A Riddle Wrapped in an Enigma

A RIDDLE WRAPPED IN AN ENIGMA

Nobody knew how Swamy came to live with us.

He was discovered one morning by my grandfather when he woke up at five as usual and opened the main door of the house to step out. In the blur of the setting moon, he noticed the human figure lying on the floor at the far end of the open verandah. He went in, fetched a lantern and came back to find out who the uninvited guest was.

Deep asleep was a man in his mid-fifties. The lanky frame was clad in nothing except a thorth (thin white bath-towel used in Kerala). He had not shaved for a month and it looked as though he had not had a square meal for several days. Grandpa's first reaction was to wake him up and interrogate him. He overcame the instinct and decided to allow him to sleep for as long as he wanted to.

In thirty minutes, grandpa was back, after his bath and coffee. He sat in the easy chair in the verandah and bridged its arms with the writing plank. After lighting the kerosene table lamp on the table beside, he carefully placed the inkpot and the steel pen (or dip pen - how many of us remember this predecessor to the fountain pen?) somewhere in the right half of the plank. Soon he was engrossed in his work. The project on hand was the 'vrittaaanuvritta, padaanupada tarjima' - metre-to-metre, word-to-word translation - of Kalidasa's Abhijnaana Shaakuntalam into Malayalam. (This work would be published later with an introduction by the redoubtable Sardar K M Panicker and paid rich encomiums by none less than Vallathol Narayana Menon, the Titan of Malayalam literature.)

In a little over an hour, the rays of the rising sun woke up our guest. He opened his eyes, sat up and smiled at my grandfather, who smiled back. His answers to grandpa's queries about him were vague or philosophical, depending on how one looked at it. What is your name? 'People call me Swamy because I sport a beard and recite stotras and shlokas. They think I am a saint,' he replied. Where did he belong to? Sagely, he replied, 'One belongs to a place this moment and to another the next. Can anyone say with certainty that he belongs to a particular place?' Any relatives? Saying 'Everyone in this world is related to me,' Swamy walked towards the pond for a bath.

When he returned, he was in the same thorth, only, it was wet. Grandpa asked grandma to get a mundu (dhoti) for Swamy, but he declined. Get me another thorth, he said. I wear only a thorth. He demanded a cup of tea. He sipped it, visibly enjoying the beverage, humming some folk song.

Around half past seven, grandpa got up and went to the vegetable garden where he used to grow brinjals and okras, chillies and string beans, flat peas and tapioca, plantains and the like. Making the beds for the plants, removing the weeds, plucking the dead leaves and watering them was his idea of exercise. He would spend an hour each in the morning and the evening every day in the kitchen garden.

Swamy followed him and helped him fetch water from the pond to water the plants. Neither spoke a word, but they co-ordinated their moves very well. When both returned after the job was done, it was beyond half past eight.

We were served breakfast in the dining room (called 'antaraaalam' perhaps because it connected the main building and the unit consisting of the kitchen, store-room, the work area and the allied facilities) and the kitchen. It being a joint family, the brood was quite big, you see. Meanwhile, Swamy, sitting in the verandah, was given his breakfast on a plantain leaf.

Breakfast done, Swamy borrowed a knife from the Kalyani, our cook, and, unasked, proceeded to the 'estate' where he pruned the plantain trees, tied the pepper vines to the trees they clutched at for support, and did a lot of odd jobs till it was time for lunch.

Post lunch, when the older members of the family withdrew to their rooms for a siesta, he too lay on the floor of the verandah. After the evening tea, he watered the kitchen garden after which he had a dip in the pond. Then Swamy went for a stroll to the village market beyond the unending stretch of paddy fields, to return in time for dinner and sleep.

This routine continued for a few days. My grandfather found in him a helping hand. My grandmother would at times request him to fetch some provisions on his way back after the evening walk which he would gladly do. As he had no major use for money, he never demanded payment for his services - nor was he offered any remuneration. Swamy marked his attendance regularly for all meals. That was all he needed.

My uncle, a banker in the district headquarters, was quite upset on seeing Swamy when he came visiting his parents during the weekend. He had apparently taken an instant dislike for Swamy. No, it was not just the looks of the man who wore nothing but a thorth. The dishevelled salt and pepper hair, the unruly beard and the hairy chest did not help matters. He asked my grandfather, 'What do you know of this guy to offer him shelter here? He could be a criminal on the run. He may decamp one night after looting you. How can you trust a man who strays in?'

Grandfather, firm in his conviction that Swamy was not up to any mischief, pacified my uncle. He helps me, my grandfather said, in the kitchen garden in the morning and evening and does odd jobs during the day. He is a good fellow, my grandfather added, let him stay. My uncle did not press the point further. Thus Swamy became part of our household.

My grandmother would hand over a tenner to him at times and ask him to fetch a pound of sugar or green gram or salt from Moosa's shop which he would gladly do. He would appropriate the small change and return to my grandmother only the currency notes that Moosa gave back. In the initial days, grandmother would ask him, 'Swamy, how about the six and a quarter annas?' Avoiding eye contact, he would respond, 'Oh, that? I took it,' or 'Looks like I dropped it' or 'I put it in the offertory in the temple' depending on his mood. That was the pattern.

He was not too strict with the money, whoever it belonged to. One evening my uncle gave him a rupee and asked him to get a packet of Passing Show cigarettes. An hour went by, two hours went by, but there was no sign of Swamy. Finally, around nine in the night, all of us went to sleep. Next morning, When Swamy was questioned, he replied, 'Being Muharram, Moosa's shop was closed.' How about the money? Without batting an eyelid, he responded, 'But Kannan's arrack shop was open!'

