THE ABSENT-MINDED SPOUSE

THE ABSENT-MINDED SPOUSE

We noticed that of late, we have been getting a lot more forgetful. A sudden doubt — "Did I turn off the gas?" or "Did you see me pulling out the plug of the electric iron? or "Did I latch the back door?"? — would send us scurrying back home, abandoning the trip to wherever we were headed for.

A friend who came to know about this in a casual talk, gave us a tip: whatever you do, do it consciously. For instance, tell yourself, "I am having my pill for hypertension" so that you don't pop two pills instead of one and send your blood pressure to near-death levels. It does work!

"Also," he had said, "keep notes to act as reminders so that you don't forget what to do." We do this religiously though we often forget where on earth the damn aide de memoire was kept!

The other day I was having a drink. I settled down on my favorite chair with a book. A little later, I asked my wife to get me a bowl of roasted groundnuts to munch. "You might want to write it down," I said.

"No, I can remember that you want a bowl of groundnuts," she replied.

"ROASTED groundnuts," I reminded. "With some finely chopped green chilli, tomato and onion, if you please," I added, putting on my best manners. "Write it down," I told her, and again she said, "No, no, I can remember: you want a bowl of roasted groundnuts with some finely chopped green chilli, tomato and onion."

As she walked towards the pantry, I told her, "Squeeze half a lemon if you have. Write it down so that you don't forget."

She did not stop, but replied reassuringly, "No, I got it. You want a bowl of a bowl of roasted groundnuts with some finely chopped green chilli, tomato and onion, with half a lemon squeezed."

As I leafed through "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" by Carlo M Cipolla, I heard some noises in the background - spoon falling, mixie whirring and stuff, but thought she must be cooking dinner.

About ten minutes passed. She emerged from the kitchen and handed over to me a plate. I stared at the plate for a moment. It had a fluffy golden omelette, a tiny bowl of tomato ketchup and a fork and a knife.

I just can't understand why she brought me all this stuff while I had been waiting for the iPad I had asked her to fetch from the study!

 HAATHI KA ANDAA

I was in the Jayanti Janata from Trivandrum to Bombay. This was in the last decade of the last century. The train was running late. Around 10 in the morning, a brother-sister pair, the older of them under eight years, got into the train at Erode. Or, was it Salem? Anyway, that is immaterial. They were beggars, seeking alms in return for the entertainment they would provide in the form of songs. This twosome chose to sing "Aati kya Khandala?" from the old (1990s?) Hindi movie Ghulaam. That was all fine, but these Tamil-speaking kids got the words all wrong and the boy merrily sang, "Haathi ka andaa laa!"

That reminded me of our English Professor Baliga who introduced us to spoonerisms and malapropisms. He had referred in passing to another variant with the unlikely name mondegreen but did not tell us more about it. That reference, however, had stoked my interest in it and the college library had given me some information.

This piece is about mondegreens. What exactly is a mondegreen? The "Haathi ka andaa laa!" is a perfect example of a mondegreen. If someone mishears a song and genuinely believing that this is the correct version, sings the lines like that, you have a mondegreen. Like me, you might have heard many mondegreens but not have known that it had a name too!

The refrain of the well-known Bob Dylan song "Blowin'in the Wind" (https://youtu.be/sPbfJAIugIQ) is "The answer, my friend, blowin' in the wind". It is supposed to have the mondegreen version in "The ants are my friend..."

The origin of the word mondegreen is fascinating. A Scottish ballad featured in Percy's Reliques was "The Bonny Earl o' Moray". The first four lines of the ballad go thus:

"Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands
Oh where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl o' Moray
And lay'd him on the green."

When author Sylvia Wright was a child, her mother used to read aloud this ballad to her. The child misheard the last two lines as:

"They hae slain the Earl Amurray,
And Lady Mondegreen."

When Sylvia grew up to be a writer, she wrote an article titled "The Death of Lady Mondegreen" in the Harper's Magazine in November 1954 referring to this misinterpretation of the song. Well before writing the article, she had, of course, realised her mistake but, being a creative writer, she went onto coin a term for that form of error. She wrote, "The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original." The term was popularized by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll.

When mondegreen happens, it results in the song acquiring a different meaning. And obviously, the second meaning is often hilarious - or at least different. As in what is arguably the most famous example of mondegreen in rock music: the line "Excuse me while I kiss this guy" from 'Purple Haze' by Jimi Hendrix (the actual line is "Excuse me while I kiss the sky".)

According to J A Wines, mondegreens often occur because English is "rich in homophones - words which may not be the same in origin, spelling or meaning, but which sound the same".

Mondegreens are not the exclusive preserve of English; other languages too could have them, as we have seen. You certainly recall the song "Aap jaisa koi meri zindagi mein aaye, toh baat ban jaaye" from Qurbani (early 1980s), don't you? My son, all of five years, would go about on his tricycle in gay abandon, singing "Aap jaisa koi meri zindagi mein aaye, woh baap ban jaaye".

