Living with a God
10th September 2013: The flight landed at 0730 IST. The 8-odd hour of journey and the normal tedium associated with such journeys was missing. Rather, the numbness of a devastated mind made it all look like an image-less dream. We checked out after picking our baggage and the vast number of grieving family and relatives took over us - me, my wife and my small daughter. I quickly moved with my brother to the customs section - to take delivery of the mortal remains of my beloved mother who traveled in the same flight as us in an inanimate state. She had passed away the previous day. The demise happened in Mauritius, where i was working. She was just 70 days away from her 80th birthday. Eighty was just a number - her determination and healthy disposition has always been a great humiliating factor for all of us lazy descendants.
A chronology of the events..
5th September 2013: My first day of my annual vacation. Amma and my in-laws had come some three months ago and had completed most of the country-touring. They had their return flights for 9th - 4 days hence. I wanted to relax and make them relax in my lazy company. Early in the day, I drove out with Deepa for some shopping and had a late lunch or early dinner as it was around 6 pm on the day. As usual, Amma insisted that she served us lunch. After a while we all sat together to watch some TV show.
Around 9, she had dinner and thereafter indicated some uneasiness. So we prepared her bed and put her to take rest. She threw up once immediately and ignoring it as a routine indigestion, i asked her to take rest. She asked me to play some music - i played her favorite DKJayaraman's 'nambi kettavar yevaraiyya'. Half way, she again threw up. I stopped the music and thought of sitting next to her. After i saw her awake, i wanted to play some music and just a random attempt opened the same song but at '..adalinal manam inre shiva naamam solli pazhagu anbudan..' I ignored the peculiar coincidence. But later realised God had started his work
Around 11 i moved to my bedroom at the far end of the house. Hardly a few minutes in the bed and assuring Deepa that she will sleep well, we heard the opening of the bathroom door and a simultaneous thud - much like the ones that are created by falling coconuts from trees. Deepa rushed - and screamed. Amma had fallen down
The fall rendered her unconscious. The impact of the fall resulted in bleeding. We called for an ambulance. I have never been to hospitals nor do i know how to handle a situation when i have to admit someone to hospital. The ambulance arrived. Amazing country that Mauritius is - the ambulance brought a couple of doctors - GPs - and it was easy for them to understand it was serious. The professional competence and care with which they bundled Amma into the van and asked us to follow in a separate vehicle was all of highest order - on a normal day i would have sung paeans but today was different
The beauty of working in a senior position in a foreign land has its advantages. The care and attention that one gets has to be seen to be believed. Friends double as relatives and benefactors.
Within a few hours - that is around 3 am on 6th, the Director of the hospital had arrived and a major surgery was planned. Amma was diagnosed of having suffered hemorrhage. It was a difficult decision - i hated surgeries and always thought surgery was one of the many ways a gullible patient was robbed of. I had to discuss with my brother - waking him up, far off in India at 4 am was itself very uneasy. We called him. Briefed him. Could do little to muffle the shock he went through. Conveyed our okay for a surgery to the doctor.
3 hours later the Director and Surgeon walked out of the theater and assured us the surgery was successful but clots and age factor were major concerns. Amma was moved to a special ward. Next 4 days, this day included, were tough moments. Amma was just like a plucked vegetable in a refrigerator. We prayed, Hundreds of our friends and further hundreds of . their friends prayed. Prayed for a miracle.
I wanted Amma to briefly regain her full consciousness - even if death was inevitable - so that i could thank her for all greatness and perseverance in life, thank her for making me a human being that i refused to be most of my life, so that i could apologize to her if i had hurt her in any fashion at any time in her memory, so that we all could help her do all that she wanted to do in life.
Some months ago: Amma and my in-laws, accompanied by two more families-brother's and sister's of my in-laws, arrive from India. While the latter are slated to leave in a few weeks, the former will leave on 9th September - to coincide with the terminal date of the three month tourist visa. Amma is on her second visit while it is the first for the in-laws. Quite busy at office so Deepa will be doing all the touring and sight-showing of the visitors
During one of those sight seeing events, Amma decides to consign the entire puja-collection to the still waters of Ganga Talao. Her paraphernalia included a dozen small brass miniatures of Hindu Gods and Goddesses, a spadikam, silver and brass coins - her treasure for over 60 years, passed on to her from different generations. It perplexed all of us why she should throw them and of all places why in Mauritius - and of all reasons, why at the abode of Lord Shiva. Well, i shouldn't ask God a few questions. She returned home with her Puja tray empty. No one discussed this thereafter. Amma still sat daily before a few images of Gods in the puja room next to our garden and continued to spend 2 hours reading shlokas. A good singer, she would conclude her prayers with a wonderful ragamallika in praise of Lord Rama.