Swamy was outspoken to a fault. In retrospect, I suspect that he used to take advantage of the impression that others had about his being an oddball and an eccentric. Our kitchen was strictly vegetarian, which Swamy was not too happy about. He would say, 'The reason why all of you have to wear spectacles from an early age is that all that you eat is grass and leaves. Eat fish and meat and see the difference!'

On that point, there was convergence of views between Swamy and my uncle. Though initially not well-disposed towards Swamy, he and Swamy had a pact: on Saturdays, Swamy would bring some fish from the market which he would cook in an ad hoc hearth set up in a far corner of the large compound. The two of them would polish off the entire stuff and both would look forward to the next weekend.

Swamy was not 'all there'. He refused to wear anything except his thorth. He had no use for mats or pillows or sheets: rain or shine, sick or well, he would sleep on the floor in the verandah exactly where my grandfather had first found him.

He was a man of moods. On certain days, he would be quiet, and would not speak even if spoken to. On others, he would go around singing aloud, unmindful of who was around. His repertoire was quite large - ballads, nonsense verses, prayers, astrology, keertans, kathakalipadams, ottan thullal verses, poems, slogans used during the freedom movement, - and his memory phenomenal. It was through the oral tradition that the illiterate that he was had learnt all these. When my sisters taught him 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star', 'Hickory, dickory dock' and 'Saare jahaan se acchha Hindustaan hamaara', his range went to the next level.

Swamy would spend the small change that he appropriated from the money given for purchase of provisions money on beedis or a fish curry meal in Ambu's hotel, the only eatery in the village, or an occasional drink. On days he planned to eat out or have a drink, he would announce to nobody in particular, 'I'll be late tonight.' That is supposed to mean that he did not need dinner that night. Nobody knew when he returned after the revelry and slept in the usual place, but the next morning he would act as if nothing had happened!

It was never given to us to know more about Swamy - his background, his family, his relatives. Enquiries by different people at different times during his twelve-year stay with us elicited no information except that his name was Swamy.

A true awadhoot Swamy was. One morning when my grandfather opened the main door of the house at five as usual, he noticed that there was nobody at the far end of the open verandah. And that was it.

Nobody knows why Swamy left us or where he went to.

My Experiment with the Customs

MY EXPERIMENTS WITH THE CUSTOMS

In 2004, we spent a fortnight in Singapore at the invitation of my brother-in-law who works and lives there. We were on a shoestring budget and traveled by economy class of Tiger Airways, the budget airline of Singapore. I had, however, earmarked a few dollars so that I could buy the allowed quota of moderately priced liquor when returning to India.

The first words Ranjith uttered after opening the door to his apartment were, 'If I do not do this now, I might forget!' So saying, he opened his bar and pulled out a bottle each of Yamazaki, Glenmorangie and MacAllan Whiskeys and a bottle of Grey Goose Vodka. Putting the exotic stuff in a sturdy bag, he said, 'This will not be allowed as hand baggage. So pack them well in your suitcase so that they do not break in transit.'

The holiday in Singapore was very enjoyable, but all good things must come to an end. Towards the end of our stay, we were informed by the airline that our flight had been cancelled and we had been re-routed via Colombo. There would be a layover of five hours there and we would travel from Colombo to Trivandrum by Mihin Lanka, the budget airline with whom Tiger had tied up.

That was fine with us. The touchdown at Colombo was at 9 am. The scheduled time of departure of the Trivandrum-bound flight was 2 pm but it was delayed. Initially, they said an hour, which went on to two, three, four and so on. As neither carrier had made arrangements for refreshments or meals and we had a lot of time on our hands, we went round the airport, reading all the signboards and tourism literature and nibbling at doughnuts and sandwiches. During the course of our aimless meandering, we reached the duty-free shop.

We purchased some Toblerone chocolates, Bhawani's favourite. A poster announcing an offer that was placed near the exit caught my eyes as we came out. Three bottles of Chivas Regal (12 years' vintage) for the price of two. And a nifty carry-bag to boot. We came out and pooled together the money that we had. Between Bhawani and me, we had enough to buy that.

Deal done, we had some grub at the KFC Counter and waited for the announcement.

Finally, when the boarding happened, it was 1130 pm. It was past midnight when we landed, bleary-eyed, in Trivandrum. Before landing, the air-hostess had distributed the forms we had to sign, declaring the dutiable 'goods' we were 'importing' into India. Bhawani and I spoke in hushed tones and not eager to be caught lying, we decided to declare that between the two of us, we had seven litres of alcohol with us - which is three litres more than what we were entitled to carry.

After the immigration formalities, we walked gingerly, lugging our suitcases. There were just two of us headed towards the red gate. Our co-passengers looked at us wistfully as they breezed past the green channel, perhaps wondering what contraband the suitcases of this ageing couple would be holding.

There was no official manning the red channel. On seeing us, a woman in white uniform came to us, told us, 'This is not the route,' and asked us to go through the green channel.

I protested, 'But, madam, we have some dutiable goods with us,' trying to hand over the declaration.

Not giving the paper as much as a glance, she proceeded to ask me, 'What is it? Gold? Or, electronic goods?'

When I told her that I was carrying the golden liquid, she did not seem impressed. She pointed towards a gentleman in white uniform and asked us to meet him.

I found him sleepy and drunk. Sozzled, with alcohol sloshing in his belly. The small black plastic name board on the flap of his left pocket proclaimed his name: P RAMAKRISHNAN.

'Good morning, Mr Ramakrishnan,' I greeted him and extended my declaration to him.

Blame it on the poison he had, he was puzzled: how does this guy know my name? Do I know him? Have I met this guy earlier? If so, where? I could see these questions on his face.

'Good morning, Sir. What can I do for you?'

'We have seven litres of alcohol with us and we know that only four are allowed. We would like to pay the duty and take the additional three bottles along,' I replied matter-of-factly.