And there was this girl who had heard, rather misheard, the song "Meri kismat mein tu nahi shaayad..." from Prem Rog as "Merry Christmas mein tu nahi shaayad...", but in my opinion, "Haathi ka andaa laa!" stands tall among all the mondegreens.

THE PATRON SAINT OF GAFFES

THE PATRON SAINT OF GAFFES

 

I don’t recall about whom it was said, but the article in the newspaper I read more than  twenty-five years back said that he had “done a Ratner”. I did not quite get the meaning then, but the expression stayed with me.

The memory cells were reactivated the other day when this came up in a quiz. “To do a Ratner” is to say something so stupid that it sends your fortunes plummeting. Research led me to his autobiography “Gerald Ratner: The Rise and Fall … and Rise Again”.

Ratner was the CEO of the Ratner’s Group. Think of him as the poor man’s De Beers. He had worked for about two decades in the family business of imitation jewellery which had about 150 stores but had seen no spectacular success. After he inherited the business in 1984, he “re-engineered” it and in six years, it had 2,000 outlets targeting the working class.

How did he do it? Ratner claims that when he was young, he had noticed that the vendors selling the best goods at the Petticoat Lane Market were not the ones who got the most sales; it was the hawkers who yelled the loudest that most customers were drawn to.

Ratner applied this concept to his own business when he took over the Ratner's Group and he made sure that all of the shops in the Ratner's chain had bright orange displays that loudly advertised their prices and deals. Soon he captured half the market and Ratner’s became a household name.

True, those who could afford the real stuff thought that the baubles he sold were tacky and gaudy and looked cheap. Though ridiculed by other jewellers and the affluent, those who did not have the moolah to buy the genuine stuff or did not want to dip into their savings flocked to Ratner's. Spurred by the publicity blitz and the low prices, sales went through the roof.

As the key person responsible for the stupendous success of the company, Ratner was invited by the Institute of Directors to speak about how he’d made his company so big so fast.

 

He started the speech well, but at some point, a member of the audience asked him  how his company could sell things so cheap. That was a fateful moment. You can listen to his now infamous response here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKtBkVrqYYk

You can hear him say “Because it’s total crap.” He also said that the earrings he sold were “cheaper than prawn sandwiches but probably wouldn’t  last as long”.

 

This has gone down as one of the biggest blunders in business history. So much so that even Ratner refers to this as “the speech”.

 

He may have been honest, or may have spoken in a light vein because it was a private event. He may not have expected that the journalists listening would not report all that. The next day it was national news. Overnight, the market capitalization of the company dropped by 500 million pounds (much more than one billion dollars at today’s rates). Customers began avoiding and English language adopted a new eponymous phrase: “do a Ratner”, meaning really screw up things.

 

If you ever said something that you immediately regretted having said or wanted to take back straight away, remember Gerald Ratner, the patron saint of gaffes.

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗟𝗜𝗔𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗬 𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗠𝗜𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗘

(𝐴 𝑆𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑙 𝑡𝑜 "𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝑙𝑎𝑔-𝑏𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑟")

After the departure of a Parliamentary Committee in 1998, the bill from the five-star hotel where the delegation was accommodated was put up to me for sanction of payment. The consolidated bill for about Rs 1.75 lakh which was supported by room-wise bills had a mysterious item "Miscellaneous - Rs 485". This naturally intrigued me.

The officer who was coordinating the tamasha was summoned and I asked him for the details. As he drew a blank, I asked him to ascertain what it was all about.

A little later, he came and reported that the General Manager of the hotel was reluctant to disclose what it represented. I told him that in that case, I would pass the bill for payment after deducting Rs 485.

Then the General Manager of the hotel told me over telephone in strict confidence, "Sir, the guest in Room No 1109 seems to have packed the electric kettle (kept in the room) in his baggage."

It turned out that the honourable MP did not realise that he had taken only one half of the equipment with him. Little did he know that without the base unit screwed on to the table and connected through a thick black cable to the source of power, the half with him was just about as useful to him as a bicycle to a fish!

Curiosity got the better of me and I leafed through the supporting documents to see who the klepto was. For those who are curious to know the identity of the worthy people's representative who occupied Room No 1109, all I will say is that he later went on to occupy a ministerial chair.

 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗙𝗟𝗔𝗚-𝗕𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗘𝗥

(Another Underwear Story from my archives)

Kurup (Name not changed - but not given in full either) was bored stiff. Life as a junior officer in the administrative office of a public sector bank was uneventful. Each day was like any other. It was therefore a welcome change when he was taken off his routine duties one day and assigned the role of the Protocol Officer for a VIP.

The senior officer who was coordinating the two-day visit of a Parliamentary Committee convened at meeting of the fifteen Protocol Officers like Kurup and told them that the bank would be playing host to the high-power delegation. Each dignitary was to have a Protocol Officer. It was their responsibility to see that there was no complaint from any of them.

"Kurup, you have a special responsibility as you have been assigned the charge of the Chairman of the Committee," the boss said. If there was a slip somewhere, heads would roll, they were warned. (The footnote was that any minor discomfort to the VIPs could cost the boss HIS job!)

