walls of the Ripon buildings! They plan to video graph the walls with poll graffiti and posters before whitewashing and send the bills to the respective candidates/parties. However, they will be doing this only for “public” buildings!! The general public will have to fend for themselves as far as their “private” walls are concerned. Either they can give consent to the parties for using their walls or refuse it. And if they still find their walls splashed with political campaign material without their permission, they will have to complain to the police. But how many of us will refuse permission to any party to “paint” our walls, especially when it's accompanied by some gentle coercion?!!

An office of profit

2006-03-11T19:45:00.000+05:30

The expression “office of profit” has suddenly become very significant to many of us, thanks to the Jaya Bachchan controversy. The gist of the facts is that Jaya Bachchan was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh as a Samajwadi Party candidate. The UP government also appointed her as Chairperson of the UP Film Development Council (UPFDC). Madan Mohan, a Congress candidate from Kanpur, who was defeated by Jaya Bachchan, filed a complaint with the Election Commission (EC) that she is holding an office of profit as Chairperson of UPFDC and should be disqualified. The EC issued a notice to Jaya Bachchan and after getting her representation, recommended her disqualification as MP to the President.

So, what is an office of profit? Article 102(1)(a) of the Constitution provides that a person shall be disqualified for being chosen as, and for being, a member of either House of Parliament, if he holds any office of profit under the Government of India or the Government of any State, other than an office declared by Parliament by law not to disqualify its holder. Parliament has specifically enacted the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act, 1959, which exempts holders of certain offices under the government from disqualification. However, the expression office of profit per se has not been defined, giving rise to various interpretations. The best legal brains in the country have been afforded quality media time to analyse this and surprisingly, many of their views seem to match the party they represent!!

While Jaya Bachchan has vehemently denied that she has received any remuneration from UPFDC, some experts argue that the disqualification is incurred irrespective of whether any remuneration is drawn or not. It is sufficient if the position carries a remuneration and the fact of its being drawn or not, is inconsequential!! While not venturing into the merits of the issue, it is amusing to see what happened subsequent to the recommendation of the EC to the President. In a last ditch effort, the Samajwadi Party rallied behind its MP and introduced the State Legislature (Prevention of Disqualification Amendment) Bill, 2006, which was passed by voice vote couple of days ago. If the Bill receives the UP Governor’s assent, 79 posts of chairmen, deputy chairmen and directors of various corporations and PSUs will no longer be regarded as offices of profit!! Not surprisingly, the post of Chairperson of UPFDC figures in the list. Further, the word “allowances” payable to incumbents will be replaced by the word “honorarium”.

Ignoring the issue as to whether Mrs.Bachchan is holding an office of profit or not, it is rather disgusting to see this attitude of our elected members to amend the law if they don’t like it or is inconvenient to them. The famous quote of Mr.Bumble in Oliver Twist that “the law is an ass” does sound so true. Members of Parliament are supposedly elected to serve the people. But more often than not, they tend to serve themselves and to such an extent that, it is more an office “for” profit!! However, we shouldn’t be too biased in our views. If we look at it from the viewpoint of politicians, they can serve the people only if they remain in office. So, what’s wrong in changing the law a little bit to enable them to cling on to office? They are quite justified, aren’t they???

Entrance exams and politics...

2006-03-07T22:53:00.000+05:30

Come March-April of every year and we find class 12 students burning the proverbial “midnight oil” preparing for, and writing, the Board exams. And such of those who opted for the science stream, have the added pain of preparing for the ubiquitous entrance exams. With enough pressure from teachers, parents and peers alike, the last thing the poor students need is politicians poking their nose and meddling with the entrance exams. Unfortunately, the professional courses entrance exams in Tamil Nadu have been mired in controversy every year with politicians taking an active role in worsening the scenario. While the Madras High Court and the Supreme Court have passed several decisions in the past, which ought to have set the controversies at rest, they stubbornly refuse to die down.

The Tamil Nadu Regulation of Admission in Professional Courses Act, 2006, was passed by the Tamil Nadu legislative Assembly on January 27 of this year, being the last day of session for this Assembly. The said legislation abolished the Common Entrance Test (CET) insofar as State Board students were concerned. However, students studying in CBSE and other Boards will have to take the CET. The ostensible reason for this move is to provide the rural candidates a level playing field as they are at a disadvantage writing the CET. Being an election year, the real reason for this legislation is not far for anyone to see. While our Amma’s political opponents were momentarily stunned by this development, it didn’t take them long to claim that they had always wanted the CET abolished. The students, especially the ones studying in CBSE schools, were left in a state of uncertainty over their future.