There was a look on disbelief on his face. Here's a man volunteering to pay the duty on three bottles of whiskey!

'Seven litres? Three bottles of which brand?' he asked me, lapsing into Malayalam.

He pronounced 'Ezhu', the word for seven, as 'yaazhu', the way only those in Palakkad district can.

'Chivas Regal.'

Ramakrishnan jotted something on a piece of paper, punched a few keys on his desk calculator, and informed me, 'The duty will be hefty, Sir.'

While he was at work, I ventured some small talk. I asked him, 'Mr Ramakrishnan, which part of Palakkad district do you hail from?' and then, opening my wallet, I queried, 'How much would it work out to?'

'I am from Aalatthur,' he informed me, adding, 'Rs 1,200,' with an air of finality.

As I was counting twelve Rs 100 notes, he asked me, 'Sir, I suppose there is a wedding in the family and this is for the reception.'

As my sons were both eligible bachelors then, my response, a feeble 'Yes' was not entirely untrue. The fact that a timeframe had not been specified either by the interrogator or the respondent helped.

That was when he saw my wife who was behind me. Looking at her and me alternately, Ramakrishnan said, 'A marriage in the family and madam before me - how can I be so heartless as to impose a duty?' He tore up the declaration and put it into the waste paper basket. Needless to say, he was looking for an excuse to let us off the hook. And he knew one when he saw one.

As we walked towards the exit, Ramakrishnan called out to us, 'Do not forget to invite me for the reception, Sir!'

School Daze

SCHOOL DAZE

I seem to hold a record of sorts, having studied in six schools before finishing Class 10. And this was not because the schools did not want me! My father was on a transferable job and took the family along wherever he was posted to.

The first school that I went to was a two-room affair about which I have the vaguest of memories. I guess I had attended that school only for a few months. It was located in my mother's village near Koodali in Kannur. In the matrilineal scheme of things then prevalent, the ties that married women retained with their mother and her house were strong. She would be in her maternal house for a longer period than her husband's. It was thus that I was admitted to this school.

'Admitted' is too formal a word to use when things were so simple and uncomplicated. The process of my admission, for instance, consisted of a conversation between my maternal grandfather and the headmaster while travelling in a bus. Some time during the journey, it was agreed that I would and could start attending classes from the following week. Admissions and transfer certificates were strictly for the birds!

For some reason I cannot fathom now, I was soon shifted to another school, a bigger one because it had five classes. It was housed in a long thatched shed, open on three sides. At the far end was an enclosure created by putting up bamboo mats about four feet high, which doubled as the headmaster's office and the teachers' room. This was where the box of chalks was kept.

The school had just five classes and four teachers, one of whom was the headmaster. The available four teachers had to handle the five classes which meant that one teacher had to handle two classes at a time. The headmaster presided over Class 5. Class 1 was under Leela Teacher and Class 2 under Sankunni Maash while Classes 3 and 4 were under Baalan Maash who also doubled as the local postmaster. He would open the post office at 8 am for an hour and a half; and again from 4:30 pm to 6.

There was no partition between the classrooms. It was easy to distinguish the classes, though. The class where the students sat on the floor was Class 1. Classes 2 and 3 sat back to back on benches - there were no desks. Classes 4 and 5 had benches and desks and the students of these classes too sat back to back.

This arrangement worked well for Baalan Maash who had to handle two classes at a time. As the blackboards of classes 3 and 4 were placed back to back, his small dark frame could flit back and forth between the two classes - teaching arithmetic to Class 3 and Malayalam poetry to Class 4.

Things were very different on days when the headmaster had to go to the Treasury to collect the salary or to the office of the assistant Educational Officer in the city for some administrative work. The school had to make do with the services of three teachers on such days. That was indeed difficult. The teachers would get 'promoted': Leela Teacher to Class 2, Sankunni Maash to Class 3 and 4; and Baalan Maash to Class 5. What about Class 1? A holiday would be declared for Class 1!

Speaking of holidays, not all the students (There were hardly twenty in each class) came to the class every day. The festival in the temple, mother's indisposition, being requisitioned to do odd jobs, Kannan uncle, a sepoy in the army, coming on annual leave, anything could be an excuse for absence.

The third school I attended was in Vellur, my father's village near Payyannur.

Women used to give birth in their maternal homes and only when it was safe for the mother and the child to travel would they go to the house of the father. Thus, when my second sister, the fourth child of my parents, was ninety days old, it was decided that my mother would spend a few months in my father's house.

I must have made a noise about accompanying my mother, or maybe I may not have bothered, but I too was taken to Vellur. It could mean that I missed my classes, right? Wrong. At a time when school admission could be negotiated during a bus journey, shifting from one school to another was a cinch. So, one Friday evening, I stopped going to the school in my mother's village and on the third day, which was the next Monday, I started going to the school in my father's village. Seamless transition.

This kind of smooth and effortless movement, which was replicated by the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan decades later, was possible because my paternal grandfather was married to the headmaster's cousin. He had a word with the headmaster and I started going to the new school from the next day: no transfer certificate, no character certificate, no progress report, no nothing.

This was an Upper Primary School and therefore a big one. The roof was tiled; the walls were made of laterite stones and plastered. Each class was a separate room - way different from the one I was used to. The bottom one-third of the wall was painted black so that the brats would not soil it. And, most importantly, all classes had benches and desks. For me, used to sitting on the floor in Class 1, this was a great elevation in status!

This school was just walking distance and one could come home for lunch. Did I say the school was 'just walking distance'? That was stupid of me, for which school was not 'just walking distance' those days? All were: it was only a question of whether one could come home for lunch. If 'yes', the school was close by; if not, it was far off, but still 'walking distance'.