The entire machinery got into action. All finer details of the visit were planned meticulously. Bouquets and garlands were ordered, stay (Where else but Kovalam?) and transport (Air-conditioned limos, if you please!) arranged. The itinerary (including a visit to Padmanabhasawmy Temple, the mandatory trip to Kanyakumari) and the menu for the lunches and dinners (Five-star, no less) were drawn up. The bill would, of course, be picked up by the host.

Last, but not least, another team collected the data (on the implementation of official languages or the roster system in recruitment of SC/ST or subordinate legislation - whatever that means - or some such high-funfs stuff) required for review by the VIPs and put the papers required in natty folders.

As soon as the team landed, the parliamentarians were whisked off to their posh hotel. Plied with the goodies at the lavish pool-side dinner hosted by the bank and lulled by the ambience of the resort, the VIPs were kept in good humour. The meeting held the next morning went off as smoothly as the peach melba ice-cream that went down their throats the previous evening.

Post lunch, the team was to proceed to Kanyakumari. Over a dozen white ambassador cars stopped in the porch, picked up the VIPs one by one and moved forward. Leading the pack was the car of the Chairman of the Committee. In the front seat beside the driver was Kurup, the Protocol Officer.

The April sun was beating down mercilessly. The corpulent neta found the heat unbearable. He removed his topi, exposing his shining pate with a few silver hairs. For protection, the VIP raised the shaded window glasses. The two engaged in small talk. The VIP found the name Kurup amusing: "𝐴𝑎𝑝𝑛𝑒 𝑎𝑝𝑛𝑎 𝑛𝑎𝑎𝑚 𝐾𝑢𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑝 (Ugly) 𝑘𝑦𝑜𝑛 𝑟𝑎𝑘ℎ𝑎 ℎ𝑎𝑖? (Why do you call yourself 'Ugly'?) 𝐴𝑎𝑝 𝑡𝑜 𝑑𝑒𝑘ℎ𝑛𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑖𝑛 𝑠𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑟 𝑙𝑎𝑔𝑡𝑒 ℎ𝑜! (You do look handsome)."

The car had barely left the city limits when the VIP shuffled his portly self within the car. Kurup espied through the corner of his right eye: his guest now opened the suitcase, took out a polythene bag and pulled out the contents. It was a light blue garment with broad white, black and grey stripes. Too casual a shirt to be worn by a usually white khadi-clad politico, said Kurup to himself.

The VIP spread the garment open and muttered to himself. Handing it over to Kurup, he said, ‘𝐾𝑢𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑝𝑗𝑖, 𝑒𝑘 𝑒ℎ𝑠𝑎𝑛 𝑘𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑔𝑒 (Can you help me with this?) 𝑌𝑒ℎ 𝑎𝑎𝑗 𝑠𝑢𝑏𝑎ℎ 𝑘𝑎𝑎 𝑑ℎ𝑜𝑦𝑎 ℎ𝑢𝑎 ℎ𝑎𝑖, 𝑝𝑎𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑑𝑎 𝑔𝑒𝑒𝑙𝑎 ℎ𝑎𝑖, (I washed this in the morning but it is still a little wet." His request was "Please hold it against the wind: by the time we get to Kanyakumari, 𝑦𝑒ℎ 𝑠𝑜𝑜𝑘ℎ 𝑗𝑎𝑦𝑒𝑔𝑎 (It should dry.)"

The choices before Kurup were two: do as he was told or get out of the car (and put in his papers the next day). Being a pragmatic chap, he opted for the former, hoping that no familiar face would catch a glimpse of him speeding southwards on the NH 47 in a car, a striped blue 𝑘𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑐ℎℎ𝑎 (underwear) flailing from his left hand!

PS Please do not ask me for the full name of Kurup. Suffice it to say that he reached the Senior Management cadre in three years of this even and went up further before retirement.

 𝗦𝗨𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗥 𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗦

𝑀𝑎𝑦𝑏𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑚𝑒 𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑂𝑟𝑘𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑐 𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑤-𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑡 𝐹𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑁𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑠. 𝑊ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑦 𝑙𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑜𝑝, 𝐼 𝑓𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑎 𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑒𝑟. 𝑅𝑒ℎ𝑎𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛.

‘April is the cruellest month,’ said T S Eliot. Smitten by the merciless April sun, we all agree. That reminds me of Utpal Mohapatro, my one-time boss.

This Regional Manager of a bank, he was headquartered in Calcutta (not yet christened Kolkata) but his territory lay far beyond the city limits. He had to undertake periodical visits to the branches to see that everything was fine in his ‘empire’.

One hot April morning, he set out for a branch visit. The chauffeur-driven car carrying him left his house around 7 am, crossed Vivekananda Bridge and hit National Highway No 2 in half an hour and passed hamlets, villages and small towns.

By the time they reached Palsit, the sun was high and heat oppressive. The driver removed his shirt, wiped the sweat and continued driving. The master took a cue and removed the upper half of his safari suit. That felt good!

In the relief brought by the divestment of the garment, Mohapatro soon dozed off. When he woke fifteen minutes later, the car was clipping fast along the highway, harvested paddy fields on either side of the road.