9th September 2013: Vinayaka Chathurthi. The day started with me going to the hospital early in the morning to see if there was any improvement. Amma's BP was sharply falling. Without going into technical details, we all agreed a higher BP was better under the circumstances. In its absence, we were witnessing a multi-organ failure. It was the fourth day in hospital. She had still not regained consciousness, So no pain whatsoever to suffer
Came home to do a small puja for the Ganesha that was set up that morning. Then another round of visit to the hospital followed. Around noon, the doctors advised us to go back and come in the evening.
Amma and in-laws were to travel this day. Back to India. The tickets were still not cancelled . We decided to take up that exercise of seeking a visa-extension and postponing the date of travel after 2 pm.
1330 hours: Took my plate of lunch to the table and had not even taken the first bite. The phone rang. Doctor called. Apologized to announce possibly the most tragic news. Amma was no more.
Mauritius was celebrating Ganesha Chaturthi the following day. A long holiday was to follow - don't remember why. All Government offices under such circumstances see less activity as the day progresses. People move out earlier. The air tickets of Amma and in-laws had luckily not been canceled. . However we needed to book our tickets. Although the flight was some 6 hours later, we needed to complete all formalities. From taking charge of the body to embalming to obtaining clearance from the consulate to final approval from the health ministry - it was a long drawn process. The next direct flight was 7 days later. Any alternative to not travelling today would entail lots of issues - including having to cremate Amma in Mauritius itself. Which by itself was not a major issue but would render me clueless about further rituals.
But we had amazing friends. Everything happened without me being involved in any manner. I would never get to see such royal treatment and support from friends and governments. There are too many names and bureaucracy involved for me to mention individually. Suffice is to say that i remain indebted to everyone eternally
As everyone repeatedly mentioned, it was the divine soul of Amma that got all the respect in the most rightful manner. Even at death, she got treated like a supreme being
We took the flight to India. Bangalore. Amma was supposed to be travelling sitting. But she lay peacefully in a coffin below us. I still wonder how the date coincided. How she chose to travel on 9th September and how she decided to leave us all that very day to a different destination
She had this in her as life's prime principle. To never ever trouble anyone or to be a burden to anyone. She would never depend on anyone. True to her belief and conviction, she never gave us an opportunity to help her. In all my life, i had never once seen her unwell. Even today, dictionaries don't exactly explain the meaning of sacrifice - she demonstrated that by living a life of selflessness and sacrifice. She was always proud of me. I am blessed that God is proud of me
How does one explain her decision to surrender her puja items to the lotus feet. That she chose Mauritius is by itself an act of God - for that country has a very historically holy reference to divine acts. If i look back, i realize i had lived with a God. The God had guided me all along. Now that's gone. There is an inexplicable vacuum in my life.
I have my responsibilities - let me take a leaf out of my Amma's books and live it out...
R.I.P Indian Rupee - an obituary for a comatose
Rather than addressing the structural issues - which could lead to short term aberrations in the external value of INR - we have been handed harsher measures that will only exacerbate the miseries of the common man aka the SME sector of the fragile indian economy
Levels are just numbers. From the looks of it, it will be 61 tomorrow and 63 by the end of the week. Then some face-saving measures which will bring it back to 61.. life goes on.. very fortunate to be an NRI..
An Elephant and Five Wise Men
This is a modern day version of yesteryear's parable involving the royal animal and physically challenged men who attempt to describe it.
One day, five wise men decided to visit a zoo. To make this visit adventurous, they decide to walk blindfold. As they considered themselves 'five wizards of modern times' the agenda was to catch an animal and find out what it was.
The first thing they heard was the ruffle and shuffle with heavy breathing of some animate thing so the First wise man paused to ask 'hey, who is that'. It was an elephant tethered to a pillar. It did not respond so the first wise man thought it must be something dumb and deaf that needed help.