Expectedly, the constitutional validity of the legislation was challenged before the Madras High Court. One political party, which is part of the opposition in the State, did not want to be left behind and filed a petition to implead itself in the proceedings in support of the state government!! After hearing elaborate arguments, the First Bench of the Madras High Court struck down the new legislation as unconstitutional and directed the state government to hold entrance exams for all students including those studying in the State Board. The court rejected the argument that rural students were affected by CBSE students and pointed out that the rural students would be affected more by urban students from the State Board and abolition of CET was not the answer. The political party, which supported the government, made an about turn and demanded the Chief Minister's resignation on moral grounds. Going one up over your opposition alone seems to be the consideration for these fellows and the students, once again, find themselves pawns in their game.

The state government has now chosen to appeal against the decision before the Supreme Court. And the students (and their parents) are again left to wait and watch the outcome anxiously. Having represented a leading professional institution from south Tamil Nadu in a similar case last year, it was rather painful to see these kids in court with a wistful look in their faces. The court is no place for them (unless of course they choose to become lawyers!). But do our politicians care two hoots about it?? They continue playing these political games at our expense and we continue hoping to see a politician who will rise above politics…

Of courts and justice...

2006-02-27T00:44:00.000+05:30

Judgments were delivered in the past few days in two sensational criminal cases – the Jessica Lall murder case and the Best Bakery case. An analysis of the judgments and the background of the cases, throws up some interesting facts.

Jessica Lall, a former model, who worked as a bartender in a Delhi bar, was shot dead at point blank range one night in April 1999. The reason – she refused to serve drinks after the bar had closed. The incident occurred in front of some of the biggest names among Delhi’s elite, most of whom were Jessica’s friends!! The prime accused was Manu Sharma, son of a former Haryana Minister and the co-accused included a son of a former Uttar Pradesh MP and a father of a current Indian cricketer. There were several eye witnesses and as such, it was an open and shut murder case, which every prosecutor dreams of. Naturally, everyone expected the accused to be convicted.

However, as the investigation progressed witnesses retracted their statements and turned hostile. And the police too seemed to be hand in glove with the accused. Obviously, being the son of a VIP does have its advantages. Finally, almost 7 years after the murder, an Additional Sessions Court in Delhi acquitted Manu Sharma and 8 other co-accused on the ground that key witnesses had not identified the accused. Jessica’s “friends” who were the witnesses, are back, partying as usual. And life goes on…..

The moral of the story seems to be – if you are an Important Person, you can commit a crime and try to get away with it and if you are Very Important, you are sure to get away with it. And the common man continues in his futile quest for justice………

The second case is the Best Bakery case, relating to the mob attack on Best Bakery in Vadodara in the year 2002. The case was tried in a Fast track court and the investigation was carried out by an inspector of police, who himself was accused of abetting violence against Muslims. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) carried out a thorough investigation in the matter and recommended that the matter be investigated by CBI. When the trial took place, several witnesses who had given incriminating evidence before the NHRC retracted their statements while testifying before the Court. Zahira Sheikh, the “star” witness turned ‘hostile’. It is most likely that the witnesses were intimidated, explaining the reason for retracting their statements. The court acquitted all the accused.

After the matter reached the Supreme Court, the case was directed to be re-tried in Maharashtra. Finally, the Sessions Court in Mumbai convicted 9 of the 17 accused in the case and sentenced them to life imprisonment. More importantly, Zahira Sheikh, her mother, two brothers and a sister have been issued notices to show cause as to why they should not be prosecuted for giving false evidence. This judgment restores the faith of the people in the judiciary atleast a little bit. This, despite the fact that officialdom had done its utmost to scuttle justice.

These are just two cases which have caught the attention of the people. There are thousands of cases like these which go unnoticed and where, ultimately “might” proves to be “right”!!

The Vaastu Expert!

2006-02-22T00:15:00.000+05:30

It seems like this is the age of Vaastu Shastra or rather the self styled Vaastu experts!! Homes are being redesigned and sometimes, even demolished and rebuilt, to get the “vaastu vibes” right! In the ultimate analysis, it appears that it’s the Vaastu experts whose kitty is brimming. A recent experience at the office only went to strengthen this proposition.

We were bursting at the seams at the 250 sq. ft. cubbyhole called office with vakils, books, papers and clients vying for space. And one fine day, the boss decided that it’s time to move to a new place. A new place was identified in due course and after a visit to the premises, it was unanimously approved by all and sundry. My mind’s eye conjured up visions of plush cubicles, conference rooms and what not!

And then, enter R, the Vaastu Expert! The entire office layout was converted into a vaastu diagram and after much shaking of the head, R pronounced his verdict! Grave forecasts were made if we were to proceed with our plans, without first satisfying the Vaastu Purusha (he’s the Vaastu God, if you don’t know)!! After enough fear had been instilled in my boss’ mind about the negative vastu in the building, R proceeded to “design” the office! What turned out wasn’t anywhere near what I had conceived in my mind as an office. There were no cubicles but just tables and chairs which weren’t really perfectly positioned. The birth stars of each of us in the office were also taken and accordingly our seating positions determined. Pyramids, umbrellas, mirrors (of all shapes and sizes) were strategically positioned on the walls to please the Vaastu Purusha!!