Mohapatro’s back was aching. Age was catching up, he rued. Adding to the misery was the sweltering heat. It would take another two hours, he estimated, before they reach the first port of call, Gorhar (then in West Bengal).

The doctor had told him his lumbago would ease if he lay on his back. While at it, he thought, he would remove his trousers and relax. And soon went into deep slumber. So deep that he did not know when the car stopped at a manned level crossing.

The driver had a look at the back seat: the boss was sleeping the sleep of the innocent. Noiselessly, he got out for a cup of tea.

A little later, the stillness woke up Mohapatro; he looked around: it was wilderness all round, the railway gate was closed and the driver was in the teashop. Mohapatro got out and went behind a bush nearby to take a leak.

After his cuppa, the chauffeur approached the railway gatekeeper. It was ‘Open Sesame’ when some currency changed hands. He trotted back to the car, switched on the engine, stepped on the gas and sped off.

When Mohapatro returned, the car was not in sight. His suitcase, wallet, spectacles and both parts of his safari suit were all in the car speeding at a great pace towards Gorhar.

Mohapatro tried to stop every vehicle passing by, requesting them for a lift, to no avail. He cried out, citing his designation, but it carried no conviction, as the claim came from a man curiously dressed in his vest, brief, socks and shoes. What hurt him most was that some sniggered ‘Kanke se bhaagaa hogaa,’ the allusion being to the recent reports on the escape of some inmates of the Kanke Mental Asylum in Ranchi!

History does not record what happened to the driver.

JOB SATISFACTION - A SEQUEL

In a recent post of mine, I had mentioned how my boss had told me that there is nothing called "job satisfaction" because job and satisfaction are mutually exclusive.

Coming to think of it, though there is a great deal of truth in what he said, he was not entirely right. It is my experience that I do derive COMPLETE satisfaction from some jobs. I remembered about this when a friend and I were speaking yesterday about helping the significant other in household chores like making the bed, dicing vegetables and setting the table. What I am referring to may not be "jobs" in the conventional sense of the term, but they are tasks nevertheless.

Topping the list of the tasks that give me job satisfaction is pressing clothes. I was twelve when I started ironing my clothes - the khaki uniform of the Boy Scout, to be precise - and to this day, I have not had my clothes pressed by someone else. (This does not include my suits which were sent to the dry cleaners.) I enjoy doing it because while on that job, my mind is without care. The pile of clothes neatly stacked in the cupboard is such a spectacle to watch!

Before the electric iron came, the task involved greater amount of planning. One had to determine the sequence in which the clothes should be ironed: clothes made of thick fabric, the starched ones, those made from thin material, etc. That done, one set fire to the shells of three coconuts (no less, for the iron may get cold earlier than desired, and no more unless you wanted to burn your clothes) and before they got charred, transferred the embers to the chamber of the device. The electric iron has changed all that, but the fun and the satisfaction of the job remain.

The labour involved in laundry-work has been taken away by the washing machine, but the contraption does only half the job. Spreading them neatly on the clothes-stand placed in the balcony to dry in the sun - all the coloured clothes inside out - gives me the kind of joy that a painter or a sculptor or an installation artist would get on viewing his work of art from a distance.

Folding the crisp clothes that have been sun-dried and do not need ironing is an equally pleasurable occupation. While at it, one can hum a tune, plan the activities for the day or the week, or whatever. Once again, the sense of achievement you feel after the task is done makes it worth doing it.

The practice in our house has always been that after a meal, you carry your plate to the sink, run water on it to wash off the food particles and leave the finishing job for the maid. As we do not want to risk the delicate chinaware at the hands of the maid, on days we have guests for dinner, we do the dishes ourselves. That was when I realised that it was indeed a task that gives immense job satisfaction.

After the advent of the dishwasher, the chore has become lighter, but mercifully, stacking the clean plates and vessels, forks and spoons, and ladles and spatulae, needs to be done manually. And that is enjoyable!

Watering the plants, brewing the tea in the morning and the evening, smoothing the wrinkles on the bed sheet and spreading the counterpane, chopping the vegetables and setting the table before every meal are all tasks one can do well and derive job satisfaction from. If you have not done it, try doing that!

JOB SATISFACTION

Just now it struck me that today is the fifty-second anniversary of the day I joined a bank as a Probationary Officer. No, this is not an essay on "My First Day in the Bank" on the lines of the composition work one is assigned in schools.

The first thing that I noticed was that a bank considered itself the centre of the world. Or else why would a customer who wanted to PAY some money into his account be directed to the "RECEIPTS" counter? Why the label on the counter to which customers go for RECEIVING money after tendering a cheque should be "PAYMENTS" was a conundrum that I could never address, leave alone solve. Rather than from the perspective of the thousands of customers it serves, the bank considers everything from ITS side and that of the dozen or two people crouched behind the counters and minding others' money! It was indeed a world of contradictions!

The contradiction did not end there: the summary of the transactions of the day would be recorded in the General Ledger after they transit through what was called the Day Book, but I had felt that a more appropriate name for the Day Book would have been the Night Book. For, in those days of manual banking, the task of writing it could not be taken up in large branches until 8 pm after the other Subsidiary Books were completed.