He walked to the side of the royal animal and stretched his arms and felt the wall-like body of the elephant. Rough, coarse and hairy, he announced ' we have walked into a wall which is used to dry skins of killed animals. Let's go back'
The second wise man could not contain himself and wanted to show the world his uncanny skills of mastery over everything. He walked forward and struck against the trunk. He grabbed the moving part and screamed, 'looks there is a large snake running over the wall. It is poisonous, we should complain to the authorities and throw it out'. And he stepped back
The third man, always known to be smart and taking sides depending on the strength of any argument, took his turn to describe to clear the ignorance of his friends - encountered the tusks of the giant animal. He declared 'these are round and sharp. Looks like a pair of spears, must be a forest nearby. Someone planning to cut the woods or poach an animal. It's dangerous, let's run away', he stated to echo the first wise-man's sentiments, which appeared to be stronger so far.
The fourth man always known to be cool, wanted to show how a calm approach gets anyone to the truth of the matter, walked across and ended up at the back of the elephant. He waved his arm and ended holding the tail of the giant animal. 'This is a thick rope used to climb walls, so some crook is trying to jump the zoo. You both are wrong. Let us be alert to catch the traitor' he yelled
Watching all this in stoic silence, the fifth man decided unless one gets to the bottom of anything, there is no way the truth is known. So he crouched and lay flat right under the belly of the elephant. He spread his arms and legs and ended up touching the legs of the tamed animal. It was now his turn to announce the 'new truth'. He proclaimed, 'you blind people, you are all wrong. These are logs of wood, perhaps stacked against the zoo compound by some unscrupulous person - either to smuggle them out or use them to jump the fence'. 'Don't waste time speculating on things that you don't know' was his appeal to his colleagues.
By now each of the five wise men had completed his task of describing the unknown matter in his blind-folded countenance. They decide to sit together to take stock of their experience, all blindfolded. So the fifth genius announces 'let's infer what we have 'seen' so far before taking action'. He narrates what he has heard so far from each of his blindfolded, wise colleagues, adds his own impression and moderates a few things and says 'this appears to be a dangerous place. A room with choppers, ropes and wooden logs. Looks like a slaughter house. Let us move out. We wanted to see an elephant that is respected as God and is majestic and royal. Instead we have entered a dangerous area. We should set it on fire after reporting to the authorities'.
And they all walked out, leaving the mammoth elephant confused about what it actually was to mankind. The intelligent animal wondered how misunderstood it remains. Why did not one of them think of opening his eyes to see the reality!!
A dream fulfilled
Square peg in a round hole - that was how i fancied myself when i was first drafted into the dealing desk by one of my many fine bosses in the State Bank Group. Apart from possessing tremendous guts and an ability to remain unfazed (a trait that got totally whittled as i grew up) in adversity, i had nothing to flaunt for a trader's career. Maybe i was good in mathematics (at my prime i could multiply a 10 digit number by another 10 digit number in a sinlge line in some 10-20 seconds) or maybe i was mistaken for being analytical - whatever, the General Manager took the sort of risk i had learnt to take many years later..
I have not liked to do anything but trading, ever since. Have had a few bad years. One worst ever. But the journey has been pleasant and most challenging. The pleasure of being able to create wealth and value from out of thin air has been how i have seen myself engaged all these years.
Therefore, when someone asked me
20 Years as a Trader
Come 31st July and i complete 20 years as a Trader in Financial Markets. What started in 1991 as an experiment (it was my bank that experimented with my enthusiasm), has consumed me and is my passion. I have had only a few bad years (last year was one and will remain the worst. I got into totally avoidable controversies and paid a very heavy price for my silence or reticence. Have forgotten that - in the final analysis everyone pays his dues) and the best part of the profession is i learn every day. This is perhaps one of the fewest professions where humility is earned free of charge.
I have relished and lived every moment of this career as a trader and would not want to do anything else in life. God has blessed me with the right temperament and environment to prosper. So Thanking the Almighty and continuing... The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. I have met some great friends in this long journey and would always cherish their association.
Network Failure
It must be one of the two: Either it should be sheer arrogance or it must be a wrought-iron principle in never going for favors, that should do the explaining.
Its about me. I do not consider networking essential. I am robustly opposed to the belief that we should develop a strong network and relationship-based acquaintance in society. I think this again is the contribution of the folks from the MLM world who bring together hordes of unknown faces in order to sell. I hate to sell. I always consider a value based system will buy what is good.