After the initial shock and having resigned myself to fate, I had presumed that it couldn’t get any worse. R, however, seemed to have other plans. Until then I had always thought that vaastu shastra merely concerned itself with the building construction and the positioning of various things in a building. But it appears that the Vaastu Purusha is colour conscious too! The colour scheme which R now proceeded to outline for the office left us all in a state of daze. Each room was given a specific colour, which by itself isn’t extraordinary. But dark yellow and pink aren’t exactly colours which one associates with an office. Of course, there was blue and white too! R gave special attention to the boss’ room initially and arrived at a colour scheme where three different shades of blue would rise up from the floor to the ceiling. A mere mention of this scheme brought hiccups to the boss and R reluctantly condescended and gave an alternate scheme – a single shade of blue dotted with little green flowers!

Having poked fun at my boss about the colour of his room, I realized that I wasn’t faring any better. The room in which I was to sit was allotted the colour yellow. While there are different shades of yellow, some of which I don’t find any fault with, R chose the darkest shade available. If you are familiar with the colour of autos in Madras, you would know what my room colour is! The boss’ wife took some mercy on me and ordered a couple of coats of white over the yellow, which tempered the effect a little, but only just. Now, anything and everything in my room looks yellow to me. The full import of the expression, “to look at things with a jaundiced eye” has only dawned upon me now!!

Having settled down in the new office, we now console ourselves by referring to each room as the “blue room”, “yellow room”, “pink room” and the like, a privilege, which I believe only the White House enjoys. The last word on the subject was, however, had by a colleague of mine when he said that we should rechristen our firm as “Rainbow Associates”!!

A Vakil, his toothache and a dentist!!

2006-02-13T03:25:00.000+05:30

A toothache is something which every one of us endures at some point in our lives. None of us, I’m sure, would call it a “pleasant” experience though. I had the pleasure (or pain!) of going through one such experience recently which was predictably followed by a visit to the dentist. At the end of it, I didn’t know what I hated most – the toothache or the dentist!!

It was a bright and sunny day, as usual, in Madras. But, alas, it wasn’t with a sunny disposition that I woke up that morning. My first exercise of stretching myself in bed didn’t really happen as I was jolted out of bed with excruciating pain in my upper jaw. A bit of probing with the tongue identified the culprit. As I gingerly placed a finger on the rogue tooth, I howled once again in pain, which almost brought the roof down and also brought my parents to the scene. After careful inspection they decided that a generous dose of clove oil would solve the trouble and accordingly set about with the “treatment”. Don’t know how many of you have had the good fortune of being doused with clove oil in the mouth, but I can assure you that it isn’t fun!!

After the home remedy proved futile, I took matters in my own hands and called up my dentist who, pretending to be very busy, gave me his last appointment at 9 pm albeit very grudgingly. I do not know if you have experienced it, but when one is in pain and is waiting to see a doctor, the hands of the clock seem to move a lot slower than they normally do. After passing the whole day with a grim face and mumbling through most of the phone calls, I reached the dentist’s clinic at half past eight in the fond hope that he would call me soon, seeing the plight that I was in. Alas, that was not to be. The previous patient, a 9 year old kid, was screaming his lungs off, while the dentist was extracting one of his teeth.

And finally, when I was called in, it was well past nine and I was almost ready to give up. I do not hold anything personally against dentists but they do seem to have this annoying habit of tapping the rogue tooth with their tools leaving us writhing in pain. They don’t seem to trust our word and just look at the tooth we point at. My dentist also proceeded on expected lines and tapped on the tooth resulting in my letting out a piercing wail. At that point in time, I could sympathise with the little kid who had sat in that chair before me. After seeing me howl and some x-rays later, the dentist rubbed his hands gleefully and gave his verdict that the tooth has to undergo root canal treatment. The gleam in his eyes showed that he was already making the calculations on his fees, shamelessly.

A root canal treatment, I can tell you, is nothing less than an endurance test!! The only things which remain etched in memory about the whole procedure is the dentist advancing menacingly with a tooth file and asking me to open my mouth wider and wider until even an elephant could have gone inside. My emotions at that point of time were the same as those of guinea pigs being subjected to a trial! After three weekly sessions in which the dentist wrestled with the tooth, it was finally rebuilt and a week later a crown was fixed over it to complete the story.

At the end of it all, one would have expected me to be relieved (despite ending up poorer by Rs.4000) but the only sensation I felt was exhaustion. After all, it’s not often that I part with such a princely sum and also suffer in the bargain. The smiling face of the dentist as I left the clinic reminded me of the old adage, “every dog has its day”!

The last thing about the whole episode that remains in memory is the dentist asking me to “bite” after fixing the crown, just to check if it was fixed properly. At that moment, I was actually ready to bite him!!