If Day Book was a misnomer, its other moniker, Clean Cash Book, was no better. After the several revisions of numbers in the Subsidiary Books leading to consequential changes, amendments and corrections, its pages would be such a blotch of red and blue that no one in his right senses would call it the Clean Cash Book.

It did not take me long to discover that the contradiction in the nomenclature was all-pervasive. Though it was said that banking is based on trust, my limited experience told me that it was actually based on mistrust. Why else would there be the concept of 'maker and checker', collateral security and 'checks and balances'?

I soon realised that I was not cut out for the job I was doing. Not only was work in the branch of a bank repetitive and boring, it afforded hardly any scope for creativity. Bosses would frown at the slightest hint of deviation from the procedures and norms laid down. They swore by the sacrosanct Book of Instructions and circulars from the Head Office. (It was, of course, true that any departure from the former, handcrafted by the astute Irish and Scottish bankers, would make the transactions vulnerable.)

It was in 1975, while working in Calcutta, that feeling handcuffed, if not choked, by the rigours of the routine, one day I told my boss that I was fed up with the bank job. "It gives me no satisfaction," I told him. I wanted to look for another job. Mr Borker sat me down in front of him and gave me a short lecture. "Rajan, you will have either a job or satisfaction - but not both, whatever be the job you do," he concluded.

That, to me, was one of the most profound truths expounded.

WHEN STATISTICS IS NO LONGER STATISTICS

KRR is no more.

Eleven young men joined the bank (erstwhile State Bank of Travancore) as Probationary Officers of the 1969 batch. KR Rajagopal was one among them and I was another. From day one, the similarity in our names caused confusion. In a small organization like SBT, paths are bound to cross and ours did, many times - in early career as second branch probationers and finally when both of us were on deputation to State Bank of Patiala. And every time we were together in the same office, cases of mistaken identity arose because of the name.

[The confusion persists even after his demise if the responses to the post in the WhatsApp group of SBP Retirees is anything to go by, as the admin had to step in and clarify that it is KR Rajagopal - and not KT Rajagopalan - who has breathed his last!]

The similarity, however, ended there. We were poles apart in our temperament and attitude. KRR was in a tearing hurry to get done with things, while I think I was organized - a euphemism for 'slow'. He was more mature, being over four years my senior - and, at barely 22, it makes a lot of difference - and more experienced - he had worked in SBI for four years - and more qualified - he came armed with a CAIIB.

Having been schooled in Malayalam medium and having studied in Kerala, I spoke English haltingly. Chennai-educated KRR would talk at a rapid pace - so rapid that those unfamiliar would not be able to catch what he said. It was his practice to pepper his conversation with words like fellow, bugger and guy, and without meaning it, keep mouthing expressions like bloody fool and blooming idiot. His favorite abuse was the Tamil-English hybrid "Ayogya rascal" and the pure vernacular "somberi". I used to call him Captain Haddock, the cussword-spewing, rum-guzzling sailor of Tintin comics.

He was tactful and worldly-wise; I was neither. I was kind of serious and he was fun-loving. When we were both second branch probationers in Ernakulam (Broadway) branch, KRR told me one Saturday, "They go ga-ga about Malayalam movies. We'll watch one today; you decide which." I took him to Laxman to see the Sathyan-starrer 'Odayilninnu' based on Kesavadev's novel by the same name. He sat through the tear-jerker of the movie where Sathyan, the rickshaw-puller, coughs and struggles. After the show, KRR cursed me in a blend of Tamil and English and added, "We go for movies for entertainment, not to see misery, squalor and sickness. Tomorrow I'll take you for one and show you the real stuff." We saw 'Revolver Rita' the next day and 'Thuppaakki Rangan' the next Sunday.

KRR used to smoke and a packet of ten Gold Flake cigarettes would last him barely a day. He enjoyed a glass or two of chilled beer too, but gave up these habits and turned a vegetarian soon. Somewhere along the way, he became very devout. I don't know if these changes had anything to do with his marriage. As Jaya was employed in Chennai and KRR got posted in other centres, he would cook for himself. And believe me, he was good! I have relished many meals that he would rustle up on holidays.

***

I had called KRR about two weeks back. We had spoken for a while before hanging up.

I am told he was infected by Covid and had been in the hospital for four days. The end came this morning when the oxygen levels dipped significantly. That was no way to go, my friend.

When we see the number of deaths flashing on the TV screen, it is cold statistics; when it turns out that one of the deceased is known to you, close to you, it ceases to be statistics.

***

Up there, Captain Haddock, I am sure you will find time to enjoy Quick-gun Murugan!

THE JOKE IS THAT...

"The group chairman is scheduled to visit Punjab and the neighbouring states for three days in the first week of the next month. No effort should be spared in seeing to his comforts," said the Managing Director of the bank in a meeting of the senior executives.

A task force was constituted to plan the itinerary - what to do when and how. The chairman of the task force asked the members to drop WHATEVER they were doing and concentrate on the impending visit of the dignitary. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, the task force would meet and review the arrangements made so far and what more needed to be done.