The fourth school I went to was Koodali High School owned by our family. As result, it was a place where several of my uncles whose qualification was FA (First Year Arts) were parked. (For some reason, in their case, the level of incompetence propounded in Peter's Principle was reached at FA!) Because more than half the teachers were my uncles, it was a formidable place. Forget about pranks and mischiefs, you could not turn this way or that without one uncle or another's eyes falling on you.

The fifth was the stately and reputed Malabar Christian College High School in Calicut. It was just one of those run-of-the-mill schools where everything was 'prim and propah' and about which I have nothing special to write.

And the sixth went by the more-than-mouthful name Hajee Essa Hajee Moosa Memorial HIgh School in Mattancherry, Cochin. It was indeed a great place to be in and deserves to be written about separately. I will just mention that it was a great place to be in, what with me, a 12-year old, in the same class as the 21-year old Habibulla. If I add that only eight of the 52 candidates presented for SSLC in 1961 passed the examination and only one of them was placed in the first class, that would only be part of the story. They excelled in all extra-curricular activities and were champions in several sports events.

ESHMAAN'S MEDICINE

ESHMAAN'S MEDICINE

From the day I can remember (which is when I was seven years), Paaru Amma was part of our family. She looked ancient, really wizened. Given her slender frame with a more than slight stoop, her toothless grin, her wrinkled skin and her shock of silver hair, she could not have been less than seventy then.

In today's parlance, we could refer to her as the 'dowry' that Aunt Rema brought with her. When my maternal uncle Kesavan married his maternal uncle's daughter Rema (To those who might raise their eyebrows at this , let me add: that was the done thing among the Nambiar community in North Malabar, the counterpart of Nairs in the rest of Kerala) and brought her home, she was accompanied by Paaru Amma.

It must have been a tough decision for Janaki Amma, Aunt Rema's mother, to 'give her away in dowry': she had been part of her family for several decades. Incidentally, everyone in the family addressed the old retainer with an honorific Paaru 'Amma', but, Janaki Amma and Paaru Amma were on first name terms. The Lady of the House was plain and simple Jaanu for her hand-maiden Paaru.

One of those evenings when I was pottering about in the coconut grove with her after I had returned from school, I asked her how the matronly and awe-inspiring Janaki Amma was a mere Jaanu to her. Prompt was her reply: Jaanu and I sat on the same bench from class 1 to 5. How else do you address a classmate?

Though everyone in the family called her Paaru Amma, she never returned the favour. She would refer to everyone, young or old, by their name, or even pet name. Thus my uncle's brother was just Govi, my mother's uncle, then a Major in the British Army, was a mere Narayanan and his brother, a school teacher was just Kannan. The only concession she made was in the case of my uncle: the man who was a mere Kesavan, got promoted as Eshmaan (the corrupt form of Yajamaanan  - for Master) upon his marriage.

She was the first one in our home to get up and the last to go to bed; between the two events, you would never see her resting. I do not know for sure, but I guess she sought no compensation for her services: she was happy to be part of the family. All her needs were taken care of and she had no use for money.

Paaru Amma was a great help to the family - particularly to the children, young brides and female folk. The toys she could make using local resources - palm fronds, plumeria blooms, banana stems, etc - was countless. She would teach us how to swim. She would undertake the delicate task of telling the under-teen girls about the birds and the bees - telling them enough for their age and no more. Those preparing to enter the wedlock were made apprentice to her. They would receive good training in cuisine, housekeeping and administration from her.  She would provide wise counsel to young brides. Mothers would go to her for advice on how to tackle their errant children.

Not much was known about her personal life - whether she was married at all or had a child. In any case, she never mentioned once about them. I believe that Paaru Amma had no relatives - at least none that we knew of. She was at home 24x365 and had nowhere to go. That perhaps explains how she came to integrate herself with the family so very closely.

I recall that once a postman came home with a money order for Rs 10 - a princely sum those days - addressed to one Purakkal Parvathi Amma. There was nobody at home who answered to that name. It was Paaru Amma's formal name, but she refused the remittance. 'Return it to the sender', she told the postman. That was the only time I found her bitter about something in life. The sender must have been her long-lost husband on son; we will never know.

As age advanced, Paaru Amma bent double, lost weight (if that were indeed possible) and her health deteriorated. Aunt Rema took good care of her and she would bounce back to life in no time.

Towards the end of her life, she would get blackouts: while busy doing something or talking to someone, she would just 'drop dead'. What started as infrequently as once a month gradually happened oftener. Aunt Rema would put some smelling salt at her nostrils or give her some Ayurvedic concoction. Though one does not know of the efficacy of this medication, she would come to in  about ten minutes or twenty, open her eyes and smile, saying, 'It's not yet time for Him to call me.'

When one such episode happened, Murali, another uncle of mine who was visiting us, suggested that a bit of brandy be administered to her. (Brandy in limited quantities was administered as a medicine to young mothers in the unconfirmed belief that it hastens the healing process and therefore households of even teetotaler families would have stock of a little of the potion.) As my uncle used to have a drink once in a way, the stuff was readily available at home.

It worked! That done, in no time, Paaru Amma sat up and smiled beatifically: God is in heaven and all is well with the world!

The next time she decided to lose consciousness, as Aunt Rema rushed to fetch the smelling salts, Paaru Amma called out, 'I do not want that, Rema; get me Eshmaan's medicine!'

Sad to say, she did not live long to have many doses of Eshmaan's medicine.

A CHRISTMAS STORY

I am a member of an online group of quizzers. I came across question the Santa Tracker which is used for following his progress through U.S. military radar. What also caught my attention was an interesting story behind it.