I generally loathe the act of piling on people and thrusting myself on half-familiar bigwigs in order to be seen as a social. I do not believe in the philosophy of societal insurance which is available in the form of being connected to powerful people so that I can be saved in times of emergency. Why in the first place committing a mistake and seeking protection, is what I tell myself.
Well the loved ones ask me ‘what do you do when others also want to do that on you as you are also a half-matured bigwig’. I have no answer but I almost make it clear that help from me will be only a physical effort (maybe I will climb a steep mountain to pluck that ambrosia like flower to cure a headache of a suffering friend) but nothing beyond. Nothing actually belongs to me, except my will and my energy. So I cannot commit anything beyond. Expend that is yours, is the policy.
Who am I
I don’t believe in being an open book. I consider it one of my best virtues as i practice this philosophy of being an enigma assiduously. The couple of occasions I tried to be honest or frank, I got severely punished. My honesty helped a large-bellied, wolf-in-sheep's-clothing policeman to be rewarded while i remained the real lamb. So I have been Googling hard to find out ways to be perfectly deceitful and a sly-gentleman - a monk liable to be mistaken for a God (a monk is no God, he is only someone who has relinquished). And no success yet.
But who and what exactly am I. A vulnerable, timid, short-tempered, uncompromising, rigid, sharp, low-profiled, silently rebellious, conscience-smitten individual? A simpleton whose early years of deprivation have longer shadows? An easily incitable character? A stupidly indifferent bloke (that was why i allowed the plunderers to prosper?) Or is there any other emotion left out? I think it is something of all of these and something beyond. The choice not to be an open-book may not be an accident. It must have arisen out of some necessity somewhere sometime in my early years.
What is also equally true is that i have been blessed all along. When things look awful, there is an invisible helping hand. Is it true for everyone?
When Ego is a Virtue
I have always been mistaken for possessing elephantine ego by the ones closer. Have consciously nurtured this ego, which to me is a chastity belt and an impregnable defense against the vices of the times. An upholder for moral rectitude, it helps me keep me inside my shell and helps me avoid seeking favors and benefits for my progress. Given my freedom, I would prefer to stand in the queue always but it ends up putting to sufferance the ones that depend on my existence – hard luck folks. This ego should be a virtue in the broader canvas called life. But it also means I can never mean business.
Middle Class Morality
I don't really know how my daughter will feel a few decades from now but i lost the first round of battle with the education system in securing admission in one of those much talked and hyped about kindergartens... Or was it squarely my inability to pull strings and open purses, i wouldn't know. Whatever, she starts off by standing in the queue. Never a great PR guy, and hardly a believer in seeking one-time fav
ors, i got to learn another valuable lesson in life. Talking about standing in the queue, i sometimes wonder if i am like that proverbial englishman, who will stand in a queue even if he is alone.
Raavan
This must be season of adaptations - first Rajneeti masquaraded as a modern day Mahabharata and now Raavan as Ramayana. Not sure if these are grotesque attempts to vilify the sentimental values associated with the two epics. But surely Raavan disappoints. This will go down as Maniratnam's first collossal flop. Except for Santosh Sivan's brilliant camera work and imagination, the film is drab and totally misses the maniratnam touch. Its sheer waste of time to compare the plot to Ramanayan and i would rather spend my time reading Valmiki's original work to see if Ram, Hanuman or even Raavan himself had that peculiar sense of comedy or buffoonery which the three lead characters often indulge in. The best moment was when i came out of theaters and walked my way back home in pouring rains.
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A Chinese Vacation
Not that i have great qualities as a hard-core traveller nor do i want to use this blog to flaunt my chinese experience, but the small savings we had and the desire to take our little one for a Disney experience, took me to some parts of east asia and then a full fledged holiday in some parts of China. Have very little understanding of how communism differs from capitalism, but what i could easily perceive was that a monarch based economy had more virtues than a democratic set up. The chinese have easily spent a few decades developing strong infrastructure from where the only way forward is unfettered growth. Even if a housing bubble bursts, even if its GDP grows half of what it is now (remembering Jim O'niel), the parallel shift in its middle-class people's lifestyles will not be much lower than what it is. Why is, in most parts of the world, 6 pm always one second after 17:59:59hrs while it is before 2100 hours that day in India?