It was perhaps the fifth such review meeting - or may be the sixth, it really does not matter. Though he had full confidence in hospitality of the Punjabi and the ability of those down the line to think of everything that the Chairman may need and to cater to them, the Managing Director himself was present at that meeting to get a first-hand idea about how things were progressing.

At that meeting, as in all earlier ones, each executive charged with the centre that the Chairman was due to visit reported what he had done. The man in Chandigarh had fixed up separate meetings with the Chief Secretaries of Punjab and Haryana in the afternoon on the first day, followed by a dinner with the high and the mighty in Hotel Shivalik, with a visit to Nek Chand's Rock Garden thrown between to fill the intervening time.

Next morning, the man from Shimla would take over. All the seats in the toy train to the hill station had been booked so that no 'outsider' would board the train. Boxes of sweets, canisters full of thick and creamy lassi, and crates of soft drinks would be loaded into the train before the Chairman boarded the train. Bearers working in Hotel Piccadilly (owned by cricketing legend Kapil Dev) had been requisitioned to serve as liveried footmen during the journey to ply the Chairman with the goodies. The highlight of the evening would be a dinner meet with the top bureaucrats of Himachal Pradesh to which some Bollywood stars shooting in nearby Chail had also been invited.

The members of the SGPC (Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee) had been contacted, said the man in charge of Jalandhar, and they had agreed to accord the greatest respect to the Chairman when he visited the Golden Temple at Amritsar. Amidst fanfare and adulation, he would be presented with a 'siropa' (a two-metre long saffron cloth bestowed as a token of respect to selected dignitaries). In the evening was scheduled the mandatory visit to Wagah to witness the symbolic "border-crossing ceremony" by the Indian and Pak military personnel in full regalia. The Station Commander had been 'persuaded' to host a dinner for the Chairman.

The Managing Director smiled to himself: everything - every single thing - had been taken care of. He, however, asked everyone to make sure that there was no slip-up anywhere and back-up, contingency plans were in place, just in case.

***

The meeting got over at 7 pm. I was in a hurry to get back home. As we ambled out of the conference room, my boss tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Remind me of the joke of Handowal Kalan tomorrow at teatime." (Every day, around 1130, my intercom would buzz and he would tell me "She is coming" or "She is ready" - his take on the feminine gender that 'tea' is in the Hindi "Chai aa rahi hai." The time we spent on that cup of green tea, a great stress-buster, was when we went over the work in the pipeline and engaged in small talk.)

So, the next forenoon, at teatime, I nudged him about the joke of Handowal Kalan.

"Okay," he said, gracefully pouring the golden brew from the white ceramic teapot into the bone china cup. "Do you know where Handowal Kalan is?"

I didn't, but ventured, "Must be a village in the heartlands of Punjab."

"Yes... In Hoshiarpur district, to be precise. There was this Patwaari called Santokh Singh there, responsible for revenue affairs like jamabandis, shajra nasabs, girdwaris, mal guzari, khasras and khataunis. English was not his strong point, but he had what you could call a working knowledge. It was his life's ambition to become a Tehsildar, but there were obstacles strewn in his way.

"There were reports that his palms had an affinity for grease and that once the required amount of lubricant was applied, with just one stroke of Santokh Singh's pen, a tropical forest would turn into a barren plot, an encroacher into a landowner, a tenant into an encroacher, paddy into wheat, black money into apples. [If you find parts of this sentence vaguely familiar, it is because you have read "View from (Greater) Kailash", the highly readable blog by Avay Shukla.]

"It was only a matter of time that this reached the ears of the DC (Commissioner of the Division). He was put on enquiry and sent Veeraraghavan, one of the sub-collectors under him to the village on a two-day inspection. Santokh Singh was visibly surprised, nay, upset, by the sudden visit of the senior officer, but soon took control of the matter. He was at his hospitable and courteous best, plying him with goodies and attending to all his needs.

"As Veeraraghavan wound up his inspection for the day, he walked towards the jeep, Santokh Singh in tow. 'Come a bit early, say, at 9 tomorrow so that I can finish the task by afternoon and leave,' he said, as he raised his left foot to get into the jeep.

Santokh Singh saw the golden opportunity slipping away. If Veeraraghavan was to leave the next afternoon, where was the chance to entertain him and win him over? Now is the time to act, he knew.

'But where are you going to spend the night, Sir-ji?'

'In the IB, of course!'

'But that's some twenty miles away and the road is no good. If the jeep breaks down half way or you have a flat tyre, you'll be stranded in the middle f nowhere. No, I cannot let you go, Sir-ji!' Santokh Singh managed to convey this in broken English and a mixture of Punjabi and Hindi.

"After some persuasion, Veeraraghavan relented. Santokh Singh spruced up the best room in his house for the boss. Punjabiyat and hospitality were in full display. A sumptuous meal complete with fluffy naans fresh from the oven, butter-chicken, daal-makhni and gaajar ka halwa dripping with ghee followed a couple of shots of the best whisky that could be commandeered by a Patwaari. Santokh Singh was confident that after all this, the report that Veeraraghavan would submit to the DC would at least be neutral, if not exculpating him altogether; it would not stand in the way if his promotion to the post of a Tehsildar,

"The problem arose the next morning. Veeraraghavan needed to take a dump and there was no loo. Santokh Singh directed him to a secluded patch of vegetation about two furlongs away.