Col. Harry Shoup's of the Continental Air Defense Command, now known as NORAD, had two phones on his desk, including a red one which was a hotline. Only a four-star general at the Pentagon knew the number (ME6681). 

It was the time of the Cold War, and the  straight-laced and disciplined Colonel would have been the first to know if there was an attack on the United States. The hotline was use in such emergencies.

The airmen had a big glass board with the maps of the United States and Canada on it, and when airplanes would come in they would track them.

One day in the second half of December 1955, the red phone rang one day. An anxious Shoup answered it.

At the other end was a small voice that just asked, 'Is this Santa Claus?' 

The stern soldier was annoyed and upset by the call. He thought it was a joke and yelled back profanities into the mouthpiece — but then, he heard the little voice crying.

It was then that he realized that it wasn't a joke, after all. So he talked to him, ho-ho-ho'd and asked if he had been a good boy and, 'May I talk to your mother?' 

Things cleared up after talking to the mother for a while. She asked, 'You haven't seen the paper yet? There's a phone number to call Santa. It is ME6681. It's in the Sears Toyland ad.' 

The Santa Tracker tradition started with this Sears ad, which instructed children to call Santa on what turned out to be a secret military hotline. Kids today can call 1-877 HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723) to talk to NORAD staff about Santa's exact location.

Courtesy of NORAD
The Colonel looked it up. There it was, his red phone number. 

It got to be a big joke at the command center. Before they could say 'Sorry, wrong number', they had children calling one after another.

So the Colonel put a couple of airmen on the phones to act like Santa Claus. The airmen were amused that the old man had really flipped his lid this time and they were answering Santa calls at the Continental Air Defense Command. 

It did not end there. On Christmas Eve of 1955, when the Colonel walked into his office, there was a drawing of a sleigh with eight reindeer coming over the North Pole.

The Colonel winced. 'What is that?' 

'Colonel, we're sorry. We were just making a joke. Do you want us to take that down?' The airmen asked.

The Colonel looked at it for a while, and next thing you know, he called the radio station and had said, 'This is the commander at the Combat Alert Center, and we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh.'

Well, the radio stations would call him every hour and ask, 'Where's Santa now?'

And later in life he got letters from all over the world, people saying, 'Thank you, Colonel,' for having this sense of humor. And in his 90s, he would carry those letters around with him in a briefcase that had a lock on it like it was top-secret information. He was an important guy, but this is the thing he's proudest of and known for. 

To think that all this started in 1955, with a misprint in a Colorado Springs newspaper!

MALAPPURAM SHOWS THE WAY

I was on a short three-day trip to Malappuram. I was not too eager about a stint there because we consider is a 'less developed' town compared to other 'civilised' municipalities and corporations in Kerala.

I was put up in the best accommodation available here for people visiting the town, but that is not saying much. As the restaurant attached to it was closed, I chose to walk down to the eatery nearby rather than ask the room boy to get me my dinner.

I had a quick bite. As I stepped out, my eyes fell on a small contraption on the outer wall. The legend it bore - Food on Wall - was intriguing. It was a wooden box with two compartments, both open at the top. On one was written 'Breakfast' and on the other 'Meals'.

I was curious. Two young men who looked like locals were standing nearby. I asked them about this. They said it was a recent initiative of the Municipality. Jointly launched in association with the local hotels and restaurants owners' association, one of the two told me, the objective of the Scheme is to ensure that nobody in Malappuram goes hungry.

Anybody can buy a token or more from the restaurant - Rs 30 for a Breakfast token and Rs 50 for a Meals token - and drop them in the respective boxes. Anyone who cannot pay for his food can come, pick up a token, walk into the restaurant and order food after surrendering the token.

What a dignified way of offering and receiving charity! The donor does not know who the receiver is; the beneficiary does not know whose act charity fills his stomach.

Another initiative of the Municipality in the same direction, the other young man explained, is the installation of refrigerators at a few points in the town. They are accessible to anyone: those who have food to spare - restaurants, individuals hosting parties etc - can leave the surplus food there in the containers provided and those who need it can pick up what they want from the fridge.

All 'developed' towns can take a leaf out of this, but will they?

I had read about the 'Coffee on the Wall' project in some cities abroad, but to think that our humble Malappuram can emulate it!

THE GREATEST MUSICIAN OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

They say that people in this world can be divided into two: those who have read P G Wodehouse, and those who haven’t. The second category may not be disgruntled at the loss, but, to use a PGW phrase, will surely be “far from gruntled”.

PGW is often described as “greatest musician of the English language” and has indeed made a world for us to escape into and delight in. When life shoots its arrows, many of us, like Bertie, would retire to The Drones Club, or Blandings, if you prefer.

The unfortunate beings know not what they have missed. Some sample quotes:

“An apple a day, if well-aimed, keeps the doctor away.”

“You are one of those guys who can make a party just by leaving it. It is a great gift.”

“She had a laugh like a squadron of cavalry charging over a tin bridge.”

“He came in and went out so quickly that he met himself at the door”.

“She had more curves than a scenic railway,”

“She has got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity that the girl who marries you will need.”

“Everything in life that’s any fun, as someone has wisely observed, is either immoral, illegal or fattening.”

“She looked as if she had been poured into her clothes and had forgotten to say ‘when’.”

“I always advise people never to give advice.”

A caveat: I should not be blamed if anyone belonging to the second category is induced to beg, borrow or steal any one of PGW’s oeuvre.

A MONOGRAPH ON WHISKEY

Most of us don’t understand the difference between single malt and blended whisky except that the former is considered (Mind you, just 'considered') more 'classy'. Most of us even do not know the difference between whiskey and whisky. The Scots spell it whisky and the Irish spell it whiskey, with an 'e'. Whiskey with the 'e' is also used when referring to American whiskies.

