THE STORY OF A WHATSAPP GROUP

 

It was in the early days of WhatsApp that the a few classmates belonging to the batch of 1975 decided to form a WhatsApp group called the Old Boy's Association (OBA). In the first week, there were only six members, but soon word spread and the number swelled to thirty. And then the students of the other divisions were admitted. It was just a matter of weeks that the number crossed two digits. Encouraged, the admin threw open the forum to all the alumni of the school. They were all strung together by the common thread of the alma mater.

By the time I joined the group, it already had more than three hundred members from as far away as the US in the west and Japan in the east, but predictably, the majority was India-based. Members

belonged to different generations: while I was from the batch of 1961, I learnt from the profiles that some were decades senior to me and some were as recent as 2019.

The camaraderie of the members and the good cheer that they spread had to be seen to be believed. One did not mind the fact that one had to earmark a chunk of one's leisure hours to delete the inevitable good morning and good night messages, birthday greetings (though merely a crisp HBD in many cases) and anniversary wishes.

They shared stories of the pranks they played in and out of the school campus, posted some old group photos and referred to teachers by their nicknames. Many wrote nostalgically about their teenage crushes and rued the fact that they were destined to grow up.

Soon, there was an issue: there was a disconnect when the seniors went through the posts of juniors as they could not even understand the lingo some of them used. Likewise, the juniors could not enjoy the dialogue between two seniors as the topics discussed and the personalities featured had retired long before.

So the admin found it expedient to form a few subgroups: OBA 1940s, OBA 1950s, OBA 1960s and so on till OBA 2010s, the number denoting the decade in which one left the school. Thus I belong to the OBA 1960s group. Obviously, the OBA 1940s and the OBA 1950s groups were small compared to the others and the 2010s was the largest — and most vibrant.

Inevitably, sooner than later, people got fed up regurgitating old tales and started looking for new stuff. They shared jokes and cartoons, news clippings and forwards, memes and trolls, videos and songs. Though not related to the school days, they were interesting nevertheless. Motivational talks, health-related articles, advice on wealth management too made frequent appearance. The traffic in the group became dense, with devotional songs and talks by religious leaders, patriotic slogans and political pieces becoming regular fare.

Some members opined that as everyone may not be interested in all these, it is not fair to burden EVERYONE with ALL posts. The admins (by then, there was a team of admins instead of one) formed a few new groups dedicated to different areas — OBA Music, OBA Health, OBA Jokes, OBA Religion, OBA Politics, OBA Literature, OBA Wealth, etc. One was free to join multiple groups depending on one's interest, but cross-posts (Homoeopathy posts in, say, OBA Literature, for instance) were a strict no-no.

But then there was a problem: those who enjoy Semmangudi and Amjad Ali Khan found it difficult to co-exist with fans of Metallica and Pink Floyd. Votaries of vegan food could not stomach the recipes of Mutton Yakni and devilled venison. The puritans among the book-loving community found discussions on some works by certain authors distasteful.

The admins were up against a wall. The problem that the members were facing was genuine and serious. So the roped in some volunteers from different interest-groups to act as admins of new groups formed for the different segments. At the last count, OBA had 127 groups, some representational names being OBA 1980s, OBA Ghazals, OBA BeeGees, OBA Yunani, OBA Trinamool, OBA Harry Potter, OBA Dark humour, OBA Hrithik Roshan, OBA Bobanum Molleyum, OBA Nihilism, OBA CPM, OBA Bailey's Irish Cream, OBA Tintin, OBA Porn, OBA Theosophy, OBA Harley Davidson, OBA Indore Gharaana, OBA Space Science, OBA UPSC Exams and OBA Kosher food.

This works! I am a member of only eleven of them which hold my interest.

MEMORIES TRIGGERED

Yesterday a friend and I were playing a game of Scrabble. At some stage in the game, my rack had what I thought was a bingo-friendly combination: AGIINP and a blank. I could make PAI(R)ING but it was a "non-go" (the Scrabble player's jargon for a Bingo on the rack that encounters a no-go on the board. Or PAI(N)ING.

I wished I had an S in place of the second I in which case the possibilities seemed endless: SPA(C)ING, S(C)APING, SPA(R)ING, (R)ASPING, S(H)APING, P(H)ASING, PAS(S)ING, PAS(T)ING. PA(R)SING, SAP(P)ING, (L)APSING, GASPIN(G) — and many more. Buy then, as in life, so in Scrabble. I philosophised: you don't get everything you want.

That was when the word PIGNOLIA flashed in my mind. Not a common word, I agree. Like almonds or cashew nut, this edible nut of a pine tree is used in confections. I could make the word using the floating 'O' of the OVARY on the board. I did exactly that and scored a hefty 78 points.