"Not too pleased with the prospects of a morning walk for the purpose, Veeraraghavan trudged along, with Santokh Singh maintaining a respectable distance from the boss. He lowered his portly frame and while the work was in progress, he felt something gently crawling up his posterior. His searching hand grasped a leech making its way up for a vantage point to suck blood from.

"Startled, Veeraraghavan got up and confronted Santokh Singh.

'What is this?' Veeraraghavan yelled.

"Santokh Singh went close and identified the offending creature. A leech, but the poor guy did not know the English word for the insect (called 'jok' in his mother tongue.

"Mustering all the English at his command, he managed to clarify, 'Sir-ji, it's a jok!'

"Veeraraghavan roared, 'You call this a joke?'

"It is not given to us to know if Santokh Singh fulfilled his ambition of becoming a Tehsildar."

Your guess is as good as mine!

A STRANGE STORY OF THE OED

Today I read a fascinating book about the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which, I learnt, was, to

borrow a NewGen expression, "crowd-sourced". The title of the book is "The Professor and the Madman".

Call OED a Wikipedia of the 19th century, author Simon Winchester seems to say, for he says the tome of reference was the product of the labour of thousands of volunteers.

Dr William Chester Minor from Crowthorne was one of the most prolific contributors to the OED edited by Dr James Murray. The finer points of lexicography were of interest to both and they would exchange regular correspondence on the subject and the project they were collaborating on. Murray was all appreciation for his consistent efforts and valuable inputs.

Though this went on for a long time, they had never met each other in person. Murray had invited Minor several times to Oxford, but Minor always expressed his regrets. So the meeting never took place for two decades.

Apart from the fact that that they lived in places about fifty miles from each other, Minor seemed to be unwilling or unable to travel from Crowthorne to Oxford. He never offered any excuse or explanation for declining the invite.

If the mountain will not come to Mohamed, Mohamed must go to the mountain, as they say. So Murray fixes up an appointment and undertakes a train journey to Wellington College Station, the railhead nearest to the village where Minor resides. A liveried coachman man meets him at the station with a polished landau. After a twenty-minute ride through the lanes of rural landscape, they reach a long poplar-lined drive leading to a huge and imposing red-brick mansion.

A footman solemnly greets Murray in the portico and ushers him to the second floor. Standing behind a huge mahogany desk in a book-lined study is the host, his mysterious and intriguing collaborator. He bows gravely, introduces himself and then utters the equivalent of the "Dr Livingstone, I presume" words:

"A very good afternoon to you, sir. I am Dr James Murray of the London Philological Society, and Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. It is indeed an honour and a pleasure to at long last make your acquaintance — for you must be, kind sir, my most assiduous help-meet, Dr W C Minor?"

A brief pause follows, a moment of mutual embarrassment. A clock ticks loudly. And then the man behind the desk says, "I regret, kind sir, that I am not."

He clears his throat and clarifies, "It is not at all as you suppose. I am, in fact, the Governor of the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Dr Minor is most certainly here. But he is an inmate. He has been a patient here for more than twenty years. He is our longest-staying resident.”

How's that for starters? I'll let you into a bit more of the story, if only to whet your appetite.

After qualifying to to be a surgeon, the young William from Connecticut had joined the Federal army around the Gettysburg battle. While living in London in 1872, he started suffering hallucinations that Irishmen were stalking him. One night, rushing outdoors in delusional pursuit of his attackers, he shot a brewery worker on his way to work. He was consigned to the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.

His family, affluent as they were, supported the widow of the victim. She began visiting him at Broadmoor, and bringing books he wanted from London shops.

Sometime in the early 1880s, probably in one of her book parcels, Minor came across a printed appeal for quotations for what Murray called "the big dictionary". He needed about half a dozen quotations citing the different shades of meaning of each word.

The surgeon serving his term had a lot of time on his hands and a great need for some noteworthy accomplishment. So he volunteered. The rest is history, hardly known though.

The book has been made into a film. I can't wait to see it.

 OF SILHOUETTE AND TAXES

'Silhouette' (pronounced sɪlʊˈɛt) was the answer to a word puzzle posed in a WhatsApp group that I am a member of. As you know, it is the image of a person (animal, object or scene) represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject.

The word looked to be of French origin and I was intrigued. The findings of my 'research' were fascinating. First of all, it is an eponymous word, that is, derived from the name of a person (as in Boswellian biography or Dickensian character) or thing (as in Himalayan blunder). It comes from the name of Etienne de Silhouette who the minister for finance in the 18th century France.

De Silhouette, born in 1709 was a scholar in finance and economics. He had spent a year in London learning about the economy of Britain. When appointed France's Controller-General of Finance in 1759, he had the unviable task cut out for him: of balancing a precarious economy. He had to curb France's spiralling deficit and strengthen the finances for the Seven Years' War against Britain.