This article I found this somewhere on the net tells us much more. I thought that it is worth sharing because it contains information one may not find elsewhere.

Blended whisky, which comprises more than 80% of the market, including brands like Johnnie Walker and Dewars, is a mix of malt and grain whiskies that come from multiple distilleries. Single malt, which Scottish drinkers often refer to as malt rather than whisky (and never Scotch, like it’s known elsewhere around the world, is whisky created from malted barley at one distillery).

Single malts aren’t necessarily always better than blends, but most of Scotland’s highest regarded and most expensive whiskies are the former. Blended whiskies are smoother and easier to drink; malt can be almost overwhelming in flavour, a drink most work their way up to.

The vast majority of malt comes from three major whisky-producing regions. The Highlands (roughly the northern half of Scotland) and Speyside (in the country’s northeast) are both easily accessible from major cities, and their whiskies are relatively accessible to the malt novice, characterised by smooth, floral, often delicate flavours.

Then there’s Islay, the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides, about 32km off the coast of Northern Ireland. If you’re a seasoned malt drinker, chances are you have a bottle from Islay in your liquor cabinet. If, on the other hand, you tried Scotch whisky for the first time and hated it, thought it was too smoky, or tasted like medicine or ashtrays, it probably came from Islay.

Islay whiskies get their signature flavour from smoking peat – the same vegetation that Scots have long been burning to heat their homes – in order to dry the malted barley used to create whisky. The results are polarising; some purists believe the peat takes away from the true flavour of the whisky, others become addicted, perpetually searching for something peatier.

Laphroaig, on the other end of the island and the other end of the peat spectrum, unapologetically overwhelms the palate with peat. Laphroaig’s recent “Opinions Welcome” campaign received feedback that varied from “like chewing on a well-tarred fishing boat” to “drinking the inside of an antique store”. The opinion that resonated most with me reads, “It’s like fighting a peat bog monster that is on fire, but suddenly you both pause, look in one another’s eyes and kiss.”

Wine drinkers like to talk about terroir: the environmental condition, geology and geography that give a wine (and the grapes that make it) its unique flavour. However, it takes a connoisseur of snobbish proportions to know a wine’s exact origin from a blind taste. Even an amateur drinker would probably know in one sip whether a whisky came from Islay. The whisky truly tastes like Islay, distilled – of the peat bogs that cover the island, of the smoke and fire used to stay warm during a seemingly endless winter, of the salty aftertaste of the sea.

Distilleries are near magical places, where alchemy meets science to create something far greater than the sum of its parts. They are also museums of smells, where each room has a beautiful and distinct scent.

There is a certain protocol to ordering malt in Scotland. First, please don’t call it Scotch. It’s whisky or malt. Second, unless you want to be the subject of ridicule, don’t order your malt on the rocks. Ice numbs the tongue and melts too fast. You either drink it neat or with a drop of water to open the flavours. Drinking it on the rocks is only acceptable if you’re drinking a blended whisky (or whiskey, if you please).

MEMORIES TRIGGERED BY A MALL EXPERIENCE

The other day I went to a shopping mall and was dismayed by the array of clothes on display. What range of colours, textiles and styles! You would just not find two identical pieces, if, for some weird reason, you wanted them.

The experience reminded me of what my mother, nearly ninety now, used to tell me of her childhood. After the schools close for the summer vacation in March every year, her father would start the exercise of 'upgrading the wardrobe' of the family. That, incidentally, was normally the only set of clothes that would be bought during the year. The timing was significant: it was festival time, Vishu being round the corner; and the schools being closed, and there being no occasion to wear them, the clothes would 'remain new' for a few more months than they otherwise would!

It must have been a herculean task for him to mobilise the funds needed to buy enough cloth for the entire extended family. He perhaps had to sell of a chunk of the coconuts harvested or use the proceeds of the cashewnuts or arecanuts or whatever.

Once the resources required for the project were garnered, my grandfather would set off for Tellicherry, which had still not been overtaken by Kannur, the present capital of the district. He would
catch 'the first bus' as was his wont - he believed that if one had to take a bus, it had to be the first. The conductor would offer him his favourite seat - in the front row, next to that of the driver. If that
seat was occupied by some lesser mortal, the conductor would have it vacated for 'Bavunnor' - the corrupt form of his title 'Vazhunnavar' conferred on his forebears by the Pazhassi Raja, meaning 'the one who administers'.

Though he was not expected back until lunchtime, everyone at home would wait, breakfast onwards, with bated breath in anticipation for his return. The ears would perk up for the horn of any vehicle
cruising along the Kannur-Mysore road and, for the next ten minutes - the time it would take for him to walk from the main road, through our private road, to reach the gate of our compound - all eyes would be riveted on the gate.

Finally, he would emerge, by 2 pm, followed by Kittan or Chanthu or Chaatthan carrying two huge rolls of cloth. Each would contain about 30 meters (called a 'kutthu', I think). It was often small checks - white and blue - or white and red; or white and black; or white and grey. That was my first lesson of the economies of scale. Everyone in the family - male, female, young or old - would get an apparel from the same fabric. In an unwitting demonstration of socialism in that feudalistic society, servants too would get clothes from the same roll!

Checks were not de riguer, though: there were, of course, occasions when deviations were permitted. I have an old group photograph at home taken in a year when the theme was possibly the stripe. All men and boys were in striped shirts, all women wore striped blouses and all girls were dressed in striped frocks or skirts. The snap being a sepia print, one cannot tell what colour the stripes were, but my mother distinctly recalls they were blue stripes.

There were no trousers because they were not in vogue among men then: every grown up man wore a white 'mundu' and trousers for boys had by then been 'invented'.