World Space
Like all good things, world space called it quits. For those like me, addicted to radio and music, the AR Rahman endorsed digital radio station's exit was a blow. Perhaps the pain could have been lesser if the company had not collected one-two-three year subscriptions just a few months before deciding to wind up. It was not just the monetary loss that hurt, it was the irresponsible act of the franchisee in handling the entire affairs that made me wonder "What's in a name. Everyone is entitled to cheat and act deceitfully".
3 Idiots
Aamir has always fascinated me – he has the ability to demand totally gripping attention from you for that 150-200 minutes he appears on celluloid, even if it were an adapted stuff. 3 Idiots falls into that category unmistakably – a good attempt at providing subtle humor. Shouldn’t it have been called 4 idiots – for all his comic appearance, Bomi Irani qualified as much as the others. But leave it, the director knows better. I wouldn’t know if there is any place like Schools/Colleges that have served the movie industry so well as veritable joints for providing comic relief – nor have there been teachers and lecturers in movies who are living examples for generations.
The movie is hilarious at places and slapstick at others. Did we require so much of ‘bare-acts’ for sake of humor? But overall, thoroughly enjoyable. The title song (Moitra himself?) and landscape photo-shots provide a scintillating start, well sustained right through till the end. Ofcourse, it is my personal opinion that the movie would have been much better if it was some 15-20 minutes shorter. Jaffrey comes up as an irrelevant – the storyline would have been as effective with a little bit of twisting of the screenplay. Child birth gets a new meaning and I only hope that people don’t start shunning hospitals and start using cycle pumps, vacuum cleaners and windmills to perform surgeries!!!
By the way, which part of this movie has its origins in Five-point-Someone..? Years ago when DevAnand made The Guide, RKN cried silently. That’s the lesson for all our writers.
Avataar
A back-to-back cinema binge (isn’t two a crowd these days) and I end up watching Avatar the day after 3 idiots. For someone not aware it was a James Cameron effort(I defiantly turned a deaf ear to my wife’s suggestion that the maker of Titanic is at it again..) and also believing Avatar was an Hindi movie, I had every reason to call it a bluff when some friends told ‘it is a must watch’. Haven’t I played this prank of forcing people to watch movies that didn’t screen the third show of its first day in cinemas!!!
Avatar is yet another in the series of fictions that glorify either the pre-historic man or makes a point that life at Mars or Venus is more intelligible than on Earth. But it has a dimensional angle to its appearance on the screen and one has to salute the Cameroon crew for some stupendous pieces of imagination and cinematography. Surely a few Oscars are guaranteed. It must be purely my fault that I confuse myself between parts of 2012 and Avatar. This one is worth watching once.
Taarinie
That is a name that fascinates me the most these days. Am amazed by how children learn new things, how they adapt to change and growing challenges, how they accept the adult world around them as integral to their progress. Do they think, does the child analyse as much as we do, does it plan, does it have biases... That's as myriad a thought as the stars in the sky. Whatever be the reality, my best moments are with my cute little daughter. Even after a tiring day, i get sufficient energy to jump and hop like a circus monkey for her sake and the fountainhead of that inspiration is her infectious innocent smile. It must be nature's gift to watch a girl child grow. As Ruskin would say " You may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does"
2012
That's the name of a movie. Will well end up in that vast list of movies that promised so much but disappointed. One wonders after 3 hours of awe if it was a failed attempt to glorify a myth - that oft-repeated doom's day prediction - or if it was a pretentious commercial venture from the start. Whatever be the fate, i did enjoy some moments of set-work and picturisation.
The Travails of a Weather Forecasting
It's been raining cats and dogs today. And the forecast is for heavy rains and even for a cyclone threat tomorrow. The IMD revels in such ominous warnings. And like all customer centric organisations I have to decide on how to conduct my business the on the morrow. Years of experience makes me take the routine chance of expecting a bright, sunny and pleasant day.
* * * * * *
A very pleasant and sunny day - i was afterall not wrong when i expected this last evening
The First Lessons of Life
The first ordeal of life confronts my little angel. She is to appear in an interview for starting her life in school. We tried for a week, teaching her what she should and what she should not do. And, as parents, also prepared ourselves to say the best and most intelligent things within the few seconds we get to express ourselves. Isn't it strange that my performance determines my kid's nursery admission.
In the end, the kid had other ideas. We will never in our life be able to figure out what she did in that cubicle for over 20 minutes and came out like a truimphant soldier.