In the Ancien Régime, the nobility and the church were exempt from taxes. In his attempt to restore the kingdom's finances, he took a leaf out of the English method of taxing the rich and privileged. He devised the "general subvention," i.e., taxes on external signs of wealth (doors and windows, farms, luxury goods, servants, profits). He also managed to curtail Royal household expenditure. De Silhouette introduced new taxes and reduced state pensions. He took the war measure of ordering the melting down of goldware and silverware.

These steps made him hugely unpopular. He was criticized by the nobility including Voltaire, who thought his measures, though theoretically beneficial, were not suitable for wartime and the French political situation.

Suffice it to say that nobody - the royalty, the clergy, the nobility or the commoner - was happy with the the steps he took for setting the economy right. It was therefore hardly surprising that his term was very short: a mere eight months.

But what does all this have to do with the style of pictures named after him? Good question. The draconian steps that De Silhouette took caused him to become the subject of hostility. His penny-pinching manner led to the expression à la Silhouette (like Silhouette) to be applied to things perceived as cheap or austere.

An art form that gained popularity during this period was a shadow profile cut from black paper. It provided a simple and inexpensive alternative for those who could not afford more decorative and expensive forms of portraiture, such as painting or sculpture. Those who considered it cheap attached the word "silhouette" to it.

That is how this art-form, still popular, came to acquire the name silhouette.

 A HAIR OF THE DOG THAT BIT ME

In one of my recent posts, I had used the expression 'a hair of the dog that bit me' which intrigued some friends. I was surprised because I had thought it was a popular phrase.

So I tested it on five other persons; only two knew what it stood for. That was a revelation to me. Therefore I thought that this expression (and a few others) could be the subject of a post.

"Hair of the dog that bit you", or "Hair of the dog" for short is a colloquial expression for the cure of a hangover from the over-indulgence of the previous night. It is actually a small measure of the same drink, consumed with the aim of lessening the effects of a hangover. Something like homeopathy (Similia similibus curantur) or vaccines.

But where do the dog and its hair come from? The expression originally referred to the popular belief that a few hairs from the tail of the dog that bit you applied to the wound will prevent evil consequences!

By rights, the exclamation "What the Dickens!" to express surprise, shock of befuddlement should be an open-and-shut case: a tribute to Charles Dickens, right? The master story-teller whose plots have suspense-filled twists and this expression of real-life shock and surprise must surely be related, one concludes.

Except that they are not connected! Well, it is quoted by William Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor, where Mrs. Page says , "I cannot tell what the dickens his name is ..." And that great wordsmith had walked this earth centuries before Charles Dickens came with his stories of Victorian London.

Suppose I am struggling with a puzzle: In what ratio should coffee beans costing Rs 360 per kg and chicory costing Rs 200 a kg mixed to produce a mixture costing Rs 300 a kg? As I juggle with algebra: x kg of coffee, y kg of chicory and x + y kg of the mixture, you tell me that "You can work it out in your mind, it is 5 : 3!" When I ask you how, you tell me: (300 - 200) : (360 - 300) or 100 : 60 or 5 : 3 and add, "Bob's your uncle!" That is the same as "Voila!" or "Hey presto!"

That reminds me of my classmate Habibullah who used to say that the letters "q e d" that one writes with a flourish after proving a rider in geometry stand for "quite easily done"! (Of course, the abbreviation actually stands for "quod erat demonstrandum" meaning "which was required to be proved".) "Quite easily done" is the same as "And Bob's your uncle!"

Euphemism is a great breeding ground for expressions like "spending a penny" - for going to the toilet. The phrase goes back to Victorian public toilets, which required users to insert a single penny in order to operate the lock. Historically, only women's public toilets required a penny to lock; the ones for men were free of charge! Of course, there are other expressions for the same thing: "going to the little girl's room", "going to powder the nose" and "going to a man about the dog" and the like.

The reference in "Oh my Gideon!", I had thought, was to the copy of the Bible you see in hotel rooms. In a moment of stress, you may like to exclaim "Oh my God!" but it would be sacrilege, as God has, vide the Third Commandment, made his feelings plain on the subject of taking his name in vain. So one looks for alternatives like "Gosh" and "Golly" but there is hardly any fun in that. We need something more colourful, descriptive and dramatic. We’re all creative people, and language is our playground. "Sainted aunt" is more like it. Or "Oh my giddy aunt!" Which, in course of time, transmogrified into "Oh my Gideon!"

When you hear "Alice has a bun in the oven", it is easy to guess that what is meant is that she is expecting a child. If someone has "a few sandwiches short of a picnic", the suggestion is that he is not too intelligent.

There is one more that I want to write about. Someone who is boorish and loud, and a little too full of himself is described as "a stuffed shirt" or "all mouth and trousers". This windbag is boastful about being the most astonishing person around.

Meanwhile, there’s “all mouth and NO trousers,” referring to someone who cannot deliver what he boastfully promises. Apparently when it originated, the claim referred to sexual prowess!