Now, though I had come across this word in 1957 — that is, a good six decades and a half back — I was using this word for the first time in my life and in my Scrabble journey.

I was in Class VII in the MCCHS (Malabar Christian College High School) in what was then called Calicut. Our class teacher was Mr VM Easow who taught us English and mathematics. The strong foundation he laid in these subjects is what I built upon. Equally, if not more importantly, I cherish the values "Easow-Maash" taught us.

Easow-Maash had an impeccable handwriting, whether he wrote on the blackboard or on paper. A typical foolscap (NOT fullscape, he would repeat) sheet with his writing would have thirty lines — no more, no less — (I can see Easow-Maash frowning that I did not use the correct "no fewer") and no over-writings, no corrections and no ersures.

The last periods on Fridays were allotted to the class teacher. Easow-Maash used it for personal interaction with the students and overall development: elocution, recitation, quiz, etc. On days when the weather permitted, we would venture out: he would take us to the college playground. Though his house was on a plot adjoining the playground, instead of going home at the end of the period, he would walk us back to the class and leave the school only after the long bell goes.

On one of those Fridays, Easow-Maash took us to the beach. We picked up seashells and pebbles and made sand-pits and sand-castles. Some who had gone to the shaded area of casuarina trees came back with their pockets full of its seeds with spikes. That was when Easow-Maash told us about acorns and pignolia, the seeds of pine trees.

A strict disciplinarian, he always carried a slender cane while in school. After entering the class, he would place carefully place on the table, making sure that everyone saw it. I don't however recall a single instance when Easow-Maash wielded the cane, though! A frown, a stare, an angry glare — and the most recalcitrant brat would cower and submit.

The stern-faced teacher had a impishly humorous facet too. The proverb which goes something like:

"The greatest oak

Was once a tiny nut

That held its ground."

was paraphrased by Easow-Maash as:

"The mighty oak

Was once a little acorn;

And the tallest yew

A nut like you!"

He would tweak the children's rhyme

"Under the spreading chestnut tree

There we sit, both you and me.

Oh, how happy we will be!

Under the spreading chestnut tree."

to

"Under the spreading chestnut tree

I sold you and you sold me.

Oh, how happy we will be!

Under the spreading chestnut tree."

(Mind you, this was long before horse-trading and resort-politics had acquired the currency and the legitimacy they enjoy today!)

Tailpiece: Even after placing PIGNOLIA, I lost!

TRUE TO TYPE

 

A friend of mine has put up an interesting post on stenography and dictating letters. There he has also narrated the evolution of the machines he used: from his father's old Remington manual typewriter whose keys he punched when he started out, to the feather-touch keyboard of the laptop he uses now. The journey has had several pit-stops where he used different variants: the clunky machine in the neighborhood typewriting institute, Olivetti manual, Brother electric and electronic typewriters, word-processors and now computers with the user-friendly speech-to-text feature.

That is the story of my life too, except that it was an Underwood instead of a Remington. And the typewriting institute bit — I did not attend one because there was none in the village I lived in. That lack of education shows: I still use my right middle finger for all the typing that I do and my left thumb for the "capital shift". I can clock a speed of 30 words per minute and though I cannot boast of a six-sigma level, my output is generally error-free.

These days I rely a lot on the speech-to-text feature both in English and Malayalam and have attained about 90% accuracy. The problem is that I have to be on the lookout for the gaffes like FACE for PHASE (and vice versa) and "The penis mightier than the sword."

I was in my early twenties when I had my first stenographer (That does sound pompous! He was actually the only one in the department I was attached to and, truth to tell, was shared by the three officers senior to me; I only tagged along!) Shesha Iyer (Swamy to everyone), the epitome of competence in his chosen field, had barely one year to retire. Having been with the organisation for thirty-seven long years, he was a fantastic resource person.

One of my bosses who was not too good at dictation often used to feel the urge to use the services of a stenographer, if only for ramping up his self-esteem. He would call Shesha Iyer, start dictating the letter number, date, addressee, salutation, subject line and after "With reference to your letter number (reading it aloud from the file) dated (again reading it aloud), comma, we have to advise as under, colon."

After this elaborate introduction, he would look up from the file and sit back in the swivel chair. He would then close the file and hand it over to the amanuensis with the words, "Swamy, you know what I have in mind. Please bring the draft reply." And Swami would do exactly that: an appropriate and correctly-worded reply would be on the boss' table in fewer than thirty minutes.

But I have digressed, for, I wanted to relate my experience with Shesha Iyer. Being a rookie, I would, at times, get stuck for the right word. From the context, he would guess what I had mind and supply me with the right phrase or word. The unsolicited, though welcome, input would interrupt the flow of my thought.