Ananthan was the village tailor. He would make shirts, blouses, frocks and skirts for whoever approached him. Alterations and repairs too were part of his services on offer. It was his practice to pay a visit to the speak-easy on his way home after work. The couple of bottles of the frothy white liquid he would imbibe would loosen his strained muscles and a relaxed Ananthan, now a happier man, would walk back home, a song on his lips.

On the day he returned from Tellicherry, my grandfather would send word for Ananthan. On such days, Ananthan would not visit the toddy shop. Dare he appear before Bavunnor in an inebriated state? He
would come by nightfall and take the measurements for the different garments that needed to be made.

I think there was always the lurking suspicion that the tailor would 'swallow' some of the cloth. Therefore if cloth was enough for, say, eight shirts, order would be placed for nine: 'after all, these are
small boys!' The tailor, who had acquired wisdom from experience, knew this very well, and therefore he would ask for 18 yards where 16 was enough.

One of the greatest applications of averages, I think, was in making shirts for boys. Ananthan would be asked to make a shirt that both the 12-year-old Unni and his 10-year-old cousin Dasan could wear. The
obliging Ananthan would make a shirt that would suit a 11-year-old which would be too tight for Unni and too loose for Dasan! The frock made according to the direction 'Make Vanaja's frock a little longer; she's shooting up!' would tickle her ankles in the first year and her knees in the last year of its life - and fit her exactly for a few months in between!

Shirts being of similar material and more or less the same size used to be the grounds for disputes which were not unusual when a brat, having stained his shirt (cashew fruit being the main culprit) would
stealthily replace it with that of someone who hadn't stained his. The ownership of the shirt was often established by the nature, size and location of the stain: 'That shirt with the small stain of tender
mango on the left pocket is Bhaskaran's.'

Another standing instruction to Ananthan was to make the sleeves of shirts 'a little longer'. The rationale was simple: boys would grow fast.

After all these agonising exercises, the tailor would say that the all the garments would be delivered on 13 April. 'No!' would be the collective scream. That would be too late because Vishu falls on 14 April and we would not be able to wash (How can you wear clothes touched by others?) and dry them before wearing the new clothes on the festive day. 'Give it back at least on 10 April', all would plead. Finally, after. Lot of haggling, he would agree to deliver it on 12 April.

Ananthan's woes would start from the day collects the cloth. Every day we would pass by his shop one by one to see the progress: has he started the job? has he at least cut the cloth? We dared not enter his workplace, peer into the wooden cupboard and find out the status. He might not even have opened the bundle of cloth! As the promised date neared, we would gather more courage and start pestering him. At last, he would open the bundle and cut the cloth for stitching. It did not matter whose shirt - or blouse or frock - he stitched first because my Grandfather had given him strict instructions against piecemeal delivery of the finished product because that would destroy peace at home!

Petrichor and Angostura

In the first half of the 1970s, I was posted in Calcutta. After trying out a few lodging houses, hostels and paying guest arrangements, I moved into the Chowringhee YMCA in Calcutta where I stayed for well over three years. It was on a hot Saturday evening in April 1973, when the city was reeling under the sweltering heat of the summer of Calcutta that I checked in.

Dark clouds had occupied the skies, promising imminent rains. I was afraid the suitcase with my belongings would get drenched, but I was lucky: it started drizzling only after I got out of the cab with my belongings.

As the young Mr Russell, the Assistant Secretary at the reception, went through the admission formalities, I waited in the lounge with the high ceiling, admiring the portraits of the past leaders of the YMCA movement worldwide.

It was pouring by the time I was through. The nor’westers had cooled down the atmosphere, bringing immense relief. “Room No 5, Mr Rajagopalan,” announced Mr Russell matter-of-factly. As if as an afterthought, he added, in clipped accent, “Salim Ustad will show you the room. Mr Salivati will be your roommate. Have a good day!”

As I thanked him and withdrew, Salim Ustad, the bearer to whom the block my room was in was assigned, carried my suitcase and took me to my room through the broad corridor abutting the billiards room. It overlooked the inner courtyard. Stopping in front of the door which was ajar, he knocked deferentially. “Come on in,” a gruff voice responded from within.

There was nobody in the room. The door to the washroom was open, but there was none there either. ‘Who’s that?” the voice came from beyond another door which creaked open. It was a balcony and seated on a cane chair with a magazine in his hand and a glass beside him was Ramu, the man who would be my roommate.

Introductions over, he offered me a drink which I promptly declined, more out of politeness – I was meeting him for the first time – than any other reason. Ramu did not press. “Have your way, but there’s nothing like OMR and petrichor on a day like this,” he said. That was the first time I was hearing the word, but guessed that petrichor must be one of those potions like angostura, tabasco, orange bitters or grenadine added to hard liquor for flavor.

How wrong I was! Petrichor, I learnt later, is the pleasant smell that wafts in as the first drops of rain hit the parched earth baked dry after a long period of warm, dry weather. That was the only time I have seen the word used. In a conversation. Months later, he told me that he loved vellichor, adding that for a wordsmith, there is nothing more distinctive than the smell of old books, redolent of dust and decayed hopes.

Ramu was always like that: a great one for quaint words. He used to like Tuesdays because the jentacular (breakfast) menu had porridge and french toast, his favourite. On Saturdays, he would say he missed the nudiustertian (day before yesterday’s) dinner because it was all ghaas-poos. He referred to the new team of cubs reporting to him at The Statesman as Yarborough. A keen bridge-player would know that it is a hand of thirteen card with no honours – cards above 9. Weekends sometimes were drab because he was cash-strapped and the tittynope (small quantity left over) of OMR in the bottle was too little.