After a couple of such interventions, temporarily abandoning my usual respect for the grey hair and the bald pate, I asked him, "Swamy, are you, or am I, the one dictating the letter?"

THE BALLS OF A BRASS MONKEY

 

Haven't you come across the expression: "It was so cold that it would freeze the balls of a brass monkey"? I have always wondered where this strange, if slightly profane, expression came from. And what does it have to do with a monkey of whichever material?

I am told it comes from the naval profession. A munkey (also spelt monkey) was a kind of gun made of brass (or iron in some cases) used in war-ships. The cannon balls (made of iron) for use in the gun would be placed on a dimpled brass plate on the deck of a war-ship.

As the small amount of seawater held in place by capillary action at the contact point of two balls freezes on a particularly cold day, it pushes the balls apart. This will make the stack of balls less stable, making the once at the edges fall.

Even if seawater did not intervene, given the coefficients of expansion of iron and brass, the balls may get displaced from their dimples on cold days. That is how the balls of a brass monkey freeze.

Reasearch says there are similar expressions like "talk the tail off a brass monkey" and "hot enough to melt the nose off a brass monkey". Are they related? Your guess is as good as mine.

ROMANCE WITH COFFEE

Over fifty years back, in India, except for certain pockets, coffee was not as popular as it is today. While in Jabalpur in 1968, on a Sunday, I took my colleagues to the Indian Coffee House in Sadar Bazaar for a cup of coffee, the first cup in their life. After taking a sip, Brijesh Sinha, Nikhil Sarkar, Aaftaab Queraishi and Devendra Sharma cried out in unison, "यह जली हुई चाय लगती है! (This tastes like burnt tea!)". They did not empty their cups. I felt personally insulted at the remark and action. I faintly recall that it took some time before my anger towards them subsided!

The reason I refer to this episode is that it would give you an idea of my affinity with the beverage. I guess I was justified in being cut to the quick by the affront, having been a coffee person all my life. (Forget that at that point in time, I had still not attained the voting age.)

The coffee that my mother used to make was by boiling Brooke Bond coffee powder and adding milk and sugar. It was good but nowhere near the filter coffee my friend Prakash Iyer's mother would treat me to during my frequent visits to his house in Cochin.

Believe it or not, coffee won me a prize in a quiz contest hosted by Prof Shantaram Rao of Maharaja's College in Ernakulam. The tiebreaker question was: What did Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord describe as “Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love”? It was for the first time that I was hearing of the controversial clergyman, politician and leading French diplomat before the Revolution. Just one word away from the first prize, I hazarded a guess and shouted out "Coffee!"

I loved the aroma and the flavour of coffee, but, for decades, my exposure was limited to the coffee that dripped through the two-tiered filter.

My graduation to higher levels of coffee came about only after my retirement. When my brother Ram mohan returned after a stint in Oxford, he brought us a cafetière (also called a French press). Coffee is brewed in the glass carafe and the plunger is used for pushing the powder to the bottom before pouring the coffee into the mugs.

We did not, however, put it to use much though, because the contraption was large and one HAD to make large quantities. We soon reverted to our old conventional stainless steel decoction-maker.

Then cà phê sữa đá happened!

It was during our two-month stay in Vietnam where our son Hari was working in the area of coffee procurement for a commodity major that I came to know about the connoisseurs' take on coffee. Cà phê sữa đá (Vietnamese iced coffee) was an instant hit with me. The invigorating brew is made using coarsely-ground robusta beans. The aroma as the hot water seeps through the grains in the single-tier phin filter and drips into the condensed milk at the bottom of the cup forming two layers of colloids! The ice-cubes dropped into the mixture make it so divine I'd give my right hand in exchange!

Then we were gifted a Bialetti Moka coffee-maker where the direction of the water is reversed. The water boiling in the lower half rises through the coffee powder to the upper compartment, carrying with every molecule of the "poison".

And with that came a few packets of Vui Coffee (https://vuivui.in/) curated by Amaresh, my son's colleague in Vietnam. In Vietnamese, Vui means ‘happy’ and does Amaresh bring happiness to those who deal with him! His coffee is an experience!

My son Gautam too is a coffee-buff. He has a coffee-grinder which he uses every time he makes coffee. So the freshness sealed in the beans is unlocked only minutes before the coffee is brewed.

After his visit to Holland, Hari brought us a biggish packet of Douwe Egberts Aroma Rood coffee. The beverage it makes is, well, at the cost of repetition, black as the devil, hot as hell, ... Can a coffee-lover ask for more?

Edit: I forgot the Kumbakonam Degree Coffee. But then that deserves a separate post!