Ha, we are back to OMR. Ramu used to describe it as the single malt of rums. "I love scotch, but it is way too expensive. This is the next best," he'd say. He was the self-appointed President of COMRADE – short for the Comity of OMR Aficionados, Drinkers and Epicures. Each has his own recipe for making his poison with OMR: with varying proportions of coke, soda, water, ice, etc. My favourite is OMR with a dash of lime, a lot of ice cubes and a little soda.

I read the other day that the market of OMR – variously called Buzurg Baba (Patiala) Muthumuni (Kerala) and Buddha Saadhu (Mumbai) – has been shrinking and it is facing the threat of being withdrawn from the market. It will indeed be a sad day if it happens.

Note: On reviewing this piece, I thought that this reads like a pot-pourri of two odes – one to Ramu and the other to OMR. I felt I should rewrite it, but on second thoughts, it is just as well: for, who can separate Ramu from OMR?

A REQUIEM TO A BOSS

I was in the railway station when the mobile phone rang. The screen displayed a number, not a name. I answered the phone. An unfamiliar voice. 'I am Nilanjan, son of ...' The rest was drowned in the roar of the engine of a passing goods train. Unable to continue the conversation in the cacophony, I disconnected and sent an SMS message to the caller: 'Will call back in a few minutes.'

When I returned the call, it all fell into place. Nilanjan is the younger son of my former boss. He is in town with his mother and would be leaving the next day. Before I could ascertain where they were staying, a train arrived, disgorging hundreds of passengers and with that the noise levels rose. So I sent another SMS message: 'Will be back by 7 PM. Can we meet around 8 PM? Regards to your father.'

The response read, 'Sure. We will meet in the lobby of the hotel. Also, my father passed away on April 05, 2009.'

I was stunned. Shocked. My one-time boss had been dead for six years and I did not know! How remiss on my part! Shame on me!

***
Mr Nirmal Chandra Banerjee was a perfectionist in matters. The impact of the changes he made to the letters put up to him for signature had to be seen to be believed. When I tended to draft letters with a flourish, he would advise me, 'Reserve your poesy for other occasions. To be effective, official letters have to be matter-of-fact.' The first thing that he would do to any draft was to spot and delete all the superlatives, the very's and the extremely's. 'These add not a whit to the letter,' he would say.

Mr Banerjee had a wry sense of humour. His instruction was, 'Give me all the easy-to-dispose files for my first hour in the office so that I can have a cup of tea at 11 AM after disposing sixty files.' When travelling by air, he would take some reading material - most often the latest copy of the TIME Magazine or The Economic and Political Weekly or The Economist - and eyes twinkling, tell me jestingly, 'One should not only be erudite, one should also appear erudite.'

He practised speed reading. He did not have to pore over files or read them line by line. One glance at the centre of the page, and Mr Banerjee would have grasped the essence of the contents. I have been astonished at the alacrity with which he would spot the crux of the matter. I might have spent half an hour reading the paper but completely missed the point.

At times, when he wanted to make sure of facts or instructions of the Government or the Reserve Bank, Mr Banerjee would tell me, 'I recall that there was a letter three years back from the Finance Ministry - or was it the Reserve Bank? I don't recall - on this subject. Please show it to me.' I would search high and low, and, having failed, finally go back to him saying that I could find no such letter. 'Then there may have been no such letter,' he would say, but in the process of making me search for that elusive letter, he had made sure that the paper on which he was affixing his signature was foolproof, what if it had made me turn the office upside down?

He had a mind of his own. Unlike several executives, he was never influenced by those who carry tales. He was dictated by his judgement of men, matters and circumstances, by his conscience. With the imminent superannuation of his Secretary, a vacancy was to arise in a couple of months. Mr Banerjee chose me to the position, though I had, in my then short stint, earned the reputation of being a rebel of sorts.

A week or two before I took up the assignment, a former Senior Executive who had retired and was heading a private bank called on Mr Banerjee for discussing some official matter. Towards the end of the meeting, this gentleman told Mr Banerjee that he had chosen the wrong person as his Secretary, a view that was endorsed by a General Manager who had a favourite of his in mind for the assignment.

Despite the fact that two General Managers - one serving and another retired - cautioned him that that I was unsuitable for the assignment, Mr Banerjee did not change his mind. He vetoed them and did not relent. I hope I did not belie the trust he reposed in me.

Mr Banerjee was a keen bridge player. People would talk in hushed tones about his obsession with the game, but I can say with confidence that his friendship with the senior bureaucrats making the foursome has helped the Bank on several occasions in solving intricate issues involving the government. Like Sir Winston Churchill who said that he had taken more out of whiskey than whiskey had taken out of him, I daresay that the Bank has taken more out of his bridge sessions than what the bridge sessions have have taken out of the Bank.

A little before retirement, Mr Banerjee was appointed a Member of the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction for five years after which he settled down in Gurgaon. I had appeared before him representing the Bank in several cases that came up before the BIFR. Later, I continued to keep in touch with him during my deputation to State Bank of Patiala. I had even called on him at his residence a few times.

He always had a special place for me in his heart. When I told him that I was being interviewed for the post of the Chairman of IDBI in 2000, he told me, 'You will not be selected, but don't lose hope. You're too young for the position. You will be chosen when the Chairman now selected retires.' Mr Banerjee was very cut up with me when opted for voluntary retirement in 2001 and put in my papers. 'Adversities will drift. Stay on,' he had urged me. That was the one and only instance when I disobeyed him.

I had sent an invite for my son Hari's marriage in January 2009 and was surprised that there was no response from him. Little did I know that in less than three months, he had breathed his last.

***
I have been remiss, sir, in not keeping in regular touch with you, but the fact that Mrs Sheila Banerjee and Nilanjan sought me out yesterday and connected me to your older son Anup (who, coincidental it may seem, works in the same bank as my own son Hari) tells me that you will not allow the tie to snap.